Three men have just been convicted of murdering African American jogger Ahmaud Arbery after chasing him in their pickup trucks in Georgia.
Thankfully two of them have been sentenced to life imprisonment without parole. America is still a hugely racist society and I reflect on this every time I see our professional footballers taking the knee in support of ridding our society of racism. Sadly I don't think the USA will ever eradicate racism.
I can't help reflecting on the American Constitution and the following lines from the Declaration of Independence:
"We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness".
I have never before put the following down in print but feel it is now appropriate to do so. It was back in 1976 or thereabouts that we swapped homes with an American couple who owned a large ranch house in many acres of ground. They were there for part of our stay and took us to a restaurant in a large store in Philadelphia where we had a number of Martinis.
It was when we had left that the man said: "What did you notice about the restaurant?" We were stumped as it seemed to us like just a regular place where the prices were high.
"There were no n-----s there" he said using the dreaded N word. At that point we realised that he and his wife were racists. On the walk back to the car I listened in to a conversation between a white and black man walking just behind us. The black man was complaining about the inequalities in the USA and how he had been subjected to racism throughout his life.
It all left a rather sour taste in our mouths and the fact I remember it all these years later shows just how much it affected us. Personally I couldn't care less about the colour of a person's skin. I judge people by what kind of human being they are.
* * *
We have two new pieces of art on our lounge wall in the shape of photographs of Norwich Cathedral. They look good (even if I do say so myself) and one of them cost just £1.99 for the large print from Boots and £5 for a frame. That makes a grand total of £6.99 for a piece of art I am very pleased with. You will find one of the images with this blog. Our house is full of originals - My other threequarters artwork and now my photographs.
* * *
I enjoy listening to virologist Dr Chris Smith who fills our television screen with good humour and intelligent assessment of the COVID situation. I would rather listen to one sentence from him than a whole chapter of dribblings from politicians. He talks sense and puts difficult concepts over in ways that can be easily understood. Mind you yesterday he did use a couple of words that had me scrambling for the dictionary.
The first was analogous which means: "comparable in certain respects, typically in a way which makes clearer the nature of the things compared."
The second was attenuate which means "reduce the force, effect, or value of."
I remember when I was a working journalist we often set each other challenges to include certain words or phrases in a story. These often took the form of well known LPs of the day. I think analogous and attenuate would make good challenges.
I don't think the grammar police will be after Dr Chris but they might have a VAR look at some football commentators. Alan Shearer told us that a player "could have went" instead of could have gone and Paul Merson (not a purveyor of the Queen's English) told us that a player "couldn't do nuffin abart it." They often use the word nothing instead of anything. So technically if they couldn't do nothing about it the inference is that they could do something. Perhaps I need the grammar police!
* * *
The latest in my collection of nonsense news stories on television. Yesterday I brought you the story of a doctor examining somebody's sore throat from BBC Look East. Just to show that I have no favouritism, on Anglia TV news we had a story about a toddler who could do a somersault with his scooter.
* * *
Braved the horrible rainy conditions to go into Norwich yesterday. It was very quiet as you would expect. Enjoyed a browse through Jarrold's local books. There are so many being published on all manner of Norfolk and Norwich subjects. I'm sure this is mirrored throughout the country.
On a personal level I have just finished reading Prince Arthur: "The Tudor King That Never Was" by Sean Cunningham. The thing it underlines for me is the paucity of material available on the Prince. This isn't a large book (around 250 pages) but much of it is repetitive and at times talks about Tudor history in general terms, just dropping the name of Prince Arthur into paragraphs to suggest that the subject is still being thought of and relevant to the text. I learnt nothing new from the book.
For me Prince Arthur is one of the most important figures in British history. His death was as important as the Battle of Hastings (at this point you are saying: Is this blogging man mad?) If Arthur had become King as he was destined to, there would have been no Henry VIII (or rather not the Henry VIII that we know); his sons would have succeeded him (assuming he had some); Catherine of Aragon would not have married Henry; Anne Boleyn, Jane Seymour, Anne of Cleves and two other Katherines would have been irrelevant; Elizabeth the First would never have existed except at the most as a minor member of the Royal entourage and our country might still be Catholic. There would be no Church of England (possibly) and our present Royal Family would have a very different look. That's how Arthur's death affected our country and he seems to be just a postscript in British history.