When The Levees Broke..

Kate loaned me the Spike Lee boxset of DVDs about Hurricane Katrina. Oh my word! They should run them in the month before the elections lest anyone vote for another Republican president. The failure to care is the kind of thing that we would try people for if it were in an unstable fledgling democracy (that we didn't like).

It would be easy to say it was a one off failure. But the Republican Party stands for small government. They want less federal involvement in the life of the people. In the case of Louisiana that has meant that they are happy to keep oil revenues but won't invest in the locality. There has been a woeful lack of investment over many years. The very basis of what Republicanism is about means that will continue.

I hope that America remembers. I hope the election doesn't get consumed in personality. For surely the nation cannot continue under the leadership of people who so believe in states' rights that they will leave poor Americans to die.

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A Week Today

A week today, when all the furore has ebbed and the markets have bottomed out, our nation will awake to the sounds of bugles and church bells as we commemorate 100 years from the start of the Battle of The Somme. I am an historian by background, and the Somme for me is emblematic of a human tragedy that need never have happened. My reading of it is this: we began a war from a variety of odd alliances and murky motivations, capped off finally by a sense that no-one had the will to stop it. In order to give the war effort impetus, posters, propaganda began to be bandied around about the enemy, about what they would do to children and how they needed to be stopped. It worked as a recruiting effort- young men, boys, and women all joined the war effort. They joined as an act of patriotism, tinged yes with fear, but also a sense that it might be the right thing to do. They joined from across the country- but at the heart of the front line forces were thousands and ten of thousands...

Remembering What I Enjoy..

Occasionally I forget things. Some stuff like birthdays, names and stuff is a normal human thing, and I don't sweat it so much. But I also forget some other stuff which is not so good. I forget what I enjoy. I don't know how it happens but it does from time to time. And its at these moments that I need a bit of help remembering. So- this is a request for help. What do I enjoy doing? What gives me joy? Leave me a comment.

Who will rid me of this meddlesome...

... piano? It occurred to me yesterday as i nursed ANOTHER bruise on my arm.. that I have had a piano sat in my hallway for 2 months! It seemed like such a good idea at the time but apparently is not... its stuck there and everytime I walk down my hall I have to squeeze past the darn thing- often not successfully! A number of options lie before me: -chop the thing into several hundred pieces -find lots of people who want to move it.. to where I'm not sure -sell it -give it away -pray it away It goes next weekend.. even if it kills me... which it might.. hummm

Jude Smith

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