Gaza

The San Francisco Chronicle recently published a letter that I wrote, which read as follows: A permanent resolution of the conflict between Israel and Gaza will not be acceptable to Israel if Gaza can import weapons. It will not be acceptable to Gaza if the compete blockade remains in force. Surely the reasonable solution is to allow the import of non-lethal goods, controlled by a neutral party. This could be Egypt, or perhaps reliable monitors established by the United Nations. Undoubtedly there would be complex negotiations to arrange this, but wouldn't the positive result of such an arrangement be worth the time and trouble? For the purposes of publication, this was necessarily brief. A friend pointed out that what I was suggesting was essentially an idea brought out at the unsuccessful meeting in Cairo, and he informed me that this common-sense idea was rejected by the Israeli's. When I see pictures of the devastation the Israeli bombing has caused in Gaza, it disturbs me. It was a response totally out of scale by comparison to the ineffective but relentless firing of rockets into Israel. It is hard to see how this conflict can ever be resolved without each side making concessions. It would be humiliating for the Palestinian's to have to accept control over the imports by a third party, but it would certainly be preferable to the complete Israeli blockade, which stifles peaceful economic activity.

Double Jeopardy?

I deplore violence against women. I am glad that the NFL is finally getting serious. Most of us saw the video of Ray Rice dragging his future wife out of an elevator, and applauded when the original 2 game suspension was increased to six games. Then a second video emerged, of the vicious punch which floored the woman. Frankly, I had imagined such violence from the first video. Ray Rice was "cut" (lost his job) from his team. Then Roger Goodell, the NFL Commissioner, banned Rice "indefinitely". That seems to me inappropriate--not that it was the wrong response to the offense, but that he had already been punished for it, and such a severe penalty represented a changed policy.. We would not consider it right to introduce legislation to upgrade a misdemeanor to a felony, and then charge someone with a felony for an act committed before the change in the law. Unless the suspension is lifted.within a year or two,this talented athlete will have lost the rewards of his career. It also seems that Goodell is more interested in keeping his own well-paid job than being fair to the player. The one good thing about this saga is that it may discourage such physical violence in the future. The practitioners of a violent sport may think twice about jeopardizing future earnings running into many millions of dollars.

Weights & Measures

We don't use the word "stones" when discussing a person's weight in the USA. We limit ourselves to pounds and ounces, and I doubt if many children learn that fourteen pounds of weight is known in Britain as "one stone". When it comes to coinage, I learned as a child to deal with farthings, shillings, pence, florins, and half-crowns. [We did not use "crowns" and it always seemed somewhat redundant to have two shillings (a florin), as well as two shillings and six pence (a half-crown).] At a higher level, there was the, "guinea" mainly used at expensive stores, being one pound, one shilling. I used to think that the decimal system, in use in most other civilized countries, was simpler and superior, eliminating the need for many troublesome mathematical calculations. Since my childhood, the British have reformed their monetary system, and also adopted the decimal system for currency. Meantime, why are we still talking about inches, feet, yards, and miles in this country? The world uses centimeters, meters, and kilometers for distances, although it seems to have rejected decimeters. We still use quarts and pints for liquid, rather than liters. I can only suppose that our politicians are afraid to make changes to our measurements, as they would not always be very popular! We measure gasoline in gallons, but we don't use the same "gallon" as the British, who cling to the outdated term "imperial gallon", despite having long ago lost an empire.

LinkedIn

Of the various social media options, LinkedIn was originally designed primarily for business folk, but clearly such a limit no longer applies. About once a month, I am asked to be in contact with someone on LinkedIn, always replying that I am not part of the circle. I don't think the solicitations are initiated by my correspondents, but rather by the owners of LinkedIn. i know very well that what I write online is "harvested", and that doesn't bother me, but I dislike having this reality thrust in my face.

Facebook

I don't think that I have ever posted anything on Facebook: that just isn't my style. On the other hand, I am very glad that I joined Facebook many months ago. It is a great source of news and photos of our extended family. I also can't remember ever posting a comment, but I regularly "like" many of the items that I read there. I am not eager to reveal my comments on Facebook to the world, a reticence which is inconsistent with my regular weekly blog. Somehow, I now have 23 followers, and I thank you all.

Troop

This is a useful term to describe a group of people, usually male, often young, and subject to some form of orderly discipline, such as marching or riding in formation. Boy Scout troops, and cavalry troops, are good examples of this usage. Unfortunately, this sense has been blurred by the media, where the word is used to mean individual soldiers or perhaps marines. "Six troops killed in ambush" is a typical newspaper headline. As is usually the case when a word is misused,one can't prevent this. The best I can do is to deplore it.

School's Out by Alison Boulton

For various reasons, my blog this week is belated, but I am taking the opportunity of posting with her consent an article written by a friend of mine, who is an occasional columnist for the Oxford Mail. Here it is: School’s out, and Oxford rejoices in its young families and confident, sassy teenagers. The summer stretches ahead with its long, lazy days and reversal of routine. Spare a thought for those other schoolchildren somewhere in the forests of Northern Nigeria: the 223 young girls snatched from their school in Chibok at gunpoint, and taken by force into the jungle, separated from everything they know, and faced with a new world order: subjugated in religion, lifestyle, liberty and matrimony. With their adult lives ahead of them: education promised them something infinitely precious: freedom of choice. Choice of career, marriage partner, location and belief – all have been seized – snuffed out in their brutal abduction by Boko Haram soldiers. The name means rejection of Western Education. But have they and their imagined futures been obliterated forever? It’s not yet clear. They may never be heard of again: their young lives and hopes absorbed in a new society. The old society of their families, religion and state may reject them yet: too difficult to extract, to rehabilitate, to marry off, blighted by alien captivity. For centuries, women have been carried off by force, and if kept alive, integrated into the societies of their captors – the spoils of war. The remarkable thing is that in an age when Michelle Obama – the wife of the most powerful man in the world - can pose with a slogan card that reads ‘Bring Back our Girls’ for a global audience, the Nigerian Government seems powerless to act effectively to both protect and rescue these, its most vulnerable and innocent citizens. Courageous teenage campaigner Malala Yousafzai has flown from Britain to Nigeria to highlight the missing girls’ plight, meeting President Goodluck Jonathan, in an attempt to refocus the world’s attention and action on behalf of Malala’s fellow school girls. When she visited Oxford some months ago, Malala spoke of the hunger for education among girls worldwide – and the lack of opportunities so many face. While Oxford students rose to their feet and applauded her before she’d said a word, Malala looked around the famously shabby Debating Chamber of Oxford Union - with awe. Standing beneath a portrait of Benazir Bhutto, the assassinated President of Pakistan, and one-time President of the Union, Malala declared the following: ‘Superpowers should not be judged on the size of their armies, or the range and power of their nuclear arsenals. They should be judged on the number of children in school. That is what I would like to see,’ She spoke of the beauty of Pakistan’s Swat Valley which she and her family were forced to leave after the attack on her school bus by the Taliban, which left her severely injured, and several of her school friends too. What kind of political or religious movement targets school children? Two at least – Boko Haram and the Taliban - who are gaining political power. Both seek to obliterate womens’ education. So Oxford, enjoy your school holidays. You don’t know how lucky you are to have a school to return to in the autumn.