MC on JC - Mel Cooper on Jeremy Corbyn

RABBI EPHRAIM MIRVIS          LABOUR LEADER JEREMY CORBYN

Mel Cooper on Jeremy Corbyn

 MC on JC

I have been watching Jeremy Bore-byn and Andrew Neill. I think that the press is overdoing the Car Crash interpretation of the interview, but I do have my misgivings about it. I can see why he feels he needn’t actually “apologise” to the Jewish Community, at one level. That is the level of not accepting or believing or noticing that the Labour Party has become more overtly anti-Semitic under his leadership which everyone else seems to have spotted.

On the other hand, if EVERYONE is telling him they are worried and alarmed and 87% of Jews don’t trust him, maybe he needs to think about being so scrupulous about insisting he has no need to apologise? Also, he has spent decades talking to people like Hamas, Hezbollah and the IRA to name a few, and calling them his “friends”. For Jews, it is very simple: at least some of his most prominent friends insist that they are committed to wiping Israel off the face of the earth and driving all Jews that live there into the Dead Sea. He may argue this is only hyperbole, but it does make this Jew uneasy.

Also he has been invited by the Labour Party of Israel to come and talk to them. He says that he only talks to the others because everyone must talk. And I can understand not wanting to talk to that Brooklyn Thug who runs the country, Benjamin NetanYahoo. But then how does he justify not talking to the left wing people in Israel to get dialogues going? He not only has not accepted their invitation, he has never even answered it. And … How does he justify 3 years of not kicking Ken Livingstone out of the party when the man was interpreting the history of the 1930s in Germany as being essentially supportive of Zionism? That is a pretty weird interpretation, all things considered. And in the end Livingstone was not disciplined by the Labour party itself, instead he resigned to save the Labour Party further embarrassment. There is something there that just doesn’t add up.

My conclusion about Corbyn is that essentially he likes to be a bystander who complains about what everyone he is observing is doing wrong. It is a weird kind of superiority complex. it makes his act calm and avuncular, but I sense some pretty potent hostility in him as well. And ultimately I think the explanation to Corbyn may be a very simple one — he is just not all that smart. He lacks serious, in-depth intelligence. He is, ultimately a lightweight. So though I would agree with people that say that there is a right-wing press unfair attack mode in place against him; that the right-wing press rather overdoes it; I am also seeing some very uneasy-making things about his leadership and his opinions. I find him rather tricky, too.

Finally, he says all the right things to please his constituency, and they happen to be left wing right things. But he does not seem to have a definable position on anything, so it makes me uneasy that he is either without integrity - or that he is hiding his real positions. All in all, I just do not trust him any more than I do Boris Johnson, that other bore. The trouble with Corbyn on Neil’s show last night was also that it was totally predictable. Not one answer that was a surprise, not one reaction that was new or unusual. They called her the Maybot. But Jeremy comes across to me as the Cor-bot a lot of the time, equally with Boris never going off script.

Vote Lib Dem1!!

**********

Dear Mel,

Of course JC is no Jesus Christ, and will save none of us.

 It’s the combination of:

• His personal ineffectiveness - he does really appear to be the  hard-core Labour marionette
• His lack of dynamism and charisma (like him or loathe him, these are not accusations you can level at BJ)
• His inability to hold his party together so as to able to compete effectively in this General Election
• His attitude (wilful or stupidly negligent, there can be other possible explanation) towards antisemitism
• His up-in-the-clouds, though probably well-meaning, set of policies in the Labour Manifesto, several of which hark back to the days of totalitarian communism, which (perhaps he hasn't yet realised) led to tyranny, poverty, colonial expansion and - antisemitism - hm,  I might be going over-the-top on this one
• His unacceptability as a coalition, or less formal, partner in the eyes of the other parties - which has prevented a coordinated campaign to keep BJ out of No 10 (a place that he, BJ, was never elected to except by a few thousand Con members, and whose previous political and personal life make him unfit to inhabit).
• His inability to see that all of the above appear to be handing over the government to the Cons for yet another 5 years.  We know the havoc they will wreak on the country - politically, socially, economically - with the promise of ‘Getting Brexit Done’ as the most shameful lie of all, as it is transpicuous that we will have to wait for perhaps a decade or more for this to happen.

 More in anger than in sorrow,

Brian

OUTGROWING GOD by Richard Dawkins - A CONUNDRUM

OUTGROWING  GOD

To: Richard Dawkins Foundation For Reason And Science,

1012 14th St Nw, Washington, DC 20005-3403

25th November 2019

Dear Professor Dawkins,

OUTGROWING GOD – my question.

I wholly support your central message in OUTGROWING GOD. For mankind’s (and woman kind's) next evolutionary phase, primitive assumptions and practices need to be outgrown. We do need to grow up.

Your book, however, consciously leaves a void that purpose and reason might fill. For example, the chapter ‘Bottom Up or Top Down’ is a robust re-assertion of Darwinian evolution. It particularly stresses the random nature of nature and the universe, evolving over billions of years; allowing plenty of time for everything and anything to happen randomly and accidentally. 

The chapter asserts that individual and collective termites are not aware of any design for their mud-built intricate and efficient termite hills. We cannot really know the minds of termites unless we become one of them. But from my lofty position as an individual human and part of the collective human species, I can accept that humans are capable of “knowing” more than termites and other Earthly species. When I design and build a human home, I like to imagine I have a conscious plan and a purpose. Am I deluded?

Religion and science both tell us that we are, as far as we and our scientific instruments know, the pinnacle of universal evolution. As one of the 7 billion surviving humans, however flawed in design I may be, I have more insight and information about my state of being than into any other species or objects. So, logically I should first examine my own being.

My conundrum concerning the philosophy in your book is: Where is the threshold between the vast majority of randomly evolved creatures and objects, deemed to be unconscious and not designed; and our purposely, intelligently designed human tools and objects?

For example, the computer and internet I am using to create and send this message, has not, you might agree, come into being by a series of random, purposeless events, even over billions of years. It is a product of our human-collective intelligence and consciousness. Nor is its existence purposeless; we have purposes for our tools. Our aeroplanes, electronics, vehicles and thousands of other complex tools are designed by us. 

We are deliberate and purposeful inventors, designers and makers. If we, as natural products of Earth, are the resulting survivors of random and accidental events, of selfish genes, particle-collisions, brainless fertilised eggs, multiplying cells, Blastula and Gastrula, at what stage or threshold in our evolution did we acquire, by random-selection, the abilities to invent, design and manufacture purposeful objects? If the threshold is indefinable, an alternative is to propose that the materials from which I am constructed – which can be backward-engineered to the plasma at the (alleged) Big-Bang - might have those qualities.

This is a genuine query, not a mischievous trap, a cunning-plan, to bring you to God. (Unless you’d like to buy from me a £1 million, guaranteed passport to Heaven). I am not a believer. I am a lapsed Roman Catholic. I read and embrace science. Like you, I questioned and rejected my religious brain-washing from the age of 6 to 16. Some religions do include some profound wisdom and valid social guidance. Now, at 77 next, as the insurance companies put it, I have no “faith” but I still search for sensible answers to the big-questions. Your provocative books, papers and lectures offer signposts on my road to enlightenment.

PS – I have a tentative concept about how gravity works, as contrasted with what gravity does. Gravity etc: LIFE, THE UNIVERSE, AND EVERYTHING

Regards – Noel Hodson

********

Dear Noel, 

Your email to Richard Dawkins provoked me to pen the thoughts below:

I too rejected religion during my formative years.  I saw through the humbug.

I have long been an avid reader of Richard Dawkins, and agree with much of what he says.  On religion, I side with him in denying the very basis of what is preached, seeing myth, superstition and often powerfully-enforced persuasion at the core.

I cannot ignore -

·        the stifling authoritarian approach: such as the Inquisition and Papal infallibility (a mid-nineteenth century invention, this latter one),

·        the many grand-scale cruelties inflicted in the name of religion: such as genocide, crusade, jihad, auto-da-fé, torture and imprisonment (not that such activities are limited to religious groups),

·        the grabbing of temporal as well as spiritual power if and when the situation permits: permitting control over mind as well as body – such as the Holy Roman Empire, the Caliphates, and (one might add) Communism: and on a small scale,  the many weird modern sects founded by money-, power- and sex-seeking maniacs,

·        the intolerance of many, if not all, competing religions or sects,

·        the stifling of knowledge outside the teachings of the religion or sect: such as restricting the right of reading or interpreting holy books to the priesthood, and the burning of “unholy” books,

·        the unnecessary intrusions into people’s lives, such as controlling the rights to marry, to divorce, to procreate, to prevent procreation, to abort an unwanted pregnancy, to decide which foods can or cannot be eaten, and even to switch a light bulb on or off on a holy day.

·        the uncaring rigidity of approach, such as refusing blood transfusions to a dying person or abortion in a case of rape

·        the child abuses and similar egregious betrayals of trust by the priesthoods, which in many cases could be attributed to restricting the priesthood to men.

·        the apparent ease with which religion can be taken to excess, either by individual priests or laypersons.  All religions and sects seem to provide a fertile breeding ground (usually, but not always, limited to a fringe of extremists) for outrageous and even violent speech and actions.  I have not yet come across an extreme atheist, someone who will rant or kill in the name of atheism.  As to agnostics, I’m not sure.

And, let’s not forget -

·        the patent idiocies: such as denial of the earth’s roundness and insistence of its central place in the universe, etc.  And the belief in miracles, saints, angels, cherubs, walking on water, riding up to heaven on a white horse (from the principal revered site of another religion) … the list is long and risible.  One could only wish that all religions could admit that many of their “truths” are mere storytelling like the Nibelungenlied, tales of the Olympian gods or Tolkien’s Middle Earth.  Ah, for the intellectual honesty of David Jenkins, former Bishop of Durham, who admitted not to believe in the Virgin Birth!

On the other hand:

·        there have been and undoubtedly still are, many leaders and practitioners of religion who have acted in humility, possessed an open mind, were considerate of other people, gave of themselves, and who have been/are remarkable and admirable individuals.

·        significant benefits can arise from the act of people coming together in communal activities, of which a religious service is merely one type.

·        people who possess the right personal qualities and attitudes can indeed dispense wisdom and compassion (although members of religious sects are not the only ones qualified to do so).

But none of these require the existence of religion.  A person does not need to be a follower of a religion to be kind, considerate, and helpful to those in need, or to be personally at peace in the knowledge of his or her ultimate fate: just being the right type of human being is sufficient to permit these attitudes and actions.

Wrapping advice on social and personal issues in shrouds of mystery, as well as controlling believers with earthly punishments and post-life threats, seem to be the way that most religions control their followers.  Individuals may like these things, but others should be free to choose not to.

The problem boils down to this:

A spiritual aspect to our lives can be uplifting and helpful to us human beings, with our need for psychological and emotional stability in the face of the constant threats of war, famine, poverty, illness, loneliness, and, above all, the one certainty of life: its inevitable end.  But organised religions have not proved they can be trusted to deliver the uplifting aspects of life without also bringing in the negative, temporal aspects of their organisations.

It is a truth universally acknowledged (certainly by me) that religions tend to seek temporal as well as spiritual influence.  They need to organise, they need hierarchies to a lesser or greater extent, they need to teach/indoctrinate their members about the beliefs and practices of their sect, they need to show that they are superior to competing religions, they need money, they need properties, they need to engage in marketing (confirmatory messages to believers and proselytising messages to others).  In short, they are in many respects no different from other large organisations, be they state, commercial or philanthropic.  One could go further, and say that much of the teaching of each sect is aimed at denigrating other sects in order to bolster support for their own, and this bleeds into the purity of their essential messages (which, at their best, would be simple messages of harmony, peace, kindness, etc).

But it is the temporal aspects of religions that are the greatest problems associated with them, the cause of their usual failure to achieve their primary purpose of improving the lot of mankind, and the reason they need to be restricted in their right and ability to impose themselves on the unbelieving and the unwilling.

BEN

ENTANGLED PARTICLES - Spooky Action at a Distance - explained.

Not yet in print. Coming soon.

My new, amusing novel ‘Isaac Newton’s 21^st Century Entanglement’ is in the process of being published. It is humorous but is based on the serious physics of particle entanglement – Einstein’s “Spooky Action at a Distance”. 

This consensus science avers that two subatomic particles, usually created from a single particle or energetic event, might fly apart but remain in communication and affect each other over distances. In experiments, Entangled Particles are often two photons, which separate at the speed of light, and even if they go to opposite sides of the universe, they are always in contact – and affect, mirror, each other’s state or behaviour. 

The novel takes this proven process and employs it as a mechanism for time-travel. After all, it is a Sci-Fi novel.

Over the past year, the physics of entanglement has particularly occupied my attention. Theoretically, if two photons fly to the opposite horizons of the universe, both at the “speed” of light, they separate at twice the speed of light. We all know that such speed is banned and deemed impossible by Einstein’s Relativity and Feynman’s QED. “Nothing travels faster than light”. However, experiments in PE, Particle Entanglement, demonstrate that PE is real; they do affect each other, seemingly instantaneously, via a mysterious communication; Einstein’s spooky action at a distance i.e. faster than light.

I’ve proposed a mechanism that causes gravity – an equally mysterious force that operates between objects, it seems, over any distance. Science does not propose that gravity operates faster than light. But are there common factors? I take the question back to the primary particles – photons. My gravity idea requires that photons have slight mass.

A photon is a quantum particle of light which “travels” or more correctly which propagates, at 300,000 km per second in particles and waves (wavicles). I think that photons are never alone. When energy creates or releases a photon, at the location of creation, at the energetic event, is a globe – not a gun that fires a photon bullet. On  a larger scale – e.g. The North Star, the radiation that tells us the star exists is a globe. Fly around the star, North, South, East or West, and it will be seen as a globe. The radiation is emanating in globular rings - spheres, moving towards our eyes or instruments. A single, none globular photon does not exist. What is created is a wave. Even at the power of just one-photon, it is a wavicle, moving out into space as a globe. Wherever our eyes intercept that sphere, or vice-verse, we “see” a particle, a photon – a quantum packet of energy. But it is not a separate minuscule ball of light. It is an energetic wave broadcasting the presence of the object, be it a star or a sub-atomic event.

Let’s take a single small light-bulb. The filament is heated by pumping through electricity. It glows and radiates a sphere. I’m thinking that where the outer-sphere touches any object there is an electron exchange/ reaction, be it with a dust particle or a substantial object. Where the sphere touches /intercepts – Here-Be-Photons. The sphere is the wave – propagating at light-speed – it does not consist of photons, it is “pure” energy; but at any point that collides with any foreign body – the collision focuses or draws the  energy to that point. So, the sphere appears to be made of photons. But it is not – until it intercepts.

To account for the quantum (a precise quantity of stuff - usually very tiny), imagine the filament emanates continuous light, in waves, in peaks and troughs, in spheres. These spheres are propagating a quantum distance apart – maybe the Planck length and time. 

Touch or examine the spheres – perhaps with another sphere of radiation or with your finger – and at the intersection we find a photon. Rather like those toy-globes of static electricity, full of lightning, that responds to your fingers moving over the glass. So, any interception on any point on the sphere is a photon. 

We, the experimenters, want to see twin photons moving apart? We generate an event with the power of a single-photon in a black, blank space. A sphere forms at the event. It expands. It is an expanding sphere. We test the right-hand-side and find a photon. We test the left hand-side and find another photon. We see two photons, very close together, generated from one-event. We track both photons. Unknown to us, they are focuses of the pure-energy of the expanding sphere. The sphere is the permanent energy, the photons are ephemeral. They manifest only when we look. They manifest every-time we look /intercept /examine them.

We cannot see the sphere – we only see the photons. They each move apart (as the sphere expands) at the speed of light. There is nothing in science we know of that can communicate on the straight line between the twins. They appear to be separate but are actually products of the same expanding sphere. They are moving apart at the speed of light – or (heresy) even faster. We spin or charge or otherwise affect one of the twins; it isn’t real and permanent, the sphere is the reality. We are affecting the entire sphere. 

The 2^nd twin we have identified is altered by our impact on the 1^st photon. It probably shows an equal and opposite reaction to maintain the integrity and energy-balance of the sphere. We are playing with Entangled Particles. The same causes and outcomes would be true for other entangled sub-atomic particles. Where we identify twins – there are in fact multitudes. The particles are legion. They are everywhere we care to look. ALL the particles on a sphere are entangled. Tweak one and the sphere changes – and changes all the particles we can find on that sphere.  

It gets a little complicated when we consider the endless procession of quantum separated spheres - generated from a light-bulb by the energy input, usually electricity. It is easier to have just one sphere - but there are in fact trillions, broadcasting from every object of every size. That is how we detect them, how we detect all "things" - by their reflected or internally generated energy.

Now – Choose a spot of intergalactic “empty” space. Many light years outside the Milky Way Galaxy – a lonely black empty sphere – of, say, the size of Earth’s Moon. But empty. Nothing there. However – set up detecting instruments and point them at the centre of the galaxy. The instruments will detect trillions of energetic events – from particle collisions to collisions of solar-systems. They all broadcast their activities as energetic spheres. All the sphere’s intersect. At the myriad intersections we see particles. Our instruments – say, the human eye, can see the whole of the universe – communicated via the expanding spheres – separated by quantum distances and times. What we cannot “see” yet, is the medium that supports or builds the sphere’s. We are blind to the spheres, which are the structure of the universe. We do not know what they are made of (Dark Matter? – Dark Energy?). But they are there. There is no such thing as Empty-Space. We are, I’m afraid, back to the Victorian’s Aether. I call it the Aether-Matrix.

This idea ties into my theory of what gravity is – as distinct from what gravity does.

http://noelhodson.blogspot.com/2019/10/gravity-cosmic-web.html

Friday, 4 October 2019

GRAVITY & THE COSMIC WEB

MORE: Follow the label "Gravity" below. It's quite a long read. But worth the trouble.

GURKHA KUKRI KNIFE WW2 - LOST

Memorial Sunday 10th November 2019, reminds us that my wife's father, Gurkha Captain Durham Frank Mallalieu (Derry Mallalieu) died in 1975, at his then Ock Street, Abingdon address. 

In World War 2, he was an engineer officer who fought with the Gurkhas against the Japanese. After the war he was known, renowned, for rebuilding and racing classic Bugatti's and Bentley's in the UK and USA. His own hand-made, hill-climber Bentley-Special recently sold for £40,000 at Bonhams. 

Derry owned a Kukri Gurkha knife, inscribed "Captain D F Mallalieu", with a dark brown scabbard. This important family momento was lost in one of the removals when his widow moved home, to Yorkshire, then to Oxford.

Such knives are not valuable (£50 - £100) - but we would like to recover it and pass it on to Derry's grandchildren. It will be languishing in a cupboard or tea-chest. somewhere in Britain. If you find it please contact his daughter.  Pauline Hodson - nee Mallalieu - 16 Brookside - Oxford OX3 7PJ - Tel 01865 764520 email pauline.hodson@btconnect.com 

Thank you. 

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THE DREAMS BEARERS Part One : City of Dreams

THE DREAMS BEARERS

Part One : City of Dreams 

City of Dreams by Mel Cooper

Mel Cooper has written excellent essays on this blog, about Brexit and on other political issues. 

This week he has published a novel, probably, I guess, based on his own family's journeys to escape from the Russian Pogroms; from 1890, through decades in Vienna and eventually onto Toronto. 

It is a vivid, beautifully written story with talented heroes and heroines who would grace the pages of Tolstoy or Dostoevsky. 

Mel tutors on and is an authority on theater and opera. Some of his characters are thespians, actors in wonderful European theaters painted and animated by Mel. The style of this book, relying on complex and subtle dialogue must inevitably lead to a stage production and a film. 

His deep knowledge of  the real history of village and city Jewish life and of the literature and the underlying religious philosophy, gently illuminates the stories; adding a spiritual dimension to the rich dramas, failures and successes of his intriguing and talented characters.

Will they all live happily ever-after? Battling against persistent anti-Semitism, I doubt it; though this author is generous enough to wish them all well.

I am very much enjoying reading it on my Kindle and will be first in the queue when the printed copies hit the shelves at Blackwell's, Oxford - now Mel's home city. 

Who will be first to sign up the film-rights?  - Noel Hodson - Blogger

*******

WHO IS MEL COOPER?

Mel Cooper at his Oxford home.

Canadian-born Mel Cooper first came to the UK to study English Literature at Oxford and stayed, captivated by the culture and history of the welcoming and tolerant society of Britain. After working in highly illustrated, non-fiction publishing for over a decade, he founded and edited the magazine Opera Now. Since then he has worked as a consultant to the Japanese broadcaster NHK, a broadcaster on British Satellite Broadcasting, a program maker and arts critic for several airlines through the InFlight company, and as one of the team that started Britain’s first commercial classical music radio station, Classic FM, on which he was both a classical music DJ and creator and presenter of shows like Classic America and Authentic Performance. Throughout this period and beyond, he also lectured in music and literature in London and Oxford, published short stories in Canada, and wrote arts journalism for various magazines and web sites. After working with the Genesis Foundation on helping to fund arts projects, he continues to write, review and lecture on music and literature. His first novel has just been published as an e-book. The title is City of Dreams. It is the first volume of a projected saga called The Dream Bearers. You can find the Kindle version of the book on Amazon.

https://www.amazon.co.uk/City-Dreams-Dream-Bearers-Book-ebook/dp/B07ZMDKWYY/ref=sr_1_1?keywords=mel+cooper+city&qid=1572621694&sr=8-1