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Poem of the week: 'The Fine Old English Gentleman' by Charles Dickens
These satirical verses from the young author of Nicholas Nickleby pour scorn on his era's complacent Conservatives
“It would be a pity to let the bicentenary of the birth of Charles Dickens pass by without including an example of his verse on Poem of the week. The novelist's poetic output was small: a few songs in The Pickwick Papers, poems for plays, and a brilliant trio of political squibs which appeared in the liberal journal The Examiner in 1841. This week's poem, "The Fine Old English Gentleman: New Version", is one of the latter, and the pick of the crop.
The poem was published on 7 August, signed simply "W". It embodies the writer's angry response to the election of Sir Robert Peel as British prime minister, replacing Lord Melbourne and his Whig ministry. The power shift was a serious threat to the liberal cause and its reforms…
The poem runs tirelessly through a roster of political injustice and corrupt practice, and every verse hits its targets… The corruption of the press is not forgotten. Neither is the repression of fellow literary liberals. The imprisonment of Leigh and John Hunt for their satire on the Prince Regent as "The Prince of Whales" prompts a particularly nice piece of ridicule: "For shutting men of letters up, through iron bars to grin / Because they didn't think the Prince was altogether thin"…
“Dickens's irony is deliberately heavy, and he may, after all, exceed rationality in blaming the Tories for all the ills of the past. But he drives the narrative forward with a storyteller's flair, seen both in the whole poem and in the individual verses, and, most importantly, his targets are real ones, and truly worthy of the cudgel. While appearing to generalise, he keeps his eye on historical detail. There's no doubt of an extraordinary skill in conveying and evoking strong feeling – as if the young writer, who had earlier thought of standing for the Liberals in Reading, seriously intended his pen to rally a band of "rebel heads" against the renewed Tory times. For us, the poem may, of course, gain further edge from a certain topicality.”
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http://www.guardian.co.uk/books/2012/may/14/charles-dickens-gentlemen-poem-week/print
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As Obama plans taxes on super-rich, Billionaire Facebook founder Eduardo Saverin 'de-friends' United States and applies to give up his US citizenship to keep more of his fortune
He found refuge, security, and opportunity in the US. He went to university in the US. He invented the technology in the US. He made his billions in the US. And when it came to pay his dues and taxes, he renounced his US Citizenship and decides to go away!
“Days shy of Facebook's stratospherically hyped stock market listing, one of the firm's bright young founders has sparked outrage after deciding to renounce his US citizenship. Eduardo Saverin, a 30-year-old entrepreneur who helped Mark Zuckerberg launch the site from a Harvard dormitory just eight years ago, appears on a list of 1,780 once-proud citizens who last year told Uncle Sam that they would like to give up their passports. The move, which emerged over the weekend, is widely regarded as a tax dodge.”
A pertinent question for all Facebook users, who have made Facebook what it is today, so unbelievably profitable, is; how should we all come together and register our disaproval of his action?
Yet another and even more important question is how do we change the global financial structure to make tax dodging far more difficult than what it is today? In addition to closing 'tax havens' and breaking down the walls of bank secrecy laws, perhaps it is time to bring back the tariff in modern form. Those who do business in a country, making investments, selling and buying products should be obligated to pay taxes in an amount related to their commercial interests in that country. Those who play in the market place in a nation should not be allowed to escape taxes levied for the common good of that nation merely by changing their citizenship or their residency.
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Merkel's party humiliated by shock election defeat
“Angela Merkel's ruling conservatives suffered a humiliating defeat in key elections in Germany's most populous state yesterday when voters rejected her party's austerity policies and handed a resounding victory to her pro-growth Social Democratic Party opponents…Germany's conservative Environment Minister, Norbert Röttgen, the party's candidate in the election, had mounted a vigorous campaign centred on Ms Merkel's austerity policies, which aimed to cut the state's €230 billion debt. "Today is a very bitter day," Mr Röttgen conceded last night. "We have been clearly defeated."…
This defeat for more austerity in Germany, as well as the statement by the Austrian Chancellor Werner Faymann who wants the European Union council to agree a growth pact at its next summit and invest in education, employment and infrastructure, plus the victory for the Socialist President Hollande in France, should be seen as the sign that “The Voices of Wisdom in Europe” are winning the arguments: enough of protecting the 1% who gave us the crises; time to invest in and for people and hope for a better future.
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Merkel's party humiliated by shock election defeat
Austria wants EU to agree growth pact at next summit