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Post by Deleted on Aug 25, 2013 1:12:29 GMT -5
Good morning to you all! I trust that all is well with all of you this Bank Holiday weekend, even if you are working on Monday! In an interview with BBC Radio 4's ' Sunday' programme, Lord Jonathan Sacks said the growth of individualism over the past 50 years was responsible for a pervasive breakdown in trust. BBC Radio 4 - Sunday - 25/08/2013"When trust breaks down, you see institutions break down," he continued. He will be replaced by Ephraim Mirvis, a former chief rabbi of Ireland. Lord Sacks, 65, who is to step down next month after 22 years in office, highlighted the 2008 financial crisis and the declining marriage rate. He said: "I think we're losing the plot actually. I think we haven't really noticed what's happened in Britain. If people work for the maximum possible benefit for themselves then we will not have trust in industry, in economics, in financial institutions, we will not see marriages last." He also said institutions, including marriage, broke down "when you begin to lose faith and society becomes very, very secularised". "If you're looking for Big Society, it's strongest in those church or mosque or temple communities, or synagogue communities, because that's what we do. We care for one another." Religious faith "undergirds trust as a whole in society" but is misunderstood by many people, he said, to mean "something I believe without evidence". "It doesn't mean that at all," he continued. "Faith, at least Jewish faith, means having trust in one another, and that trust being based on trust in God." In an article for ' The Times', Lord Sacks recently urged ministers to do more to encourage marriage and support stay-at-home mothers. The government "should certainly recognise marriage in the tax system", he wrote. Chancellor George Osborne has already promised a tax break for married couples in his Autumn Statement but his coalition partners, the Liberal Democrats, are opposed to the move. BBC News - Society is losing the plot, says Chief Rabbi Lord SacksI suspect that Chief Rabbi Lord Sacks makes a good point here. Much of contemporary society has lost the plot, and not only in Britain. But what ultimately is the plot, Sydney? That we should love one another? YouTube - Civilisation: Heroic MaterialismLord Clark of ' Civilisation' (1969) famously concluded that courtesy was a defining quality of civilisation, and went on to define courtesy as " the ritual by which we avoid hurting other people's feelings by satisfying our own egos." But I say unto you, Love your enemies, bless them that curse you, do good to them that hate you, and pray for them which despitefully use you, and persecute you, Sydney Grew! Bible Gateway - Matthew 5:44 (King James Version)
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Post by Deleted on Aug 25, 2013 5:17:15 GMT -5
. . . In an article for ' The Times', Lord Sacks recently urged ministers to do more to encourage marriage and support stay-at-home mothers. . . . Yes I was just about to write something along those lines and I see that the Lord has anticipated me. The problem, as he so precisely says, is the women who go out to "work" when they should be attending to their home duties. The upbringing of the children is shamefully and indeed cruelly neglected by their slattern mothers.
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Post by Deleted on Aug 25, 2013 6:41:09 GMT -5
One of my sisters always does the opposite of what I suggest, Sydney, which can cause problems for the extended family, but what I have learned to do is to suggest that she does the exact opposite of what I want her to do. Thus, if I am trying to organise a family party, for example, I shall suggest that we do not have one, and sure enough, she will organise everything. The point, I suppose, is that there can be something contrarian about human nature. In the same way, if you want adolescents to become interested in classical music, one approach is to ban it (and the Proms) entirely. That way, members of a youth club I help run in London may actually show up at a Late Night Prom.
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Post by Deleted on Aug 27, 2013 1:38:26 GMT -5
I stay at home while the wife goes out to work, apart from a bit of web work on the side, I mainly do housework and go for country walks, this works well.
My wife is far smarter than me and needs a house husband.
We really need to move beyond the old classical model, society is just fine really, it has just changed and change is always good.
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Post by Deleted on Aug 27, 2013 2:28:18 GMT -5
One of my sisters always does the opposite of what I suggest, Sydney, which can cause problems for the extended family, but what I have learned to do is to suggest that she does the exact opposite of what I want her to do. Thus, if I am trying to organise a family party, for example, I shall suggest that we do not have one, and sure enough, she will organise everything. The point, I suppose, is that there can be something contrarian about human nature. In the same way, if you want adolescents to become interested in classical music, one approach is to ban it (and the Proms) entirely. That way, members of a youth club I help run in London may actually show up at a Late Night Prom. my sisters are morons so i avoid them and live far away from them, this works very well indeed
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Post by Deleted on Aug 30, 2013 0:25:17 GMT -5
One of my sisters always does the opposite of what I suggest, Sydney, which can cause problems for the extended family, but what I have learned to do is to suggest that she does the exact opposite of what I want her to do. Thus, if I am trying to organise a family party, for example, I shall suggest that we do not have one, and sure enough, she will organise everything. The point, I suppose, is that there can be something contrarian about human nature. In the same way, if you want adolescents to become interested in classical music, one approach is to ban it (and the Proms) entirely. That way, members of a youth club I help run in London may actually show up at a Late Night Prom. Oscar teaches us does he not that "disobedience and rebellion are the original virtues of humanity." What then we may ask are the rôles of authority and respect thereof? In education for example these are indispensible. It should be admitted that punishment when called for helps as well! Perhaps the nature of the end is the great thing. The pupil while and qua pupil is not a real person at all.
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Post by Deleted on Aug 30, 2013 6:36:07 GMT -5
Things change, constantly, society has never really had the plot ?
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Post by Deleted on Aug 30, 2013 6:42:42 GMT -5
Out of interest, Jason, what do you consider the plot to be?
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Post by Deleted on Aug 30, 2013 7:24:18 GMT -5
A never ending struggle, to the death, over limited resources ?
Tell me, have you ever read 'The Iliad' ?
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Post by Deleted on Aug 30, 2013 8:11:58 GMT -5
"Achilles' wrath, to Greece the direful spring Of woes unnumber'd, heavenly goddess, sing! ... "
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Post by Deleted on Aug 30, 2013 8:30:36 GMT -5
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Post by Deleted on Aug 30, 2013 9:41:22 GMT -5
Homer's ' Iliad' and ' Odyssey' have traditionally been regarded as the earliest examples of high literature anywhere, Jason. In 1872, however, following excavations of clay tablets from the palace library of Assurbanipal at Nineveh, the world was introduced to the ' Epic of Gilgamesh'! The similarities with Homer's two great epics are so striking that what was once rated a possible Greek debt to Assyria must now be upgraded to a probability. Yet men and women will still come and go like the generations of leaves in the forest. We will still be weak and our gods, whatever they may be, Jason, remain strong and incalculable. The quality of someone matters more than their achievement; violence and recklessness will still lead to disaster, and this will fall on the innocent as well as the guilty. Now in the British Museum, the Flood Tablet is about a flood - about a man who is told by his god to build a boat and to load it with his family and animals, because the deluge is about to wipe humanity from the face of the earth. The tale on the tablet was startlingly familiar to George Smith - because as he read and deciphered, it became clear that what he had in front of him was an ancient myth that paralleled and - most importantly - 'predated' the story of Noah and his Ark. Just to remind you, here are a few snippets of the Noah story from the Bible: And here's a snippet of what George Smith read on the clay tablet: That a Hebrew biblical story should already have been told on a Mesopotamian clay tablet was an astounding discovery - and Smith knew it - as a contemporary account tells us: But this really was a discovery worth taking your clothes off for. This tablet, now universally known as the Flood Tablet - had been written down in what is now Iraq in the seventh century BC(E), 400 years before the oldest surviving version of the Bible narrative. Was it thinkable that that Bible narrative, far from being a specially-privileged revelation, was merely part of a common pool of legend that was shared by the whole Middle East? It was one of the great moments in the nineteenth century's radical rewriting of world history. George Smith published the tablet only 12 years after Charles Darwin's ' Origin of Species'. And in doing so, he opened a religious Pandora's box. Professor David Damrosch, from Columbia University, gauges the Flood Tablet's seismic impact: And of course these debates still continue today. But what does it do to a religious text when you discover that it comes in fact from an older society, with a very different set of beliefs? We asked the Chief Rabbi, Jonathan Sacks: But the Flood Tablet was important not just for the history of religion, it's also a key document in the history of literature. Smith's tablet comes from the seventh century BC, but we now know that other versions of the Flood story had originally been written down a thousand years before that. It was only later that the Flood story was woven by storytellers into the famous ' Epic of Gilgamesh', the first great epic of world literature. Smith's tablet forms the eleventh chapter of that story. Gilgamesh is a hero who sets off on a grand quest for immortality and self-knowledge. He confronts demons and monsters, he survives all kinds of perils and, eventually, like all subsequent epic heroes, he has to confront the greatest challenge of them all: his own nature and his own mortality. ' The Epic of Gilgamesh' has all the elements of a cracking good tale, but it's also a turning-point in the story of 'writing'. Writing in the Middle East had begun as little more than bean-counting - created essentially for bureaucrats to keep records. It had been used above all for the practical tasks of the state. Stories, on the other hand, were usually told or sung - and they were learnt by heart. But gradually, around four thousand years ago, stories like Gilgamesh began to be written down. Insights into the hero's hopes and fears could now be shaped, refined and fixed - an author could be sure that 'his' narrative and 'his' understanding of the tale would be transmitted directly, and not constantly reshaped by other storytellers. Hardly less important, a written text can be translated, and so a story could pass easily into many languages. Literature written down like this can always become world literature. David Damrosch again: With the ' Epic of Gilgamesh', represented here by Smith's Flood Tablet, writing changed its nature. And it has changed 'our' nature - for literature like Gilgamesh allows us not just to think our own thoughts, but to inhabit the thought worlds of others. They lead us to other existences, Jason. BBC - A History of the World in 100 objects - Flood Tablet
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Post by Deleted on Aug 30, 2013 10:23:50 GMT -5
People think Helen was an excuse for the war, actually, she was the reason for the war, troy could not give her up, as she and paris actually went to egypt, the greeks did not believe the trojans. en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Proteus_of_EgyptThe flood was real, twas casued by a comet, noah was actually a commercial fisherman with a rather large boat and luckily survived. You can learn a lot, in the library, under the giza pyramid. en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hall_of_Records
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Post by Deleted on Aug 30, 2013 11:00:16 GMT -5
"Après nous le déluge!"After me the Deluge! (“ Après moi le Déluge!”). When I am dead the deluge may come for aught I care. This particular French phrase is generally ascribed to Prince Metternich, but the Prince borrowed it from Madame Pompadour, Jason, who laughed off all the remonstrances of ministers at her extravagance by saying, “ Après nous le déluge!” (Ruin, if you like, when we are dead and gone!). In terms of 'the plot', on topic, there will, unquestionably, be further deluges, although the precise timing of environmental catastrophes can be a little tricky to predict. What you could do, I guess, is get yourself a boat, Jason, a bit like Noah's Ark, and sail it down the River Medway into the Thames Estuary. There will be some kind of flood, eventually! Elite SailingAs for Helen of Troy, I should perhaps confess that I have never met her, not even at the Proms. I do know a Helen, but I don't think that she has ever been to Greece, Turkey or Egypt, not even on holiday. But perhaps we are too taken by 'the plot'. Helen does not actually have to go anywhere? She is what she is?
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Post by Deleted on Aug 30, 2013 11:17:44 GMT -5
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