Religion and Ethics Forum
General Category => General Discussion => Topic started by: Nearly Sane on February 02, 2021, 04:12:05 PM
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Sad, but not a surprise.
https://metro.co.uk/2021/02/02/captain-sir-tom-moore-dies-aged-100-after-covid-and-pneumonia-battle-14004552/
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Very sad, :( but not a surprise.
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When I heard he was in hospital, I thought that was probably going to be it.
If the last year of my life is one tenth as remarkable as Captain Sir Tom's, I will die a happy man.
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Watching Channel 4 news and 12 minutes on Tom Moore. I know it's symbolic but it does feel over the top.
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When I heard he was in hospital, I thought that was probably going to be it.
If the last year of my life is one-tenth as remarkable as Captain Sir Tom's, I will die a happy man.
Ain't that the truth, Buddy! A remarkable man!
R I P Captain Moore.
Owlswing
)O(
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Am I the only one who finds the coverage to be a bit OTT, rather cloying and more than a tad jingoistic (the rapidly-dispensed knighthood being an example) - o.k. it is a nice story occurring in bleak times, but that is all it is.
Given that various government minsters have now jumped on the obituary bandwagon it is galling that in their praise of him (which is merited) they haven't also added the observation that if the NHS were better funded then gestures like this, however well-intentioned, shouldn't be required.
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Am I the only one who finds the coverage to be a bit OTT, rather cloying and more than a tad jingoistic (the rapidly-dispensed knighthood being an example) - o.k. it is a nice story occurring in bleak times, but that is all it is.
Given that various government minsters have now jumped on the obituary bandwagon it is galling that in their praise of him (which is merited) they haven't also added the observation that if the NHS were better funded then gestures like this, however well-intentioned, shouldn't be required.
No, you're not the only one - I think the knighthood was OTT.
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No, you're not the only one - I think the knighthood was OTT.
I find it difficult to evaluate whether anything in the flummery that is the honours system is OTT
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I am in favour of the honours system and think Captain SIR Tom Moore deserved his knighthood.
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I am in favour of the honours system and think Captain SIR Tom Moore deserved his knighthood.
You would. ::) ::)
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I am in favour of the honours system and think Captain SIR Tom Moore deserved his knighthood.
Bread and circuses, but mainly circuses.
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Eh? All the flummery masks the real issues...
How is it that a 100 year old catches covid19? Aren't we all in lockdown in order to protect the old and vulnerable getting ill and dying in hospital?
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Eh? All the flummery masks the real issues...
How is it that a 100 year old catches covid19? Aren't we all in lockdown in order to protect the old and vulnerable getting ill and dying in hospital?
Yes, but the system isn't perfect.
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Eh? All the flummery masks the real issues...
How is it that a 100 year old catches covid19? Aren't we all in lockdown in order to protect the old and vulnerable getting ill and dying in hospital?
With an exemption for caring, which given it appears he had pneumonia for a month, would have been needed. The big question is surely did British Airways kill him with kindness?
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Bread and circuses, but mainly circuses.
Ehhhhhhhhh?
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Ehhhhhhhhh?
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bread_and_circuses
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https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bread_and_circuses
::)
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::)
Ehhhhhhhhh?
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No, you're not the only one - I think the knighthood was OTT.
Sarcasm by the shovel-full!
As always!
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Am I the only one who finds the coverage to be a bit OTT, rather cloying and more than a tad jingoistic (the rapidly-dispensed knighthood being an example) - o.k. it is a nice story occurring in bleak times, but that is all it is.
Given that various government ministers have now jumped on the obituary bandwagon it is galling that in their praise of him (which is merited) they haven't also added the observation that if the NHS were better funded then gestures like this, however well-intentioned, shouldn't be required.
NOTHING is beneath politicians!
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Sarcasm by the shovel-full!
As always!
Steve isn't being sarcastic though: he is merely agreeing with sentiments I expressed in my post (that he was replying to), and in that post I wasn't being sarcastic.
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Sarcasm by the shovel-full!
As always!
That's not sarcasm. It is a valid viewpoint to take. You may disagree but that doesn't give you the right to change the dictionary definition of sarcasm.
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Very sad news – by all accounts he was a lovely man whose kind gesture caught the wind in a remarkable way.
As for the honours system though, whether or not you agree with the principle it seems to me to be deeply compromised in practice. There are for example consulting firms who claim to be able to move you up the ladder – presumable for a fee. Here for example is something from the website of the first one I clicked on:
“We will save you valuable time and significantly increase your chances of success. The average success rate is estimated to be just 10% (1 in 10). Our success rate is over 65% (nearly 2 in 3).”
If there’s any truth in that, one wonders how many recipients have got them because they happened to pay fees rather than just on merit. Worse still, such access devalues the currency I think for those who genuinely deserve them. It all feels a bit unethical to me.
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No, you're not the only one - I think the knighthood was OTT.
I too think the knighthood was OTT, although I think it was a nice and appropriate thing for him to do to meet the Queen.
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Clapping is cheap. Circus comes to town at 6pm
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-beds-bucks-herts-55917475
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Clapping is cheap. Circus comes to town at 6pm
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-beds-bucks-herts-55917475
I'll pass: it is all becoming a bit silly-season now.
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Clapping is cheap. Circus comes to town at 6pm
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-beds-bucks-herts-55917475
I always find these gestures after people die to be somewhat meaningless. He's dead, there's no point in clapping him now, because he can't hear us. Fortunately, he was showered with awards and honours during the last year, so he didn't die not knowing how much his efforts were appreciated.
As for the honours system, I think it is important that the country has a way to say thank you to people that have done it some exemplary service. A knighthood for Captain Sir Tom might be a bit over the top, but many less deserving people have received them.
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There was no clapping where I am
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Same here.
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There's now a petition going to get him a state funeral! Never heard owt so daft in all me life.
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There's now a petition going to get him a state funeral! Never heard owt so daft in all me life.
Again state funerals are just flummery to me.
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I always find these gestures after people die to be somewhat meaningless. He's dead, there's no point in clapping him now, because he can't hear us. Fortunately, he was showered with awards and honours during the last year, so he didn't die not knowing how much his efforts were appreciated.
As for the honours system, I think it is important that the country has a way to say thank you to people that have done it some exemplary service. A knighthood for Captain Sir Tom might be a bit over the top, but many less deserving people have received them.
Obviously, you are one of those who do not believe in an afterlife. Most those who do the clapping do so believe.
Owlswing
)O(
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Obviously, you are one of those who do not believe in an afterlife. Most those who do the clapping do so believe.
Owlswing
)O(
Not in my opinion.
In my opinion a lot of people do it with the best of intentions as in clapping for the medical staff. Of course that creates a certain feel good factor that completely ignores the fact that they are over stretched and still not rewarded adequately for what they do and it helps let the govt continue to get away with it.
The pertinent question in everyone's mind should be "Why did a 100 year old man have to walk round and around his garden in the first place?"
"Charity is a cold grey loveless thing. If a rich man wants to help the poor, he should pay his taxes gladly, not dole out money at a whim." Clement Atlee
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According to the Daily Wail there is a 'national clamour' for a statue - anyone seen any clamouring going on outwith the pages of the likes of the 'Wail'?
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Obviously, you are one of those who do not believe in an afterlife. Most those who do the clapping do so believe.
Owlswing
)O(
Yep, Johnson was out clapping because he thought it would get Captain Tom's wings quicker.
https://youtu.be/QjgE4kNSU74
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Again state funerals are just flummery to me.
That is not the point, which is that a state funeral, flummery or not, is completely over the top for a bloke who lived a perfectly unexceptional, though no doubt admirable in its way, life until the last year of his life, when he did a sponsored walk. Given his age and dodderiness, that was remarkable, but hardly merited either a knighthood or a state funeral.
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That is not the point, which is that a state funeral, flummery or not, is completely over the top for a bloke who lived a perfectly unexceptional, though no doubt admirable in its way, life until the last year of his life, when he did a sponsored walk. Given his age and dodderiness, that was remarkable, but hardly merited either a knighthood or a state funeral.
Something has to be meaningful for it to be OTT. The idea of a state funeral is just nonsense to me.
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There was no clapping where I am
That's what I was saying, just as the local TV news showed people clapping from a road round the corner :)
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Not in my opinion.
In my opinion, a lot of people do it with the best of intentions as in clapping for the medical staff. Of course, that creates a certain feel-good factor that completely ignores the fact that they are overstretched and still not rewarded adequately for what they do and it helps let the govt continue to get away with it.
The pertinent question in everyone's mind should be "Why did a 100-year-old man have to walk around and round his garden in the first place?"
"Charity is a cold grey loveless thing. If a rich man wants to help the poor, he should pay his taxes gladly, not dole out money at a whim." Clement Atlee
I am well aware of the state of the medical staff at the moment - as previously posted, my ex and sister-in-law are both in that admirable profession.
And I am sorry that my attempt at Nye's sarcasm was so far off-target!
Owlswing
)O(
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Someone makes a rare sane comment about the ridiculous, disproportionate lionisation of Captain Moore, and gets a load of racist abuse as a result. Modern Britain. https://uk.yahoo.com/news/church-aided-pile-curate-captain-072322699.html
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Someone makes rare sane comment about the ridiculous, disproportionate lionisation of Captain Moore, and gets a load of racist abuse as a result. Modern Britain. https://uk.yahoo.com/news/church-aided-pile-curate-captain-072322699.html
When you are in a minority you must expect the derision of the majority.
Owlswing
)O(
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When you are in a minority you must expect the derision of the majority.
Owlswing
)O(
Really?
That's how it is supposed to work for gay people, black people, transgendered people, ginger haired people, Monks, Pagans, etc.
You must expect it? FFS.
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Really?
That's how it is supposed to work for gay people, black people, transgendered people, ginger haired people, Monks, Pagans, etc.
You must expect it? FFS.
Expect, not accept.
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Someone makes a rare sane comment about the ridiculous, disproportionate lionisation of Captain Moore, and gets a load of racist abuse as a result. Modern Britain. https://uk.yahoo.com/news/church-aided-pile-curate-captain-072322699.html
I think it was badly phrased as there is an implication that a lot of people who feel Tom Moore deserved more adulation than you and Foreshew-Cain do, is somehow part of a 'cult of white British nationalism'.
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Expect, not accept.
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He said expect.
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He said expect.
I think that is Steve's point. To say that it would be expected doesn't mean one has to accept it.
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I think that is Steve's point. To say that it would be expected doesn't mean one has to accept it.
I don't expect it or accept it. :-\
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I
don't expect it or accept it. :-\
Your prerogative!
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The Captain Tom story raises an interesting point about consequences. He did a lovely thing, but had it not been picked up by the local press and then by the national media, and had lots of people not been taken by the story he’d have most likely raised only his original target of £1,000 rather than the £39m that was actually raised. Does that mean he should be credited with “raising” £39m, or not?
A few years ago on a bike ride on a country lane approaching at T-junction I noticed that a stop sign had been turned round. It was easy enough to turn it back the right way. Now let’s say that, hypothetically, half an hour later a family had driven by who thus saw the sign, so did stop at the junction, and so weren’t wiped out by the lorry that happened to be crossing the road ahead.
Would that have made meant I’d saved the lives of the family, and thus had been a hero for the simple act of turning the sign back? My instinct is no of course – I just turned a sign round. Let’s say instead though that I hadn’t been there that day, that the idiot who turned it the wrong way round had been caught on CCTV, and that the family had been killed as a consequence of his action. Would he deserve to be blamed for their deaths? Probably yes I’d say, though presumably the crime would be something like reckless endangerment rather than manslaughter (or worse).
Another example from Nicholas Taleb: the passengers who tackled the hijackers on American Airlines Flight 77 on 9/11 (the one that crashed into the Pentagon) were acclaimed as heroes, and I don’t disagree. Imagine though that an obscure official in the Dept. of Transportation six month before had introduced a new regulation that upgraded airport scanners such that the bad guys couldn’t have boarded at all. Would he be a hero for that action that, in practice, would have saved more lives than the brave passengers could?
Anyway, just some idle thoughts. Clearly had Captain Tom not acted as he did the £39m would not have been raised – but a lot of other events had to fall into place too, most of which he couldn’t have imagined.
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The plane on which the passengers tried to overcome the hijackers crashed into a field. It was probably intended for the Capitol or the White House. That detail apart, I agree with your points.
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Hi Nye,
The plane on which the passengers tried to overcome the hijackers crashed into a field. It was probably intended for the Capitol or the White House. That detail apart, I agree with your points.
Thanks for the correction. I did indeed mix up the flights.
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Capt. Tom's funeral today.
Including a flypast and a 14-gun salute.
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-beds-bucks-herts-56212135