Britain's children

Britain has been rated by UNICEF 21st out of 21 of the World's leading industrial nations for child well being. Remember Blair's election slogan in 1997 - "Education, education, education"!

Britain's youth are amongst the least well educated, most badly behaved and unhealthy in the developed world. We have the highest rate of teenage pregnancies of any of the leading nations. This is Blair's true legacy and the future does not look bright. Although this downward spiral of shame may have started with the utterly daft, politically correct, soft headed and vociferous peddlars of liberalism that has so bedevilled Britain since the 60's, New Labour have only excasapated the situation since coming to power. The Thatcherite emphasis on individualism has also played it's part in the shocking social breakdown of communities and the family unit.

The disembowelment of principle in favour of vote catching political expediency is at the heart of Britain's descent into enfeebled decadence. Politicians have been undermining the authority of parents and the sanctity of family for decades. Political spin and duplicity at many levels, over many years has also undermined society's faith in our political institutions.

As one intelligent young woman in the audience of last week's Question Time on BBC television observed, Britain is a pushover. You can can get away with anything now, she said. No one has summed it up better.

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Unicef report: Key points at-a-glance

The UK has come bottom of a Unicef league table for child well-being across 21 industrialised countries.

The study looked at a total of 40 indicators in six categories. Here is a summary of some of the report's key findings:

REPORT SUMMARY
European countries dominate the top half of the overall league table, with the Netherlands, Sweden, Denmark and Finland claiming the top four places.

The UK and United States are in the bottom third of the rankings for five of the six categories covered. The six categories are material well-being, family and peer relationships, health and safety, behaviour and risks, and children's own sense of well-being (educational and subjective).
No country features in the top third of the rankings for all six dimensions of child well-being, although the Netherlands and Sweden come close to achieving this.

MATERIAL WELL-BEING
Child poverty remains above the 15% mark in the three southern European countries (Portugal, Spain, Italy) and in three Anglophone countries (the US, the UK, and Ireland).
There is no obvious relationship between levels of child well-being and GDP per capita. The Czech Republic, for example, achieves a higher overall rank for child well-being than several much wealthier countries.
A total of nine countries - all in northern Europe - have brought child poverty rates below 10%.

FAMILY AND PEER RELATIONSHIPS
Approximately 80% of children in the countries under review are living with both parents. This ranges from more than 90% in Greece and Italy to less than 70% in the UK and 60% in the US.
Even in the lowest ranked countries, almost two-thirds of children still regularly eat the main meal of the day with their families, with France and Italy maintaining the tradition most of all.

HEALTH AND SAFETY
Fewer than one in every 10,000 young people die before the age of 19 as a result of accident, murder, suicide or violence.
European countries occupy the top half of the report's child health and safety table, with the top five places claimed by the four Nordic countries and the Netherlands.
Infant mortality rates range from under three per 1,000 births in Iceland and Japan, to over six per 1,000 in Hungary, Poland and the US.

BEHAVIOUR AND RISKS
The overall OECD league table of young people's risk behaviours sees the UK at the foot of the rankings by "a considerable distance".
Risk behaviours considered in the study include smoking, being drunk, using cannabis, fighting and bullying, and sexual behaviour.
Only about a third of young people eat fruit daily.
Only about a third of young people exercise for an hour or more on five or more days a week - youths take most exercise in Ireland, Canada and the US, and the least in Belgium and France.

EDUCATIONAL WELL-BEING
Finland, Canada, Australia, and Japan head this particular table in the report.
The UK is rated in the bottom third of the table for educational well-being.
Four southern European countries - Greece, Italy, Spain and Portugal - occupy the bottom four places.

SUBJECTIVE WELL-BEING
Children's subjective sense of well-being appears to be markedly higher in the Netherlands, Spain, and Greece and markedly lower in Poland and the UK.
Approximately 80% of young people consider their health to be good or excellent in every OECD country except the UK.

The Netherlands, Norway and Austria, are at the head of the table with over a third of their schoolchildren admitting to "liking school a lot".

Capitalism Or Socialism

Capitalism without a conscience is as damaging as socialism without pragmatism. As separate ideologies they are both illogical and deeply flawed and doomed to failure.

The trappings of socialism are expensive and require a dynamic wealth building economy in order to build the schools, universities, hospitals, roads and so on. Socialism is therefore unobtainable as an ideology without the engine of capitalism. That is why so many "socialist" regimes fail. Another problem is that socialists tend to think that individuals are stupid and need nannying and this eventually leads to totalitarianism. Instead of nurturing and nourishing individuality, they squeeze the life out of them, losing massive potential benefits for society as a whole. This does not mean socialists ideals are wrong. They are not but it's the way one attains them that is most important.

So called free market capitalism is doomed to failure because it thrives on principles of exploitation that inevitably benefits the rich and powerful who have the means to exploit markets, labour and so on to a far greater extent than the poor and powerless. This inevitably breeds inequality, injustice and discontent which is a recipe for revolt and even revolution. Therefore unregulated free market capitalism sows the seeds of it's own destruction.

No society can function successfully in the long term without a balance between wealth creation and social consciousness. The key is getting the balance right. The problem with systems is that they depend on the integrity and abilities of those that manage them. In other words they are only as good or bad as the people that run them and far too often these people lack objectivity. They are driven by ideologies rather than logic, objectivity and common sense.

It is clear therefore that capitalism needs a social conscience and socialism needs a capitalist economy. One needs the other to succeed and ultimately they have the same objective which is to enrich and nourish individuals as well as societies and nations. They are in fact different degrees of the same thing and are inter-dependant and indispensable, the one to the other.

No End To Labour's Incompetence

Is there no end to New Labour's incompetence? Today the Home Secretary asked judges to send only the most dangerous criminals to jail as U.K. jails are now full. So burglars, shoplifters, joy riders and yobs everywhere, you may continue with your nefarious activities, free of fear of any custodial sentences. Given the police know that those they might or should arrest are unlikely to be locked up, what motivation do they now have to collar these types of criminal? It has been well documented over the last decade that new prisons would be needed but New Labour as is their habit continue to play their fiddles while Rome burns.

In similar vein, a senior police officer who was asked why we could not adopt a zero tolerance policy towards yobbish anti-social behaviour, similar to that introduced in New York, responded that his officers would be unable to tackle any other crimes; inferring that the problem is so widespread it is now beyond the capacity of the police to deal with it.

This man should be walking the beat! How does someone of such dull intellect get promoted to Chief Constable? It is beyond me. This dullard has so completely missed the point and purpose of a zero tolerance policy. If you implement a zero tolerance policy properly, the message will soon get through and put a virtual end to miscreant behaviour, freeing up more officers, who would otherwise be patrolling the streets on a Friday and Saturday night chastising violent drunks and those who use our streets and alleys as public toilets.

As my father-in law was keen on saying, "God give me strength" and I would add, save us from this awful mediocrity that pervades our town centres every week-end and struts the upper echelons of our political and social institutions.

Who harbours tyrants - the UN does!

(From old news item)

UN envoy upbeat on Mugabe talks

Mr Mugabe says the slums were cleared to root out crime. A UN envoy has spoken warmly of her discussions with Zimbabwe's President Robert Mugabe over his controversial urban slum demolition scheme.

Typical example of UN duplicity

It is time to admit that the United Nations can never be an effective arbiter of civilisation or international law whilst it is founded on the ill conceived often corrupted principles that pervade its entire structure. A United Nations that harbours despotic and corrupt member governments within its walls can and never will be anything but corrupt. Such a body will never be able to act effectively to protect the innocent from state barbarity. We need not look further than the genocide in Rwanda, the chaos in Zimbabwe, the slaughter in Sudan and the persecution of the Iraqi people by Saddam Hussein for over thirty years, to know this to be true.

In the absence of an effective international body responsible for the application of civilised rules of international behavior, countries will inevitably fall back on unilateral action to resolve problems and the world will continue to flounder from catastrophe to catastrophe. Until we understand that the serving of the common interest is the key to self interest, we will go nowhere worth going to.

Now is the time for the Iraqi people to show the world a better way. Their destiny lies not in the hands of the UN or the USA but in their own hands, if they did but realise it. It is what they now do that will determine what course the UN and USA will follow, not the other way around. Say yes to freedom. Say yes to democracy. Say yes to justice and above all say no to terror and the USA will become their client and not their master, their friend and not their enemy.

Re-printed from article written in September 2004

The End Of Saddam Hussein

Saddam was without doubt a brutal dictator but his execution leaves me feeling uneasy. He was responsible for the murder and torture of tens of thousands of people and now he has in a sense been murdered himself. In some ways it seems we have just added another murder to all the others. I don't know whether this is justice or just another case of barbarity.

However, I leave this decision to those who have suffered directly at his hand. I cannot put myself in their place. I cannot feel their grief or their anger. I can only try to imagine it and that is not at all the same thing. There is a world of difference between imagined and actual physical and mental pain.

It is for those who have suffered to make the judgement, I cannot. I suspect that Saddam's death will bring closure to their pain and suffering. I hope so, and if that is the case then some purpose will have been served by his death.

That the West supported this maniac in the war against Iran and therefore perpetuated his tyranny should rest heavily with those responsible and I hope no Western leaders will ever again, put political expediency ahead of their moral duty of care to the people ruled by tyrants like Saddam Hussein. Such an abrogation of duty is unpardonable in a civilised world and they are in part to blame for the appalling chaos that now bedevils Iraq.

Should a post Blair Britain re-balance towards Europe?

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Why would anyone in their right mind want to hand over British Sovereignty to a bunch of unelected Eurocrats who would like nothing better than to get their grubby hands on our economic wealth and resources and spread them around amongst themselves? Why would anyone want to have anything to do with the EU Commission when the auditors have refused for the 12th consecutive year to sign off the accounts? Madness and je dit non, jamais!

Half the time our own government cannot agree amongst themselves about NHS reform, Iraq, education reforms, etc. Imagine 26 governments all with their own problems, ambitions and priorities agreeing about anything that matters. If you can, you have a better imagination than I do. They can't even agree on a constitution which the majority of Europeans don't want anyway.

Asking us to join the Euro express is like asking America to give up her sovereignty and become a part of an American Union with Mexico, Argentina, Brazil, Panama, Colombia, Chile, Peru, Uruguay, Canada, Bolivia, Venezuela et al. The capital of this "superpower" would have to be in Nicaragua so as not offend sensibilities and the Central Bank would be installed in Buenos Aries or Rio. It's a nightmare of epic proportions!

So, why should we want any part of such muddled thinking. it's a nonsense?

There are lots of other ways to be in Europe without having to sell our soul and our heritage. We have had joint ventures with European firms for decades. We can invest in or buy European corporations and trade within the EU without being owned by it.

If Britain joins the Euro it will become nothing more than a county of Europe, with no say in the World's affairs. Well I don't buy it. Our ancestors must be turning furiously in their graves at the mere thought of handing our sovereignty over to anybody let alone a Franco-German axis with ambitions to dominate a Europe they were unable to conquer by force, despite their best efforts, over centuries.

Why be in one camp when you can be in many? Voila, ce que je dit a vous tous!.Non, non et non!

Should a post-Blair Britain re balance towards Europe?

Corrupt - who us?

There will be a few wry smiles in foreign ministries around the world, particularly perhaps at the Quai D'Orsay in Paris and the state department in Washington, at news that the corruption investigation into a huge British defence contract with Saudi Arabia has been suddenly ended.

Foreign competitors will see another performance by 'perfidious Albion', as the British government holds its hand on its heart and promises that commercial interests have played no part.

British lectures on the "rule of law" will lose some of their force. Other governments - and frankly, many of the British workers engaged on the project - will not believe that the size of the contract in question was not the determining factor. It is for 72 Typhoon Eurofighters from BAE.

Comment:

This is another classic example of double standards and hypocrisy on the part of all concerned. Once again economic interest has outweighed all legal and moral principles. As long as corruption is tolerated, the world will remain corrupt. Any simpleton can surely work that out?

Why should individuals obey the law when the state does not? What is the point of integrity when corruption pays? What is the use of good practice, when bad practice is immorally rewarded? What is the point of professionalism and high standards when greed is the main criteria? What is the point of anything if the determining factor in negotiations is the thickness of a brown envelope?

During my professional career, I had numerous bribes offered to me? I refused them all and sent the "clients" on their way, refusing to have any further dealings with them. I never regretted it. Trust, integrity, respect and honour cannot be bought.

As far as I am concerned, everyone involved in this scandalous affair is an accomplice to fraud and I have no respect for any of them, British, Saudi or anybody else who does business this way. This is not business. This is fraud. This is stealing. It's much harder to be a decent and honourable person than it is to be a rich thief. Nothing good ever came of no good.

PM Quizzed Over Cash For Honours

Thursday December 14, 03:43 PM

Book Review

Oh what a lovely trough!



Dollar woman

Tony Blair has been questioned by police in connection with the cash-for-honours investigation, Downing Street has said. The Prime Minister was not spoken to under caution. Mr Blair gave explanations of why he nominated individuals for peerages, the spokesman continued. He added that the PM was not accompanied by a lawyer while being quizzed inside Downing Street.

"Given that the Scottish National Party made the complaint about people nominated for peerages by the Prime Minister, (you would expect that the police would ask to see the PM as their inquiries come to a conclusion," the spokesman added.

The interview lasted between one and two hours. The aide flatly denied that the interview had been deliberately timed to coincide with the release of a report into the death of Diana, Princess of Wales. The cash-for-honours inquiry revolves around a series of loans made to both main political parties by millionaire backers before last year's general election.

It was sparked by claims that wealthy Labour backers were being rewarded with peerages and was later widened to cover similar claims about the Conservatives.

Sky News Political Editor Adam Boulton said: "We've been getting the message that they (the police) possibly haven't got the evidence to go all the way and indict the Prime Minister. Today's events indicate that."

Angus MacNeil, the SNP MP who triggered the inquiry, said: "This revelation will be shaking the very foundations of Westminster. "For the Prime Minister to be questioned by the police during a criminal investigation is unprecedented."

Now I'ain't saying he did, and I ain't saying he did not know, about cash for honours. I ain't even saying he was aware that there were no WMD in Iraq! I do know he said New Labour would be whiter than white. That, I am sure about!

The familial society

Email sent 11the December 2006

For the attention of David Cameron – Conservative Party Leader

According to a report in today’s newspapers, a group of skilled British craftsmen working on an NHS project have been sacked and their jobs given to Polish workers. The 16 glaziers one of whom had just won an award for his dedication and professionalism were working on a hospital construction project.

In the last day or two Mr. Ian Duncan-Smith has been talking about the beneficial aspects of the family unit in bringing up children in a stable environment and the negative social impact of broken families.

There is a massive contradiction in the above scenarios. The politicians want families to stick together and raise their families in loving and stable backgrounds but turn a blind eye when it comes to employment security and stability in the work environment, where corporate social responsibility is at a premium.

If you want to seriously tackle society’s ills, you have to do so across the board, and it has to be done by society as a whole, not just selected parts. This is surely a self evident truth from which there is no escape.

I have long believed that one of the most important factors in the erosion of respect for authority and the slide into binge drinking and the yob culture, is as much the instability in the work place and government expedience, as it is in the family unit. If you lose respect for institutional authority, it will not be long before there is little respect for paternal and maternal authority either. Government has continually undermined the authority of parents over the last three decades.

Corporations are no longer even slightly concerned with the well being of their workers, their neighbourhoods or the society they function in, and from which they make their profits. They are concerned only with the bottom line and making ever greater profit, irrespective of the social cost to their neighbourhoods or indeed the country as a whole.

Likewise governments are no longer concerned with principles or integrity. Political expedience is preferred in the mistaken belief that this is how to win votes and attain or retain power. They cater more and more to minority pressure groups who seek what is good for them but not necessarily what is right for society as a whole. They spin webs of deceit and propaganda to cover up unpalatable failures and have the bare-faced audacity, to wonder why ordinary people hold government and politicians in such low esteem? It is of course no wonder at all.

The much heralded, so called “globalisation” policy now pursued with such vigour by greed driven corporations with a sharp eye for easy money and bigger profits, is one of the driving forces breaking up communities and creating social instability. They don’t think twice about abandoning loyal, hard working staff to exploit cheaper labour in Third World countries, and they care nothing about the cost of the social upheaval they leave behind. Is it any wonder the workers lose faith in their turn?

Where is all this leading? We can see where it is leading, in our city centres on a Friday and Saturday night, in the statistics on divorce, marriage, single mothers, rising unemployment, overflowing prisons, drug addiction, teenage pregnancies, gun crime and on and on.

If we are to right the wrongs in our society we have to build a new model, one in which everyone plays a part. Corporations and their shareholders must understand that they have a duty of care to the people who work for them, their neighbourhoods, the country as a whole and the environment. Corporate culture has become much less service orientated and much more aggressive. They think it works but all it is doing is adding to the general rage levels that pervades society now. It’s counter-productive in the long term and therefore bad business practise. We now live in a rip-off society in which everyone is dissatisfied. They need to wake up and smell the coffee and cannot be allowed to ignore their social responsibilities any more than parents should be allowed to ignore theirs. They need to be pro-active in their communities. Everyone has a responsibility in a civilised society to their society and until we put this foundation stone in place, society will continue to tumble towards anarchy. Capitalism will also, mark my words, continue lemming-like, its headlong rush towards the cliff’s edge and its own demise.

It is no good one man adding a brick to the wall, if another man removes one from the other end. It’s as simple as that. At the end of the day life is about people not money. For people to live in a cohesive and civilised manner, life must first be worth living. That is the only bottom line that counts.

http://www.itv.com/news

Random thoughts of a tired fella

More than 20 million Africans have died in wars over the last 30 years. One million people were slaughtered in just 100 days in the genocide in Rwanda. What did the international community do? What is it doing in Darfur now or Zimbabwe?

We fret about Wayne Rooney's broken metatarsal lest he not be fit for the World Cup but everyday hundreds of children lose limbs to landmines in current and past war zones around the world. Do they make the headlines?

We spend millions of pounds voting on appalling reality TV shows, stream fed to us by brain dead television producers determined that we should all become morons.

We make many undeserving nobodies into celebrities while the real heroes in our society, the nurses, firemen and others remain anonymous and relatively poorly paid.

Great things are done everyday by ordinary people but we never hear about them.

Our soldiers and hundreds of thousands of innocent civilians die by the arms we manufacture and sell to warlords and dictators. What do we do then? We send aid to the hapless victims of these weapons, to rehabilitate their shattered lives and economies at great expense to taxpayers and much profit to fat cat corporations. That's a grisly little merry-go-round don't you think?

Why are we not seeking alternatives modern solutions to old intransigent problems.? On the other hand, why use dialogue or the instruments of international law when you can use B52s? Why use a handshake and smile when you can use a Kalashnikov? Well I can think of millions of reasons why, and they will never see another sunrise.

Lenders freely loan money to those that can least afford more debt against assets they are bound to lose. Why? Because its easier to entrap the poor into borrowing beyond their means than the rich. It is exploitation of the basest kind.

We exploit developing countries to produce ever cheaper goods for the rich. Mr. Brown the Chancellor pats himself on the back and takes the credit for low inflation. Enough said!

In conclusion and without labouring the point further, we inexorably speed unwittingly and most carelessly towards our own demise, because we never do what is philosophically and morally right, only what is politically convenient.


Poetry: http://www.spearman.blogspot.com

This once green and pleasant land

Once upon a time, some 30-40 years ago, I used to think and say that the UK was without a shadow of a doubt the best and freest country in the world. There was no cctv, no speed cameras, nor need for it. There was no obligation to carry any form of identity upon one's person nor need for it. Every village had a local bobby (policeman) with a bicycle who was known by all and who knew everyone. We were all comforted by the fact that we knew he had his pulse on what was happening within his community. He was a man of respect, respected by all.

The post was always delivered on time and intact. Your bank manager knew you and you knew you could go and see him and discuss your financial matters at any time. Jobs were secure and people generally content. Schools were good. Discipline and a sense of fair play were the hallmarks of a respectful and respected British society.

You could leave your front door and windows open and go down to the shops without fear that someone would break in and steal your possessions. Communities were vibrant and closeknit and looked after each other. The vast majority respected the law and adhered willingly and skillfully to the highway code. Politicians were still trusted and our institutions were widely acknowledged as being amongst the best run and least corrupt in the world.

You could go almost anywhere night or day in relative security. People were polite and respectful of each other. Kids by and large behaved themselves and looked up to their elders. Government trusted its citizens and only the guilty were punished.

Kids climbed trees, made daisy chains, played conkers or drew squares in chalk on the pavement and played hopscotch while the boys played cowboys and Indians. Sport was widely played in schools, in the streets and on village greens around the country. Childhood was fun and as idyllic as it probably has ever been.

Now we have cameras following our every move. We are spied upon by unseen faces in unseen places 24 hours a day. Government dishes out collective punishment to the masses for the excesses of the few. Policeman are faceless people hidden away in squad cars and hardly ever seen in rural towns and villages. Communities have been broken up.

We are no longer individuals but numbers in computers, no longer greeted by friendly faces or voices but by lifeless, annoying, exceedingly frustrating automated computer generated answering systems, abhorred by everyone with a vengeance and without exception. Yet there they are, day after day, call after call, speaking at us and down to us in dull numeric monotony. Our well known hatred and frustration of these souless machines has no impact on their perpetrators. They ignore us as though we are unworthy of anything better, as inhuman as the electronic gagetry itself. It is all about the bottom line and shareholders pockets and the people be damned.

Most middle aged and elderly people are afraid to go into their city centers on a Friday or Saturday night when they are taken over by badly behaved foul mouthed youths, intent on getting as drunk as possible in the shortest possible time and generally causing trouble. Street corners stink of urine and hapless policemen and women are drafted in numbers and at great cost, to keep order week after week after week. Compounding the problem is the fact that the tabloid press panders to the culture of youth and the lowest common denominator in all things that appeal to the baser side of human nature. The expression "rod for our own backs" comes to mind

The elderly are ignored, even reviled and often left to die in a heartless game of post code lotteries. Souless men and woman in suits decide who can and cannot be treated. The wisdom of age is undervalued in a cheap thrill seeking, short term outlook society, that has lost faith in a better future. Some are even forced illegally to sell their homes to pay for healthcare which should have been free.

Adding insult to injury the Chancellor of the Exchequer has plundered billions more from their pension funds, plunging many into hardship in their retirement. Rubbing further salt into their wounds, the elderly and even the not so elderly, are prey to superbugs running riot in our hospitals, killing thousands every year who would otherwise recover, but nobody really cares anymore.

Kids can no longer climb trees, make daisy chains or play conkers due to ridiculous and draconian health and safety regulations. Police spend tax payers money tracking down kids who have drawn chalk squares on a pavement for a game of hop-skotch, instead of tracking down the gun runners and dope peddlers or dealing with the knife culture that almost every week, sees innocent people stabbed and killed for fun. A father of a child of two is fined fifty pounds by zealous council officials when unseen by him, his two year old son innocently discarded a sweet he did not like onto the pavement. Is it possible for officialdom to be any dumber or to behave any more ludicrously than this? How did we sink to such depths of insanity? Who is responsible for this nonsense?

Millions who once might have earned a reasonable salary are now forced to work themselves to a standstill on minimum daily wages for years on end without any job security and with diminished workers rights. These workers fall victim to illness at their peril. Miss a day's work and they go unpaid. Not only are they not paid but in many instances, they have to work an extra day to make up for the lost day! Managers however, can fall ill and receive full salary in their absence to their hearts content. This is unjust and immoral. They are all workers and they are totally inter-dependant. Can management run the business without workers? Of course not! So why the discrimination?

12 million people in this country can barely read and write despite 10 years of so called education! This is a shocking and shameful indictment of our society, parents, teachers and politicians. Instead of raising standards for everyone, they lower them in a vain attempt to give the appearence of collective advancement but ask the universities and the truth will out.

This once great haven of good sense is now a place where politicians profane anxiety at voters apathy but continue to spin webs of deceit and hypocrisy, sell honors for cash and lead this country to war on a pack of manipulated half truths. A certain Deputy Prime Minister thinks nothing of having sex with his secretary over a publically owned desk in working hours on a fat salary paid by taxpayers and the powers that be, have the audacity to say that it is a private matter. Are they mad?

If that were not enough this same government has mismanaged billions of tax payers money poorly implementing ill thought out plans to "improve" public services, principally in health and education! They have done nothing about public transport.

Political correctness, so beloved by liberals and this nannying government, has gone mad and like the proverbial snowball, is running out of control. Nobody dare speak for fear of offending over-inflated sensibilities. Soon we will be afraid to express an opinion about anything! This is manna from heaven to Big Brothers everywhere!

This is the England of today, no longer a green and pleasant land, but a dark, sinister police state in the making. Were it not for my wife's health I would be gone in a cloud of dust in less than the time it has taken me to write this obituary for a country, I once respected above all others.


http://www.spearman.blogspot.com