Veggi tables turned

Someone is wrong on the internet! ;) In this case
Twitter / Search - #analogy: "Vegeterians are to vegans what agnostics are to atheists"
Sounds plausible at first, doesn't it? But that plausibility os built on sand: it presupposes that vegetarians are in it for animal rights and if that's the aim then one should go the full monte. However, quite a lot of us are in it because we believe the ecological footprint of meat production is too high and certainly can't allow 7 billion people to consume meat at the current western rate -we're, as a society over consuming and using our economic muscle and unfair economic structures to sustain it. However, that reason for vegetarianism wouldn't rule out some meat-eating in other conditions and some locavores who do eat meat, might use the same or similar reasoning.

Churches that embrace Santorum, Gingrich drive youth away

 I think I see something of this in GB too. I keep bumping into young people who seem to think that the USAmerican so-called Christian right own Christianity. It's one of the reasons I and others consider dsavowing the label 'Christian' -it too easily connotes in some circles "reactionary, heartless, gun-toting, aggressive, insensitive".

 “In effect, Americans (especially young Americans) who might otherwise attend religious services are saying, ‘Well, if religion is just about conservative politics, then I’m outta here"

We really need to be showing alternative models big-time if this isn't true. Otherwise the church in the West deserves to die for it has apostasized. You see, it's not the problem that the Church is seen to be be involved in politics, it is that it so manifestly does not embody the character of Christ if it is closely associated with the shrill, unloving, violent agenda that all but the rightest see in this conservative politics.
Super Tuesday: Churches that embrace Santorum, Gingrich drive youth away - CSMonitor.com:

Remember this when banks threaten to charge for ATM use 'and be outraged

Remember that they are lending your money out several times over and making profit on the interest. By having your money in their bank, you are giving them the means to makes huge amounts of further money -that alone should be sufficient fee for you to have elementary access to your money. Anything more is egregious profiteering.

Check it out; it/s so basic that you'll find this kind of info all over the internet.

Fractional reserve banking - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia: The nature of modern banking is such that the cash reserves at the bank available to repay demand deposits need only be a fraction of the demand deposits owed to depositors. In most legal systems, a demand deposit at a bank (e.g., a checking or savings account) is considered a loan to the bank (instead of a bailment) repayable on demand, that the bank can use to finance its investments in loans and interest bearing securities. Banks make a profit based on the difference between the interest they charge on the loans they make, and the interest they pay to their depositors

If they can't turn a decent profit without resorting to this kind of penny-pinching, they really shouldn't be looking after anyone's finances ...

Was Patrick a slave-trading tax collector?

I caught this on the news this morning but didn't hear the whole of the story. So I thought I'd try to fond out more; after all, I've been teaching students of various kinds pretty much the standard story which -to be fair- is actually based on Patrick's own Confessions. Reading them you'd get the impression that Patrick was the victim of a slaving raid and eventually escaped. But ....

... a new study from Cambridge University based on his writings suggests Saint Patrick was not brought to Ireland as a slave, as the legend has it, but that in fact he may actually have sold slaves his family owned to pay his way to Ireland -- in order to avoid a job as a tax collector for the Roman empire

 In actual fact the study seems, from the report, merely to offer a possible reinterpretation based on noting a factor about the culture at the time:

According to his writings, Patrick's family owned several slaves -- a high value and easily transportable commodity -- and Flechner says in the historical context it makes sense that Patrick would convert his family wealth into slaves he could sell in order to pay his way..

The problem is, of course, that Patrick says he was taken as a slave: "... a small villa nearby where I was taken captive. I was at that time about sixteen years of age. I did not, indeed, know the true God; and I was taken into captivity in Ireland with many thousands of people ..."(see here): seems pretty clear to me. And basically Flechner's case at this point is to say that Patrick was being creative with the truth. I am finding it hard to think why Patrick should lie or 'spin' it in that way and on the admittedly brief report here, it is hard to think that the contextual clues Flechner adduces really add up to a case to doubt Patrick's fundamental veracity on this point; after all Patrick does not whitewash other aspects of his past, and slave holding and (presumably trading) wsa not, I understand, necessarily considered a big bad.

Flechner makes a point about the only way out of slavery was to be redeemed, but I'm skeptical that mainland Romano British would have felt that onse of their number stolen away and enslaved should be returned to their captors should they escape: a previously free Roman citizen escaping such a situation would likely be regarded as a returning free citzen not an escaped slave. Nor do I imagine that on returning to Ireland Patrick or any of his companions would feel that he should teturn to slavery in Ulster, and I imagine that no-one left alive in Ulster would actually remember him as a slave -he'd have been given up years before and hardly anyone would have really known him -he woud appear to have spent most of his time in Ireland out in the hills, alone, with livestock. So the redemtion issue seems to be a bit of a blind.

.Was Saint Patrick a slave-trading tax collector? - CNN.com:
The Confession of St Patrick.

~alone

Somewher in Jesmond is this message. Is it a promise or a threat?

Mooring rusted

Which is better? This photo or the one on the previous post?

Mooring

 This is on Cuthbert's Isle, Lindisfarne.