Social Items

TPQ
Friendly Atheist ★ The following is a guest post by Libby Bliss, the Camp Director for Camp Quest Chesapeake.

I’ve been an atheist since I was a kid. In my decades of non-believing, I’ve never really felt like I was missing anything. But when upsetting things in the world are happening, sometimes I do wish I could pray and feel like it would do something.

I may not have prayer, but I do have concrete action. When I was 16, I attended my first sleepaway summer camp, part of the nationwide Camp Quest network. (You’re reading this post on the Friendly Atheist because I found out about CQ from a post Hemant made 15 years ago. Thanks for changing my life, Hemant!)

Since the 90s, Camp Quest locations have been working toward a vision of the world where children grow up exploring, thinking for themselves, connecting with their communities, and acting to make the most of life for themselves and others.

Attending Camp Quest Chesapeake in 2011 gave me, for the first time, what a lot of people find in church: a community of people who share my beliefs and values. It also gave me confidence to develop as a leader . . . 

From Camper To Director 🪶 How Camp Quest Changed My Life

Barry Gilheany ✍😔 The scenario that so many medical professionals and public health officials feared is coming to pass in the recent outbreak of a measles virus North London but is no less disturbing for that inevitability. 

There were 83 diagnosed cases in the last month according to the UK Health Service Authority. Most are children under 10 living in the Borough of Enfield, which has one of the lowest rates of vaccine uptake in the country. Not coincidentally, parts of Enfield including Edmonton, the epicentre of the outbreak, score highly on most indices of deprivation. Because they have not been vaccinated against measles, experts have warned that more children are expected to be diagnosed with fatal neurological complications from measles. These include subacute sclerosing panencephalitis (SSPE), a rare neurodegenerative condition that usually appears around six to ten years after a measles infection. In the words of Professor Benedict Michael, a professor of neuroscience and chair of charity Encephalitis International’s scientific advisory panel “It’s a gradual but relentlessly progressive brain damage” and “Despite all of our drugs that we throw at it – immune drugs, antivirus drugs – it’s basically universally fatal.”[1]

Between 2000 and 2016, there were only five diagnoses of SSPE in the UK. Six children were diagnosed between 2017 and 2019 and experts such as Professor Ming Lim, a consultant paediatric neurologist at Evelina London Children’s Hospital, who has treated multiple children with SSPE, expect the number to rise. Prof Ming is certain that his junior resident colleagues will be taught to recognise SSPE purely because of this resurgence. In his words “If you see one case, you will never want to see another case of SSPE in your lifetime. It is a devastating condition.”[2]

The case of Sarah Walton is vivid example of the horrors of SSPE. She contacted measles at her nursery in 1979 at the age of 11 months, before children usually receive the vaccine. Her mother Jo reports that she recovered well but in 2004 at the age of 25 Sarah developed a myoclonic jerk – an involuntary spasm – that sometimes left her unable to walk. Eventually, she was diagnosed with SSPE and about two months later and a week before she was scheduled to wed her boyfriend, she suffered a massive seizure. In the words of her mother, “She went into the hospital walking and talking. And four weeks later, when she came out, she couldn’t speak and she couldn’t swallow.” Sarah required 24-hour care for the next 20 years and in February 2025, after several bouts of pneumonia, she died in her father’s arms.[3]

Measles: Risks And Protections

It may seem incredible to have to spell out what measles is and its attendant risks in an era where such diseases had been consigned to the medical history books but the long-term, cumulative effects of Dr Andrew Wakefield’s fraudulent research on the supposed links between the MMR vaccine and autism; the incessant anti-vaccination misinformation pumped out by “alternative” health influencers and the resultant culture of vaccine hesitancy makes this an essential and potentially life saving task. Measles is a highly infectious viral illness that can spread very easily among people who are not fully vaccinated. It usually starts with cold-like symptoms, followed a few days later by a rash that starts on the face then spreads to the body. The spots, which are not usually itchy, are sometimes raised and join together to form blotchy patches.

Measles is spread when an infected person breathes, coughs, or sneezes. One case can generate 18 secondary infections. Nine out of ten non-vaccinated people will catch it if exposed. A person is infectious from when they first have symptoms (about four days before the rash appears) until four days after they get the rash. Health experts recommend opening windows and doors to help reduce its spread, frequent handwashing and immediately binning used tissues.

While many people recover, the risks of measles are serious complications such as pneumonia or brain inflammation. In rare cases, measles can result in long-term disability or death. Babies and people with weakened immune systems are more at risk. Measles can also cause miscarriage or stillbirth, premature birth, and low birthweight.[4]

There is no specific treatment for measles, only the vaccination to prevent catching it, which is part of the measles, rubella, varicella (MMRV) injection that replaced the MMR jab in the UK’s routine childhood programme last month.

Dimensions Of The Measles Crisis

Last month, the UK lost its measles-free status, granted by the World Health Organisation (WHO) where there has been an absence of endemic cases in a country for at least 12 months (isolated cases will always occur, but the transmission chain must be broken). In the UK, transmission did stop in 2016 and 2017 but restarted again in 2018. The pandemic brought another lull, but since 2023 transmission rates have risen alarmingly. In 2023 there were 481 cases, a dramatic spurt from 63 the previous year. In 2024, the outbreak rate hit quadruple figures with 3,681 UK-wide, with 2, 911 in England. Last year, outbreaks were smaller, amounting to 957 cases, but remained continuous. The majority of cases were in children aged 10 and under, and half were in London.[5]

Dr Vanessa Saliba, a consultant epidemiologist at the UKHSA describes how the return of measles “kicked off towards the end of 2023 with outbreaks in Birmingham and Coventry”. Through 2024 it “seeded virtually all the other regions in the country” but the largest outbreaks remained in Birmingham and London. She found that importation of measles found unvaccinated pockets and spread like wildfire. In January 2024, it was reported that more than 50 children had been admitted to Birmingham’s children’s hospital triggering the declaration of a national incident by the UKHSA.[6] The UKHSA has said modelling of a large measles outbreak in London suggests that between 40,000 and 160,000 people could be affected.[7]

Even in high-income regions, measles causes fatality in about one in 5,000 cases. There were two UK deaths in 2025: one an adult, one a child with an underlying immunological problem. In 2024 another child dies similarly; and four adults also died, one from the viral condition SSPE mentioned early, a fatal side-effect that emerges up to eight years after measles in about one in 50,000 cases. As also referred to previously, other complications of measles include severe diarrhoea, pneumonia, ear infection and hearing loss, blindness, and encephalitis (inflammation of the brain). 

In the case of two year old Ezra Barrett from Walsall who contracted measles in the West Midlands outbreak and who was rushed to A&E after the appearance of a rash on his body, the consultant struggled to insert an IV drip as “His body’s too shut down” due to his raging temperature and ended up being on high-flow oxygen. Ezra has recovered well after a week’s stay in hospital, but his speech is delayed and he is being monitored for hearing loss. His mother Davina Barrett also fears SSPE, and when she first shared Ezra’s story, she received messages challenging her, “saying it’s not true, that the MMR would not have helped Ezra.”[8]

This sadly not unknown anecdote leads to the nub of the contemporary measles resurgence: the critical drop-in vaccination rates and the explanatory factors. The WHO states that herd immunity driven by community-wide vaccination is the only way to prevent measles. This is high due to the very infectious nature of the disease, remaining contagious in the air or on surfaces for up to two hours. The first measles vaccination was offered in the UK in 1968, and the combined MMR vaccine for measles, mumps, and rubella in 1988. Last month it switched to MMRV, including protection for varicella (chickenpox). It is offered in two doses, first at 12 months and, from last month, topped up at 18 months (formerly the top-up was scheduled when the child was three years and four months old). Having both doses gives immunity for about 99% of people. The UK’s average coverage in 2024 was 92.3% for the first dose, but 84.4% for the second, falling since the pandemic.[9]

Enfield has one of the lowest MMR vaccine uptake rates in the country, according to UKHSA figures from August 2025 that showed just 64.3% of five-year-olds in Enfield had received both doses of the vaccine in 2024-25. The Sunday Times reported that more than 60 cases of measles had been reported by seven schools and a nursery in Enfield. A message posted on the NHS Ordnance Unity Centre for Health GP surgery’s website described a fast-spreading measles outbreak.” It added: 

During this recent outbreak, one in five children have been hospitalised due to measles and all of them had not been fully immunised.[10]

The social demographics of the parts of Enfield, and indeed the West Midlands, that are being ravaged by the measles outbreaks – working class, BME preponderance, single parenthood – contrast so much with the New Age, Wellness Woo, Natural Health milieu in which the High Priest and Priestesses of the anti-vaccination movement reside – the grift economy of the faux sisterhood of wealthy white women with their pyramid business model for selling “alternative” health products, that it is tempting to view this ongoing public health disaster as a victory for the “pureblood” ideology of this anti-public health movement. The tragedy is that the bogus anti Big Pharma message they promote has found some traction, in the words of Prof Azeem Majeed, the head of primary care and public health at Imperial College, London, “among certain communities” which have “distrust of authority because of bad experience with councils, in health, education, welfare or housing.” For all the main factors likely to affect vaccine uptake are present in Enfield according to Prof Majeed – the prevalence of people from ethnic minorities who had also lower levels of education, deprivation, and how often people moved between different addresses and countries.

The MMR and autism has less purchase now; rather the main drivers of vaccine scepticism now is the wave of Covid 19 untruths disseminated by the Disinformation Dozen through social media and the influence of prominent US politicians such as Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. However, compromised access to vaccines in areas of high deprivation must also be factored into the equation. Dr Saliba points to the major restructure of the NHS in 2013-14 which took away from health visitors the power to deliver vaccines. The year-on-year decline in vaccine take up overlapped with the austerity agenda which saw provision for health visitors and Sure Start centres, often venues for vaccinating, slashed. Boroughs like Hackney and Enfield are homes to diverse populations who need tailored engagement including translation services and cooperation of community resources such as mosques and temples with lots of communities.[11]

Finally, while no medicinal product is ever 100% free of side-effects, it is possible that vaccines have become “victims of their own successes” in that memories of the casualties of infectious diseases such as measles have faded. As anti-vaxxers promote their fairy tales of how natural immunity was gained by participation in measles or chicken pox parties, it is instructive to listen to the case of 60-year-old Alan Crowrher from Derbyshire who, born before the vaccine, caught measles when he was five; an experience he “felt normal.” However, the result was profound hearing loss and blindness caused by nerve damage. Today he has 15% of his hearing left. In his 30s, damaged optical nerves were diagnosed; he has 10% of his sight remaining. He has a simple message for parents reluctant to have their child vaccinated: “Come and sit with me.”[12]

References


[1] Phoebe Davis & James Tapper, 'Fears of rise in fatal brain disease as take-up of measles jab continues to fall.' The Observer. 22 February 2026 p.17

[2] Ibid

[3] Ibid.

[4] Andrew Gregory, 'Precautions. What are the risks and how do you protect your child.' The Guardian. 17 February 2026

[5] Emily Retter, 'The alarming return of measles.' The Guardian G2 16 February 2026 pp.4-5

[6] Ibid, p.5

[7] Rachel Hall, 'Measles outbreak in London spreading via unvaccinated children, watchdog confirms.' The Guardian. 16 February 2026

[8] Retter, p.5

[9] Ibid

[10] Hall, op cit

[11] Ibid

[12] Ibid

⏩Barry Gilheany is a freelance writer, qualified counsellor and aspirant artist resident in Colchester where he took his PhD at the University of Essex. He is also a lifelong Leeds United supporter.

Return Of The Pox 🪶 Measles Resurgence In The UK And The Revenge Of The Wellness World

Lynx By Ten To The Power Of One Thousand Nine Eight Hundred And Ninety One

 

A Morning Thought @ 3068

Azar Majedi ✊ US/Israeli plot failed!

People’s just and angry protests against the Islamic Republic in Iran has become hostage in the hands of US/Israeli regime change agenda; such orchestrated plan to create chaos which resulted in more bloodshed and deaths.
 
  • But they failed. From the beginning they started exposing their plans in their official tweets and in mainstream media, especially the Israeli ones. 
  • From Mossad encouraging people to come to the street and promising to be on the ground beside them To former CIA director and secretary of foreign affairs Mark Pompeo wishing Mossad agents walking side by side Iranian people, happy new year
  • To numerous declarations by Israeli politicians and recently the US secretary of treasury in an interview in Davos, there are plenty of genuine proof of Mossad and CIA involvement in escalating the chaos and tension in Iran.
 
Apparently, this was supposed to raise the tension to such a level that a regime change plan could be implemented, another colour revolution-like regime change. Reza Pahlavi was being promoted like a star. He was explaining his immediate plan for a takeover; his plan was “majestically” dictatorial. He was claiming that people have shouted his name on the streets and have chosen him as their leader, so, he is the chosen one, so to speak!

It only took a few days for him to come back and put some basic demands on the table and forget about his kingdom fantasy. The rightwing Persian speaking media in the West, BBC for example brought Iranian CIA agents to explain where they went wrong, what happened and why they failed. It’s pathetic how they are trying to justify their blatant miscalculations, or reckless actions which led to much more bloodshed and ruin. However, this can raise the question, whether this was a miscalculation and bad planning or deliberate action to create such chaos as to justify military action? The future actions will show.

They had promised that “they will be there to help” but they only deepened the danger for the people. Everyone from different spectrum of politics, have seen how spineless, opportunistic, stooge and evil they are. They have no concern for human lives, people’s suffering and pain. They showed their callousness when they begged Trump and Netanyahu to bomb Iran. They failed badly. How many more times can Israel and US save this Royal parasite who has no idea of what it means to work for a living? Everyone knows he is a professional gambler living a super luxurious life with the billions his parents stole.
 
Iran has proven to be a tough case, but why? You find the answer in who the Iranian fascists see as their main enemy in the path to power: The left, the communist movement. Isn’t this a wild exaggeration? No. Just look at their propaganda. Their focus on the left and the energy they spend in trying to badmouth them is unbelievable. Thousands of fake and real accounts on social media are using the filthiest language against socialists, trying to demonise and criminalise them. They try to blame the left for the coming to power of the Islamic regime, which was in fact brought to power by their master, America. If the left is as insignificant as they claim to be why has such active anti- communist campaign become necessary? This is a very basic question.
 
The power of the left is not in the amount of their wealth or arms; under the repressive rule that dismantles any effort for organisation, it’s not in its organisational strength either. The strength of the left lies in the depth of the society. Socialism as aspiration, goals and ideology is rooted in the society. That is why the monarchists and their promoters have, with no success, actively been trying for more than 3 years to impose themselves as the only alternative. Their aim is to organise a regime change in Iran to revive the fallen monarchy, the one CIA dismantled in order for people’s revolution of 79 not to succeed. 

It’s become a joke how many times in these past years Reza Pahlavi has come forward as the next leader and then had to move back to a more “humble” position. He and his followers have had no chance with the people. They’re unwanted. This is one of the main dilemmas of the US/Israel plan.
The West's propaganda campaign was supposed to win the Iranian diaspora, people in Iran and the Western public opinion. It failed. All the public statements and bragging of Mossad and CIA interference and involvement and the intensity of violence and number of murders, were very quickly exposed. Their plan was widely condemned, so much so as they organised a damage control campaign by inviting so-called experts to their media outlets to analyse the errors.

Israel’s boasting of its involvement and praising Iranian people as “Westerners and white” did more harm to their project. It exposed their vicious and evil plan. People woke up to the truth that they were unwilling to accept. Unfortunately, it seems that people see two opposing enemies (Islamic regime and US/Israel) and call one the worst enemy and excuse the other. People start to “choose” the enemy according to which one has tormented them the most and is more hateful or simply according to how much they have been influenced by the dominant propaganda. This perspective creates myths and prepares our minds and the world for swallowing any lies and propaganda. This is the problem now.

People of Iran rightfully hate this brutal regime so much and have fought time after time to push it back and topple it, so they tend to see the other pole the US and Israeli terrorism as friend or not so fatal. This is a very sensitive and tricky situation. But even this stumbling block has been pushed back.
 
One of the characteristics of this round of protest movement in Iran was that it very quickly escalated to an unprecedented level. Moreover, there were abundant speculations about Mossad and CIA interference, something not seen before. That’s why it was exposed so quickly. A tragedy created by two evil powers, two criminal and brutal entities that care about nothing but their power and greed, both are evil psychopaths.

Israeli flag

Since 7th October 2023 the Iranian fascists have been appearing in pro-Israeli/anti-Palestinian demonstrations with monarchist flag of lion and sun side by side the Israeli flag. The pact was made between Netanyahu and Reza Pahlavi in Jerusalem a few months before the start of the genocide in Gaza; a pact between “the son of Ibrahim and the son of Cyrus!” (Apparently as Karl Marx once said, history repeats itself, first as tragedy second as farce; clowns posing as historical myths.) However, the presence of Israeli flags in most Iranian diaspora protests in the west (except those organised by the left) has created a great deal of antipathy and concern for their movement and cause, among both Iranians and wider public. They have become discredited very quickly. They have become forced to justify and minimise the consequences.

American and Israeli support has become their Achilles’ hill. The protest in Brussels where US ambassador was speaking was the height of dissonance, disconnect and irrelevance to the aspirations and wishes of the people in Iran. Demonstrators holding Israeli and American flags and shouting: USA.
 
This first act of US/Israeli regime change plan seemed to have failed and damaged their credentials to a great extent. However, they are choosing the opportunity to promote military attack more openly. We need to stop this. We need to call on humanity to try and stop threats and attacks on the Iranian people. Attacking Iran first and foremost is an attack on the people of Iran, in much wider scale than the 12 day war in June.
 
Hands off Iran
Down with the Islamic regime of Iran
Long live freedom, equality and prosperity for all

⏩ Asar Majed is a Member of Hekmatist Party leadership & Chairperson of Organisation for Women’s Liberation.

Israeli Flag Is Hurting Not Helping Israel

Counterpunch 🥊Written by Vijay Prashad.

I am heartsick.

As a young boy, I experienced horrific sexual violence, which I have written about before and which continues to mark me even decades later. It means that I cannot tolerate anyone who exploits young children in a way that is not merely moral but physical: I am utterly repulsed by anyone who harms children and shudder when I hear anyone who even disciplines a child. Two of my children are adults, and two are still children and with each of them I have felt and feel deeply about their fragilities and their futures. For me, there are no second chances for a person who violates a child.

I read about the Jeffrey Epstein case because it hurts me greatly to read about the dangerous violence inflicted on children and young people.

But of course, it was impossible to ignore the emails between my friend and collaborator Noam Chomsky and Epstein. I have read what I can, and I have seen what I need to see. Noam has been a great mentor for me, and we have made two books together. Both books were written around the time that he was in correspondence with Epstein. 

Continue @ Counterpunch.

On The Emails Between Jeffrey Epstein And Noam Chomsky

Dr John Coulter ✍ Last week’s Special General Assembly of the Presbyterian Church in Ireland (PCI) in Belfast to update ministers and elders on the safe-guarding crisis which has enveloped the denomination became a soundbite paradise for anyone either reporting on it, or making notes for their congregations.

As a Presbyterian minister’s son and PCI communicant member myself, while phrases such as ‘ecclesiastical earthquake’ and the Church is ‘in trouble, make no mistake about it’, were earth-shattering enough, it was a remark by Rev David Bruce, a retired minister and convenor of PCI’s general council, which - for me personally - stuck out the most.

Mr Bruce said: 

The church must be under no illusions that things will be said to us concerning our past and current practice in areas extending beyond safe-guarding and I have absolutely no doubt that this will be challenging for us to hear.

It was the word ‘past’ which hit me like a bombshell. While the current safe-guarding crisis relates to allegations from a period in the new millennium, could historical allegations dating back generations into the past 20th century now surface in the coming weeks and months?

Look at how the Catholic Church has been hammered over the years concerning allegations and cases of clerical sex abuse. Could a similar historical crisis now be facing PCI over safe-guarding?

One thing PCI cannot do in regard to any historical allegations which may surface is sweep them behind the pulpit under the excuse that many of those involved are now dead, so what’s the point in opening old sores and wounds?

When it comes to safe-guarding issues, PCI must not hide behind the Old Testament text of Isaiah Chapter 43 and verse 18: “Remember ye not the former things, neither consider the things of old.” (King James Version) In short, PCI must never adopt the view - let the past be the past and let us bury it completely and forget about it!

I recall my own upbringing as a PCI minister’s son in the north Antrim hills in the Seventies. Safe-guarding was a non-existent term for me; it was all about self-guarding.

As a young teenage born again Christian, I had at one time a theologically liberal elder for a Sunday school teacher. I learned nothing spiritually from his classes - except that I could be made an example of for being the preacher’s kid.

To lift the boredom of his class, myself and my fellow classmates would have a bit of craic. This elder was known for his short fuse and eventually he’d had enough of us misbehaving.

Rather than tell us to behave, his way of doing it was to punch me in the face in front of my chums, reducing me to tears. There is the problem we can look at this incident in the 1970s though 2026 eyes; imagine if a Presbyterian elder punched a teenager in a Sunday school class nowadays? Think of the legal action that would follow.

However, we must remember that in the Seventies, corporal punishment was still legal in Northern Ireland schools - and that also applied to Sunday schools. That liberal elder is now dead. I suppose if he was still alive, he’d be using the excuse that he needed to maintain discipline in his class and a good punch to the face of the preacher’s kid was one way of doing that.

No action was ever taken against that elder for the punch. Whilst I remain a born again Christian, I wonder how many other young folk have been put off church, and PCI in particular, and the Christian faith generally because of experiences they’ve had in a place of worship?

For me in the late Seventies, self-guarding became the key term in PCI. A particular thug in the community, known for his bullying, began to target me simply because I was the minister’s son.

What many of my chums took for granted - namely, walking from their parents’ cars to the church pew - I had to plan very carefully to avoid getting a beating from this thug. A number of my peers warned me about this thug.

I used to hide out in my dad’s minister’s room on Sunday mornings, then rush in to the church hall for the opening devotions before Sunday school and Bible class began. I kept this routine up for a number of months. Thankfully, nothing happened.

So one Sunday in the latter part of the year, I felt the coast was clear and I abandoned by routine and took my seat as usual in the church hall. I didn’t see the thug come up behind me. He landed - either by accident or by design - a well-placed kick into my lower back on the left-hand side. The pain was excruciating.

I managed to walk back to dad’s minister’s room where I collapsed on the carpet. I didn’t want a doctor called or to go to the then Ballymena Waveney Hospital as that would have given the thug the satisfaction of knowing how badly he had injured me.

This event happened around half a century ago. At first reading of this, you might conclude - you need to man up Coulter and remember Isaiah 43:18.

I wish I could, but twice a day, even now in my late sixties, I still have to take the medication as a result of that attack. It was a secret I managed to keep from that community until after both my parents passed away.

But as I take my pills for that injury, I wonder how many other folk over the years had to keep it a secret about their experiences either when safe-guarding failed, or when safe-guarding simply did not exist.

At least as a working journalist, I have a voice. I can write about my experiences. Many have chosen to remain silent. But for their own peace of mind, they need to come forward and share their experiences, current or historical.

There has been much talk in Northern Ireland about legacy issues and dealing with the past. For PCI, the past must never remain buried when it comes to safe-guarding and other issues. Now is the time for total transparency, no matter how bitter the medicine to swallow.

Follow Dr John Coulter on Twitter @JohnAHCoulter
John is a Director for Belfast’s Christian radio station, Sunshine 1049 FM. 

Safe-Guarding, Not Self-Guarding, Must Be PCI’s Future Vision

Ten links to a diverse range of opinion that might be of interest to TPQ readers. They are selected not to invite agreement but curiosity. Readers can submit links to pieces they find thought provoking.


Lynx By Ten To The Power Of One Thousand Nine Eight Hundred And Ninety

 

A Morning Thought @ 3067

Anthony McIntyre ðŸ”– When I first learned of Billy Connolly I was a teenage republican prisoner in Maghaberry back in 1975.

I failed to see what the draw was.  A loud mouth Scottish guy who laughed at his own jokes and sang what seemed to be silly songs had little appeal for me. No shortage of the type hanging around the pubs of Glasgow's Sauchiehall Street, so no reason that I could see for someone in Cage F to have a Long Playing record of one of his concerts. 

For years I never got into him. Even now I could not call myself a Billy Connolly fan, having paid insufficient attention to him over the decades. I eventually warmed to him not as a result of his comedy but because of a role he played in a film about Glaswegian gangsters. He struck me as having an aptitude for acting. Slowly, his wickedly facetious sense of humour cut through whatever barrier I had erected and I grew to appreciate him. 

So when my sister gave me a book by him as a Christmas present shortly after it was published and highly recommended it, I thought I would give it a try. I completed it last week, reading a hundred pages on a bus from Galway to Dublin which left me only five or six pages to get through on the train from Dublin to Drogheda. Prior to that it had been read in hotel rooms in Limerick, Kilkenny, Ennis and Cork. Not the worst way to read a book with the title Rambling Man.

At the stage in life where I have read more books than I will ever get to read I tend to be choosy about what I pick up, always mindful of that great John McGuffin quip, made when he was dying: there are so many good books to read and still there's bastards writing more. When it comes to autobiographies my preference is for the political kind or those that trace the lives of military people operating in political conflict. Their lives, despite the narrow focus, offer a window on a broader social and political context. 

Rambling Man, I read for pleasure, and there was plenty that was pleasurable in its pages. Billy Connolly is no stranger to a life rambling along the road from one country or continent to another. It has imbued him with a respect for other peoples and their cultures. Not a religious person he values the spiritual view of the people he met in Africa or India, where he discovered belief systems that were 'a step up from the threat of roasting in hellfire for touching your willy.' Connolly has little tolerance for those who believe Jesus came not to keep you from starving but to keep you from wanking, the type that HL Mencken had such strong disdain for.  

Living in Florida, having rambled the globe, the contrast feeds his disdain for the Calvinist type. He bristles at Mark Twain books being on a banned list for Floridians who at the same time 'are allowed to ride a motorcycle without helmet or shoes.' The Lord works in mysterious ways. He even mysteriously prompted Pastor Jack Glass, a hate vendor even more trenchant than the big Bigot who once served as First Minister in the North, to picket his concerts and throw missiles at Connolly. 

Rambling Man is replete with Connolly's adventures from baking deserts to freezing ice caps. He writes about farting cows and farting dogs, takes his readers on a journey of wit and and work, the symbiosis of which has kept him on the road. He leaves his reader spoiled for choice. Pick of the bunch might be about a friend who gave his wife a large glass of whiskey at Christmas. She spat it out, asking how he could drink it. His response: 'See? You think I am out enjoying myself every night.'

That one is trumped by an even more delicious delicacy:

Australia’s got to be the luckiest country on Earth. When one of their prime ministers was apparently eaten by a shark, people in the UK went: Why didn’t we think of that? All those years we had to put up with Margaret Thatcher – and all those sharks doing nothing.

That alone makes the book worth reading, all the while hoping that Donald Trump takes a swim in the Pacific. On second thoughts, feeding sharks a bag of shit might just be considered as cruel as feeding them a pastor. 

Billy Connolly, 2023, Rambling Man: My Life On The Road. Publisher - Two Roads. ISBN: 978-1-399-80257-4

⏩Follow on Bluesky

Rambling Man

Jonathon Porritt ★  I’ve finally worked out what Tony Blair still exists for . . . 

. . .  providing comfort to future war criminals that it's still possible, as a former war criminal, to be accepted in polite society.

Blair has never been indicted as a war criminal. Of course he hasn't. But he played a pivotal role in enabling the assault on Iraq in March 2003, lying time after time, about “high level intelligence” confirming the presence of Weapons of Mass Destruction in Iraq. George Bush would probably have invaded Iraq anyway, but Blair shares direct accountability for the chaos that ensued over the next decade — including the death of at least 500,000 Iraqi citizens.

As Chair of the Sustainable Development Commission between 2000 and 2009, I reported directly to Tony Blair for seven years. For the first three years, it was extremely rewarding. He seriously understood the significance of the climate crisis, and was interested enough in sustainable development more broadly to make it possible for the Commission to develop effective working relationships (through the Cabinet Office) with at least eight government departments. Direct access was frequent and taken seriously.

It all changed in 2003.

Continue @  Jonathon Porritt.

Tony Blair 🪶 Once A War Criminal

Friendly Atheist ★ An appeals court ruled that Kimberly Polk's religious beliefs didn't give her license to ignore district policy or harm trans kids.

In 2020, Kimberly Ann Polk applied to become a substitute teacher in the Montgomery County Public Schools in Maryland. She was hired in 2021 with the understanding that she could be called to fill in anywhere in the district, and there were no complaints about her performance that first year. She did the job and planned to keep doing it.

When the 2022-2023 school year began, she had to complete some basic training modules online, including one that reminded subs of the school board’s policies. One of them concerned transgender students: The board policy made clear that all teachers should respect students’ gender identities, use their preferred names and pronouns, and keep that information confidential like they would any medical issues.

Polk refused to e-sign the paperwork that said she accepted the policy. She cited her “sincerely held religious beliefs… based on her understanding of her Christian religion and the Holy Bible.”
So she asked for some kind of religious accommodation. When speaking with a district staffer about that, one possibility was that she could only substitute teach in lower grades . . . 

Court Rules Against Anti-Trans Christian Teacher Who Demanded Right To Misgender Students

Right Wing Watch 👀Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth invited far-right Christian nationalist Doug Wilson to preach at the Pentagon Tuesday, reported Brian Kaylor at A Public Witness. 

Hegseth’s monthly evangelical worship services and the appearance of Wilson are signs of just how far the most aggressive forms of Christian nationalism have advanced within the MAGA movement and the Trump administration.

As Right Wing Watch has reported, Wilson is a Christian nationalist extremist who believes women should not have the right to vote. In the “Christian republic” he envisions, liberal Christians and non-Christians would not be allowed to hold public office or worship in public. He wants to see the Apostle’s Creed inserted into the U.S. Constitution.

Hegseth was criticized for apparently endorsing Wilson’s views last year when he promoted a CNN profile of Wilson with the comment, “All of Christ for All of Life.” (Hegseth eventually clarified that he supports women’s right to vote.) But Hegseth’s words and actions since then make it clear that he is intent on imposing his Christian nationalist worldview on the U.S. military.

Kaylor reported earlier that at the Feb. 5 National Prayer Service, Hegseth asserted, “America was founded as a Christian nation” and that public officials “have a sacred duty to glorify him.”

Hegseth Invites Christian Nationalist Extremist Doug Wilson To Lead Pentagon Worship Service

Subscribe to: Comments (Atom)