• Predictions 2023 – How did I do?

    1  Generative artificial intelligence will become significantly disruptive of many sectors this year. Education practices will change quickly as a result of this but education will be but one of many areas of life to be affected.

    Happening all around us (even to people who can’t see it happening around them) – prediction fulfilled.

    2 No progress for those seeking marriage equality in the Church of England. There will be a lot of talk about moving towards some form of official blessings for same-sex couples which would have the effect of thwarting those seeking actual equality, making it more difficult to achieve. Further division amongst pro-gay activists in the Church of England.

    Happening exactly as predicted. The recent developments following the LLF project make equality more even further away – prediction fulfilled.

    3  Indyref 2 will not happen on 19 October 2023 as Nicola Sturgeon had hoped, which is a shame for those seeking to separate Scotland from the rest of the UK as the autumn will be the high water mark for the Indepedence movement. It will be downhill into the next General Election after that.

    Happenning but not quite as I expected. Indryref didn’t happen but Indy polls are indeed riding high. However I didn’t see the mess the SNP would get itself into along the way. Prediction Fulfilled.

    4  Trump and Biden will both declare that they intend to run for the US presidency in 2024 and American politics will continue to be all about Donald Trump.

    Exactly as I said – prediction fulfilled.

    5  Covid recovery remains bumpy, particularly through supply-chain problems due to mismanagement of Covid in China.

    Pretty much as I said – we’ve largely forgotten the supply chain issues that continued from the end of last year into the new year and the spring. Prediction mostly fulfilled.

    6 No conclusive end to the war in Ukraine this year.

    Alas. Prediction fulfilled

    7 Governments in Westminster and Holyrood will announce some kind of “new deal” for the National Heath Service.

    Holyrood here: https://www.gov.scot/publications/programme-government-2023-24/pages/5/

    Westminster: Pay – here https://healthmedia.blog.gov.uk/2023/07/14/government-accepts-recommendations-from-nhs-pay-review-bodies/
    Westminster: Medicines here: https://www.gov.uk/government/news/landmark-deal-to-boost-nations-health-and-save-nhs-14-billion

    Prediction fulfilled.

    8 – UK Government will not succeed in blocking Scottish Gender Recognition Reform.

    I remain surprised that the Scottish Governnent gave up on this. Prediction not fulfilled.

    9  Liam McArthur’s bill in the Scottish Parliamant to allow doctors to participate in the killing of terminally ill patients will fail to receive parliamentary approval but will receive more support than similar proposals have before.

    Bill hasn’t received approval but hasn’t gone to a vote either. Large levels of support in the media. Prediction partially fulfilled.

    10  Changes announced to the UK honours system, perhaps at the time of the Coronation, to remove references to empire. OBE becomes Order of British Excellence.

    Not happened yet. Prediction not fulfilled.

     

    Result – about 7 1/2 out of 10 this year I think. Not bad.

4 responses to “Guest Post: Alan McManus on The Feast of St Francis”

  1. Jaye Richards-Hill Avatar

    Whilst the sentiment is worthy, I think you’re being a wee bit naive here Alan. Ruth may be praying for the safe return of her sons, as I will pray for my step son when he is called up for service in the IDF next year. She might also be praying that her sons don’t encounter the devastation of the Katusha rockets fired from Gaza on an almost daily basis and have to deal with dead and maimed Israeli children. They all might pray that they’re not in the bus stations in Tel Aviv or Jerusalem when some poor misguided Arab child with a bomb strapped to their back causes devastation, death and mutilation.
    And Lesbian Rachael may have been ostracised from her family, but she can give thanks that Israel is the ONLY country in the middle east where her rights and equality is protected by law. Of course, if she was a palastinian in Gaza or the west bank, her sexuality would be criminalised.

    Your view of the activity of Israel and its army in my view is one which, if you’ll forgive my directness, is through rose tinted specs. My wife is an ex-IDF officer, and whilst there is most definitely some bad treatment of the Palastinians, it’s usually in response to many of the dangers I’ve outlined in this comment. We should be lighting candles perhaps for the Israeli government and constitution which provides free health care and education for all it’s citizens, be they Arab, Jew, or anything else, including LGBT. These are the real poor in Israel and they are protected. This is not apartheid, and to compare it to the system in South Africa under which my wife grew up is, quite frankly, offensive to most Israelis and many others.

    Sorry if this comment upsets you, but I’m sure Francis would have been apolitical in this. His concern might well have been the poor, but he might have seen that the poor are the misguided people in this world who are too quick to condem Israel from the comfort of their western armchairs…

    Jaye

  2. Alan McManus Avatar
    Alan McManus

    Well-intentioned but naive isn’t the harshest criticism a post involving this Near-Eastern politicial knife edge could have attracted, so I thank you. My mother’s maiden name is Jewish; I spent some months on a kibbutz in the 80’s; I think I was the worst student of Hebrew that St Mary’s College, St Andrews Uni, ever had; I only avoided being elected president of St Andrews Jewish student society (I was the oldest member) by declaring, “I shouldn’t be the president: I’m goy!”; I think that Eretz Yisrael is a beautiful, fascinating and deeply tragic place and I admire your commitment to primary human realtionships and share your exasperation of uninformed, unbalanced and uninvolved politics-as-entertainment.
    I also have many Muslim friends, some Western, who repeat to me that the root of the problem is the oppression of the Palestinians. Not all are uneducated fanatics.
    The following links, which could not (for technical reasons) be linked to phrases in my original post, may help to contextualise my words. I do not strive for dominance of the discourse but rather to question adherence to party lines and easy answers. You defend those you love, Jaye, as you should, and that love is a candle in a deep deep darkness. But there are other candles, across the barbed wire and beyond no-man’s land.

    http://www.lib.rochester.edu/camelot/whfraintro.htm
    http://www.huffingtonpost.co.uk/2012/08/29/atos-paralympic-sponsors-under-fire-disabled-attitude_n_1838614.html
    http://dmv.ca.gov/pubs/vctop/d11/vc22500.htm
    http://www.asylumaid.org.uk/data/files/publications/46/Still_No_Reason_At_All.pdf
    http://beyondcompromise.com/2012/08/17/everybody-must-get-stoned/
    http://www.no2brandisrael.org/?p=324
    http://www.stophonourkillings.com/index.php?q=taxonomy/term/60
    http://muslimmatters.org/2009/07/16/islamic-jerusalem-%E2%80%9Cwe-will-drive-the-jews-into-the-sea%E2%80%9D-1-of-3/
    http://www.ranker.com/list/7-worst-capital-punishments-for-being-_illegally_-gay/joanne
    http://palestinesolidarityproject.org/2012/03/13/israeli-settlers-cut-down-150-olive-and-grape-trees-in-wad-abu-reesh/
    http://electronicintifada.net/content/demanding-justice-yousef-quiet-boy-killed-israeli-settlers/10865
    http://www.nytimes.com/2012/05/24/opinion/not-all-israeli-citizens-are-equal.html?_r=0
    http://israelisoldiersmother.blogspot.co.uk/
    http://www.religion-online.org/showarticle.asp?title=1757
    http://artsandfaith.com/t100/jesusofmontreal.html
    http://liberatingtheology.wordpress.com/2011/10/05/theology-and-liberating-praxis-theology-as-second-act/
    http://robertpirsig.org/Intro.htm
    http://www.robertpirsig.org/
    http://inharmony.yolasite.com/
    https://www.facebook.com/events/240919052672305/#!/tentcitytheatrecompany

  3. Alastair McManus Avatar
    Alastair McManus

    I am resuming religion at age 63. I am Cof E, but now a Buddhist….My olf McM family of Antrim became C of I in around 1670s on.

    Will write more if you could reply.

    AM

    1. Alan McManus Avatar

      Hello Alastair,
      forgive my extremely tardy reply! I only looked up this post to get the date as I’ve forgotten how old my beloved dog Ben is and I got him just after writing this post (I remember thinking I should practice what I preached and he needed a home). I don’t get notifications from this site (I have RSI and I can’t keep up) but if you click on my website link there’s a Contact page.
      slán, Alan

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