As promised earlier... here's Sunday morning's review of the week on downtown Radio's "Dawn Reflections" suitably amended.
2 British firsts this week… The first ever televised debate between party leaders in the run up to a general election… and the first time that all of UK airspace was closed…
I only caught a little of the party leaders debate… another sign of the increasing Americanisation of Britain and its politics, where government is becoming more presidential and about presentation than about real local constituency politics… The little I did hear concerned the economy and it left me a little depressed with each of the leaders repeating stock phrases again and again, in an attempt to bludgeon their ideas into the minds of the electorate… Cameron telling us that he would “cut waste and cut the job tax”… Brown telling us that the tories would “risk the recovery” with their policies… and Nick Clegg, who seemed to fare best overall, saying that the parties should all “come clean.” What none of them said, and what is sadly true, is that increasingly the policies of individual nations are no longer purely in their own power, but are largely, not in the hands of Europe, as Eurosceptics would warn us, but international companies and money markets…
But the impotence of national governments in the face of international economic forces are as nothing compared with their inability to deal with the forces of nature as demonstrated in the eruption of Eyjafjallajokull (and, no, I didn't even try to pronounce that on radio!)… Even the worst that Al-Qaeda threw at us didn't cause the government to shut down our airspace completely. There is increasing frustration at the approach taken by the National Air Traffic Service regarding commercial flights across British airspace, with lots of talk about risk management etc., and the science behind the decisions... but so much of this is about economics, again, rather than pure science, with NATS terrified of the colossal claims that would be made against them if any plane crashed because they didn't close the airspace, and the airlines watching their losses mounting by the minute. Geologists have warned that not only might this phenomenon roll on for some time, but it will be like the earth politely clearing its throat in comparison to the lion’s roar that will be heard if this volcano's much-larger near neighbour Katla decides that it too will blow its top (see the warnings pointed out in TimesOnline a month ago).
A woman in the bakery told me that these, and other events convinced her that the Lord was coming back soon (see my brief comment earlier)… to which I replied that I’m with Tony Campolo in this one, in that I don’t know when the Lord is coming back since I am not on the planning committee… but on the welcoming committee…
It does remind us, however, that beyond the political power of nation states… the economic muscle of multi-nationals… and even beyond the awesome power of nature… lies the power of the maker of it all.
So whatever we face and wherever we may be… even if we stranded on the far side of the sea… may we put our trust in our creator, saviour and sustainer, and know that he is watching over us and will never let us go…
I only caught a little of the party leaders debate… another sign of the increasing Americanisation of Britain and its politics, where government is becoming more presidential and about presentation than about real local constituency politics… The little I did hear concerned the economy and it left me a little depressed with each of the leaders repeating stock phrases again and again, in an attempt to bludgeon their ideas into the minds of the electorate… Cameron telling us that he would “cut waste and cut the job tax”… Brown telling us that the tories would “risk the recovery” with their policies… and Nick Clegg, who seemed to fare best overall, saying that the parties should all “come clean.” What none of them said, and what is sadly true, is that increasingly the policies of individual nations are no longer purely in their own power, but are largely, not in the hands of Europe, as Eurosceptics would warn us, but international companies and money markets…
But the impotence of national governments in the face of international economic forces are as nothing compared with their inability to deal with the forces of nature as demonstrated in the eruption of Eyjafjallajokull (and, no, I didn't even try to pronounce that on radio!)… Even the worst that Al-Qaeda threw at us didn't cause the government to shut down our airspace completely. There is increasing frustration at the approach taken by the National Air Traffic Service regarding commercial flights across British airspace, with lots of talk about risk management etc., and the science behind the decisions... but so much of this is about economics, again, rather than pure science, with NATS terrified of the colossal claims that would be made against them if any plane crashed because they didn't close the airspace, and the airlines watching their losses mounting by the minute. Geologists have warned that not only might this phenomenon roll on for some time, but it will be like the earth politely clearing its throat in comparison to the lion’s roar that will be heard if this volcano's much-larger near neighbour Katla decides that it too will blow its top (see the warnings pointed out in TimesOnline a month ago).
A woman in the bakery told me that these, and other events convinced her that the Lord was coming back soon (see my brief comment earlier)… to which I replied that I’m with Tony Campolo in this one, in that I don’t know when the Lord is coming back since I am not on the planning committee… but on the welcoming committee…
It does remind us, however, that beyond the political power of nation states… the economic muscle of multi-nationals… and even beyond the awesome power of nature… lies the power of the maker of it all.
So whatever we face and wherever we may be… even if we stranded on the far side of the sea… may we put our trust in our creator, saviour and sustainer, and know that he is watching over us and will never let us go…
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