Gregory Carlin

A bigger parish my Irish arse. I took a call last Thursday wth *demands* from US child protection advocacy asking me to reduce the amount of child pornography British education was feeding onto the networks. Added later The prosecutors who were hounding the Catholic hierarchy more often than not had the unseemly parts of local administration under careful camouflage. The Catholic Church lost its immunity, they were not doing anything which was not mirrored by thousands of schools and local authorities throughout the USA. The victims associated with the civil abuses will not see million dollar settlements because the US taxpayer is not to be held liable for the excesses of officials.

I was interviewed by the Arab media solidly for months because I had previously encountered one of the Abu Ghraib people in Arizona. They had one question. What happened to the women at Abu Ghraib? Do we have a Camelot in pictures? Any views on the topic? Added later For example: (1) Did the US simply go into dialogue with itself in relation to the photographs? (2) Was Abu Ghraib 'unamerican' within the context of domestic prisons. (3) What evidence was there to suggest the females were treated differently? (4) Were there any model soldiers (good apples) at Abu Ghraib?

I don't think I promised chapter and verse. I was given a mention (unflattering) by Joe Arpaio in this broadcast. As far as I am aware I have no other connection with DN. http://www.democracynow.org/article.pl?sid=03/04/07/024257 DN are (thought to have) the corporate view that the feminist movement allegedly collapsed because of its opposition to pornography. http://www.hustlingtheleft.com

The right to chose is just an idea, it may be reflected legislatively in some jurisdictions or it might not, in which case abortion may not be allowed. The relationship between abortion and choice is not universal, female feticide in China and India for example is not really about choice. The euthanasia of infants and abortion will possibly be merged in Holland in order to protect doctors who are already doing both. The right to die will ultimately turn into a reality TV show. Gay marriage is probably not something the vast majority of homosexuals will want to do.

New Orleans has had corruption and hence organizational efficiency problems for so long it may as well have been forever. On the other side of the coin the people in Washington DC were knowledgeable of those deficiences. "Meanwhile, more Britons have arrived home with harrowing tales. Gerard Scott, from Merseyside, said police officers had urged women to bare their breasts in return for being rescued." http://www.theherald.co.uk/news/46440.html "[The authorities] said to them, 'Well, show us what you've got' – doing signs for them to lift their T-shirts up. The girls said no, and [the rescuers] said 'well fine,' and motored off down the road in their motorboat. That's the sort of help we had from the authorities," he said. http://worldnetdaily.com/news/article.asp?ARTICLE_ID=46160 Certainly sounds like New Orleans.

The British and Dutch experience of similar flooding is that plans do not live up to expectation on the day. The British invested a large amount of money to protect London. I am not sure how they responded in other parts of the UK. The military handle disasters and the sensible expectation is that the best laid plans will frequently go astray. http://www.open2.net/naturalhistory/1953.html http://www.bbc.co.uk/essex/features/1953_floods/index.shtml http://www.bbc.co.uk/essex/features/1953_f...xperience.shtml

The suspension of teachers in relation to their politics is not something that the teaching unions in Britain have hitherto endorsed. Solihull Council, in a written statement, said: "The conduct of the teacher in the classroom was not in question." Which is more than can be said for the conduct of many teachers who have been able to rely upon the full backing of their associations etc. The NASUWT has a 'Campaign for Anonymity'. The irony will hopefully not be lost should that aspect be debated in the future. The Catholic Church has apparently been given a present endorsed by the DfES to fire & hire with 'disruptive' politics in view. The Green Party (for example) also have very disruptive politics if viewed from a purely Catholic perspective and the precedent is unambiguous.

I have always found that trivial obedience to contrived dress codes has always been important to many of my colleagues but never to me. It is of supreme and hopefully lasting indifference to me what my students wear. I am much more concerned by their brains than their dress.... I tentatively suggest that this is as it should be <{POST_SNAPBACK}> The imposition of a shalwar kameez style of dress code in Britain was inevitable because eccentricity has more friends than commonsense. Modesty precautions should eschew the banning of traditional schoolgirl attire such as skirts. The 'gender free' policy was an arrogant imposition The DfES have been urged by the courts to offer proper advice in relation to the SDA and Human Rights Act, the DfES does not want to do so.

The skirt issue was complicated by the DfES not feeling able to immediately and clearly agree that there was a precise understanding with the EOC. "Current guidance on equal opportunities gives an example of girls being "allowed to wear trousers where they wish to do so" - the implication being that they should also be allowed to wear skirts." & "Just a quick addition to confirm the EOC advice you received , i.e. that the DfES has not sought to encourage the prohibition of skirts (or any other item of clothing for that matter) in school uniforms." It took several weeks to obtain a statement (which could be made public) from the DfES symmetrical to the the EOC understanding of the DfES/EOC dialogue.

Carrie has not been forced to leave this forum. Nor has anyone else. However, there has been a tendency for people with right-wing views to leave the forum while engaged in intellectual debate. I have always assumed that this has got something to do with an inability to argue their case. <{POST_SNAPBACK}> The rehnquistian imperative of states' rights over federal power should not apply to a third world administration in Louisiana. New Orleans has been a cause for despair for more years than I can remember. Corruption was systemic and a fact of life in New Orleans.

The responsibility for the ramshackle and corrupt government which has infested New Orleans for so long has to rest with somebody. I would imagine that the tens of thousands of people earning minimum wages or waiting for welfare checks would be trapped in Pompeii.

Law and order in New Orleans at the best of times has presented difficulties. It would be better for President Chavez to simply send refined oil products at whatever asking price he has in mind.

Sending that lady to jail for five years is a disgrace. In the United Kingdom or Ireland she would probably not have spent a day in jail.

Pregnant women can often be specifically targeted for murder. Homicide is a leading cause of death among pregnant women in the United States. Laws that differentiate between types of victim are not entirely uncommon. Murdering a judge is now a capital crime in Texas (due to legislative change) and shooting a police officer may be viewed similarly etc. The alleged superfluousness or unreasonableness of mandatory and consecutive tariffs for multiple crimes is a different issue.

A cautionary detail to be considered is the fact that we have yet to see a court of law play with the issue by way of solid precedent. The EOC advised they had arranged or negotiated guidance on a DfES website. I then dutifully asked the DfES to confirm that they had indeed arrived at the conclusion suggested by the EOC. From the EOC At the Equal Opportunities Commission our position is that there should be a choice whether girls wear a skirt or trousers, and that it should not be prescribed one way or another. This is reflected in the amendment we secured in the Department for Education and Skills guidance, part of which I am including below: "Schools should ensure that their uniform policy does not discriminate on grounds of gender, for example, girls should normally be allowed to wear trousers. Uniform rules should not disadvantage one gender compared with the other" (DfES Guidelines). From the DfES "Current guidance on equal opportunities gives an example of girls being "allowed to wear trousers where they wish to do so" - the implication being that they should also be allowed to wear skirts." "Just a quick addition to confirm the EOC advice you received , i.e. that the DfES has not sought to encourage the prohibition of skirts (or any other item of clothing for that matter) in school uniforms."

I couldn't agree more. The best way to secure a more rational and peaceful world is to educate all children in secular comprehensive schools. Unfortuntately no such school yet exists in the UK. <{POST_SNAPBACK}> Some French children do not get a school education because of the aggressively secular regime in the French Republic.

A key historical part of Catholics demonstrably wanting little to do with the Northern State was separate schooling. The Department of Education was set up in 1921 and in 1964 the first Northern Ireland Prime Minister visited a Catholic school. What else do you need to know? Integrated schooling is not going to happen in Northern Ireland to any developed extent. The sacraments of First Communion and Confirmation are organized in schools. Catholics do not want teachers giving lessons on how to put condoms on a banana or talking about the mechanics of anal sex.

"If this long island story of ours is to end at last, let it end only when each of us lies choking in his own blood upon the ground." There was a lesson, as history folded over their empire, the rhetoric of resistance became true, and in that adversity the British were like Romans.

I think you mean 'potentially hostile to capitalism' don't you? Let us please have the intelligence to distinguish between peoples and systems. I am sure for instance that Snr Chavez would suport the working class of the USA wholeheartedly. Moreover Chavez is no Mugabe and it is an attempt at an easy cheap political point by you to suggest that he is. Do you have any evidence for your implied slur?? Incidentally do you believe that it is acceptable for the American capitalist elite to organise the assasination of the legtimate leaders of States who may hold challenging views? If so do you also believe that such a course of action could be regarded as consistent with a Christian viewpoint? <{POST_SNAPBACK}> He is hostile to private property and religion when it is not allied to his regime. He is overtly anti-American in the broader sense. Conservatives in the US are more concerned with the Arab world, the Middle East, Iran and North Korea. Communism is not the enemy. The people of the United States will pay the going rate for oil, they don't need a cut-price friendship with Chavez or anybody else. South American countries with policies favourable to US economic interests will be looked upon with a glad eye by President Bush.

Mugabe also believes in land reform, Chávez leads a bloc of radicalism in South America which is potentially hostile to the United States. Ireland offers a successful precedent for the transfer of land to the people. There is no profit in chaos, psychic revenge & wrecking are a poor diet.

It is possible some prosecutions are a little zealous. In Texas it is a feather in the cap of law enforcement to get a teacher. In the UK if a student rapes a teacher it is guaranteed to be front page news, if a teacher uses a child for sex it is page 8. To make the front pages of the British print media the sexual abuse narrative has to be fairly bizarre or particularly vile.

Many allegations relate to circumstances which have no malicious actor. The police often have some empathy with the teachers they investigate. The UK does not really maintain a database of allegations. There are current plans to deliver a vetting system based on convictions and allegations. If teachers in the United Kingdom were to get anonymous status, a campaign in the United States to attach reporting criteria in relation to transfers of criminal intelligence by the FBI would be the inevitable result. The United Kingdom has horrendous examples of teachers being acquitted in circumstances which defy belief. There is little possibility of anonymous status because child protection advocacy has made it clear to the govt. the idea is entirely unacceptable. British advocates have 'fighter cover' in the shape of experts in Washington DC who are a little suspicious about levels of educator misconduct in the UK.

To get this figure he included in his calculations all Soviet citizens. I suppose he would argue that they did not all attend party meetings but not all Jews were active members of their religion. <{POST_SNAPBACK}> The Nazis did not ask people if any of their grandparents were 'historic' communists in order to arrive at the criteria for death. The attitude of the Nazis to Soviet citizens might depend on how badly pressed the military situation had become. The Nazis recruited Soviet citizens for the SS. For example, soldiers from central Asia, the Ukraine and other occupied states took part in the campaign against the Polish resistance in Warsaw in 1944. In the absence of discernable differences, the Nazis used the religious observance of a person's grandparents to determine their "race."

Democracy Now are dispised by many US feminists who are engaged in the anti-war movement.

A.J.P. Taylor could always be relied upon to make a controversial quote. That is why I always enjoy reading his books. You are always aware that he is a historian with a “point of view”. I remember being shocked when he wrote that the Nazis were responsible for killing more communists than Jews. Of course, when you think about it, he is right. It is just that historians don’t usually write like that. Taylor is a good example of a divergent thinker. At times he used this against the left and the right. I suspect that in reality he was close to being an anarchist. <{POST_SNAPBACK}> The Nazis intended to kill every Jew they were able to put on a train or stand in front of a ditch or forest clearing. The early orders to death squad units were to kill functionaries of the Comintern, members of central, district and regional committees, people's commissars and Jews in Party and State positions. Heydrich was not intending to limit the actions to Jewish radicals, the Nazis were anticipating tens of millions of deaths as a consequence of the eastward expansion of the Reich. How did A.J.P. Taylor define 'communist'?