Category: News
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Should British Kids Salute the Flag? | Identity | Symbols
A recent government report has proposed that teenagers should make an oath of allegiance to ‘Queen and Country’, in order to give them a ‘sense of belonging.’ I’m aware that something similar exists in the US education system, though the only reason I’m aware of it is by it’s bitter-sweet use in movies to suggest…
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Sort it out gays – stop destroying earth!
The Telegraph reported recently that an Israeli MP has blamed the recent spate of earthquakes in the Middle East on gays. The Knesset has recently repealed various laws about homosexuality, and this created the siesmic events. Gays were also to blame for flooding in Britain last year, according to one Bishop, and one might also…
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Flocking to the Cities
Sorry been a bit quiet here. Kids’ birthdays, other writing projects… stuff. Anyway, a piece on the news caught my ear yesterday. Apparently a long-term study of the hunting habits of peregrine falcons has found that they have evolved their methods and are now increasingly hunting in cities at night. The thinking is that they…
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Close Small Schools, Open Large Prisons?
The last couple of days have seen local government proposals to close hundreds of small village schools in the England, and central government proposals to build Titan ‘super-prisons’ in England and Wales. Both policies seem in doubt now, as central government has written to local governments reminding them of their obligations to keep small schools…
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Bush-Clinton-Bush-Clinton: Dynasty or Democracy?
In my recent post about predictions for 2008, I was (not) surprised to find most of the debate being around the comment of the collapse of the Emerging project. Actually, I think it’ll be more about the language changing, but hey. What garnered no comment was the prediction about ’08 being the year when people…
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Sad News: John O’Donahue Dies
It’s was with enormous sadness I received the news that John O’Donahue has died. Martin Wroe, who had for so long championed him at Greenbelt Festival, sent me this email: Our friend John O’Donohue has died. John was on holiday in France with the family of Kristine, a wonderful woman he met at Greenbelt just…