Aberporth: Wales Drone Zone Rubber Stamped

visitor to the Cardigan Aberteifi Consultation

Summer 2009

It is with great dissapointment I have learned today that under sponsorship from the Welsh Government, the Civil Aviation Authority ( CAA) has, for the first time over Britain designated air space around Aberporth for Unmanned Aerial Vehicle (UAV) or 'drone' flights. This follows a short public 'consultation' in summer 2009, across the affected areas of Wales.
The permanent segregated airspace around Parc Aberporth will permit frequent testing of unmanned aircraft across Carmarthenshire, Ceredigion, Powys and part of North Pembrokeshire with flights between Aberporth and militarytraining ranges on Mynydd Epynt. The only company now renting a business unit on the especially constucted Parc AberporthParc Aberporth is now Qinetig who are testing an Israeli designed 'Watchkeeper' (formerly ' Hermes' drone owned by the MOD for use with spying and targeting over Afghanistan and other war zones. The Parc itself had cost the taxpayer at least £21million. Another drone company Italian 'Selex' has recently pulled out of the site citing economic reasons.
Research into UAVs and UCAVs (Unmanned Combat Aerial Vehicle) is mainly funded by the military. Arms companies see drone technologyas an ideal way forward for them to increase their profits in the growing area of 'remote killing ' technology.

Protest, RED CHOIR/COR COCHION, CAAT, Green Party, C.N.D

Many individuals and groups in Wales (C.N.D Cymru, Cardigan Branch of Amnesty International, Bro Emlyn Peace and Justice Group, Cymdeithas y cymod) and Britain.

 Protest y Cymdeithas yn Aberporth,
August 2010,
teifidancer unveiled.

Talks on Aberporth and drones
.

 are deeply concerned about the use of Aberporth for developing these killing and spying machines. They see this as another sign of the increasing militarisation of Wales.
Some are concerned that these drones which will mainly be invisible to those further away from the airfield will be testing their spying equipment on the people and communities, thus infringing our privacy.
The use of unmanned drones as weapons of war in conflicts around the world has been called into question by one of Britain's most senior judges Lord Bingham, a former senior Law Lord, said that some weapons were ' so cruel as to beyond the pale of human tolerance'.
Jill Gough. National Secretary of C.N.D Cymru said
'We are dissapointed but not surprised by our Welsh Government. They should be supporting local businesses, not giving money to multinational companies to produce killing machines, not in rural Wales or anywhere. The only surprise is that it has taken them so long to make the announcement.'
'Shame on our coutry. Life on the planet is already damaged by human activity; people are suffering from recourse depletion, pollution and disease and poverty - as a result of violence and greed. We hoped that Wales would be part of the solution, not, as such projects as these do make us part of the problem. 'There will be more of the sort of situations we are seeing in Israel and Palestine, in Libya, Afghanistan and the rest - more conflict and further suffering unless we stop fuelling the arms trade - which itself fuels wars.
We say 'No' to the militariation of Wales'
The fly zone can be seen here

http://www.suasnews.com/2011/06/5855/aberporth-uas-danger-areas-win-caa-appr

reprinted mostly from C.N.D CYMRU

http://www.cndcymru.org/wales-drone-zone-rubber-stamped

2 more useful links
http://www.cymdeithasycymod.org.uk/
http://www.bepj.org.uk/

The Assassination of John Fitzgerald Kennedy Considered As A Down hill Motor Race - J.G Ballard.

Heard that a new programme about the Kennedys's starts at the end of this week on B.B.C 2, Friday 17th June,9.30 ( won't be watching it though, an evening of dub and reggae awaits) it did remind me however of the following piece by one of my favourite writers Mr J.G Ballard.
Incidentally it's my blogs 2nd anniversary today, so thanks to all those who have kept coming back,and to those who've stayed with me from early days, cheers, time flies, never thought I'd still be here. Always grateful from any comments recieved , unless from trolls. If your new then croeso/welcome.Hope you've enjoyed some of my posts, not sure myself, but hey that's a post in itself probably. 
The point of my blog is , well that's it really  I'm not sure myself anymore.Another thing I thought Id' add , their are many irresponsible bloggers out their that undermine bloggers freedom, the internet police do not need no excuse to crush what little free speech remains, before I started this blog I had always been suspicious of the internet, suspicioos of lots of things, but hey that's my nature. Recent things have reminded me that in the future I will try not to post unverified news, but let us not forget that false stories are often reported to us as truth by the mainsteam media, who have their own agenda.

NEWSFLASH
 Heard 10 minutes ago...... their are absolutely no Welsh bloggers on the internet, and humanity is lovely and everything we read is true.


Meanwhile in all seriousness, -  another world is inevitable..... remove all borders, hedwch/peace.
Laters... xx 

THE ASSASSINATION OF JOHN FITZGERALD KENNEDY CONSIDERED AS A DOWNHILL MOTOR RACE - J.G. Ballard

Author's note. The assassination of President Kennedy on November 22, 1963, raised many questions, not all of which were answered by the Report of the Warren Commision. It is suggested that a less conventional view of the events  of that grim day may provide a more satisfactory explanation. Alfred Jarry's " The Crucifixion Considered as an Uphill Bicycle Race" gives us a useful lead.

Oswald was the starter.

From his window above the track he opened the race by firing the starting gun. It is believed that
the first shot was not properly heard by all the drivers. In the following confusion, Oswald
fired the gun two more times, but the race was already underway.
Kennedy got off to a bad start.
There was a governer in his car and its speed remained constant at about fifteen miles an hour. However, shortly afterwards, when the governer had been put out of action, the car accelerated rapidly, and continued at high speed along the remainder of the course.
The visiting eams. As befitting the inaugration of the first production car race through the streets of Dallas, noth the President and the Vice-President participated. The Vice-President, Johnson, took up his position behind Kennedy on the starting line. The concealed rivalry between the two men was of keen interest to the crowd. Most of them supported the home driver, Johnson.
The starting point was the Texas Book Depositary, where all bets were placed in the Presidential race, Kennedy was an unpopular contestant with the Dalla crowd, many of whom showed outright hostility. The deplorable incident familiar to us all in one example.The course ran downhill from the Book Depositary, below an overpass, then on to theParkland Hospital and from there to Love Air
Field.
It is one of the most hazardous courses in downhill motor racing, second only to the Sarajevo track discontinued in 1914.
Kennedy went downhill rapidly. After the damage to the governer the car shot forward at high speed. An alarmed track official attempted to mount the car, which continued on its way cornering on two wheels.
Turns. Kennedy was disqualified at the hospital, after taking a turn for the worse, Johnson now continued the race in the lead, which he maintained to the finish.
The flag. To satify the participation of the President in the race Old Glory was used in place of the usual checkered square. Photographs of Johnson recieving his prixe after winning the race reveal that he had decided to make the flag a memento of his victory. 
Photographs of Johnson recieving his prize afterwinning the race in the lead, which hemaintained to the finish flag. To satisfy the participation of the President in the race Old Glory was used in place of the usual checkered square.Photographs of Johnson recieving his prize after winning the race reveal that he had decided to make the flag a memento of his victory.
Previously, Johnson had been forced to take a back seat, as his position on the starting line behind the President indicates. Indeed, his attempts to gain a quick lead on Kennedy during the false start wre forestalled by a track steward, who pushed Johnson to the floor of his car.
In view of the confusion at the start  of the race,which resulted in Kennedy, clearly expected to be the winner on past form, being forced to drop out of the hospital turn, it has been suggested that the hostile local crowd, eager to see a win by the home driver Jonson, deliberately set out to stop him completing the race. Another theory maintains that the police guarding the track were in collussion with the starter, Oswald. After he finally managed to give the send-off Oswald immediately left the race, and was subsequently apprehended by the track officials.
Johnson had certainly not expected to win the race in this way. There were no pit stops.
Several puzzling aspects of the race remain. One is the presence of the President's wife  in the car, an unusual practice for racing drivers. Kennedy, however, may have maintained that as he was in control of the ship of state he was therefore entitled to captain's priveleges.
The Warren Commission. The rake-off on the book of the race. In their report, prompted by widespread complaints of foul play and other irregularities, the syndicate lay full blame on the starter, Oswald.
Without doubt, Oswald badly misfired. But one question still remains unanswered: Who loaded the starting gun?

Reprinted from  ' The Atrocity Exhibition'
Jonathan Cape, 1970.

Raymond Garlick (1926 -23/3/11) -POET OF EXPRESSIVE EXISTENCE

I have admired this poets work for a while, and recently in Hay-on-Wye I was lucky to find the collected poems of Idris Davies  ( http://teifidancer-teifidancer.blogspot.com/2010/02/idris-davies-poet-of-people.html ) in the poetry Bookshop. Imagine my joy when I delved further into the book, it seems that I had bought a book actually owned by Mr Garlick, for their was his name in the inside cover wth the date of Mehefin 1972 ( June) underneath, and contained within were this poets lovely annotations , which to me were lovely additions to a superb book. So when I got back to West Wales I delved into my bookshelves to get reacquainted with Mr Garlicks work. My dear  partner Jane  kindly bought me 3  lovely volumes of his.
I decided I would do a post on him, but this was tinged with sadness, because having rediscovered him I found he had passed away back in March. How I missed this news I really don't know.
I first discovered his work through the pages of the now defunct Welsh Literary magazine ' The Anglo-Welsh Review' where he had been editor.
Born in 1926 in London he subsequently spent most of his life in Wales, coming to Llandudno to live with relatives when he was a schoolboy. He studied English at the University of Wales, Bangor where he also learned Welsh. After leaving University he worked as a teacher in Bangor, Pembroke Dock and Blaenau Ffestiniog, and from 1961 to 1967 at an international school in the Netherlands. From 1967 to his retirement in 1987  he was senior lecturer at Trinity College, Carmarthen, where he lived until moving to a care home in Cardiff.
He developed a nationalistic, almost romantic view of Wales, his adopted country and became preoccupied with its two languages. Whilst at Pembroke Dock he founded in 1949 the magazine 'Dock Leaves' which became the Anglo-Welsh Review. 
At Blaenau Ffestiniog he became friends with his neighbour the writer 'John Cowper Powys' .http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John-Cowper-Powys and a friend  of R.S Thomas. He is today considered ine of the best mid 20th century English writers in Wales, alongside Harri Webb, R.S. Thomas, Dylan Thomas, John Tripp and Vernon Watkins.
A convert to catholicism in later years he confessed to being a born again Pagan, his poetry displayed great confidence, with considerable strucure and control combined with beautiful lyricism. A seculor struggle seems to swim sometimes underneath, but in the 1960s and 70s an allegiance with the emerging  civil rights movement emerged.
His influence I feel is bound to grow.
He passed away peacefully at 'The Forge Care Home' in Cardiff, having previously left the Roman Catholic Church.  
I posted a poem of his back in November 
http://teifidancer-teifidancer.blogspot.com/2010/11/raymond-garlick-auguries-of-guilt_11.html
 , so here's' a few more.
R.I.P....

DYFED

I speak from deep in Dyfed, little Wales
beyond both Wales and England, where like snails
upon the sea's green leaf the shells and sails

of ships of saints once bustled in the bays,
busy as bees about their lawful ways,
all raising up a honeycomb of praise;

from Dyfed, where Pryderi used to ride
and rule the seven green cantrefs; where beside
his bay Giraldus watched the lawn-sleeved tide

fawn on his castle piers at Manorbier,
and sighed, and rode off for another year
to Rome to gain the Holy Father's ear.

I speak from Dyfed, Wales within Wales, world
within world, within whose hearts lay curled
the flower from which Four Branches were unfurled-

a green and mighty myth where princes pass
and galleys glide on a sea of glass,
and poetry the wind that stirs the grass

THE WELSH-SPEAKING SEA

So Iestyn staggers down the shore of speech
and trips and suddenly sits and takes his rest,
playing with sounds like pebbles on a beach;

then clambers up and totters proudly on
towards the sonorous vowels of the sea,
and casts a net of consonants upon

the wondrouswaters,angling for a word.
He waits and watches, drawing in his breath,
until the waves withdraw. Then like a bird

his less than two years'  tongue wings on its way
a singing syllable of sense, a sound
caught from the bounding chaos of the bay

Never before more splendidly was snug
thislitany of language on his lips,
nor Welsh more lovely tumbled from a tongue.

BIOGRAPHICAL NOTE

And who am I? You ask. My mask is spare.
I live in a rakish body framed
about a spine like a buckled spire

or twiste spring, my uncurled crown of thorn.
One crystal tear of God, one devil's flame,
lies clear or leaps on this lop-sided throne.

As earth desires the rain, the womb the seed, pain
rest, coception birth, the burning lover
his beloved's breast: just so, yo pin

a syntax on existence and to voice
the vovels of being is the hot desire
locked in my knotted limbs and body's vice.

And thus I am, and thus you see me now:
a hustings for a heart wrapped in a wrack,
lusting for words to shape itself anew.

POET

He has no small talk.
The bright warm-tap
of conversation-
whose silver lip

moistens encounters-
he cannot turn,
releasing the ripple
of talk's tune.

For him always
the private walk
to the well in the rock,
and the silent work-

kneeling, leaning,
reaching, twards
the trembling wellspring,
the living words.

POEMS FROM:-

A Sense of Europe, Collected Poems 1954-1968.
Gwasg Gomer, 1968.

FURTHER WORKS RECOMMENDED:-

Incense,
Gwasg Gomer, 1976.

Sense of Time,
Gwasg Gomer, 1972.

Collected Poems 1949-1986.
Gomer Press, 1987

Free Amina

Last night watching Newsnight it was bought to my attention that their were doubts to Amima's identity. The pictures of her on her blog were of another woman named Jenina Leic. The fact is her blog existed before any pictures were put up. Perhaps it is an elaborate hoax, or a case of government disinformation, an attempt to drown out dissident voices.The reason that the story cannot be verified is the Syrian regime has closed off the country to foreign journalists. Censorship in this country is still very real however....
Given the relentless oppression of Syrian citizens, it could be the case that 'Amima' simply used a pseudonym..... a common practice to protect identities amongst activists.... The fact is at least 11,000 Syrians are currently being detained, and hundreds of people have dissapeared, and the freedom that some in the West take for granted is not available in Syria. Over 1,000 peaceful demonstrators have been shot dead in Syria and internet blackouts and violent repression continues.
Amina whoever she /he is has become a symbol of this oppression, and the Syrian people are still suffering and experiencing from this oppression and abuse, as I write.

FREE AMINA ABDALLA ARRAF

Amina Abdalla Arraf is a blogger who holds dual Syrian and U.S citizenship.
She also happens to be a lesbian who has shared her frank views on Syrian hypocricy, politics and on her sexuality. She has openly critisised President Bashar Assad's autocratic rules. She is behind a courageous and inspiring blog called 'A gay Girl in Damascus', which includes a mixture of erotic prose and updates about Syria's uprising, including her participation in anti-regime protests. She is not only gay, but is an anti-zionist, pro palestinian sympathiser to boot. A brave dissident in these changing times. with an internationalist outlook.
Her family claim that she was last seen on Monday being bundled into a car by 3 men in their 20s in civilian clothes in Damascus, the capital of Syria, where homosexuality is still illegal.It is probable that the regime has sought to silence her because her blog has become increasingly popular after capturing the imagination of the Syrian opposition as the protest movement struggled in the face of the government crackdown. Supporters have taken to facebook and Twitter to draw attention to Amina's unlawfil seizure.
The day before she was detained , Miss Arraf wrote :-

'I am complex, I am many things; I am an Arab, I am Syrian, I am a woman, I am queer, I am Muslim, I am binational, I am tall, I am too thin; my sect is Sunni, my clan is Omari, my tribe is Qurash, my city is Damascus. I am also a Virginian. I was born on the afternoon in a hospital in sight of where Woodrow Wilson entered the world, where streets are named for country stars.'
One of the last poems she posted was called 'Bird songs' which I reproduce below.

BIRD SONGS

The bird flies free
knowing no boundaries
Borders mean nothing
when you have wings

My heart and my soul
long to follow and soar
out over mountains
and deserts and seas

I have no wings
and earth presses in
wrapped in a sheet
Forever to lie

weighed down by dirtclods
Never to feel
wind on my wings
sun on my back

The Blogging community seem to be rallying around her ,
so below are some links, to the facebook group set up to support her, to Aavaz's online campaign and a link to her own blog.

The continued censorship and imprisonment of bloggers by countries like Syria, China, Iran etc, I believe to be totally unacceptable and must be opposed.Amina is one of thosands of nameless detainess, all over the world, over 10,000, she is  a beacon  amongst many others.
We must support her and all other friends of freedom.

https://www.facebook.com/FreeAminaArraf

http://damascusgaygirl.blogspot.com/

http://www.avaaz.org/en/free_amina_arraf/?rc=fb&pv=14

Gaza Reels יומני עזה

Chorus of anger at IDF border killings.

Link to article here
Chorus of anger at IDF border killings / World / Home - Morning Star