Deborah Hargreaves, chair of the High Pay Commission, says Britain’s fat cat elite is immune from the pain of the UK downturn. “As bankers receive their multi-million pound bonuses in the next couple of months, the contrast with stagnating average earnings will become starker.” Most of the public had no idea what top bosses were paid said Hargreaves. “A majority felt that a fair reward for the boardroom was around £500,000 - a fraction of the going rate of £4.9m. Interestingly, top earners often over-estimate the average wage, she said. I think this is because both groups like to believe we live in a much more egalitarian society than we do.” Top bosses and bankers who can afford to live in a completely different world “had pay rises of 55pc last year while lower down the ranks, wage freezes and redundancies were enforced.”
“Will Hutton pointed out in his report on public sector pay last week,” says Ms Hargreaves, that “the median FTSE 100 chief executive’s package rose to 88 times median earnings and 202 times the minimum wage last year.” “It is unfair that rewards for the few should be out of all proportion to those of the many” says Hargreaves in the Daily Mail.
This disparity between the UK’s rich and poor is highlighted by reports in the same paper on the same day that show the lower paid working class are worse off than unemployed, who better off on state benefits.
Then we read in the same paper that on top of this disparity between the rich and the low paid that ordinary worker’s pensions are devalued by a third to line fund manager’s pockets. This is Britain where human greedhas not changed any throughout history?
“It won’t be broadcast on BBC World until January 1, 2011, but the word is already out on the debate on Friday, November 26. It was between the fit Tony Blair, the former prime minister of the United Kingdom, and writer Christopher Hitchens, one of the “new atheists” (along with such others Richard Dawkins and Sam Harris) who is in chemotherapy for late-stage esophageal cancer.” To read more . . .
Says Rowan Hooper, “Most of the cells in your body are not your own, nor are they even human. They are bacterial. . . .”That’s the view of scientists at Imperial College London who published a paper in Nature Biotechnology . . .Because our bodies are made of only some several trillion human cells, we are somewhat outnumbered by the aliens.” To read the article . . .
“Bonnie Bassler discovered that bacteria “talk” to each other, using a chemical language that lets them coordinate defense and mount attacks. The find has stunning implications for medicine, industry — and our understanding of ourselves.” To listen to this fascinating 20 min Video lecture on humans being more alien click here.
This is what hit the UK media on the 1st of November. The BBC reported “A Christian couple “were doomed” not to be allowed to foster children after it emerged they disapproved of homosexuality, a court has heard.
“Eunice and Owen Johns, 65 and 62, cared for about 15 children in the 1990s,” but due to the Sexual Orientation Act brought in by New Labour they may now be barred from fostering children due to their Christian convictions if a High court judgment goes against them. Christian Concern and high profile church dignitaries are fighting their corner seeing this as a landmark case. Bill Muehlenberg comments and considers what the implications could be for Christians in the UK.
It’s worth reading the surprise in some of the comments following this story that unlike so many such news’ stories in the UK this large family in the USA is self-sufficient and not on benefits!
If I had been a disruptive pupil at school I would have been dealt with at school and at home if bad behaviour was reported. It never was because, although I never entirly escaped the ‘best of six’ coming heavily down on my fingers tips, good behavior was the expectation in my family. We have rightly moved away from some of those intimidating and bullying heads and teachers of the past - for which I’m sure plenty of evidence could be provided. I recall a 14-year-old knocking a headmaster over a desk as a result of the head’s abuse of the boy in front of the whole class. The Head was just not a descent and fair sort of chap at all - no one liked him. But have things gone into reverse where things are becoming impossible in certain areas for many teachers in public education? Charlie Carol thinks so. Carol took time out from permanent employment to discover the state of moral in the teaching proffession, and what many have to face from pupil/student behaviour in the classroom. He found some real positives but also reveals enough to be a disinsentive to would-be teachers. Says, Carol,
“Apart from a constant deluge of paperwork and implausible government targets, I enjoyed my work - yet I was uncomfortably aware that some teachers were less fortunate.
One former colleague had been ‘held hostage’ in front of his class by two boys from Year 11 - what used to be the fifth form - brandishing a very real-looking fake gun. Another had a door slammed shut in her face so violently that the glass window shattered over her.
And I’d been shocked to discover that almost half of all England’s newly qualified teachers are now leaving the profession within five years.
What was it really like to teach in a school at the bottom of the league tables, I wondered? Before settling down in a decent job, I decided to find out for myself. I set myself the limit of a year: in that time, I’d travel to areas all over England to find work as a supply teacher. A week after making this decision, I handed in a letter of resignation to my headteacher.”
The Daily Mail publishes Carol’s article on his experience.
Following the publishing of Stephen Hawking’s new book, The Grand Design, The Guardian took a poll from its readers who said 62.5% believed God was responsible for the creation of the universe, and not natural law as Hawking proposes. Hawking’s first book, The Brief History of Time, was a huge success but described. It was a huge best seller, but it has also been called “the most widely unread book in the history of literature”. It seems The Times (UK) and the New York Times have been rather scathing of Hawking’s recent book. I have not read either book. It’s enough for me to read the reviews on this one, especially the review by CMI.
In earlier post I thought that The Loser Letters: ‘A Comic Tale of Life, Death, and Atheism‘ by Mary Eberstadt looks a good read. I was not disappointed - I couldn’t put it down. This is about atheism V belief - serious stuff couched in the witty and comical. It is as the Product Description says:
“A wickedly witty satire, The Loser Letters chronicles the conversion of a young adult Christian to atheism. With modern humor rivaling that of the media lampooning Onion, found on college campuses all over America, A. F. Christian’s open letters to the “spokesmen of the New Atheism” explain her reasons for rejecting God and the logical consequences of that choice. Along the way she offers pithy advice to famous atheists such as Richard Dawkins and Christopher Hitchens, in the hope of helping them win over more Christians.
“Of course we score big time with the young guys who aren’t responsible for anything, and don’t really care about anything besides spending most of their time in the basement playing video games and texting girls,” A.F. Christian points out. But what about all those serious, thoughtful people who are Christian believers? If the New Atheism is to make real headway, she argues, its advocates must do more to persuade intelligent theists living meaningful and fulfilling lives.
Amid the many current books arguing for or against religion, social critic and writer Mary Eberstadt’s The Loser Letters is truly unique: a black comedy about theism and atheism that is simultaneously a rollicking defense of Christianity.
Echoing C.S. Lewis’ Screwtape Letters and Dante’s Divine Comedy, Eberstadt takes aim at bestsellers like The God Delusion and God Is Not Great with the sexual libertinism their authors advocate. In her loveable and articulate tragic-comic heroine, A.F. Christian, Dawkins, Hitchens and the other “Brights” have met their match.”
Having read TGD by Richard Dawkins that last sentence is so true.
To get started on The Loser Letters read Letter One is online
Mary Eberstadt is interviewed about her book on National Review.
I don’t mind heights - normal heights! Despite the really good view at the top I wouldn’t have second thoughts about this climb - just watching this video could get me needing acrophobia therapy!
The New UK-Based Centre for Intelligent Design has just announced a November lecture tour featuring Discovery Institute Senior Fellow, Michael Behe. The tour will include lectures in Oxford, Cambridge, Glasgow and London. Beginning in Warwick on November 20 the Group’s press release about the tour can be found here.
There should be a good reception for the new I.D. Centre in the UK, going on the recent Guardian vote - with 62.5% believing God is the creator of the universe! Has Behe been to the UK before on an I.D. itinerary I wonder? An adversary of Richard Dawkins it should be interesting to read his response to Behe’s visit to the UK!
