I Was a Teenage Fundamentalist Episode 94 What About Certainty? with Bernard Warnick is a recent episode of this ex-vangelical podcast, no longer coyly presented by B. and T. but by Brian and Troy, who left their evangelical megachurches when they were aged in their 30s and 40s. Bernard Warnick is a retired Family Court judge, and his book that he is talking about in this episode (Illusions of Certainty: thoughts about thinking) is not about religion at all. Instead it’s about Warnick’s observations on logic and thinking, drawing on neurobiology and cognitive science. Why do we crave certainty? he asks. It’s an emotional, rather than an intellectual need, driven by subjectivity. In a post-modern world there are many truths, but he argues that we can have firm values, but you need to teach yourself and rely on yourself which requires discipline and wisdom.
The Rest is History Episode 419 Britain in 1974: Countdown to a Coup (Pt 3) So there’s Harold Wilson, Prime Minister after an election that he didn’t expect to win. He was ill, tired, drinking too much and in thrall to his private secretary and ‘political wife’ Marcia Williams (shades of Peta Credlin, anyone?) He settled with the miners, which solved the immediate problem but which led to the idealistic ‘Social Contract’ which saw 30% wage increases further fueling the cost of living. There was new spending, and new taxes on the rich (83% at the top tier, with a 98% tax on investments.) The talk in the gentlemen’s clubs was of a military overthrow and ‘getting rid of’ (i.e. killing) Marcia Williams. Wilson was accused of being a KGB agent, and there was certainly precedent for military intervention in Allende’s Chile and in Northern Ireland. The army had already been intervening in British strikes, stepping in to replace striking fire, ambulance and rubbish collection workers. On 18 September 1974 Harold Wilson called another election.
History Hit History of Gulags After the recent death of Alexei Navalny, this podcast featuring Alexander Watson, Professor of History at Goldsmiths, University of London, looks into the history of Gulags in Russia. The first mention of ‘exile’ in Russia was in 1649 under the Tsars, where revolutionaries were sent to Siberia, but here isolation and distance were left to do the job. In 1917 the Bolsheviks set up camps, and the first labour camp was set up in the 1920s. A labour camp was expected to be profitable and was governed by the inmates themselves (as distinct from German ‘extermination’ camps). Nonetheless, there was a huge death rate, estimated at being about 1/4 which is similar to the Nazi labour camps. ‘Gulag’ is actually a Soviet acronym from the 1930s. They were at their highest peak in the early 1950s when they numbered 2.5 million, and the Secret Police were involved. Many prisoners were set free under Kruschev but the structures remained. During the 1960s and 1970s the emphasis changed to psychiatric hospitals in order to achieve the same effect. Now ‘law’ is used as the enforcing mechanism.
Emperors of Rome I must have forgotten to note this one- and it was a good one too! Episode CII Clodia notes that, like other women, Clodia was only mentioned tangentially in the sources. She lived in the late republic, around the 1st Century CE. Her father was a consul, and an Optimati but she and her brother opposed their father’s politics and aligned themselves more to the Populari. In 59BCE her very conservative husband died, leaving her a widow- a position that gave women more autonomy than they had when they were married. Her name was brought into a murder trial, and Cicero acting as defence for Callus, the accused, dragged Clodia’s name into the court. She was a witness against Callus and in defending his client, Cicero suggested that she had poisoned her husband. This was payback, because Cicero hated Clodia’s brother because he had been responsible for Cicero being sent into exile. However, she survived the scandal of the courtcase, and became a businesswoman. Go Clodia.
The Resident Judge of Port Phillip 