In all our sanctuaries we sit at risk

Tag: language

  • Body Parts

    Posted:

    After death the eye fixes of course. It was just a part – now discontinued. Each pupil has stopped in its own disjointed way, having nothing to look at any more, no one to show. I looked at her, the mother of my children. She could not look back of course and instead just looked…

  • A Drawing of Conclusions

    Posted:

    It is surely still natural to respect a conclusion that is reached through cogent argument. Each stage of the argument leads to the next stage, like a series of links in a chain. The conclusion is given its authority, its right to be heard and accepted, by the strength of the links that have led…

  • If the People is Sovereign, Lying to the People is High Treason

    Posted:

    As 2016 comes to an end, I want to present an argument which I believe follows from the year’s events. Different elements of the argument have already been touched on here in recent posts. I must begin with language and those first words of St John’s Gospel. In the beginning was [and was always] the…

  • Autumn UK 2016

    Posted:

      Today our skies evicted the swallow and the swift was banished weeks ago and in Dorset the house martin whose tiny mud globes once crammed the eaves was simply absent all year.   And last week Putin, unrestrained, bombed hospitals in Aleppo and Trump continued his debasing of America and Theresa May declared the…

  • Can Liberal Democracy Survive our Tumult ?

    Posted:

    Can liberal democracy survive our tumultuous, bewildering, frightening, dangerous times ? Can it surmount them ? Can it contain and even direct the flailing social forces at work towards positive solutions, a viable human future ? As things stand, it seems not to be coping at all. It is surely in great danger of allowing…

  • Post “Brexit” Blues and Bubbling Ferments

    Posted:

    Here I have collated various addresses I have come across or been sent during the past few weeks. They link to various initiatives and/or reflections which I find interesting and helpful, following the referendum decision and the course – “Brexit means Brexit” – which appears to have been set for our unknown destination on the…

  • Democracy & the Lie: do they go hand in hand ?

    Posted:

    During July, two articles by Andreas Whittam Smith appeared in The Independent newspaper on successive days.  Here are the links to them: http://www.independent.co.uk/voices/broken-democracy-spin-doctors-destroyed-uk-politics-theresa-may-repair-it-a7135146.html ; http://www.independent.co.uk/voices/fix-broken-democracy-smash-political-class-two-simple-things-a7137131.html Whittam Smith co-founded The Independent and his two pieces are worth reading. They explore the Brexit campaign’s “victory” and contain proposals for starting a process of renewal of the UK’s…

  • Report

    Posted:

    I wish to report a strange man of average height, indeterminate skin colour but a knowing look who sidled into town today wearing an immaculate top hat and shoddy trainers. He said he was searching for a convenient park popular with the townspeople where he could set himself up to sell his famous elixir.  …