Back in early 2011, Iowa amended their state constitution to ban same-sex marriage.
In the hours long debate which preceded the vote, certain members of the public were allowed to have a moment. This kid did, and he NAILED IT.
How did they vote to ban it after listening to that?
In 1938, shortly after The Hobbit was published, Tolkien and his publisher were in talks to have the novel translated and published in Germany.
This being Nazi Germany (albeit pre-war), the German publisher asked Tolkien to prove that he was “of Aryan descent” before they would publish his book.
Tolkien sent them a letter:
25 July 1938
20 Northmoor Road, Oxford
Dear Sirs,
Thank you for your letter. I regret that I am not clear as to what you intend by arisch. I am not of Aryan extraction: that is Indo-Iranian; as far as I am aware none of my ancestors spoke Hindustani, Persian, Gypsy, or any related dialects. But if I am to understand that you are enquiring whether I am of Jewish origin, I can only reply that I regret that I appear to have no ancestors of that gifted people. My great-great-grandfather came to England in the eighteenth century from Germany: the main part of my descent is therefore purely English, and I am an English subject — which should be sufficient. I have been accustomed, nonetheless, to regard my German name with pride, and continued to do so throughout the period of the late regrettable war, in which I served in the English army. I cannot, however, forbear to comment that if impertinent and irrelevant inquiries of this sort are to become the rule in matters of literature, then the time is not far distant when a German name will no longer be a source of pride.
Your enquiry is doubtless made in order to comply with the laws of your own country, but that this should be held to apply to the subjects of another state would be improper, even if it had (as it has not) any bearing whatsoever on the merits of my work or its sustainability for publication, of which you appear to have satisfied yourselves without reference to my Abstammung.
I trust you will find this reply satisfactory, and
remain yours faithfully,
J. R. R. Tolkien
“But if I am to understand that you are enquiring whether I am of Jewish origin, I can only reply that I regret that I appear to have no ancestors of that gifted people”. I love that man.
More and more people lately seem to be waging wars on nouns. The war on terrorism. The war on drugs. Even, now, the war on hackers.
But, how can you have a war on a noun? This vague concept of fighting an inanimate object seems, to me, to be extremely damaging. You cannot win a war on a noun.
And what does it even mean anyway? When you declare war on a noun, who signs the papers? Who is the one who eventually surrenders? What exactly are you hoping to achieve by fighting a noun? You have declared war on terrorism? Oh no! Terrorism must be utterly terrified! I expect he’s withdrawing his troops and heading for the hills!
The war on terror, the war on drugs, and the new war on hackers are not wars – but policies. ‘The war on’ meme, is nothing but a clever slogan devised by governments to get you on their side.
Is worth noting the odd terminology in this meme. Nobody has ever had a war on Nazi Germany. You have a war against Nazi Germany.
I think the fact that this phrase is nothing more than government propaganda is evident in the three things that they’ve decided their wars should be on. I’d argue that much more damage is done to the average man on the street by, say, burglary. But I’ve yet to hear any government declare war on burglary. In fact the only characteristic of these three wars is that they cannot be won.
How can you possibly defeat terror? People will always be afraid of something. (In fact, the government makes sure you’ve always got something to be afraid of, because it’s the only way that they can operate.) People will never stop taking drugs. And, you guessed it, hackers will always try to hack.
England did not declare war on Germany expecting that it would take literally forever. No, we wanted to defeat them and we had a concrete strategy to defeat them and we had a measurable, attainable goal which would tell us when they were defeated.
There were burglars ever since somebody put a hut on a piece of mud and assembled something resembling a door on it. And law enforcement has been fighting it since soon after that. This is not something which, at least in any foreseeable future, can ever be defeated.
So, why differentiate terror, hacking and drugs from burglary in this way? Why make these three a war? I would argue that this is because of the unique opportunity they offer a government. When you turn something into a war and not just a matter for the police it becomes infinitely more important and frightening. Suddenly, enhanced surveillance and the quick stripping of civil liberties becomes accepted because – we are at war! “You don’t agree with this new government policy will increase our security?! Do you want the terrorists to win?!”
Such effects are particularly noticeable in America. Their evilly named PATRIOT act and their new evil NDAA act are quite unbelievable. That any person would happily live in a country where these laws are considered acceptable is beyond me. But they are acceptable because the government has managed to whip the people up into such a hysteria and fear of terrorism, drugs and hackers that they would accept anything which is thrown at them.
Not to mention of course that the militarily industrial complex must be utterly overjoyed that many western governments are simultaneously fighting free wars! Just think of all the wonderful contracts up for grabs when the government is fighting terrorism, drugs and hackers!
The solution, of course, is to have the government stop this ridiculous rhetoric. That is not a workable solution, because wanting the government to do anything really isn’t the way to get them to do anything. The better solution, on a personal level, is to simply think whenever you hear the war on drugs meme that it doesn’t really make any sense. Tell yourself “you cannot win a war on a noun” and tell your friends the same thing.
Last night I went to the theatre to see Kit Hesketh-Harvey’s adaptation of the opera La Traviata. It’s set in modern London and translated into English. It was wonderful. And it got me thinking about the arts in the UK in general, and the current government’s apparent war against them, enforcing drastic cuts across the board.
Let’s take a look at the UK Film Council as an example of this. The UKFC invests in films. It made The King’s Speech, the biggest film of 2010, possible, among hundreds of others. In fact, the UK Film Council generates somewhere in the region of £13 for every £1 it spends. Even a three year old can see the huge value in that. And yet, the UKFC has been abolished by the coalition government to save costs. Abolishing an organisation which basically prints money of the economy seems mad, no? Even madder when I tell you that the UKFC was funded entirely by lottery funds and not taxpayer money…
Yes, some of the Council’s duties have been passed to the British Film Institute. But, the BFI is a charity dedicated to promoting the idea of cinema, maintaining its history and convincing people (that is, foreign companies) to film here. It is not funding the big, heavy hitting films. The question is, of course, why wasn’t the BFI merged into the UKFC, rather than the other way around? There’s no doubt which had the bigger impact. In the words of Armando Iannucci:
When the government announced it was shutting down the UK Film Council, the inevitable cries of horror from the creative industry were not amateur protests from a bunch of out-of-work actors. This wasn’t one of those embarrassing street protests by thespians demanding that we divert money from schools and hospitals to help save a badly attended puppet theatre that puts on vital verse dramas about the decline of the wool industry in Derby.
This was something completely different. The extraordinary support for the council, coming from all our major actors and directors, and winning rallying cries from the likes of Clint Eastwood and Steven Spielberg’s DreamWorks Studios, is actually a loud response from many hard-bitten professionals in the film industry, here and internationally, who simply cannot fathom the economic folly of what’s being proposed.
It may look macho and bullish to put out a press release saying you’re shutting down a big quango that spends public money, but in the rush to get to the printers no one at the Department for Culture, Media and Sport seems to have spotted that all this money is actually made back in spades.
So, a rash decision by the government, and a classic example of why it’s cuts are just too much: they haven’t been thought through.
The story, which is possibly not accurate but wonderful nonetheless, goes that during World War 2 Churchill was asked to cut arts funding in order to spend the money of the war effort, to which he replied, “then what are we fighting for?”. And, if he did say this, I think he had a point.
People imagine arts funding to be a decadent luxury, paying artists to remain unemployed. But, it’s not. Arts Funding is about keeping the arts available to everyone. In the UK, you can visit any of the big museums for free. The V&A, Science Museum, Natural History Museum and more are all free and funded by the government. This is a rarity in the rest of the world.
The UK has incredible festivals, makes incredible films and has an amazingly vibrant a varied theatre scene. Let’s be clear: arts funding doesn’t pay for these things from start to finish. It gets them started. Most of these things go on and generate much more money than they cost. Of course, some fail, but not most.
I find it funny that the same people who bemoan the loss of “our English culture” to immigrants are the first ones to say “if we’re cutting healthcare, we ought to cut the arts first!” But there’s no greater loss to our culture than systematically dismantling it in the name of reducing the deficit.
From chapter ten, Strider, of the Lord of the Rings:
All that is gold does not glitter,
Not all those who wander are lost;
The old that is strong does no wither,
Deep roots are not reached by the frost.
From the ashes a fire shall be woken,
A light from the shadows shall spring;
Renewed shall be blade that was broken,
The crow less again shall be king.
Sends shivers down my spine every time, especially the last four lines.
From chapter 6 of The Fellowship of the Ring, ‘In the Old Forest’:
A golden afternoon of late sunshine lay warm and drowsy upon the hidden land between. In the midst of it there wound lazily a dark river of brown water, bordered with ancient willows, arched over with willows, blocked with fallen willows, and flecked with thousands of faded willow-leaves. The air was thick with them, fluttering yellow from the branches; for there was a warm and gentle breeze blowing softly in the valley, and the reeds were rustling, and the willow-boughs were creaking
Tolkien is just sumptuous.
Yesterday was an odd day.
I recently discovered that my favourite author, and just one of my favourite people in general, was buried in Wolvercote Cemetery, which is not to far from my house. It seemed like the only appropriate thing to do would be to visit him.
I didn’t quite expect to see what I saw. I expected an ordinary grave, marked in the way ordinary graves are. I also expected to have a hard time finding it, since the cemetery apparently has over 15,000 graves. In fact, I wasn’t entirely sure I even would find it.
When I arrived I went to the large map which is fastened to the gate to see if I could discern any clues. The cemetery was, handily, split up into various sections and, using my knowledge of Tolkien, I discerned that he would be buried in the Roman Catholic section. So that’s where I headed.
It was, however, at that point that I noticed a sign on the ground saying “J. R. R. Tolkien. Author.” and an arrow showing me where to go. Finding it suddenly became easy. I followed these signs, of which there were many, all the way to his grave.
And, there it was. Tolkien and his wife, buried together. Tolkien’s wife, referred to in Elvish as “Luthien” and Tolkien himself referred to as “Beren”, names about a couple in love from Tolkien’s works. Wow.
What I certainly wasn’t expecting was the amount of things people had left behind. Rings (as in, replicas of The Ring), little thank you notes, metal jewelry with “Not all those who wonder are lost” and other the Lord of the Rings quotations etched on it and even copies of his books.
All this reminded me just how wonderful Tolkien is. It’s incredible how many people he touched. I’m sure other graves get lots of visitors, but this one was just overflowing with items which only a certain type of person would understand. This is fandom. I can’t think of many other authors who would receive this kind of treatment.
It’s also made me want to commence my yearly Lord of the Rings read right away, which I intend to do once I’ve finished the book I’m reading at the moment. It’s also made me want to reread the Silmarillion and so on, which I’ve not read for a while now.
It’s an odd excursion to take, I know. I first read the Lord of the Rings when I was ten years old. It was the first book I ever loved and the only book I’ve read every year since first reading it – it was the book which made me realise that books could be. And, as I was walking away, I couldn’t help but look back and think “thank you, Mr Tolkien”.
You know how I have a problem with the 5th iPhone being called the iPhone 4S and the fact that the 6th iPhone is likely to be called the iPhone 5?
Well, with Apple dropping the numeral altogether from the new iPad, why not do the same for the iPhone? You’ve got to admit, ‘iPhone 8′ and ‘iPhone 11′ do sound silly. They’ve got to stop somewhere, right?
I think it makes sense to drop the numeral altogether, and just have the next iPhone called the ‘iPhone’.
(And, while we’re on the topic, will I be buying a new iPad? Of course.)