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| Tricky Dicky - or gentleman? |
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| John Freeman |
In early 1969 the newly inaugurated President Nixon visited the UK and on his arrival was wined and dined at 10 Downing Street. John Freeman, was present as was Wilson – and they were clearly worried about any repercussions following the criticism and scorn they had heaped on Nixon in the run up to the election. It was a tense occasion – but Nixon rose to it. As they all sat down to dinner – senior politicians from both sides of the Atlantic, civil servants and the rest Nixon rose to his feet and lightened the mood. He tapped his glass and, smiling, said......"Some people say there’s a new Nixon, and they wonder if there’s a new Freeman. I’d like to think that’s all behind us. After all, he’s the new diplomat and I’m the new statesman”. The assembled guests roared with laughter – Nixon’s quip had taken the heat out of the situation. His, clever use of the name of the magazine that Freeman had used to criticise him and his reference that they were all in changed circumstances so should forgive, forget and move on was both magnanimous and appreciated. Wilson recognising that this had got him and his new ambassador off the diplomatic hook – quickly scribbled a note on the back of his menu card and had it passed to Nixon. It said “That was one of the kindest and most generous acts that I have witnessed in a long political career. You can’t be born a lord but it is possible – and you have shown it – to be born a gentleman.” Freeman went on to enjoy a long and distinguished career in Washington and developed a close relationship with Nixon which in the turbulent times of the cold war was of huge benefit to both nations and the world at large.
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| Harold Wilson |
Reading the article and the comments made by Nixon and Wilson got me thinking about the idea of “a gentleman” – it all sounds a bit old fashioned and twee in this day and age and I wondered, as I read Wilson’s comment, if he had in his mind the famous aphorism of King James I who commented “As your King I can make a you a lord, but only God can make you a gentleman”. Or, maybe, Wilson was thinking of the equally famous comment by Cardinal Newman in the nineteenth century: “It is almost the definition of a gentleman to say that he is one who never inflicts pain”. One might argue that Nixon, too, was thinking of Newman’s comment – clearly, the American president was out to build bridges and not seeking painful revenge for the earlier criticism of John Freeman. My own favourite as to the essential of a gentleman is one proposed by Confucius: “A gentleman would be ashamed should his deeds not match his words” – and although Nixon’s later career was shrouded in dispute and dishonour just maybe a bit of Confucius was in the back of his mind when he rose to speak that night at the Downing Street dinner.
On a more flippant note, while writing this it occurs to me
what I often used to say when in school before I retired. Like many schools we
increasingly found ourselves providing tissues for children – instead of
tissues simply being available in case of an emergency they increasingly became free use – a box on every teacher’s
desk and the children simply used them when required. This increasingly
irritated me since it was costly to the school and, more importantly, I also
felt we were not encouraging the children/parents to ensure that they had with
them a basic piece of hygiene - a
handkerchief or packet of tissues. I had many “discussions” with the staff on
this and always lost! – my grumpy riposte was always the same: “A gentleman
always carries three handkerchiefs – one for himself, one for a lady and one
for an emergency........!” I never won
the argument with the rest of the staff, but always felt better as, grumpily stumping
out of the staff meeting, I said it!!!!!
But, to move on. Over the past few days I have read with
some considerable despair of a number of other news items that cast a different
slant on the world than considerations of the essential nature of a gentleman.
I read the other day that the state of Texas executed Lisa Coleman – a
convicted child murderer. There seems no doubt that this lady was guilty and
Texas was merely following its state law in the matter. Apparently some 1400
people have been executed in the USA since 1976 but only seven states – Texas,
Florida, Oklahoma, Alabama, North Carolina, Arkansas and Virginia – have imposed
the death penalty on women in the past three decades. Whatever the moral, religious
or legal arguments for or against the death penalty what I can’t get my head
round is that it would simply appear not to work. To use Texas as an example: Texas is by far
the USA’ s “executions leader”, with 517 inmates put to death in the past 32
years. That represents 37% of the national total and yet Texas comprises only about 8% of the US
population. The state has carried out nine executions this year and has another
eight scheduled between 15th October and
18th March. Am I missing something?
Clearly, the good folk of Texas and their state government need to start examining themselves and their
society – because if they have so many people who qualify for the death
sentence executing them clearly isn’t solving the problem. Either the killers
or the Texan residents are just not learning the lessons of history – state
imposed violence and imposing the death sentence simply doesn’t work in
reducing murder. Even the briefest study of criminal history in any country in
the world manifestly proves that – that the good folk of Texas and other US
states seem unable to grasp that is a matter of concern. One can only assume that states like Texas who are burying their heads in the sand so far as what works and doesn't work in reducing the need for the death penalty merely wish to keep the punishment not as a deterrent - since it clearly doesn't work - but as a form of retribution and vengeance. That, it seems to me, is never a sound or morally justifiable reason for a law of any kind. It merely makes Ghandi's comment even more true: "An eye for and eye leaves the world blind" - and boy, are there a lot of blind people in that part of the world
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| But it doesn't work! |
Similarly, on the same day I read about the latest execution
I also read that school departments
across the US have taken advantage of free military surplus gear, stocking up
on mine-resistant armoured vehicles, grenade launchers and scores of M16
rifles. At least 26 school districts have participated in the Pentagon’s
surplus program, which is new but has become especially pertinent after police
responded to protesters in Ferguson, Missouri, with teargas, armour-clad
military trucks and riot gear. Federal records show schools in Florida,
Georgia, Kansas, Michigan, Nevada, Texas and Utah obtained surplus military
gear. At least six California districts have also received the equipment.
Now it may well be that in the violence and killing that
seems endemic in the USA these items are judged to be necessary – just as
executing people is judged to be good idea in Texas – but again, it seems to me
that people are just not learning from either the experience and the facts. Violence
begets violence and the facts are clear, it doesn’t work. In a bizarre twist
San Diego school district said it was painting its armoured vehicles white and
hoping to use the Red Cross symbol on it to assuage community worries. A spokeswoman confirmed that the vehicles had
been stripped of weapon mounts and turrets and would be outfitted with medical
supplies and teddy bears for use in emergencies to evacuate students and staff!
As I read this something else crossed my mind......in the past week or so we
have heard increasing sabre rattling by the US and the British government about
what they plan in relation to the worsening middle east situation and in
particular the struggle against the ISIS
terrorist organisation. The plan, such as it is, is to ramp up the military
hardware and action and, where only a
few weeks ago, we were being told that there would be no military intervention
this now seems to have been conveniently forgotten. We now have “a couple of
thousand advisers on the ground” we are told; sadly, a trawl through the
recesses and dark corners of my mind reveals that I seem to remember about
fifty years ago hearing that same phrase in relation to Vietnam – “advisers”
were to be available but would play no part in any military
operations...........! Well, we all know
where that lead and how it all ended in tears and ignominy (at least for the
Americans). And, so, I wondered hopefully, if the San Diego spokeswoman had got
it right – that just, maybe, stripping out the weapons and filling these
killing machines with teddy bears and good will might be the better option. It
would seem to me that teddy bears and a bit of common sense in Texas, or in
rioting American school districts or in Syria, Afghanistan or Iraq – and the
rest – might just be more productive than violence, war and death sentences as
solutions to the problems.
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| Every school should have one apparently! |
“Violence is the last refuge of the incompetent” suggested
Isaac Azimov and fellow author Tolstoy said: “All violence consists in some people forcing
others, under threat of suffering or death, to do what they do not want to do”.
Absolutely, I hear myself saying and I can’t but say “spot on” when I read
Socrates telling us from two and half millennia ago that "Those who fail
to learn from history are doomed to repeat it!". Clearly,
those in power in the White House, in Downing Street or in states like Texas
haven’t thought about these things – they are displaying their incompetence by
failing to learn from history so are repeating the errors of the past. They
have a total lack of understanding of the human condition and what might prompt
and sponsor violence in the first place and so cannot begin to understand how
to deal with it in a positive way that will change individuals and societies.
With fools in charge of the asylum the outlook for the world looks bleak
indeed.
And so to the matter of fools. You might be thinking that
certain parts of the world and many of those in power have a monopoly upon
incompetence and stupidity. It may often seem like that but it is not so. Over
the past couple of days I have come across several items that illustrate well
what a foolish, Alice in Wonderland, place the whole world is becoming. The more I look and the older I become I am
minded to think that Alice’s make believe world is more and more our own: "If
I had a world of my own, everything would be nonsense. Nothing would be what it
is, because everything would be what it isn't. And contrary wise, what is, it
wouldn't be. And what it wouldn't be, it would. You see?” says Alice and the Cheshire cat’s comment
seems apposite: "We’re all mad here.
I’m mad. You’re mad."
"How do you know I’m mad?" said Alice.
"You must be," said the Cat, "or you wouldn’t have come here.”
"You must be," said the Cat, "or you wouldn’t have come here.”
Quite – we live in foolish times!
I read this morning that in Texas (again!!!!!) the
constitutional right of “Texans to photograph strangers has been upheld as an
essential component of freedom of speech - even if those images should happen
to be surreptitious “upskirt”pictures of women taken for the purposes of
sexual gratification!........ The judges said that photographs were “inherently
expressive”, like other artistic mediums such as films or books, and so the
process of creating them, as well as the images themselves, was part of an
American’s right to free speech because “thought is intertwined with
expression”. Well that might be a legal nicety and may well sit well with the
right to free speech as enshrined in the US constitution and in other human
rights legislation but in the end it is the legality and reasoning of the
madhouse and the fool. We live in bizarre times.
But don’t be fooled, the Texas court system doesn’t have a
monopoly on stupidity (although they are working very hard on all fronts to win
the world stupidity award). Also in this morning’s paper I read that Oxford and
Cambridge universities – two of the most prestigious places of learning on the
planet and attended only by those with very greatest minds on the planet are to introduce one or two new initiatives for the coming year.
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| They may be the nation's brightest and best - but they haven't quite got their heads round basic right and wrong |
Because of increased incidences of sexual violence on university campuses
students will have to attend what are called “sexual consent workshops” where
they will have explained to them (presumably in
very short, easy to understand words) what they might and might not do
when out on their first date or what they are or are not allowed to do with or
without the permission of another. A spokeswoman for Cambridge said "We
are sending out a very clear message with these workshops that sexual violence
is not welcome within the university community." Presumably her saying this implies that there
are some who think it is welcome! It is
further suggested that there is a need now because "A lot of people come
to university with a very, very basic sex education which stems from sheer
biology." Mmmmm......so our young, indeed, the brightest and best of our
young, people who have more access and opportunity to information and
understanding than any previous generation in the history of the world now “come to
university with very basic sex education”.....absolute rubbish! To be clear,
this is not about sex education it is about basic right and wrong – which
clearly our brightest and best have failed to understand or get to grips with
despite the years spent in our education system, despite the privileged
background from which many of them come and despite the fact that by the time
they get to university they are legally classed as adults. Am I missing
something?
Additionally, however, we are told, there is the problem of
what is termed “the lad culture", which began in the 1990s. A survey this
week suggested lad culture, sexual harassment and assault affect women right
across the higher education sector. A spokesperson said the university had
recently reviewed its harassment policy to make "more explicit its
inclusion of all aspects of harassment, including sexual violence, assault and
stalking". Another problem facing many female students at Oxford and
Cambridge are, we are informed, the
drinking societies, where, they say, lad culture persists. “The Wyverns”, a
notorious drinking society composed mostly of public school boys at Magdalene
College, Cambridge, did, for example, cancel its annual "jelly
wrestling" contest for female students following a petition of complaint; but
it then subsequently hired a bucking bronco
in the shape of a penis. Then there's the "finger a fresher"
challenge, and the annual mass drinking bash known as "Caesarean
Sunday". "The environment in some of these drinking societies is at
best sexually aggressive, at worst openly misogynistic," said a spokeswoman.
Quite so – and again it is deeply worrying that many of these people will go on
to positions of power and influence within our society! The lunatics will be in
charge of the mad house!
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| Mmmmm! - is this one of the essential skills and qualifications to gain a place at Cambridge? It would seem so. |
For the life of me I cannot understand a number of points:
Firstly, we are talking here about the brightest and best in society – why do
they need it all explaining to them that to stalk a woman or harass a women in
any way is wrong? What is so difficult to understand? – they have often been to
the greatest schools in the land (Eton and places), almost certainly in the
case of the members of the Wyvern society come from the great families of the
land and have had a very privileged
upbringing, and yet despite having all these brains and this background still
need to be given extra instruction on basic rights and wrongs. Secondly, I ask
myself, what the hell are the university authorities doing – it seems to me to
be not a matter of negotiation. Clearly anyone who, having been deemed
academically worthy of a place at Oxbridge should not find the harassment of
women, the lad culture, bucking broncos in the shape of a penis, fingering
freshers or drinking bashes reasonable pastimes – nor should they require extra
classes to give them simply pointers on right and wrong. If they do then
manifestly they should not be in the university. It seems to me to be
non-negotiable. For the university to tolerate an “environment in some of these
drinking societies is at best sexually aggressive, at worst openly
misogynistic," is as stupid and
unacceptable as court ruling in Texas about “upskirt” photographs. It is, as I
say, the reasoning of the mad house.
And finally something a little lighter but also a sad
reflection of our mad, mad world. Yesterday morning Pat and went to Leicester
to do a bit of shopping. As we walked through the Highcross shopping centre
which, since it was early in the day, was quite quiet we noticed a huge queue
which, as we approached, we realised went way down the shopping mall. As we
gazed at the queue we realised that it was eventually disappearing into the
Apple Store. Pat quickly realised that all these people were queuing to buy the
new Apple i-phone which had just been released for sale. Many of those in the
queue had sleeping bags and fold up chairs – clearly they had been there a long
time. I stood open mouthed partly because I could not conceive of why anyone
would make such a gesture just to get a phone but mostly because as I looked
and took in the fact that the queue was virtually wholly comprised of young
people – teenagers and those in their early twenties – and I could not
comprehend how these people could afford the £500/£600 that the new phone
costs. Don’t get me wrong, I don’t begrudge them their “toy” but I guess that
most of these people already have a mobile phone so this is merely to keep up
with the fashion. Further, I wondered since this was a mid week morning that none
of them were at work - so were they
students, unemployed, not yet old enough to work.......and if so where does the
money come from? And finally, I read weekly in the paper and hear on the TV
news from our pundits and politicians how hard it is for young people today –
they cannot afford a mortgage or the rents of properties in some of our major
cities, they cannot afford the increases in university fees and even that the
young have been hit hardest by the recession and many can find no work. Well
all that’s as maybe but when I go into
Nottingham to the theatre or cinema I do not see the bars and restaurants
filled with middle aged or older people – I see it filled with the young, when
I see youngsters going off on a gap year to the far corners of the earth I
wonder where the money comes from and on Friday morning I wondered where the
£600s were coming from to pay for this latest fashion must have? Apple must be
laughing all the way to the bank.
When I returned home I glanced at the internet and found
this article in the local Leicester newspaper, the Mercury:
"Hundreds of iPhone 6 fans queued outside Leicester's
Highcross shopping centre on last night to ensure they were the first to get
their hands on the new model. A line of tech-heads snaked through the shopping
centre this morning, which opened at the earlier time of 6am.
Sham, who was front of the queue, was greeted by a round of applause from staff, as he entered the shop at 8am. The 19-year-old, who had been waiting since 9am yesterday morning, said: “It feels really good to finally have my hands on it. I was pleased to finally see the phone but I must admit, I was sad to see the money go.” Sham said he felt like a celebrity as he walked through the doors to buy his iPhone 6 Plus.“I plan on gloating to all of my friends and family for a little bit - I’m looking forward to showing it off. “But them I’m off to bed. “It will be the Apple Watch next - but I might pre-order that one.” Ronak had also been queuing for nearly 12 hours, with his girlfriend, Shanice . Ronak, 20, who also brought an iPhone 6 Plus, said: “It is very exciting. The time actually passed really quickly overnight, I’d definitely do it again - the wait was worth it.” Shanice, added: “I need a bath before I even think about playing on my phone - I feel so gross. But I agree, it was worth the wait.”Jamie 19, who also joined the queue at 9am yesterday, said that “adrenalin” kept him awake throughout the night.“People might criticise us for queuing all night but to them, I’d say ‘haha, I’ve got the new iPhone and you don’t’.” Nikeal19, said: “It’s great, I can’t stop smiling. “Although, I’m ready for bed now.” Mohammed 21, was among the first 20 in the queue. He said: "It was a slightly chilly night but I do it because I love Apple. "I'm so excited to be one of the first in Leicester to get the phone."
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| Yep - that was the queue we saw |
Mmmmm.....all youngsters, all had the time and the money to
spend and all were going back to bed – clearly there was no thought of going to
work to earn the £600 required. I asked myself again where did the money come
from? And I read that 20 year old Shanice wants to play on her phone and that
19 year old Jamie is so pleased he can’t stop smiling. Do I detect any sort of
maturity here – sadly not – these are just overgrown babies – and rather
foolish babies at that. Should I weep crocodile tears for the poverty stricken
youth and their problems of today? I think not!
The old adage “A fool and his money are soon parted” was
never more true that in Leicester’s shopping centre on Friday morning! Alice’s
mad world is with us....and yes........Albert Einstein was indeed right: "Two
things are infinite: The universe and human stupidity; and I'm not sure about
the universe."
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