Month: February 2011

I wanted to post something on 31 January, but it slipped past me — so on the subsequent Friday, I’m putting up this note to commemorate Bloody Friday, when 92 years ago, labourers and sympathisers gathered in George Square to demand the reasonable working hours that contemporary developed nations have come to take for granted. The epithet “bloody” is, thankfully, more an intensifier than a medical description — but as protestors gather in peaceful procession to express their solidarity in holding governments and administrations accountable, we ought not forget that we all benefit from the persistence and endurance of our predecessors. And while concern for public order and safety may motivate some degree of resistance to such demonstrations, we ought not underestimate power’s determination to oppose any change that endangers its own power (indeed, “to oppose change that endangers the expansion of its own power”).
 
How about a Billy Bragg music festival?

Let no one build walls to divide us
Walls of hatred nor walls of stone
Come greet the dawn and stand beside us
We’ll live together or we’ll die alone

Thank you, who have stood up for our interests before us; thank you, sisters and brothers around the world today; thank you, daughters and sons who continue the work we leave undone — from Red Clydeside.

The University here is seeking instances of “impact,” by which they seem to mean “when innocent civilians [not students or other academics] show that they’ve noticed and been affected by what you do.” This is a topic about which I don’t usually think, so readers of this blog might be best situated to remind me: Have I (or my works) appeared in public discourse recently? My colleague Werner Jeanrond mentioned that a prominent Swedish ecclesiastical figure had been quoted to the effect that he was reading Werner’s A Theology of Love in preparation for a wedding in the Swedish royal family; that apparently count as an example of “impact.” Once again — granted that no princes or duchesses are keeping up-to-date with the works of an obscure Americo-Hibernian hermeneutician — has somebody alluded to me, or used (for instance) my blog or one of my photos (in a non-academic setting), or otherwise demonstrated my influence on the outside world? When I last asked, I noted the LibriVox project; I might also have cited the Slashdotted “information highwayman” incident. More recent would better, though. And if anyone felt motivated to make a big fuss about me in public (in a non-academic context!), this would be a convenient time.
 

I’m not sure whether there are groundhogs in the UK, so I don’t know whether to tell winter’s duration by a subterranean rodent or a flickering light source. Either way, there are no shadows visible in Glasgow this morning, so I’m hoping this presages an imminent spring.
 
Oh, sorry, I meant to say — Happy Candlemas!