February Cold

February 27, 2023 / aggiemurch / 3 Comments

Recorded by WSM knit together by MAM

When in August 2021 western Military forces withdrew from Afghanistan, a plane-load of dogs was evacuated from the country leaving even less room for those Afghani families who had helped the allied troops during the war. Today in the UK an estimated 9,000 Afghans are still living in temporary accommodation in hotels along the Bayswater Road. Some settling occurred. Jobs were found, low-paying and under the table for sure; children went to school and learned English along with math as they began to make a new life. Now the British government plans to move these families to Yorkshire. It won’t even be the same English.

Rumor has it – via The Daily Mail – that Boris Johnson has made over five million quid since leaving office as Prime Minister, not a bad haul for a bumbling bear. And with that – (offers accepted at over four million) – his offer has been accepted on a manor house – with a moat. But the moat only runs around three sides of the house so it won’t do a lot of good when the people finally come for him. He may think he is safe in Oxfordshire, but outside of the university Quad, there are country folk who know what he has done.

As Polly Toynbee writes in The Guardian, the true legacy of Boris Johnson is that dishonesty is standard, the Commons has lost sight of the truth. The former leader’s disregard for truthfulness emboldens others happy to follow his example, knowing the system rarely holds them to account.

Nicola Sturgeon is stepping down as First Minister of Scotland. This is a big blow for the independence movement she has championed for her entire political career. Nicola, recognized in the western world, like Angela, by her first name, is a deeply respected politician. Her daily briefings through the Covid pandemic were a relief to everyone in the British Isles. When mistakes were made by her politicians, the retribution was swift. Nicola’s level of honesty was never equaled in the English government and only highlighted the ‘let the bodies pile up’ leadership south of the border. Though there may be plenty of young politicians coming up through the Scottish ranks, the question of Scotland’s independence remains in deadlock. Nicola insisted that her decision to step down was anchored in what she felt was “Right for the country, for my party, and the independence cause I have devoted my life to.”

Nicola Sturgeon Photograph: Xinhua/Rex/Shutterstock

Russian President Vladimir Putin thought he had Alexei Navalny ‘done and dusted’ when last year Navalny was sentenced to 20 plus years in jail. For a few months, Putin could allow himself a grin and a chuckle thinking of all the lost years of family and political life that Navalny would endure. If Navalny did survive the sentence, Putin could hope that he would emerge a husk – a broken man. But this month that grin turned tight-lipped. The documentary film Navalny was nominated for both a British BAFTA and the American Oscar Awards. And on Sunday it won the British BAFTA for the best documentary film.

Navalny won the BAFTA for best documentary in Feb 2023.

However, the Bulgarian investigative journalist Christo Grozev, who features in the film Navalny was, along with his family, banned from attending the ceremony in London due to a public security risk. In the film, Grozev and his fellow journalists tracking the poisoning of Navalny clearly show the Russian States’ involvement. Pushing the blame hockey puck around the stadium, the British Metropolitan police force said that while it could not comment on the safety of an individual or advice given to them, it was “absolutely concerned” with the “hostile intentions of foreign states” on UK soil. And they have a point. The finger of accusation points straight northeast to Russia with the successful poisoning of Alexander Litvinenko and the botched attempt on Sergei Scribal and his daughter Yulia that killed a British woman, Dawn Sturgess, in error. All this, mind you, when the aforementioned past Prime Minister Boris Johnson gave a cozy seat to the Russian newspaper mogul (owning among other things the Evening Standard) Lord Lebedev, in 2020. A heavy sum supporting the Conservative party was added to their coffers. I can’t get the image out of my mind of a snake charmer playing his flute as his pet cobra rises in the woven basket of his hiding.

But the Met Office truth remains that “the situation that journalists face around the world, and the fact that some journalists face the hostile intentions of foreign states whilst in the UK, is a reality. Which begs the next question, How will the American academy respond to the nomination of #Navalny? Navalny knows this film is his cross on Calvary and that he may be the one who does not make it down from the Hill. Havel made it through – Mandela made it through – will Navalny?

Found lying on the streets of Bucharest 1999 by Walter Slater Murch and Dei Reynolds. Looked to be used by someone homeless as a cardboard mat. Brought home to remains as relevant as ever.

In the early days following the news of the earthquake in Turkey and Syria, a friend of a friend wrote letters, and – as we spread the news of this tragedy – we share them. Tuna Şare wrote to Lucia Jacobs who wrote to A. Broad. Here is a part of Tuna’s letter and I have updated the numbers ….

“I am deeply shaken, still in Oxford but will go to Turkey in two days to join the rescue and help operations.

You may have heard about the earthquakes in Turkey and Syria. Two earthquakes (7.8 and 7.6 in magnitude) affected 10 cities in Turkey. The area affected is the size of the entire United Kingdom. Earthquakes caused an unprecedented energy discharge equivalent to 130 atomic bombs, and the earth’s crust moved by 3 meters, damaging roads, bridges, and airports.

The recent estimates of the people under the rubble (and dead by now) are around 47,000, and millions are left homeless in bitter winter conditions. The scale of destruction is apocalyptic. Our beloved city of Antioch, for example, is literally all gone along with its cultural heritage. Many archaeologists and academics, students have died and lost their families. Homes too.

Best Wishes”
Tuna

Mother is very angry. She has tried to hide it, burping and farting, holding her wind in as best she can until she exploded. Two weeks after this initial emesis she has vomited again. The latest death count is up to 47,000 and still rising. How can one care for the fusses of politicians and small scrappy wars where the planet is so attacked by the creatures who feed off of her.

As we hear the news I think about those still buried – alive – and waiting for help that may or may not still come.

There is a line -a scene – at the end of the film The English Patient where Katharine is mortally injured and alone in the cave. Almasy has gone to get help and left her with a flashlight, a pencil, and paper.

Katharine is writing. The FLASHLIGHT is faint. She shivers.

“…the fire is gone now, and I’m horribly cold.
I really ought to drag myself outside
but then there would be the sun …
I think of those still living, trapped, crushed,
buried in the rubble of our making
The light has gone out …
and we watch it flicker and fade.”
KATHARINE (O/S) – The English Patient

This has been A Letter From A. Broad. Written and Read for you by Muriel Murch

Storms Here and There

January 28, 2023 / aggiemurch / Leave a comment

Recorded by WSM KNit together by MAM

Storms Here and There.

The big storms in California and the Pacific North West have moved on and the cold snaps – also considered a weather abnormality – that settled in England and Europe are melting as they subside.

Along the roads around the lagoon and in our hamlets that we travel, the eucalyptus trees fell with a post-coital groan before crashing into the receptive embrace of the ground below. It is no ‘little death’ but a dance of death as the trees pull the soil and hillsides down, exposing their mud-bound roots. Cypress and Fir gave way also, only the native Redwood groves stood tall and strong. The sign for us all that something is – and will – change.

This weekend, as we drove from North to South on route 101, along the California Coast and then inland, the rivers were only just subsiding, exposing more shifted mud and broken tree limbs trapping the shredded blue tarpaulins of destroyed tent hamlets. My headlights caught a mud-covered man struggling to lift a rusted-out old Radio Flyer red wagon across the freeway barrier. The next day, we passed fields of black plastic-covered strawberries and seedlings, glistening in the breeze and morning sunlight. Then it was on to the freeways of Southern California, to be caught in miles of car traffic, moving too fast and too far to heal the earth. We are the cause of this catastrophe.

Tucked away – as we were – in a musician’s cave carved out of the hillsides of Malibu, I reached for a huge tome of Beatles memorabilia and look back at the time when Paul, George, Ringo, and John were young and – at times – not afraid of taking the mick of the police amidst the crush of teenage fans where everyone was smiling and enjoying the madness of it all. Those were the days when young policemen could be found waiting at rural train stations to greet the last train home, checking to see if any inebriated gentlemen – not sure of where their car was in the parking lot – were sober enough to drive home. More than once, one of those policemen would be at the station exit and, pushing his bicycle alongside of us, walk me home. Maybe he was older than me but not much. He never asked for anything in return for his gentlemanly service. The bus drivers in the town where we trained were a little different – but a smile, a wave, maybe even a light peck on the cheek would be enough to have them drive on with a happy chuckle.

Now, amidst the cold in England, another chill has descended. One that this UK government is unwilling and unable to address. For generations – with few interruptions – our Prime Ministers have come from the elitist of schools in England: Eton, Harrow, and Winchester. ‘On Forsyte Change’ written in 1930, coming up for 100 years ago, Galsworthy noted these three schools in his vignette ‘A Sad Affair’ which took place in 1866. England’s recent two Prime ministers, David Cameron and Boris Johnson were from Eton. Rishi Sunak is from Winchester.

Jonathan Freedland writing for the Guardian strongly urges that the whole Metropolitan police force be disbanded and reassembled. There is some cross-party support for this as the current Conservative government is clearly chasing its tail. From the Steven Lawrence murder and debortle of a corrupt investigation in 1993, only tokens within the police force, in attitude or behavior, have changed in thirty years. This year’s uproar is of Officer David Carrick who pursued at least 12 women with rape and sexual assault. He was reported at least eight times, by whoever was brave enough, and has so far kept his uniform, his badge, and his gun, and the Met Office did the only thing they could, in 2009 they promoted him to a special armed unit. Films have been made by the dozen of American cops, notable is Crash written and directed by Paul Haggis in 2004. Efforts have been made to depict plentiful corruption in the English Police force but they still do not dent the iron-clad door of the Met Office.

As the flurry of this last scandal broke, a government minister – whose name is not worth looking up – suggested that if anyone feels intimidated by a police officer they should ‘Wave down a bus’. It is clear that this government, like those before it, are as afraid of the police as are the general public. It is not surprising that this week a crate of 1071 rotten bad apples was left outside of New Scotland Yard in London, enough to ruin every batch of hard cider coming out of Somerset.

1071 plastic rotten apples for New Scotland Yard.

The New Met Chief, Mark Rowley, has more than one crate of officers to throw out on some compost heap where maybe they can rot into new earth. Rowley looks almost old enough to have walked a young nurse home from the train station. Maybe he can be the honest cop the whole country needs. But he is one man and the Met Police Force is made up of thousands, some police perpetrators, some intimidated officers, often women and officers of colour, rookies of every kind.

The targeting of women, men and women of colour, is getting worse and it is hard for women, mothers, teachers, nurses, even policewomen, and women in government. It is a sad moment but no surprise to read of Jacinda Ardern announcing her resignation as Prime Minister of New Zealand. She did what she could, when she could, and now will be home for her daughter.

Jacinda Ardern announcing her resignation in
Napier, New Zealand yesterday. Photograph: Kerry Marshall/Getty Images

January is also the month of marmalade making for English housewives at home and sometimes abroad. Winnie Carter knew it, and Ben Aiken wrote about it. But here is a switch. Here on the coast in California, I’ve made my marmalade from our own oranges and lemons. This is something different and delicious.

This has been A Letter from A. Broad

written and read for you by Muriel Murch

Kill the Bill

April 8, 2021 / aggiemurch / 2 Comments

Recorded and knit together by WSM

Passover, Easter, the Spring Break, however we call it, the sun came out to bring a little warmth and welcome spring on Sunday. But reminding us to why the English talk constantly about the weather – on Monday snow fell in London. Further north there were gales and serious snow storms and sheep that needed watching as they tried to lamb under the hedgerows.

Over the weekend, Church services took place following the Covid guidelines laid out by the government. Queues outside of one church were reported and, in line with the increasing iron hand of the home office, the Metropolitan police force went out to do their duty. Like a bombing target, the Catholic Church, Christ the King, in South Wimbledon was cited.

As well as following the Covid restriction guidelines, the service was being streamed live on social media, so showed officers striding in, warning priests and parishioners that the gathering was ‘unlawful’. Threatened with fines, the service was abruptly ended. Other places of worship were holding restricted services, and there were probably queues outside of Synagogues and Christian Churches but maybe it was safe to target a nice Polish immigrant Catholic Church. That would do nicely. But it didn’t do nicely and once again the Met has back-footed their agenda. Or have they?

Defending the right to protest – Kill the Bill march, London 3rd April 2021 by Steve Eason

Bringing Covid restrictions into law was the opening the Home Secretary Priti Patel had been looking for, and she is forcing it into action with the Metropolitan police under the Commissioner, Cressida Dick. It looks increasingly clear that Patel wants stronger control of how people behave and, like an insecure school teacher, her default position is to add more regulations with harsher penalties for those who break her rules.

But why has this all gone so wrong – to the right? The British are addicted to their TV sitcoms of Cops and killers. We love to see the police track and solve the most gruesome of murders; either tromping across the rain-battered Yorkshire moors or in the picturesque villages of Oxfordshire, where the weather is almost always sunny. They remind us of gentler days, as when at our small town train station, a policeman would meet the last train from London. I remember returning, close to midnight mind you, and the young policeman, wheeling his bicycle, as he walked me along Elvetham Road to my mother’s house. Surely we would be supporting those fine upstanding men and women. But today they have been found to be not so fine and, like the politicians in power, the humanity they brazenly show dances on either side of criminality.

Trust in the police force has eroded steadily and visibly since the trials of The Guildford Four in 1974, building to a concentrated core over Steven Lawrence’s murder in 1993. Today when people march and protest for Black Lives Matter, or with a policeman held in custody over the murder of Sarah Everard, it seems to frighten Ms Patel into producing a bill called the ‘Police, Crime, Sentencing and Courts Bill 2021‘. It is a mere extension of the Coronavirus Act passed in 2020.

In a Democracy, protesting is considered a human right, and the Home Office says its proposals will respect this. Writing for gal-dem, Moya Lothian McLean says the proposed rules have given the state “enormous authoritarian power using extremely vague language that can be twisted for any purpose”.

The Labour MP Nadia Whittome said: “This bill will see the biggest assault on protest rights in recent history”. Kill the Bill Protests are continuing around the country. It could seem that the freedom to protest governments and military takeovers of state powers, and the freedom to report globally on these issues are getting as tricky and dangerous in England as we’ve seen in Belarus, Moscow, China and Myanmar.

Last week the the BBC’s correspondent John Sudworth abruptly left Beijing, taking his family to Taiwan. The Chinese Government do not care for – and have denounced – his reporting for the BBC on the treatment of the Uyghur people in the Xinjiang region.

In Hong Kong, China held a four week trial and found guilty seven of Hong Kong’s most senior and prominent pro-democracy figures of organizing and participating in an un-authorized rally.

And for leading an opposition party to the government, Alexei Navalny is jailed in Russia following an attempted poisoning on his life. Navalny is now in hospital with respiratory symptoms which must be as alarming as in jail when guards had tortured him with sleep deprivation while encouraging the other prisoners to do the same.

Rebecca Radcliffe reports in the Guardian on Myanmar where the military-controlled media state newspaper, Global New Light, has published wanted lists with the names and photographs of dozens of prominent figures, from actors to musicians. The junta said it would bring charges and criminalizes comments that “cause fear” or spread “false news”. Those accused under the law can face up to three years in prison.

But for the first time in a long time we look back at the United States and see a glimmer of hope, holding our breath as we watch President Joe Biden get right to work with a little train engineer’s hat atop of his head. Maybe he can grease the wheels of government and get that engine going again to carry the American people forward into safety and work. Biden had been around the Washington block a long time and knows how that engine yard works. His oil can is at the ready and he is busy greasing those wheels.

This has been a Letter from A. Broad. Written and read for you by Muriel Murch

First aired on Swimming Upstream – KWMR.org.

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