Thursday Trails

Four-day work weeks are one of the smaller pleasures in life, but my, how they satisfy..! The weekend is already right around the corner, and it's hard to keep from thinking of its restful potential as we glance through the news on a warm Thursday morning.

Victory: Gurkha veterans have won their battle to live in Britain, as Prime Minister Gordon Brown's government reversed its earlier roadblocks to Gurkha resettlement.

Shadow home secretary Chris Grayling said: 'This has been a great victory for Joanna Lumley and her well-run campaign that has publicly embarrassed Ministers and has reminded us all of the role that the Gurkhas have played in helping defend this country over the centuries.
'First and foremost this case was about basic decency. People from around the world have come to live in this country in the past decade.
'There was never a justification to deny that right to a group of people who have long lived in the nation's affections, and who have risked and often given their lives for its protection.
'It is just a shame that the Government had to be dragged kicking and screaming through the courts and then through the crowds of Gurkhas outside parliament before it finally did the right thing.'

Scandal: And speaking of the UK government... On his talk show yesterday Hugh Hewitt interviewed firebrand pundit Christopher Hitchens to get his perspective on the unbelievable expense scandal unraveling within Great Britain's parliament. Items as petty as tampons and porn film rentals, and as grand as chandeliers and castle moat-cleaning, were approved as appropriate expenses by an amoral bureaucracy. In his assessment Hitchens makes a drive-by comment that puts a shape to the half-formed thoughts I had been having while following the scandal's parade of daily outrages. From the transcript:

Christopher Hitchens: Do you remember A Man For All Seasons? It’s just occurred to me to ask you.
Hugh Hewitt: Yes, I do.
CH: Do you remember when the man sells out for Sir Thomas More?
HH: Yes, I do.
CH: And he does it for a small sinecure?
HH: Yes. He should have been a teacher.
CH: Yes. And the man does it for a small sinecure in Wales. And Thomas More, I can’t remember exactly how it goes, but he says to him, I can see, I can imagine selling your immortal soul and your friends and so on for, as it might be, a kingdom. But he said but for Wales?
HH: For Wales.
CH: For Wales. What’s amazing is how it’s always the same with corruption scandals, I find, how little people will settle for before their integrity is all gone.

Integrity: While far-reaching, Britain's "home allowance" expense scandal is not all-encompassing; there are a few members who did not break the rules, or exploit them, and the British national newspaper The Telegraph, which first broke the news on the scandal, has given credit where credit is due to the honest representatives.

Leadership: Mal Fletcher uses the expense scandal as a backdrop for an eloquent lesson on the difference between leadership and management. The distinguishing characteristic is... character:

[W]ithout moral leadership - leadership based on conviction rather than pragmatism - administration is left hopelessly at the mercy of expediency.
At the end of the week, the moral of the story is this: we have very few true leaders in government and a great many followers. There are few who will go against "standard practice" - that is, what the rest of the pack are doing - and set out on a righteous path.
The nature of modern government, built as it is around a labyrinth of complex committees and regulatory bodies, allows very little scope for real leadership to develop among the representatives of the people.

Thursday Theater

A reminder of sunnier and simpler times on this dismal Thursday morning, to serve as a backdrop for stories making entrances and exits in the spotlight of online news.

Charity: Provocative article on how the worlds of Christianity and socialism are built from different principles.

“Bertrand Russell, who, when asked why he did not give to charity, replied: ‘I’m afraid you’ve got it all wrong. We are Socialists. We don’t pretend to be Christians.’” Needless to say, that witty retort contains a whole theology and a philosophy that deserve to be spelled out. The logic of classic socialism makes Christianity not only superfluous—everyone has everything by rights—but impossible—no one has anything to give.

Russell is right, of course. In a socialist world, no charity can exist because there can be no need that is unfulfilled by the commonality’s duty. It is a world in which there can be no gratitude. I can thank someone for giving me what is really his. I cannot thank him for giving me what is by rights already mine. And if everything belongs to the community, how can I give it away? Or if I do give it away, how can it be anything but stealing from the commons on my part and receiving illicit booty on the receiver’s part?

Absurdity: Walter Williams latest column, "Fraud In Academia", is even more depressing than usual.

At Brown University, two-thirds of all letter grades given are A's. At Harvard, 50 percent of all grades were either A or A- (up from 22 percent in 1966); 91 percent of seniors graduated with honors. The Boston Globe called Harvard's grading practices "the laughing stock of the Ivy League." Eighty percent of the grades given at the University of Illinois are A's and B's. Fifty percent of students at Columbia University are on the Dean's list. At Stanford University, where F grades used to be banned, only 6 percent of student grades were as low as a C. ...

A recent survey of more than 30,000 first-year students revealed that nearly half spent more hours drinking than study. Another survey found that a third of students expected B's just for attending class, and 40 percent said they deserved a B for completing the assigned reading.

Redress: An update on the UK government's ingratitude towards its Gurkha veterans, which we've previously blogged about here and here. Actress Joanna Lumley, whose father fought alongside the Gurkhas in WWII, justifies my teenage crush on her in The New Avengers by steadfastly pushing the Gurkhas' residence rights in a private meeting with Prime Minister Gordon Brown.

"The meeting was extremely positive. He is wholly supportive of the Gurkha cause. He is going to come up with a new solution by the end of this month," Ms Lumley said.

The argument boils down to two sides. One: the Gurkhas should be allowed to live in the country they fought for. The other: We never promised you a rose garden.

Agony: Trial, or circus? Ajmal Amir Kasab, the Pakistani jihadist captured after the 26/11 murder rampage in Mumbai, India, that left 166 people dead last year, has been charged with waging war on India, along with over 80 other charges. His plea: not guilty (!). The start of the trial has been delayed due to Kasab's lawyer's insistence that the youthful terrorist should really be tried in juvenile court (!). This prompted the need to first establish through blood tests whether or not Ajmal Amir Kasab was a minor at the time of his terrorist acts. The verdict: he wasn't. Now Kasab is demanding perfume to sanitize the smell of his prison cell as well as the return of the blood money that was taken from him when he was captured. His "mental balance" also requires that he be allowed to go for an occasional stroll outside on nice days to relieve the stress of living in solitary confinement.

Tragedy: An 11-year old boy fell into the Potomac River while fishing, and was carried away by the strong current. His dad dove in to pull him to shore, but the river pulled the kid right out of his father's hands.

He looked back as the river carried him downstream and the distance between father and son grew. "I saw him two more times," he said. "Then he went under."

Nine long days later, the missing body has been found.

Sadly, there's more to the story. It was later discovered that Hau Nguyen, a fellow fisherman who happened to witness the event, dove in and risked his life to save the boy as well, but unlike the father, he was not able to escape the river. The body of the Good Samaritan was found Saturday, a tragedy that united both families in grief: [Hat Tip to Ann at Catholic Herald]

The incident has brought together two families -- one from Vietnam, one from Mexico. For much of last week, as police boats, helicopters and recovery dogs swept the river, groups of Hispanic construction workers, Vietnamese monks and the family and friends of both victims came to search the muddy banks and pray at the spot where the two had disappeared.

Nguyen's wife and Thanh Vo, her brother, said Nguyen was a strong swimmer who had grown up along a river in Vietnam and had jumped into the Chesapeake Bay to rescue a friend a few years ago. "He just loved the outdoors," Thanh Vo said. "If he saw someone needing help like that, he'd just jump in."
...Nguyen's widow said her husband was a "good man, a sweet man," who "you loved the first time you talked to him."

"When my son grows up, I want him to be like his dad," she said.

Godspeed to both families.

UK's Ingratitude To Gurkha Veterans: "It's Absolutely Shocking"

Another example of the UK's growing ingratitude towards its veterans. In February we blogged on Once-Great Britain's unwillingness to sponsor a group of surviving D-Day veterans in their hope to return to France one more time -- for many maybe the last time -- to the 65th anniversary of their great act of courage in participating in the liberation of Europe.

Last week, it was the turn of the loyal Gurkhas to see the current value placed on their service:

Thousands of Gurkhas were yesterday shut out of the UK in what was described as 'shameful betrayal' by the Government.

Immigration Minister Phil Woolas claimed changes in the rules would allow 4,300 more former Gurkhas to settle here out of the 36,000 who served in the British Army before July 1997.

But lawyers battling for the Gurkhas said they believed only around 100 would benefit. Hundreds of former rank-and-file soldiers will face deportation while thousands more will be barred from entering the country.

Under the new rules, former Gurkhas must prove they have either served more than 20 years or have won one of the top four medals for gallantry: the Victoria Cross; the Distinguished Service Order; the Distinguished Conduct Medal; or the Military Cross.
...
Campaigners said it was virtually impossible for ordinary Gurkhas to meet those conditions.

The vast majority - 98 per cent - are rank-and-file soldiers who are permitted to serve for only 15 years. Only officers are allowed to serve for longer.

Top-level gallantry awards are given to a tiny minority of soldiers. Only one living Gurkha would qualify for entry on the basis of his medal alone.

Lawyer Martin Howe said that of more than 2,000 Gurkha veterans refused entry to Britain, only Military Cross-holder Lalit Bahadur Gurung would be eligible.

Mr Gurung, 81, who was awarded the cross in 1964, was refused entry to Britain for medical treatment last year.

Most Gurkhas who retired before 1997 were based in Hong Kong, so they will be unable to prove they have lived in Britain for three years, or that they have family settled here.

And for the oldest veterans living in poverty in Nepal - the fourth-poorest country in the world - it will be difficult to prove that their injuries and illnesses were caused by their Army service.

British actress Joanna Lumley , whose father fought alongside the Gurkhas in Burma during World War II, has taken a strong stand in support of the Gurkhas' cause, becoming the public face of the Gurkha Justice Campaign. Her disgust with the guidelines is palpable:

[1:30] "I'm sick of the insulting size of this ghastly little document. Most of the second page is just 'if you need more help or contacts...' This has taken them four months to come up with this, they've answered none of our letters, they've allowed us into no briefings. [pause] It's absolutely shocking."

The BBC offers the government's side of the story:

Immigration Minister Phil Woolas denied he had betrayed the Gurkhas, adding: "This improves the situation."

He said: "It has never been the case that all Gurkhas pre-1997 were to be allowed to stay in the country. With their dependants you could be looking at 100,000 people."
...
[P]rime Minister Gordon Brown insisted the new rules were fair and took into account "the responsibilities we have accepted" towards the Gurkhas.

"To go back 20 years from 1997 is something that's a major change in policy and will help a large number of Gurkhas if they wish to make the decision to come to Britain," he said.

"And remember that there are costs involved in that decision that we have got to meet."

It's too bad that the one cost referenced by Judge Justice Blake in his ruling last September, does not seem to weigh heavily on Gordon Brown's conscience:

The Home Office will doubtless wish to consult with the MOD [Ministry Of Defence], but if Home Office policy to discharged veterans does not impede military effectiveness, and there are no international law or foreign policy constraints, it is difficult to see why the MOD should not itself welcome clarity and the honouring of a historic debt. The court is conscious that at the heart of military life and the sacrifices that soldiers make in the discharge of their duties is the Military Covenant. This reads:

"Soldiers will be called upon to make personal sacrifices – including the ultimate sacrifice – in the service of the Nation. In putting the needs of the Nation and the Army before their own, they forego some of the rights enjoyed by those outside the Armed Forces. In return, British Soldiers must be able to always expect fair treatment, to be valued and respected as individuals, and that they (and their families) will be sustained and rewarded by commensurate terms and conditions of service".

Rewarding long and distinguished service by the grant of residence in the country for which the service was performed would, in my judgment, be a vindication and an enhancement of this covenant.