CELTIC AND THE LIVING WAGE By JohnBhoy

Brother Walfrid’s Resolution

Brother Walfrid created Celtic football club in 1888 as a funding conduit to lessen poverty in the east end of Glasgow: “A football club will be formed for the maintenance of dinner tables for the children and the unemployed.” Poverty, in whatever shape or form, was abhorrent to Brother Walfrid’s innate sense of decency. It is this core value that runs through our very veins and has been the beating heart of the Celtic diaspora, passed down from one generation to the next. We are a family because we care for each other and for those less fortunate than ourselves. For that, we are indebted to Brother Walfrid. At Celtic’s AGM, in this our celebratory 125th anniversary year, Celtic turned its back on Brother Walfrid when it rejected Resolution 11.

The demand set out in Resolution 11 was one that could have been penned by Brother Walfrid himself: that Celtic – and I do not separate club from company because we are one and the same, legally and morally – pay their low-paid workers an hourly rate that lifts them above the poverty threshold. Brother Walfrid’s Poverty Resolution, for that is what it was, fell on deaf ears and was defeated. Stunned silence does not convey the shock of that decision.

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Craig Responds To Ecojon’s Comments on the Belgrano

Ecojon’s comments are indented, with Craig’s comments thereon beneath.

“There is nothing in any of these statements that I would wish to retract and I have no intention of going through Craig’s point by point defence of the sinking of the Belgrano as my Guest Post was aimed mainly at the effect Thatcher’s warped economic vision had inflicted on UK mining communities.”

I must say I’m disappointed that someone who has made many reasonable factual posts about Sevco over the past year is unwilling to consider the facts on this matter.

“I will, however, make some general comments in a broader context of the Falklands War although I am all too well aware of the skilled dissembling that the MOD is capable of in keeping its secrets and the myths that were hurriedly spun by them and senior politicians over the Belgrano which – and I clearly stated this – ‘presented no immediate dangers’ to British forces. No matter Craig’s defence of the UK myths that was the actual position at the time the almost 50 year old cruiser was sunk.”

Then you are clearly wrong. Any Argentine warship in the South Atlantic posed a serious threat to the British task force. In addition to her own capability, her very position restricted Woodward’s room for manoeuvre.

Tales of Corporate Hospitality at Sport – Part 2

Ah well, it looks as though I won’t get the chance to have my picture taken with Mr Green at Hampden today, as I have the chance of going to a friend’s house to mark his birthday with pakora, pool and a pint. With all due respect to Queen’s Park and their opponents, that actually seems a far more enticing prospect than a wet and windy Hampden.

However, I did want to add to my tale of corporate hospitality events with a non-football related one. If you read the first piece, you might not be surprised to learn that things did not run smoothly here either.

In either 1997 or 1998 (I forget which one) I was given two “corporate hospitality” tickets to the Scottish Open Golf at Loch Lomond. My employer at the time had the tickets for the full week, and I was offered them for the Thursday, being the first day of competition. I was delighted to accept, and suggested to my wife that she come with me. She had never been to a golf tournament before so the prospect of “hospitality” overcame that of “trudging round a golf course”.

The only time before I had been at a golf tournament as a sponsor’s guest was many years ago when the Scottish Open (then a tournament only for Scots professionals) was played at Dalmahoy. I was there as my father’s guest, and as his driver, so could not take advantage of the free and unlimited bar laid on by Dryburgh’s the sponsor.

Why American Muslims Stopped Supporting the Republicans – Lessons From Stupid Politicians

I want to recommend to my readers a couple of pieces, linked below, by Rany Jazayerli. Who, you might ask, is he?

He writes about baseball in the US and blogs particularly about the Kansas City Royals. As the Royals have been a very bad baseball team for many years, but one which at its best was a World Series winner, it is not always rewarding to be a Royals fan. Maybe a bit like being a fan of a team like Dunfermline, who did achieve great victories in the past, but the mementoes are long faded.

In fact, from this side of the Atlantic, the only thing the Royals has going for it is that excellent writers like Rany, Rob Neyer and Joe Posnanski, are fans, and I get to read their heartfelt pleas for the ownership of the team to do something, indeed anything, right.

Rany, as well as being a baseball blogger and writer by night is a dermatologist by day.

Most importantly for the purposes of this post, he is a Muslim whose father came to the US from his Syrian homeland after the government there confiscated all of the family’s property.

Rany specialises in long posts – indeed, he can make me look like the epitome of brevity! However, he is a writer of the highest quality, and well worth reading, even if the topic seems not to be one of interest.

The first piece I commend to you is one he wrote on Presidential Election Day last month. In it he explains how the immigrant Muslim community in the US, which formerly were overwhelmingly Republican supporters, shifted in only a couple of elections, to the point where the community is almost entirely Democrat. Whilst the events of 9/11 loom large, the change in allegiance is more a result of political idiocy on the part of the Republicans than any backlash by the Muslims of America.

THE RANGERS BOYCOTT – an historical ramble by JohnBhoy

This post will provide a definition of boycotting, outline the historical rationale underpinning boycotts and, within this historical context, discuss Rangers’ boycott of the Scottish Cup tie with Dundee United, including the potential unintended consequences of Rangers’ action.

The Concise Oxford English Dictionary defines a boycott as an activity whereby a group of people “combine in refusing social or commercial relations” with another person, group or country. Importantly, it is a voluntary activity normally requiring support out with the core protagonists. Hence the precarious difficulty of predicting both a successful outcome and long-term unexpected repercussions.