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INKYTEXT 294 Part II
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PART II
Issue No 294a Wednesday 12 May 1999
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Editorial correspondence should be sent to InkyText@lancaster.ac.uk
Subscription requests to Inkytext-distribution-request@lists.lancaster.ac.uk
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AGENDA
PART II
Minutes and amendments
Latest News: AUT Pay Ballot, JIF Bids.
Latest Ads: Volvo for sale; Cleaner, Camping gear, Child's bike seat wanted,
Luxury apartment to let, Laptop and VoiceFax Modem for sale,
House to buy wanted.
5. Women Artists: Current exhibitions reviewed.
6. Readers' Letters: Elections, Kosovo, New Health Centre, Witches' Curse,
Millennium Bridge, Factoids, Bardsley, Cross Bay Walk, Israel, Wheelchair
access and polling stations.
MINUTES AND AMENDMENTS
----------------------
For "Fiske University" read "Fisk University".
LATEST NEWS
-----------
AUT PAY BALLOT: The result is to be officially announced at noon today
and will be on the AUT website soon thereafter. The BBC Today programme
reported this morning that almost 60% of the AUT membership have voted
for a rejection of the 3.5 percent pay offer and in favour of strike
action. Any such action would be likely to start on or about 25 May.
Lancaster AUT Executive is meeting this afternoon and the secretary
will be proposing that a strike committee be set up. The dispute will
be the main item at an LAUT General Meeting scheduled for next
Wednesday 19 May at 1pm. Bulletins will be sent to all local members.
FIRST ROUND OF JIF (Infrastructure Fund) BIDS: The announcement of
these was delayed for over a fortnight in order not to influence the
Scottish and Welsh elections. Congratulations to the low temperature
physics research group (George Pickett, Tony Guenault, Peter
McClintock, Stephen Fisher, David Bradley, Keith Wigmore and Tony
Krier) whose proposal for 775K has been approved in principle. The
funding is intended to support the replacement and updating of the
group's facilities for the production and storage of liquid helium and
nitrogen and the installation of new automatic systems with improved
purification and handling arrangements.
There is great disappointment and some concern in managerial circles
(and especially in Environmental Sciences) that none of our other 8
bids were successful. With 40 out of some 180 bids approved nationally,
we have clearly under-performed in this round, but still have high
hopes of great success in the next.
LATEST ADS
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LUXURY 1-BEDROOM APARTMENT IN CENTRAL LANCASTER available from
mid-June. 295 pcm. Gas central heating, double glazing, washer-dryer
etc. etc. For more details telephone Angela Cunningham on 01524 69756
or email: Angela@christendomtrust.demon.co.uk
-----------------
WANTED - HOUSE TO BUY in Lancaster. Two reception rooms, two/three
bedrooms. No chain, up to 63,000. Phone Jean on 01524 582805.
------------
FOR SALE: VOLVO 340 GL Genuine 56,000 miles C registered Near mint
condition Full year's MOT to run. Four Hundred Pounds ONO. 01524-791566
------------
CLEANER WANTED for dirty house in High Bentham - contact Jane Hunt on
592673 or j.hunt@lancaster.ac.uk
----------------
WANTED: SECOND-HAND CAMPING EQUIPMENT. Especially Thermarests, and a
lightweight cookset. Contact: s.mackereth@lancaster.ac.uk
---------------
WANTED: CHILD'S SEAT for use on adult mountain bike. Suitable for
child aged 14 months - 3 years. In good condition. Please phone: 01524
67977 evenings or extension 93904 Mondays and Tuesdays.
-----------
FOR SALE: Laptop Computer - Pentium 150 - 16 MB ram - 11.3" Dual Scan
Monitor - 8 speed CD-ROM - 1 x 1.0 GB HD - 1 x 2.0 GB HD (hard disks
are easily interchangeable) - Manuals, software, case etc.... - 600 GBP
o.n.o.
3COM 56K INTERNAL VOICE FAXMODEM - Supports V.90 and x2 standards -
Less than 6 months old, includes all software - 70.00 o.n.o.
Enquiries to: Chris. Work: C13 FAS ext 93096, Home: 848253, email
ce@comp.lancs.ac.uk
-----------------------
5. WOMEN ARTISTS: CURRENT EXHIBITIONS REVIEWED
----------------------------------------------
You didn't get a review of the last Ruskin Library exhibition, Ruskin
and the Old Masters. That's because it was full of Ruskin's drawings
and I felt it would be too cruel and uncharitable to ironize upon them.
The sad fact is that this inveterate sketcher, teacher of drawing and
founder of the Ruskin School at Oxford wasn't actually terribly good at
drawing himself. Or, to put it more kindly, he tried very hard and
learned a lot himself in the process, but it just didn't come
naturally.
Look at those laboured pencil drawings, copies of others' works
therefore requiring no imagination, pernickety, myopic, copiously
corrected and amended by erasure. Then look at the effortless,
eloquent, living lines of a 2 second three-stroke sketch by a natural:
Durer, Raphael, Watteau, Degas, Picasso, Kokoschka, or any of the lads
and lasses who'll do your caricature or silhouette in 30 seconds
outside the Pompidou Centre. No comment needed.
This time however we are spared the Master and introduced instead to
works by some of the admiring women who gravitated around him, and
vastly more interesting they are. 'Women Artists in Ruskin's Circle'
runs until the Autumn.
Old Mistresses have been a trendy object of study for the past 30
years. High time. Female painters always existed but never received the
attention some felt they deserved. One reason for this was that, not
having to earn a living from the job, they were perceived as 'mere'
amateurs. Another and more cogent argument might be that by and large
they did not start 'new' movements, a seeming requirement for
prominence in some art history.
Now of course the amazing Artemisia Gentilischi, Mme Vigee-Lebrun,
Angelica Kaufman, Berthe Morisot and co are receiving belated
publicity. Those taught or inspired by Ruskin are perhaps not quite in
the same tradition, and their subject matter is largely and predictably
intimate rather than dramatic. Kate Greenaway is clearly the star.
Meanwhile, over at the Peter Scott Gallery until 28th May is the
amazing world of Anne Desmet's magnificent and visionary prints. These
are a revelation, and belong to a young artist with astonishing craft
skills and a powerful and visionary imagination (who ever said women
lack it!) Not to be missed.
'Towers and Transformations' is a touring show from the Ashmolean
Museum, Oxford. It is a retrospective sample of brilliant wood
engravings by Anne Desmet, produced between 1985 and 1997. Her work
explores metamorphosis and change, concentrating on classical Roman
architecture and its aftermath. Her work is in a number of Public
Collections including the British Museum, the Victoria & Albert Museum
and the Fitzwilliam Museum, Cambridge.
6. READERS' LETTERS
-------------------
Could I direct some readers to this website; a very enjoyable 10
minutes can be spent here at the on-line prospectus of the University
of Bums on Seats: http://www.cynicalbastards.com/ubs/index.html
Also, I recently asked for information about the 'witches curse'
affecting Lancaster. A reader responded, and the reply is copied below
(anonymous to protect the guilty): "Regarding your query in Inky about
the witches' curse. I'm afraid it is a myth deliberately concocted a
few years ago by a couple of friends of mine who ran an Events Guide
and included this tale. It is categorically not true.
Dave Boyle
--------------------------
Following the animated discussions surrounding disability recently on
campus, I am spurred on to share my experiences as a disabled voter at
the recent elections. I have been a wheelchair user for the past six
years and in that time I have only been able to vote inside the polling
station once.
This year was no exception. I was forced to cast my vote in the
playground of the school used as our local polling station, give my
vote to the returning officer by hand (he couldn't bring the ballot box
outside) and let him carry it through into the hall and post it in the
box. All because the school in question had steps leading into it.
Indeed when driving through town later that day I struggled to see any
polling station which had access provision, I saw babies left outside -
but no inclusive access. The local Labour candidate and the returning
officer had no answer to the problem when I challenged them - only
sympathy and pointing out that they had not got the money to ramp every
polling station. The Labour candidate even pointed out the fact,
unnecessarily that I could have used a postal vote as many people 'like
me' do! My reaction to this was predictable - as the many people who
know me will testify.
I can only surmise therefore that is certainly indicative therefore of
the present regime's attitude toward disability that this most basic of
civil rights is made so difficult, if not indeed perceived as
inaccessible. This exclusion does increase the marginalisation felt by
people with disabilities, postal voting is not the answer as it
increases the feeling of isolation, and it certainly does not indicate
the commitment of government, both local and national, toward an
inclusive society.
Rob Bracewell
Work Placement Volunteer
CanDo Service,
---------------------------------
Your editorial comment to my letter was very unkind. My comment was
not meant to be clever nor funny and I am surprised you chose to take
it that way. Free speech is as much the stuff of democracy as
protesting.
If you want your protest to be heard you should talk to the engine
driver not the oily rag. What are the protestors protesting about? Is
it the refusal to send in ground forces? Is it the killing of
civilians? Is it NATO's seeming inability to bring the atrocities to an
end?
I would have thought the Serbian civilians would be glad of any
diplomatic approaches to Mr Milosovic rather than see their homes
destroyed and their loved ones needlessly slaughtered by their allies.
The point I am trying to make is that whilst I agree protests have
their place (though I am still unclear what the protest is aimed at),
it would be more effective if it were directed to the party that can
bring the war to an end - in this case Mr Milosevic.
The British have a small voice in an American dominated NATO. It has
been made clear that NATO have no intention of sending in ground forces
and are determined to increase the air strikes that have been going on
for six weeks and still the people are being driven out. We are asked
to believe that Mr Milosevic's resolve is weakening but try telling
that to the refugees. But now, in addition to the ethnic cleansing,
they are also being killed by NATO aircraft who mistakenly take coaches
full of refugees for enemy tanks. I can't believe the refugees are
saying 'thank you' to the NATO air forces for seemingly helping Mr
Milosevic to achieve his aim.
A diplomatic mission/protest, call it what you will, to Belgrade
directly to the hub of the problem would seem to me to be a more
positive move than trying to influence an intransigent bit-player who
do exactly what America says.
Anyway, that's my view. Maybe little good is served by publishing
personal feelings on such issues as witnessed by other correspondence.
However interesting, its not solving an awful humanitarian problem.
Roger Lincoln
[NOTE: Sorry, but it is not in our local power to influence Mr M
verbally or otherwise if bombs don't. He is in any case perfectly aware
of what NATO conditions for a cease-fire are supposed to be. It IS in
our power to seek to impress on our own government the conviction held
by some of us from the outset that what will ultimately be achieved
diplomatically can't be achieved by their present strategy. (Ed.)]
-----------------------
Most of Michael Jackson's typically empty tirade speaks for itself,
but one of his points is not unique to him and is worth a comment. It
is the claim that the River Lune Millennium Bridge is a waste of money,
because it won't take cars.
The Millennium Bridge is a joint foot and cycle bridge across the Lune
at St George's Quay. At 4.5m, half of it from the Millennium fund, it
is not an alternative to a road bridge but to one-third of a furlong of
bypass. Even if it had no effect on traffic flows it would be no more
than cyclists and pedestrians have a right to expect: a safe and
pleasant crossing of the river at a distance of more than a yard from
constant heavy traffic, noise, and pollution. The River Lune
Millennium Park scheme with which it is associated will regenerate both
banks of the Lune for leisure, business and tourism, as well as
non-motorised transport. The businesses and agencies who are putting up
most of the rest of the money expect to see a return on it, and they
are right.
In fact, it will put the heart into the city's cycling network. With
one or two modest changes to the road network it will allow people for
the first time in the motor age to cycle quickly and safely over the
river and through the city. Once it has bedded in, it is likely to go a
long way towards meeting the City's target of increasing cycle use from
4% to 10% of journeys to work by 2006. It will make longer-distance
"Safe routes to school" schemes possible. It will bring a bigger
increase in mobility and quality of travelling life to this district
than any other single measure on the table.
In simple terms of traffic reduction, pound for pound it beats the
western bypass scheme hollow, offering perhaps one-fifth of the traffic
reduction, permanently, for one-twentieth of the cost. If cycling
facilities took a proportion of the County transport budget equal to
the proportion of journeys done by cycle, we could afford a Millennium
Bridge every other year.
Robert Poole.
PS: Factoids: I defer. I still prefer my definition (something true =
but meaningless, yet more than a mere tautology), but InkyText
persuades me that its competitor is more fully established than I
realised - obvuiously, there'e no arguing with the Daily Mirror manual
of style.
------------------------------------------
The whys and wherefores of this war have receded after six weeks of
simply inane policy on the part of our government and NATO. Whatever
one's views on the inevitability or not of the forced evacuation of
Kosovo, it is clear that NATO is conducting this 'action' in the most
irresponsible manner possible.
The current policy of bombing from a mile up is meaningless in the
absence of ground troops. It is fast becoming late for an effective
intervention, the Balkan Winter will descend on the region come
October, and without the most enormous effort in the five or so months
remaining to us - an effort requiring co-operation with the Yugoslav
government of the day and for them to accept large numbers of NATO
troops on their soil (simply to do the work of rebuilding, let alone
keep the peace) - thousands will die across Yugoslavia. I wish with all
my heart that not a single bomb had been dropped. Every one that has
been hurled onto Yugoslav soil has been a cynical waste of life and
resources.
For irresponsibility, even criminality, I look at the quite conscious
and deliberate targeting of television workers. I look at the
deliberate attempt to return Yugoslavia to a medieval darkness by the
use of this 'carbon soft-bomb' (details of which, you can be sure, were
released to titillate the nation's lovers of hi-tech weapons), a
so-called 'non-lethal' weapon, which nevertheless will have killed some
dozens of people indirectly through the sudden nation-wide loss of
power. But most of all I look at the way we are using the dirtiest
weapons imaginable in this war: bombs laden with radioactive material -
depleted uranium.
We drop uranium bombs on the Yugoslavs, poisoning whole tracts of the
land, irradiating the very soil and water; we kill journalists and
make-up girls, deliberately; we turn off the power supplies of
hospitals...and yet, so our leaders tell us, we are not at war.
This is not armchair generalship, for I make no prescription for how
the 'action' should be conducted recognising now that I am not equipped
to judge. Rather, I believe that I am acting as any citizen of good
conscience must in seeking to hold our government to account for the
actions it is taking in my name and yours.
Long ago, Henry David Thoreau, an American, withheld his dollar
poll-tax for at least six years in a row. On one occasion he was placed
in jail for a night on this account, till a friend paid the dollar in
his name. Thoreau was sorry at this, for his act of civil disobedience
(related in the treatise of that name) was in protest at the unjust
actions the state took in the name of its citizens. In this age of
automated tax returns it is near impossible, alas, to withhold our dues
to central government, a portion of which have been rained down on
Serbians, Montenegrins and Albanians these last few weeks.
Instead we must express our dissent through active protest. The
keenest act of civil disobedience in this information age is to express
dissent in print, with our voices, down our phone-lines and, if
necessary, on the streets in peaceful protest. You may be sure that the
expression of dissent is regarded as near-treasonable disobedience by
the lounge-suited ones who rule.
That our government is incapable of acknowledging even the smallest
dissentient vote as one of the strengths of our system of government
and law is one of the sadnesses, too many to enumerate, of a situation
that has arisen not because of a democratic deficit in Yugoslavia but,
rather, because of just such a deficit in the United Nations, NATO and
the 'Western World'.
Nick Bardsley
Retired Armchair General
--------------------------------
Excuse me! If Stan Henig, Leader of the Council for the last eight
years, is NOT responsible for the two million pound Blobby fiasco - and
nor have any of his staff even been reprimanded - then who IS
responsible?
If democratic accountability means anything, then a leader must
ultimately carry the can for the catastrophic failure of his or her
team. For the record, the controlling Labour Group did consider
disciplining a member of their staff, but ultimately didn't have the
determination to carry it out. Such weak control and leadership of
public resources hardly deserves reinstatement.
Mark Johnston
Castle Ward
[NOTE: A fair point. I don't think any elected members of the then
Council can feel very proud of their uncritical enthusiasm and its
outcome, but I'm pretty clear in my own mind where primary culpability
seems prima facie to lie. Not something one can print though. (Ed.)]
-----------------------
Sorry, I was not going to prolong this but a couple of answers to
today's letter from Alan Phillips .... (How many missiles....?)
The answer is 4 since the reactors are 'quadrantized' with four
independent safety systems - and they would have to be targetted very,
very specifically and simultaneously. However, nuclear power stations
were still built to withstand missile attacks and so the structure of
the pressure vessel is designed to stay intact.
A tactical nuclear warhead dropped anywhere at all is the problem.
Once we are in a nuclear war, then dropping bombs on a nuclear reactor
is quite irrelevant. I can't believe that if there was a nuclear
reactor in Hiroshima at the time any MORE damage can have been done or
more lives could have been lost.
Stella Birchall
Music (but still not a physicist)
-----------------------------------------
I have read in your journal that the University plans to build a new
health centre, and first public mentioned of their intentions was the
planning permission request reported in the local paper.
Only about two weeks ago, the University Planning Office asked for
comments about developments on campus - new signs for the campus
entrance road and a new roundabout hitching post. They didn't mention
any new health centre at all.
Surely they must have been thinking of building it then? Why did they
go to the trouble to ask us all about things which aren't really that
important, but neglect to ask anyone about something which really
matters? I am assuming that the Planning Office would have been
involved in this - aren't they consulted when objects bigger than a
shed are considered?
Michael Cowie
Information Systems Services
-----------------------------------
Since you mentioned the lack of official information concerning the
new Health Centre, I would like to ask whether anybody knows about
another planned change to health care provision on campus (I only heard
about this informally). The University is apparently going to take over
the service provided the nurses in the Health Centre, in order to
reduce the fee it has to pay to the King Street practice.
This would mean that, apart from perhaps one nurse, the Sisters would
be employed by the University, and would therefore have no access to
the patient information held by the Health Centre.
Considering that the only way to get an 'urgent' (same day)
appointment in the Health Centre is via one of the Sisters, this seems
to me a rather worrying development. There are also issues to do with
training and supervision, which are currently undertaken by the surgery
and will in future be the responsibility of the University. I wonder
whether anybody can confirm this information and/or clarify the
background to it.
Elena Semino
-------------------------------
Still a non-stop building site - despite crocodile tears about money
shortage...!
Max Lazarus
--------------------------
I am slightly worried about the state of knowledge of some Theatre
Studies students, judging by the contents of the small ad posted by
them (Inkytext 293). After nearly a year of studies they really should
know that 'with a little mutilation', as they put it, a person will fit
into practically any standard locker.
Concerned staff member
(please withhold my name)
--------------------------------
It is so refreshing to be able to read intelligent debate about the
war in Inkytext. Thank you.
I am still irritated to find myself constantly asked for charitable
donations for the Kosovo refugee situation, when my taxes are being
used on bombs. I would rather (as I have said to Hilton Dawson, who
listened most attentively) my taxes were being used to provide for the
refugees in an adequate way, and that the government appealed for
charitable donations for the bombs from anyone who wanted to contribute
to that.
Fiona Frank
(A first-time Green voter, because of the national Green party's
demand for an immediate ceasefire - and NOT because of any dirty tricks
campaign against the outgoing council leader).
-------------------------------
Many thanks to all those who participated, or supported (as did the
editor of this journal by publicising the walk!), in the first
'University' Cross Bay Walk led by Cedric Robinson (Queen's Guide).
About 120 people walked across the Bay on Sunday 9th May. We will let
you know in due course how much was raised.
Emily Fay & Janet Clements
------------------------------------
I'm sure all readers will be relieved that this Palestine-Israel
debate will at last be removed to the realm of bilateral dispute
between Robert Segal and myself, as I had invited him to do. His reply
will stand as a particularly articulate example, for my students, of
the nature of nations' foundational and existential mythologies (which
of course always do contain a good deal of fact, along with extensive
fabrication). I had no wish to offend, and certainly not to deny the
horrific crimes committed against the Jewish people in Europe -- but
I'm sure no-one could misread me that drastically.
Enough of this. If anyone has somehow caught the bug and does want
chapter and verse (not least from Jewish and Israeli sources, zionist
and non-zionist), you are welcome in Cartmel D66 !
Gerd Nonneman
-----------------------
PHEW! A MEGA-ISSUE THAT ONE