30 March 2011
C A quiet day. Jane the ‘sheep’ came as usual at lunchtime for a couple of hours and we were able to go through a large bundle of attachments to the dentists defence. Most of it was dental records etc and there was virtually nothing new in it that we had not dealt with before. However, Jane is now be in a position to write her short note about what went on, and, more particularly, what forms she signed on my behalf. It’s rather bad luck on her to get involved in something like this but under the circumstances, it cannot be helped. In any event, it is fortunate that Jane is of a like mind with me that where injustice exists, and, in particular, were elderly people might be being exploited, then this must be fought.
Jane recently attended a gathering of ladies interested in spinning wool .. Her expertise for years has been rare sheep and washing, combing and spinning wool, so I’m sure she was a great help to these enthusiasts. Indeed, I suggested it might be something she could develop as there are obviously a great number of this small groups of dedicated ladies, dotted about the country, who are determined to keep this ancient craft alive. Alice first met Jane when we had to farm out two of our orphan sheep about which one of our neighbours complained were making too much noise. They were obviously not attuned to the sounds of the country. She even complained once about the leaves from our trees blocking her gutters in the autumn. Fortunately, it did not take her too long for her to realise that she would feel far more at home in a town. .
On the world front of disasters we hear little now of what is happening in New Zealand, although the last we heard was that the ultimate death rate could be around 30,000 with something like 200,000 other people. displaced.
The situation in Japan is becoming more serious by the day with radiation leaking into the ocean and turning up, albeit in a weakened form, far afield in other countries. There still exists. the danger that the residents of Tokyo and surrounding cities are exposed to radiation thousands of times higher than is safe and then heaven knows what happens to this country and its economy and therefore the effect on the economy.. on the rest of us. That is, of course, leaving aside the horrors of the effect on the population, which, in the short run, is far more important. A very worrying scenario and one which is making all of the Western world,. considering the building more nuclear power stations, to increase the protection against similar disasters.
The third concern, on the international front, is what is happening in Libya. What started as a ‘fly-free zone’ seems to have developed into intervention on the ground and even suggestions that the ‘rebels’ be armed by the Western world, but with a cautionary whisper from some quarters that they may well be infiltrated by Al Qaeda. Similar uprisings are continuing in other parts of the Middle East, but most of them seem minor compared with the Libyan situation and, at present, appear to be being controlled by the governing party by offers of more freedom of speech and varying moves towards some form of democracy. Whether or not these relaxations ever take place. I think is another matter.. However, this does beg the question and if any of these states start getting heavy with the protesters, like mowing them down with machine guns, do we stand back and say this is their business or do we get involved?. As I’ve said before, a truly difficult moral dilemma. I would like to think we would always get involved. but then would we find ourselves in another Iraq or Afghanistan situation? My solution would be to have a large standing army under the auspices of the United Nations, at least on standby, which could moved into such situations and hopefully sort them out very quickly before they escalated into a long-term terrorist battles and being multinational. this would hopefully deny the offending country the opportunity of claiming that they were being invaded by a foreign power.
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