Sunday 16 November 2014

Tell me again how the SNP ‘lost’…

It’s been two months since the Independence Referendum in Scotland, and the results are now becoming clear. The initial analysis, that the SNP ‘lost’, is no longer sustainable.


While the result was a majority in favour of staying within the disUnion, at least for the present, this has not constituted a defeat for the SNP. To understand this, we need to look at the campaign in a broader context.


In the first place, it was never, and will never be ‘one referendum will settle it for good’. The September referendum was one event in a long sequence, all of which, for over a hundred years, have loosened the ties of the disUnion over Scotland. The September vote should be seen in the context of this ongoing journey; it was just another stage in a process and one which shows support for independence to be far higher already than the Westminster political class were suggesting twelve months ago. Like the odious George Robertson’s claim that ‘a Scottish parliament would kill the SNP’, those statements, of how the referendum would put an end to Scotland’s journey to nationhood now look very hollow. Perhaps it is no surprise that the English media and their subsidiaries in Scotland are glossing over those words now, just as they gloss over Robertson’s


Devolution is a process, not an event, and the end-point of that process is independence. The real question the most recent referendum set was not ‘will Scotland be Independent’ but ‘will Scotland be Independent now’.


Many observers saw Cameron’s acceptance of a referendum, formalised as the Edinburgh Agreement, as a canny move by a duplicitous politician to kick the issue into touch. It was too early for a ‘yes’ vote, and Cameron was banking on the ‘no’ vote being overwhelming and the Unionist parties triumphant on the back of that. So he agreed to it – and he did have a choice in this – as a political move against the SNP. Most Unionist commentators believed that Alex Salmond had been outmanoeuvred, and lost no time saying so.


Did Cameron’s tactic have the result he desired? To answer that we need to look at what actually happened and the aftermath.


Roughly 400,000 more Scots voted ‘No’ than voted ‘Yes’. However, a large contingent of these – more than enough to swing the vote – were pensioners. That means that the ‘No’ side depended on a generation born before 1949. These people grew up in the aftermath of the Second World War, when Britishism was rejuvenated and, to be fair, the British State had made an attempt to create a fair and egalitarian society.


This is a perishable resource. Younger people voted overwhelmingly for ‘Yes’ and would do so again. The ‘No’ side has a far worse enemy that Alex Salmond to contend with: time will inexorably thin the rank of this constituency and weaken its power. Young people today – my children, for example – see that war as ancient history; it does not tug on their emotions.


At the same time, the attractiveness of the British State has vanished. From being an inclusive, if often ill-directed, social state, it has now become the epitome of the most rabid form of capitalistic and patriarchal free-for-all, with the weakest and poorest in society punished and the richest and most powerful rewarded. It is a horrible state and naturally repulsive to the Scots. There is no chance of this being changed by Westminster, and the continuing social injustice will go on playing for Scottish nationalism.


The SNP has attracted over 60,000 new members since September, making it not only the largest party by far in Scotland but a major UK party. It now has over 80,000 members while the Labour party, understandably coy about its embarrassing statistics, is estimated to have no more than 13,500 Scottish members.


Repeated polls since September show that this is no hypothetical advantage. Because even the most brain-dead Tory knew that flooding Scotland with their yapping poodles was practically guaranteed to cause huge numbers of Scots to vote ‘yes’, they left the main thrust of campaigning to the Labour Party, which is as a result now known as the ‘Red Tory’ party.


So how has the referendum played for the Tories’ stooges? If voters vote as they say they will, the Labour Party (in Scotland) may be reduced to four Westminster MPs in next year’s UK General Election. One might have thought a party that had ‘won’ a referendum might do a little better than that, and while voting reality probably means that Labour will scrape a few more seats, it may well find itself reduced to a dozen or so Westminster MPs rather than the forty it currently contributes as lobby-fodder. So is that a ‘win’ for Labour?


In terms of personal approval the SNP’s political leaders, principally outgoing leader Alex Salmond and incoming Nicola Sturgeon, have ratings that Westminster politicians can only dream of. They are overwhelmingly seen as doing a good job. On the other hand, the Labour Party (in Scotland) is in leadership meltdown.


Johann Lamont threw in the towel spouting angry and justified rhetoric about how Labour (in Scotland) was a ‘branch office’. To replace her, London Labour has flown in Jim Murphy, a Red Tory of pure crimson hue, who has supported most major Tory (the blue ones with the weird accents) policies including austerity measures, the Iraq invasion, Trident and many others. He will certainly win the leadership position – Labour is not a democratic party and the powers in London will ensure that he does – but he is not ‘evolved’ to be a peacemaker or healer.


The divisions within his own party are huge and are ripping Labour (in Scotland) apart – and Murphy is the very lad to ensure that they complete the task. He is the perfect face of the Red Tory, and encapsulates everything that is hated by legions of solid Scottish left-wingers about the post-Blair party, one which has thrown out all interest in socialism or even social justice.


For a socialist in Scotland, Labour now has no ground. It has been outflanked to the left by both the SNP and the Scottish Socialists and on the environment – never a Labour strong point – by the Greens, which are all feeling the benefit as disaffected former Labour supporters depart. At the same time it has been identified as just another version of Toryism. If this is what they call ‘winning’ we would love to see what ‘losing’ might be – and likely we yet shall.


But enough of the Labour party (in Scotland.) Their woes are grave but they are not alone. What about the rump of Slimy-Say-Anythings? The pollsters predict disaster here too, and Scotland may well soon be a ‘Liberal’-free zone. This is not an unrealistic scenario, nor is it one that could come quickly enough. Their leadership must quake in terror, looking at disaster in the polls and a pledge by many in the SNP to wipe them off the political map – a pledge they are well capable of fulfilling. It really does not look as if the referendum was a ‘win’ for them either.


The Tories (the official blue ones, not the red ones) have neither suffered nor benefited. Otherwise an irrelevancy in Scottish politics, they doubtless represent a solid anti-Independence minority. But their numbers are low and they are pathologically hated by most Scots. In UK terms they cannot muster but one MP and even at Holyrood, were it not for the arcane voting system that favours minorities, the Tory Party would be like Banquo’s ghost – an unwelcome but ineffectual phantom of a long-gone reality. Nope, don’t think it was a ‘win’ for them either.


In terms of the ongoing independence project, the SNP has emerged triumphant from the September referendum. Their party membership has quadrupled, their projected share of the vote has soared and their leaders’ approval ratings are sky high. They now completely dominate the political debate in Scotland, despite the efforts of the Unionist media to pretend otherwise – media which itself has come under heavy fire. One shakeout of the referendum will almost certainly be the closure of some of the Unionist titles.


The fact is that the SNP is well placed to hold another referendum any time it likes and its leaders have now made it clear, officially, that, for example, should England vote to leave the EU, or if Westminster drags its feet in the transfer of power, that is exactly what they will do. At the same time, the now departed leader Alex Salmond has articulated the threat behind that reality – Unilateral Declaration of Independence. In other words, Scotland would just walk away. What would Westminster do? Send in the troops? Refuse to use Scottish electricity? Deploy gunboats to seize oil-rigs? Ban the sale of whisky in England? Send the nearly one million Scots working and living in England and upon whom the English economy depends, back to Scotland?


Tell me again how the SNP ‘lost’…



The post Tell me again how the SNP ‘lost’… appeared first on Rod Fleming's World.



Monday 10 November 2014

Why America is the World’s Rape Capital

stucky rapist American Hero

The face of an American Hero: Michael L. Stucky Jr, who walked free, having served less than a year in custody, after raping two teenage girls, one 13 and the other 15. Pic courtesy Dakota County jail



It is a perhaps surprising fact that more women are raped in the United States every year than anywhere else in the world, at least on the basis of recorded data.


Even if, as is almost certainly the case, rape is grossly under-reported in countries like Pakistan and India, also rape hotspots, this still leaves the shocking truth that a woman is raped in the US once every six minutes. And this figure is probably low, because under-reporting is also a problem in the US.


How can it be that this capital of Western civilisation, the ‘world’s policeman’, the defender of liberty and justice, is so appallingly hostile to women?


The answer lies in the social structure and history of the US itself and there are three main parts to it.


The first is the sexual objectification of women. Within American culture this is made worse because within it, women are seen not just as sexual objects, but sexual targets. Young men are brought up to believe that the conquest of such targets will establish their ‘manhood’. This is important, because it will allow them to fit into the pack-based society of American males. To make matters worse, men are taught that there are certain types of women whose conquest brings more status than others. Generally speaking, this has to do with stereotypes of female beauty.


American men are frequently seen on the Internet discussing the notion that status in women is marked by their looks, while status in men is marked by their salary level. Thus, less well-off men will have to make do with less (stereotypically) beautiful women while their bosses get the babes. Men who can’t compete in the salary stakes yet who are seen with high-ranking target women, are routinely described as ‘shooting above their level’ – in other words, they are upsetting the system. These men themselves may even become targets, this time of violence, by other males who regard them as acting unfairly.


This sexual competition is massively stressing for American men. One way that this stress may be relieved is through rape. Frequently, stress-relief attacks like this are followed by ‘slut-shaming’ in which the victim is blamed, because of her comportment or attire, for her own rape. ‘Nice girls don’t act like that, because is sends inappropriate signals to men’, this says.


Quite who is deciding what ‘nice girls’ actually do is never quite clear and the object, in any case, is to legitimise the act of rape itself. But this is nonsense: nothing a woman could ever do, including walking down the street stark naked, might ever justify rape – yet this is exactly the argument that is put.


The second parameter is violence itself. Lee Marvin once pointed out that American culture is based on violence and that for Americans, violence is the first response, not the last resort. Perhaps ironically, as one of the screen’s legendary violent heroes, Marvin was well qualified to make this observation. The culture is founded on the violent acquisition of territory and the genocide of those who lived there, the violence of slavery, the shocking violence of the Civil War, the routine racial violence and rape.


Violence is so deeply entrenched in American culture that it becomes insidious. Its acceptance as the background to the culture renders it almost invisible. Indeed, it is promulgated through the cultural concept of the American Hero.


The cinema portrays the American Hero as a violent, reactive man who defeats his enemies to win the girl. This meme is taken up in literature and music, indeed all across the culture. And naturally so; art only reflects culture, and the violence of American culture is an exact metaphor for the reality of American life and reinforces it.


The third element is social conformism. It is easy for the outsider, not experienced in the reality of American culture, to imagine that this is a free and tolerant society where ‘anything goes’. People point to the gay scenes in New York and San Francisco as illustration of this. But these examples totally distort the reality, which is that non-conformists congregate in these cities because if they were to be true to themselves anywhere else they would lose their homes and jobs or be beaten or even killed – just for not being like others.


Ask any gay American and they will support this, and it is true across the board; atheists in much of America live in constant fear and real danger because their neighbours would harm them if they could.


This even happens in so-called ‘liberal’ areas like California, where making statements that criticise the misogynistic cult of Islam, for example, will be met with accusations of racism. If someone like Ben Affleck can demonstrate the level of hostility and repressed violence that he did towards Sam Harris on a television show, where his actual responses were constrained, how do we imagine people like him would behave in real life? That’s right – even being ‘liberal’ is something Americans would beat and kill others in the name of.


This level of violence and total intolerance of any differing point of view is routinely observed in the comments sections of numerous Internet sites. The worst are the most popular, such as YouTube, but even on photography sites I have seen searing and offensive attacks on atheists, for example. There is no doubt what the authors of such comments would do in real life if they could. Even were they to suggest that they only behave so badly in the anonymity that the Internet provides, their contribution adds to the overwhelming, choking atmosphere of violence that is endemic to the culture. It gives sanction to real violence by the violence of its own rhetoric.


At the same time, bullying in American schools persists to a level which would be considered appalling in most European countries but which is thought a normal part of life, a rite of passage, in America. Here is where gays will first be beaten, in order to try to ‘turn them normal’. Here is where atheists will be beaten and ostracised. Here is where transgender children, at a most sensitive stage of their lives, be beaten, made miserable, and taught that they are ‘freaks’ with no place in society. Here is where anyone who challenges the conformist society first be made to suffer pain and humiliation. And all so that they will just stop being themselves and instead, conform.


American culture, then, is one in which women are treated as sexual targets, to be conquered by men; a culture in which violence is actually revered as a heroic quality; and one in which any deviation from the patriarchal social norm is to be suppressed violently.


Even when rapists are reported, caught and brought to trial, their sentences are lenient to the point of the laughable. – witness two cases this year: that of Austin Smith Clem, 25, who repeatedly raped his neighbour’s daughter, beginning when she was 14 and was sentenced to no prison time. Or Michael L. Stucky Jr., who was sentenced to time served after raping two girls, one aged 13 and the other 15. There is no punitive sanction in these sentences and they could hardly be lighter.


Rape is not about sex. It is about the use of violence to dominate and control others. (I discuss this in my forthcoming book, ‘Why Men Made God’, co-written with Karis Burkowski.) It is about status and control, in the first place over the women, but also over other men in the particular, and the domination of society by the patriarchy in general.


The culture uses rape to reinforce its own values, of the celebration of violence and rigid conformity to a patriarchal social code. Rape is so routine in the United States that it is de facto tolerated and even lauded as a natural reaction of a red-blooded young American male exposed to what the patriarchy considers to be the intrinsic immorality of women.


This is why American men rape so many women. Violence – of which rape is an extreme form – is sanctioned by the society they live in, in order to ensure the furtherance of that society and its violent culture. Being a violent hero is a good thing and raping is just a part of that, to by punished by a light rap on the knuckles for the sake of form and so that those pesky feminists don’t complain.


For the patriarchy, all women are rape targets, and worse, they themselves invite their own rapes, just by being women. At the same time, anyone who refuses to conform to the society’s rigid codes of behaviour is a target for violence and invites their own beating and murder, just by showing that they are different.



The post Why America is the World’s Rape Capital appeared first on Rod Fleming's World.



Wednesday 12 March 2014

Wood in Traditional Building 2: Poplar and Pine

Timber Pic: Rod Fleming

The next two timbers to consider are Poplar and Pine.



Poplar.

Everyone will be familiar with the beautiful poplar trees that make valleys in Burgundy and elsewhere so charming to the eye. Poplar produces straight-grained timber of prodigious length. The wood is soft and easy to cut, and it holds nails very well. It resists splitting firmly because is has an interwoven grain, so it is tricky to plane well; better to use a power plane. But poplar is in any case best kept for rough work.

It has two big disadvantages; it can to warp severely as it dries, so great care must be taken in stacking; and insects just love it. Poplar should never be used unless it is treated or painted, or else the woodworm will have a field day. However, it is reasonably resistant to rot, and as long as it is used with care, is a useful timber. It is cheap and plentiful, light and easy to handle.

Unfortunately, poplar is usually grown individually, in long thin avenues, or as windbreaks along the edges of fields, and more rarely in plantations. Its presence in the beautiful valleys of central France is a great asset visually. However, this causes a problem when it is cut for timber.

Monday 10 March 2014

The Goddess in The Philippines

goddess Pic: Rod Fleming
The Goddess is a big deal in the Philippines and goddesses are out in strength there this week. The occasion is the closing rounds of the Universities Athletic Association of the Philippines (UAAP) women’s volleyball tournament, held at Smart Araneta Coliseum in Quezon City. Teams with names like De La Salle Lady Spikers and Ateneo de Manila Lady Eagles, the Tigresses, the Lady Warriors and the Lady Bulldogs battle it out in front of huge, enthusiastic and thoroughly partisan crowds. And these girls aren’t kidding; this is serious stuff.

 The audience is mainly young – but everywhere in the Phils is mainly young. That’s only to be expected in a country where the population has increased by a factor of ten in fifty years. And there are as many men here as women. Filipinos are as passionate about volleyball as Scots are about football.

 This is hard sport, and women are seen as true warriors.

Wednesday 26 February 2014

Archaic Humans Discovered in Scotland

Homo-heidelbergensis Scientists all over the world are turning their attention to Scotland in the wake of a shock discovery that ‘archaic’ humans may be alive and well and living there.

The discovery came when one of them was filmed saying that they ‘were not evolved to make political decisions’.

Professor of Anthropology Farquhar Mc Farquharson of the University of Aberdeen explained: ‘All modern humans – Homo sapiens – have highly sophisticated social behaviour including the ability to arrive at complex decisions within a formal political framework. The discovery of a population that lacks this ability, apparently living alongside more developed hominids, is very exciting.’

Tuesday 18 February 2014

Wood in Traditional Building 1: Oak

oak-framing
Pic: Rod Fleming


Wood is, along with stone and earth, one of the principal materials used in the construction of buildings, and particularly older buildings. It is important to have some understanding of the nature of wood, its uses in the older house and some sympathy for its virtues as well as its limitations.

Timber is used in a wide variety of applications, and the most important of these are the support structure for floors; the roof timbers and associated work; and the interior finishing timber. Timber is also used in the construction of interior walls and in many areas in the construction of supporting walls.

There are three timbers commonly found in older buildings in France, namely oak, poplar and pine. Other timbers are often found as parts of outhouses and sheds.

Oak (Quercus sp) is without question the most important constructional timber

Saturday 15 February 2014

Hosting Migration Complete

Just to let you know that after a tricky week, the main rodfleming.com blog has now been migrated to a new host. Actual downtime was minimal, but there are still many little things to fix. Hopefully load times should be much faster.


After quite a few years with GoDaddy I had to draw a line under it. The hosting server had become ridiculously slow – indeed last week died altogether for several days – and instead of just fixing it, and giving me what I had paid for, they wanted me to buy a new ‘plan’ which they assured me would make everything all right – but with no guarantee and I would have been locked into another year at least with them. No thanks. That’s not what I call customer service.


I’ll do a more in-depth post soon, but for the moment, I would have to advise that no-one with a WordPress-based blog or site should even consider hosting with GoDaddy. There are far better options out there.




The post Hosting Migration Complete appeared first on Rod Fleming's World.



Friday 14 February 2014

Tryst on Februar Fowerteen – A Scots Allegory

a-tryst-tree
Pic: Rod Fleming


A fell cauld wind wis sauchin ower the muir as the bonny wumman gart her wey tae tryst her jo. For the necht wis Februar the fowerteen, an aabody kens at’s the necht for luve.

She wis winsome eneuch, tho the first blush o youth, it maun be said, was left ahent her a lang while syne. A body mecht hae speirit at himsel how comes a lass o sic natral attractions hidnae been wad this mony a lang year.

At last she reached the spot ablow an auld aik whaur she an her jo hiv met this necht mony mair years nor either of them wad care tae hink on. Her jo wis aaready there, a puckle fashit, ye mecht hink, wi the wye he wis stridin up an doon, his een flashin faniver he luikit up.

“Ah, here you are, at last,” he intoned, as the lass presented hersel.

Wednesday 12 February 2014

The Vampire Rises : Roads to Referendum 3

vampire-rises Pic: Rod Fleming

Eight years after Scotland voted ‘Yes’ to Devolution, but had seen this victory snatched away by Westminster, things were very different.

The most hated Prime Minister in recent history – possibly all history as far as the Scots are concerned – Margaret Thatcher, had focussed minds on the fight against her all over the UK. Scottish Labour rode high on this wave of anti-Tory sentiment, and lost no time in asserting that it was the only way to be sure to get rid of the Tories. A vote, they claimed, for any other party, was a ‘vote for the Tories’.

But it was a gamble. Thatcher’s popularity in England had increased radically since she first had been elected. In England, though far less in Scotland, her resolve in fighting and defeating the Argentinean invasion of the Falkland Isles, had played well for her. She called an election in 1983 and found her majority increased.

In 1987, Thatcher called another General Election.

Migrating the SIte to a New Host

Because of excessive downtime and 'server overload' I am migrating rodfleming.com to a new host. My other sites will follow over the next few weeks. This is just to reassure those of you who have been patient enough to put up with the last week's ongoing hosting catastrophe, that things will get better soon.

I will post a more full explanation once the migration is complete and the site installed on the new server. I will try to keep posting as this process goes on, but we may end up with a double post or two. I'll sort it later. Thank you for being patient.

 

Thursday 6 February 2014

The Empty Palace: Roads to Referendum 2

old-royal-high-schooloDuring the 1980s, Scotland’s political scene was polarised by a cathartic and visceral detestation of the UK Tory Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher. This, for perhaps the last time, caused a genuinely British response, in that many Scottish opponents of Conservatism, badly discouraged by the calculating and dishonest way which the Home Rule that Scots had voted for had been snatched away by a self-interested Westminster, fell back to old loyalties, and threw their weight behind the familiar Labour Party, in an effort to rid themselves of the hated Tories.

Monday 3 February 2014

French Onion Soup! in the News

rodcourier.wee
Those avid readers who live in Scotland will be able to see yours truly’s geggy mutt plastered all over the pages of The Courier newspaper today. Support those who support me, I say, so get out and buy a copy! You can download the full page image HERE.

It’s publicising my hilarious collection of memoirs on life in France called French Onion Soup!, which you can download FOR FREE from Amazon today and tomorrow, as part of the promotion.

Please, please, though, if you like it, please leave a review on Amazon.

Sunday 2 February 2014

Happy Imbolc!

Goddess Pic: Rod Fleming

Imbolc, (pr EEmulk), is an ancient fire festival that marks the end of the dead part of the year. Originally it was celebrated at the midpoint between the Winter Solstice and the Vernal Equinox, and in other traditions on the night of the first full moon after that.

At the Mound of the Hostages on the Hill of Tara, in Ireland, the inner chamber is aligned with the rising sun at the midpoint between solstice and equinox, and so marks the dates of Imbolc and Samhain. Many other megalithic monuments in Northern Europe also have this characteristic, showing how important these dates were. They delineated the dead period of the year,  which began at Samhain, when nothing grows and the shades of the dead and other supernatural beings walk freely in the world. Imbolc is the day the Goddess returns, not yet in her full glory and majesty, here a girl full of promise, one of the three forms of a triple-goddess.

Saturday 1 February 2014

Spain Proposes Anti-Abortion Law: Protest

Today, women, and men, all over Europe are out in protest. Why? Because senior Spanish politicians, led by Alberto Ruiz-Gallardon, the Minister of Justice in the right-wing Spanish government, have introduced a bill that will make abortion all but illegal in Spain. This measure is opposed, according to the latest polls, by over 70% of the Spanish electorate, which considers the existing law adequate, and is a sop to right-wing conservatives

This attempt is a shocking example of how the religious right interferes in the lives of others, and specifically, attempts to remove their human rights. Ruiz-Gallardon may dress his nasty little bill up as ‘protecting the most vulnerable – the unborn’ but it is far from that and in fact is just another example of how the patriarchy attempts to disenfranchise half the population in its own interests.

In the UK, in France, and of course in Spain, huge numbers are coming together to challenge this attack on a principal right of women – to control their own fertility. It is not for any man to interfere in this, in any way. Until a foetus is capable of independent life it is not a human being, and has no rights as such. The religious argument centres on the idea of a ‘soul’ which has never been shown to exist. Politicians must not be allowed to use these debased, populist arguments to disenfranchise actual human beings.

The current Spanish Government, led by Mariano Rajoy, has already shown itself to be a throwback to Spain’s right-wing, Imperialist past, in his condemnation of Catalan voices for self-determination – another fundamental human right which conservatives would deny.

I can’t go to Madrid, Paris or London today, but I want to make public my support for all the protesters who are there, and for all women, everywhere, who are denied their rights by the patriarchy. The religious right is growing in strength again, and it must be resisted. Its history is clear: it is intolerant and totalitarian, and cares not one bit for the rights of those it oppresses.

Personally, I am beginning to wonder whether it might not be better just to remove the vote, and any right to political power, from men, altogether.

After all, women had to suffer exactly that for thousands of years.

Muslims we Must Support: Maajid Nawaz

maajid-nawaz Maajid Nawaz

Last week, Maajid Nawaz, a United Kingdom Liberal Democratic Party parliamentary candidate for Hampstead and Kilburn, became the centre of an attack from the Islamic fundamentalist right wing because he stood up for free speech. This is not, in itself, unusual; fundamentalists of any religious persuasion detest free speech. Nor is the chorus of death threats raised against Nawaz in any way uncommon from Islamic fanatics. However this case is important because it illustrates a divide which we must not only recognise but decide on which side we stand.

Nawaz’ crime? After taking part in a BBC debate in which two students were seen wearing ‘Jesus and Mo’ tee-shirts, Nawaz tweeted the image, saying, "As a Muslim, I did not feel threatened by it. My God is greater than that".

For most people, that would not seem anything other than a reasonable point of view.

Tuesday 28 January 2014

The Roads to Referendum: 1

scotland-referendum A campaigner in the 1979 Scottish Devolution Referendum

This year’s Scottish Independence Referendum is  one of the most important political events in the lives of most living Scots. It outweighs in importance, for Scotland, the fall of the Berlin Wall and the collapse of the Soviet Union. It outweighs the powerhouse rise to prominence of a rejuvenated China or an India that is on its way to being not just a regional, but a global, superpower. It is even more important, though perhaps less so, than the accession of the UK to what was then the EEC and is now the European Union. In this series of articles I am going to outline the history of the Referendum, as I saw it evolve.

The coming Referendum is the single most significant event to occur in Scotland since the end of World War Two. That event brought about the end of the Imperial era, in which European states used their military strength to dominate the planet. With Europe in ruins, and the United Kingdom pauperised, the control systems that had held empires in place collapsed. The British Empire, which Scotland had been a part of, was consigned to history.

Monday 27 January 2014

Word of the day: Religionard

word-day.smI’m going to do a series on words and phrases. Some of these will be ones I made up, others will be borrowed. I’ll tell you which ones those are. First up, one of mine :-

Religionard

Now before we go any further, let’s make something clear: I don’t hate all religious people, in fact I'm very fond of quite a few of them, even though we will never agree about this. I do have serious issues with some religious people, though, and that’s why I need a new word, to differentiate between the nice people I know who happen also to be religious, and the nutjob fruitcake headbangers whom I would cheerfully strangle if only I were allowed to, in order to get them to shut the fuck up. And stop them trying to interfere in my life, or anyone else’s, because of their absurd delusions.

Friday 24 January 2014

Whither Now Scotland

saltire Pic: Rod Fleming
Whither Now Scotland:
Dateline: Friday 19 September 2014
By Rod Fleming, reporting from Calton Hill in Edinburgh, Scotland, for Rod Fleming’s World.

This morning, the whole of the United Kingdom woke up to the most important announcement in its history: the Scottish people have voted to bring it to an end.

After 307 years of often troubled partnership, in two years the partners in the unitary state will separate and become independent states, Scotland and what has been christened the ‘rUK’, the ‘rest of the United Kingdom’.

In a speech delivered, unusually, on the steps of the Scottish Parliament in Edinburgh after the poll result was announced, Scotland’s First Minister and the leader of the Scottish National Party (SNP), Alex Salmond, was statesmanlike but clearly delighted. Congratulating the Scots on their momentous decision, he called on ‘All the people of Scotland to put their differences behind them and work together for our country, our nation, and our future.’

Tuesday 21 January 2014

Pursuing the Goddess

[caption id="attachment_1273" align="alignleft" width="230"]aset-isis Aset or Isis, Egyptian Queen of Heaven[/caption]

Since 2002 I have been researching into something that I felt more than anything else. Something was nagging me. At the time I lived, as I do now, in France, and the signs of Goddess-worship were all around me. Cathedrals were full of images of the Goddess, the art replete with them. I could see this but I couldn’t define it, I couldn't understand what it meant.

When I returned to Scotland I was a very busy man for a long time, building a house and trying to make ends meet from my freelance work, and also my own mother became ill and died, so the research went on hold. But it was always there in the back of my mind, and as I travelled round Scotland, that epicentre of dry Presbyterianism, I saw again and again the unmistakable mark of the Goddess all over the architecture and in the symbolism.

The Goddess was the principal focus of my Masters’ Degree research and even though I came a long way, I didn’t reach the answer I sought. When I came back to France I began to write, but in April of 2012 I had to stop. I was getting too confused.

Monday 20 January 2014

Faith Destroys Friendship

bahaullahA while ago I lost a friend. I don’t mean to say he died; he didn’t. I hope he is well, and has a long life. But we aren’t friends any more.

My friend, whom we shall just call David, was close. For many years he had been a pretty permanent part of my life. We operated a non-audited favour system; whenever he needed something, like help with his computer, or moving his stuff or, well, whatever, he called me and I helped. And if I needed some help, for example when I was building my house, David turned to. There was no imbalance, and while we often argued about matters of philosophy, we are both educated Scots; argument is in our blood.

So it came as a shock to me when he ended our friendship.

Friday 17 January 2014

Wot? No Rabbits? - The Brither

mr-chad-wot-no-rabbitsWot no Rabbits?

Now my brother was a bit of a character. I’m not talking about my wee brother, here, or the big one I suddenly discovered I had  in 2004 that no bugger ever told me about before (aye, we’ll get to that.) I mean my other big brother Sandy, AKA Sye.

Now Sandy did things his own way. He ran a car breaking yard—and trust me, there is no more joyous place to spend your school hols than in a place like that—and he lived in a wee cottage in Arbroath, one of those sandstone ones. Sandy’s wife was called Toos and she was Dutch.

Sandy was always coming up with schemes and one of these was inspired by Toos, who told him that people in Holland raised rabbits for the pot.

Thursday 16 January 2014

The ‘Ontological Argument’= busted

saint-anselmAnti-apologism 1: The ‘Ontological Argument’= busted.

When dealing with religious apologists it's always better to nail them into the real world and insist on the same standard of evidence that is required for Gravity, Plate Tectonics or Evolution, because no apologist can ever provide these. Insisting on real scientific proof is a perfectly legitimate position, any time that someone is proposing the existence of something in the real world, including a god.

However, it is worth knowing about some of the more ridiculous philosophical ideas you might find used by apologists, and I’d like to discuss a few.

The first is The Ontological argument

Saturday 11 January 2014

The Big Snip

[caption id="attachment_1249" align="alignleft" width="200"]the-big-snip Gratuitous picture of a pretty girl in a wedding dress. Pic: Rod Fleming[/caption]

The Big Snip. Vasectomy, that is. This is a contraceptive procedure performed on men, wherein the connections to the male testes are severed, by cutting a tube called the vas deferens; thus, vas-ectomy. The result is that though the man can continue to enjoy sex normally, he’s shooting blanks, as it were, since his seminal fluid, which is mainly produced in the prostate, contrary to popular opinion, contains no sperm and is therefore incapable of fertilising an ovum.

This procedure has become very popular in many countries, where it is offered as a normal form of contraception. Many men are persuaded that this is the right course of action to take for a number of reasons. But in fact, vasectomy is something that no man should ever, under any circumstances, consider doing, and I will explain why.

Friday 10 January 2014

The Call of Duty?

[caption id="attachment_1241" align="alignleft" width="236"]call-of-duty Pic: Rod Fleming[/caption]

The last time I was back  in Scotland, I was asked, ‘Would you ever live here again?’ I gave a non-committal answer to avoid offence, but inside myself, I believed I knew; no, I would not.

In truth, I had not then and still have no plans to live in Scotland again. I love the country and the people, but I am both a Scot and a European; the day life in rural France gets too humdrum, it won’t be to Scotland that I turn.

In the last few months I’ve thought a lot about this, however.

Thursday 9 January 2014

Sticks, Ice-Creams and Specks of Dust

[caption id="attachment_1235" align="alignleft" width="249"]sticks-icecreams Pic: Rod Fleming[/caption]

A long time ago, when I lived in Arbroath in Scotland, my role before opening up the old Fleming Partners office was to do the school run. Our kids went to a small village school just outside the town itself and there was no bus.

On these runs I always tried to entertain the boys by talking about whatever came into my mind (and would not take more than 10 minutes.) So one day I explained why humans can see in colour and many animals can’t. This is because, I said, there are two types of vision receptor cells, rods and cones. Cones see colour and rods see brightness—monochrome, in other words. (I do know it’s a bit more complex than that, but these were primary kids.) Humans have both rods and cones, and many animals, like dogs, only have rods. So we see colour and they don't.

This went fine and was met with all the usual approval that could be mustered from a 5-year old and an 8-year old.

Wednesday 8 January 2014

RIP My Lovely

[caption id="attachment_1231" align="alignleft" width="271"]dead-T42 Pic: Rod Fleming[/caption]

Sniff! She died. She’s been with me these last five years, and she’d been around a good few years before we met. She was like a female character out of a Springsteen lyric, kinda worn and raggedy, but she stuck with me through thick and thin.  I don’t know how many films or repeats of TV series I’ve watched with her, or how many words I wrote with her, but I do know the paint was gone from most of her keys at the end…I did explain it was my old laptop that died, didn’t I?

Monday 6 January 2014

45% of Americans are Retards.

[caption id="attachment_1224" align="alignleft" width="234"]earth-from-space-NASA Pic: NASA[/caption]

45% of Americans—well, people in the United States of America, which is, as far as they seem to be concerned, all of America—are retards. Not only is this truth shocking, it is dangerous and threatens all of us.

That 45% of Americans are so gravely afflicted has already caused pause for many commentators, including other Americans. The scientist and media personality, Bill Nye, for example, lamented it publicly, and not for the first time, in a YouTube video posted yesterday.

If there is consolation, and there’s not much, it only comes from the fact that for the last twenty years that the Galup polling organisation has been researching this, the figure remains relatively unchanged. So how did Galup come to its findings?