West Wales Badger Cull.

Apparently updated plans for a badger cull in West Wales here where I live have been recently unveiled after previous attempts were stopped by the Court of Appeal. This is part of a programme to eradicate TB from cattle. Back in July a cull proposed was considered unlawful. So what tell me has changed?

The Rural Affairs Minister Elin Jones was reported to say " I will state again that the cost of this disease in the last 10 years, when nearly 100,000 cattle have been slaughtered in Wales, is more than £120 million. This is taxpayers money the Assembly Government has paid out in compensation. Most experts agree that badgers play an important role in the transmission of bovine TB and that badgers play an important role in the transmission of bovine TB and that we will not eradicate TB if we do not tackle the disease in both widlife and cattle."

M'mmm most experts Elin Jones do not appear to support this opinion. Also clear majority of people around here think that the cull is wrong on both moral and scientific grounds. It seems like its the case of blaming the badger at all costs but let us not question the probable blame in the first place - the diary industry. Lets face it if we didn't farm cows , there would be no T.B in the first place, the badger just seems like a convenient form of wildlife to scapegoat for the N.F.U ( National Farming Union ) and its allies.For Elin Jones an alternative option of a vaccination programme is simply not an option, despite large petitions and protests against the cull she does not seem to want to listen.

The badger is a solitary, much loved often mischievious creature that has been with us and inhabited these islands for at least a quarter of a million years, entrenched inour folklore. So the people that Elin Jones chooses to represent are bloody angry, feelings are running high. Soon perhaps the Assembly Government will again allow masked contractors from DEFRA to invade peoples property and land in order to implement this flawed policy. It will be expensive and probably a complete waste of time, I am sure local opposition will make sure contractors and officials will be unable to get on to the land in the areas targeted. So I say power to the people and of course to the badgers too, if you can raise your voice against this scheme, do it while you can.

Badger -John Clare

When midnight comes a host of dogs and men
Go out and track the badger to his den,
And put a sack within the hole, and lie
Till the old grunting badger passes by.
He comes an hears - they let the strongest loose.
The old fox gears the noise and drops the goose.
The poacher shoots and hurries from the cry.
And the old hare wounded buzzes by.
They get a forked stick to bear him down
And clap the dogs and take him to the town,
And bait him all day with many dogs,
And laugh and shout and fright the scampering hogs.
He runs along and bites at all he meets:
They shout and hollo down the noisy streets.

He turns about to face the loud uproar
And drives the rebels to their very door.
The frequent stone is hurled wher'er they go;
When badgers fight, then everyone's a foe.
The dogs are clapped and urged to join the fray'
The badger turns and drives them all away.
Though scarcely half as big, demure and small,
He fights with dogs for hours and beats them all.
The heavy mastiff, savage in the fray,
Lies down and licks his feet and turns away.
The bulldog knows his match and waxes cold,
The badger grins and never leaves his hold.
He drives the crowd and follows at their heels
And bites them through - the drunkard swears and reels

The frightened woman takes the boys away,
The blackguard laughs and hurries on the fray.
He tries to reach the woods, and awkward race,
But sticks and cudgels quickly stop the chase.
He turns again and drives the noisy crowd
And beats the many dogs in noises loud.
He drives away and beats them every one,
And then they loose them all and set them on.
He falls as dead and kicked by boys and men,
Then starts and grins and drives the crowd again;
Till kicked and torn and beaten out he lies
And leaves his hold and crackles, groans, and dies.

Hopefully the above poem shows what a stong resiliant creature the badger is , that defends itself to the bitter very end.

Long live the daerfochyn.



http://www.pembrokeshireagainstthecull.uk/

The Welsh Not.

In Wales, Welsh school children were punished for speaking their own language in the belief that the English Language would solve all their educational problems. They tried to kill its language and damned nearly succeeded, because in the nineteenth century their was a superficial belief that English was superior, and that English was the only language which should be used throughout the British Empire.
A report of 1847 which became known as the Treachery of the Blue Books written by English barristers who did not speak any Welsh between them castigated Welsh culture in general, and referred to the Welsh language as a drawback and that the moral condition of Welsh people would only improve with the introduction of English. The ' Welsh not ' consisted of a small piece of wood or slate inscribed with the letters 'W.N ', which was hung barbarically around the neck of any child caught speaking Welsh. At the end of the day , the child wearing the 'Welsh Not ' would be punished by the schoolteacher with the cane.. It was a form of cultural genocide and it was only at the beginning of the 20th century that this draconian measure and attitude to Welsh slowly began to change.
I am glad to write ,however that after 2,500 years the Welsh language one of Europe's oldest is still here and going strong. Siaradwch  Cymraeg.

Sir Owen M, Edwards (1858-1920) on 'The Welsh Not'

'Word soon went around that a new boy, and a native one at that, had come to school. The eyes of several cruel children were upon me - I knew about them all, most were loud-mouthed children from the village - they are still the same. The teacher had told me, quietly, not to speak a word of Welsh; but those evil boys were doing everything they could do to make me shout and , at last, they succeeded. I lost my temper, and began to speak my mind to the traitorous cur who devised how to annoy me. As soon as I spoke my strong Welsh, everyone laughed, and some string with a heavy wooden token attached to it was put about my neck. I had no idea what it was; I had seen a similar token about a dog' neck to prevent it from running after sheep. Had this token been placed about my neck to prevent me from going home? Midday, the hour of release, came at last. The schoolmistress came there with a cane in her hand. She asked some question, and every servile child pointed his finger at me. Something like a smile came over her face when she saw the token about my neck. She recited to me some long riddle, of which I could not understand a word, she showed me the cane, but she did not touch me. The token was removed and I later understood that it had been placed about my neck because I had spoken Welsh.
That token was placed about my neck hundreds of times after that. This is how it was done: when anyone heard a child speaking a word of Welsh, he was to tell the teacher; and it was to remain about his neck until the person wearing it heard someone else speaking Welsh, then it would be put about his neck, poor soul . At the end of the school-day the one wearing it was to receive a blow with a cane across his hand. Every day the token, as if by its own volition, it found its way from every corner of the school to my neck. This is a comfort to me to this day: I never once attempted to have peace from that token by transferring it to someone else.'

FROM :-
' The Bells of Memory ( Clych Atgof, 1906)
in ' The Dragon's Pen ' by Bobi Jones and Gwyn Thomas.

Bertolt Brecht (translated by John Willett) - The Burning of the Books.

On the 10th of May 1933, students with the support of the Nazi Party and Nazi officials , carried out the burning of thousands of books.

Bertolt Brecht (translated by John Willett) - The Burning of the Books

When the Regime commanded that books with harmful
knowledge
Should be publicly burned and on all sides
Oxen were forced to drag cartloads of books
To the bonfires, a banished
Writer, one of the best, scanning the list of the
Burned, was shocked to find that his
Books had been passed over. He rushed to his desk
On wings of wrath, and wrote a letter to those in power
Burn me! he wrote with flying pen, burn me! Haven't
my books
Always reported the truth? And here you are
Treating me like a liar! I command you:
Burn me!

From:- Poems 1913 -1956 by Bertolt Brecht, Methuen, London.

' This Poem...' - Elma Mitchell.

This poem is dangerous: It should not be left
Within the reach of children, or even adults
Who might swallow it whole, with possibly
Undesirable side-effects. If you comr across
An unattended, unidentified poem
In a public place, do not attempt to tackle it
Yourself. Send it (preferbably, in a sealed container)
To the nearest centre of learning, where it will be rendered
Harmless, by experts. Even the simplest poem
May destroy your immunity to human emotions.
All poems must carry a Government warning. Words
Can seriously affect your heart.


FROM:- People Etcetra: Poems new and selected, Peterloo Poets, 1987.

BANNED BOOKS WEEK (25/10/10 -2/10/10).

It's banned books week in the U.S, an annual awareness campaign that celebrates the freedom to read, and draws attention to banned books and challenges the reaon why and highlights persecuted individuals. It has been goin since 1982, and I don't understand why it has not taken hold in other parts of the world.

Picture of John Milton.

John Milton, ' Areopagitica ' addressed to 'the Parliiament of England' (1644)

Books are not absolutely dead things, but do contain a potencie of life in them to be as active as the soule was whose progeny they are; nay they do preserve as in a violl the purest efficacie and extraction of that living intellect that bred them. I know they are as lively, and as vigourously productive, as those fabulous Dragons teeth; and being sown uo and down, may chance to spring up armed men. And yet on the other hand unless warinesse be us'd, as good almost kill a Man as kill a good book, who kills a Man kills a reasonable creature, Gods image; but hee who destroys a good Booke, kills reaon it selfe, kills the Image of God, as it were in the eye. Many a man lives a burden to the Earth, but a good Booke is the pretiois life-blood of a master spirit, imbam'd and treasur'd up on purpose to a life beyond life... We should be wary therefore what persecution we raise against the living labours of publick men, how we spill the season'd life of man preserv'd and stor'd up in Books; since we see a kinde of homicide may thus be committed, sometimes a martyrdome, and if it extend to the whole impression, a kinde of massacre, whereof the execution ends not in the slaying of an elemental life, but strikes at the ethereall and fift essence, the breath of reason it selfe, slaies an immortality rather then a life.


CENSORSHIP AS MUTILATION. - D.H. Lawrence, 1930. ( a Propos of Lady Chatterrley's Lover)

I managed to get published the little cheap French edition, photographed down from the original, and offered at 60 francs. English publishers urge me to make an expurgated edition, promising large returns... and insisting that I should show the public that here is a fine novel, apart from all 'purple' and all ;words'. So I begin to be tempted and start in to expurgate. But impossible! I might as well try to clip my own nose into shape with scissors. The book bleeds.
And in spite of all antagonism I put forth the novel as an honest, healthy book necessary for us today. The words that shock so much at first don't shock at all after a while. Is this because the mind is depraved by habit? Not a bit. It is that the words merely shocked the mind at all. People without minds may go on being shocked, but they don't matter. People with minds realize that they aren't shocked, and never really were: and they experience a sense of relief.

CENSORSHIP IN ACTION

'What King Solomon was doing with all those women wouldn't be tolerated in San Franciscio. '

Police chief, prosecuting the publisher of Allen Ginsberg's 'Howl and Other Poems@ in 1957, when asked if his standards of obscenity wouldn't apply to the Bible.

SOME CENSORS AND BOOKBANNERS IN THE UNITED STATES:

Anti-Defamation League
Barnes and Noble
Central Intelligance Agency (CIA)
Christian Voters league
Columbus Metropolitan Library
McCarthy, Joseph R. - U.S Senator
Meese Commission
National Association of Christian Educators
National Federation of Decency
National Security Agency
New England Watch and Ward Society
Parade Magazine
Max Rafferty - CA superintendant of public instruction
U.S. Bureau of Customs
U.S. Food and Drug Administration
U.S.Immigration and Naturalization Service
U.S. Information Agency
U.S Justice department
U.S Postal Service
U.S Treasury Department





SOME CENSORS AND BOOKBANNERS OUTSIDE THE UNITED STATES.

Ayatollah of Iran
Canadian customs
Canadian government
Franco of Spain
The Nazis
Certain communist systems
China
Burma
North Korea
Roman Catholic Church
The Church of Scientology
Signapore judiciary
Sol Littman, Simon Wiesethal Centre
Supreme Court of Austalia
Synod of Canterbury at St. Paul's, London



The above list is only a short one their are many many more
in the meantime have a good read, devour a banned book today.

Ivon Hitchens - House among the trees (1943).

Cynddyllan on a tractor- R.S. Thomas.

Ah, you should see Cynyddlan on a tractor.
Gone the old look that yoked him to the soil;
He's a new man now, part of the machine,
His nerves of metal and his blood oil.
The clutch curses, but the gears obey
His least bidding, and lo, he's away
Out of the farmyard, scattering hens.
Riding to work now as a great man should,
He is the knight at arms breaking the fields'
Mirror of silence, emptying the wood
Of foxes and squirrels and bright jays.
The sun comes over the tall trees
Kindling all the hedges, but not for him
Who runs his engine on a different fuel.
And all the birds are singing, bills wide in vain,
As Cynddylan passes proudly up the lane.





Ah the old days have gone never to return. What we have left  are old words like these ,let them  nourish us, let them glisten in our heads. Let old poems be like shadows , forever falling. More of the wily R.S. Thomas coming soon.