Author: R J Adams

The valley of the Banwy, in Great Britain, is probably one of the most beautiful areas of mid-Wales. Lying between the market town of Welshpool and extending high up and through the village of Llanfair Caereinion (pronounced clan-vie kie-ren-ee-on) some seven miles distant, the green hills rise sharply on either side and are dotted by small dairy and beef farms, the main industry of the area.

Clear, cool, air with just a hint of raindrop, clarifies a vista of emerald silk, scattered against an azure-blue backcloth patched by fluffy, scudding, cumulus. Through it all flows the clean, chuckling, waters of the Banwy River, and a narrow gauge, miniature steam railway that huffs and puffs its meandering track four times daily between Llanfair and Welshpool.

It is indeed a scene of idyllic beauty. Yet, back in 2001, that jewel of a valley was ravaged by the throat-choking, eye-watering, stench of burning flesh. For week after week, thick, black, smoke drifted between the hillsides blotting out the landscape, tainting the clear air with its foulness. The grim shadow of death had come to the Banwy Valley, and hundreds of corpses were burning in funeral pyres that pock-marked the surrounding fields.

Foot and Mouth Disease, the outbreak of 2001, ravished not only the Banwy Valley, but most of England and Wales. Eventually, around seven million sheep and cattle were slaughtered as a preventative measure to stop the virus from spreading. Many carcases were burned in the open, before burial in huge pits dug on the very fields the animals had grazed only a short time before. It was a heart-rending period, most especially for the farmers who watched their animals and their livelihoods going up in flames.

No one can be certain, but there is evidence to suggest the outbreak of 2001 may have been started deliberately. A phial of the virus was stolen from the government’s research station at Porton Down in the English county of Wiltshire just two months before the outbreak was confirmed.

On Friday, August 3rd 2007, it was announced that Foot and Mouth Disease had again been discovered in British cattle. This time the strain has been identified as one kept by the government’s Institute for Animal Health, a research establishment at Pirbright in the English county of Surrey. The Institute’s buildings also house Merial UK, an international animal pharmaceutical company presently researching vaccines against Foot and Mouth, and also holding quantities of the strain identified as causing this latest outbreak.

Given that the site is only two and a half miles from where the outbreak occurred, and the strain of virus is identical with that isolated from the infected cattle, it would seem fairly obvious where it came from.

The British government has always maintained vaccination of cattle and sheep against the disease is neither effective nor economical. This surely raises the question as to why then it is considered necessary to allow research into a Foot and Mouth vaccine on British soil. Particularly when it seems likely both the outbreaks of 2001 and 2007 directly resulted from these activities. Or, is the combination of Merial UK and a government research station in one facility, yet another blatant example of public/private enterprise in the UK going horribly wrong? Has profit once again sacrificed security?

Whether this latest outbreak is eventually discovered to be another deliberate infestation, or just a criminal act of carelessness, farmers in the Banwy Valley, and throughout Britain, will be holding their breaths and praying that this time the shadow of death passes them by.

Filed under: Who dun it?

You know how it is; another ordinary day, the casual tweak of a digital value to perfect a web-page or blog then, bingo! – everything falls apart. The page disintegrates. With a gasp of horror you realize something horribly serious is amiss. Twenty-four hours of unremitting sweat later, you breathe a sigh of relief after a complete rebuild reaches completion and normality is recaptured, at least for the time being.

Such was the case at Sparrow Chat this last week. A mundane rearrangement of website and blog, that should have taken a couple of days and only mildly interrupted normal functioning, suddenly transmogrified into a crisis of major proportions.

Happily all is well again. As those early BBC banners used to read years ago, when the airwaves were young and given to unpredictable tantrums: “NORMAL SERVICE WILL BE RESUMED AS SOON AS POSSIBLE.”

Part of the upheaval this week has been due to a revamping of the “Even Little Sparrows” website, and subsequent complementary overhaul of the Sparrow Chat blog-pages. The idea was to integrate the two into a more functional unit. Readers will note a new look to the blog sidebar, with links to website pages offering works by RJ Adams for sale in eBook format, and as time goes by, works by other authors also. The old “Sparrow’s Emporium” – never much more than a link to Amazon – has been done away with and replaced with a new “Catalog” page. The Catalog will feature a small selection (at present, only two) of selected works considered to be of above-average merit and available in eBook, Audiobook, or standard formats. Links to major online retailers like Amazon will no longer be featured, except in occasional, exceptional, circumstances.

It has taken somewhat longer than anticipated, but hopefully Sparrow Chat readers will approve and be supportive of the new look.

Filed under: Phew and double phew

Few of us can fail to feel sympathy and concern over the plight of the remaining twenty-one South Korean hostages of the Taliban in Afghanistan. As news of a second killing reaches the West, we are left in no doubt of the brutality and savagery of those holding these innocent people. Their latest victim was only twenty-nine years old. Those remaining must now be asking themselves who will be next.

Like Iraq, Afghanistan is a country presently torn apart by powerful opposing forces vying for control. Given the situation, it is not improper – even at this time of deep trauma for those held and for their friends and families – to ask the question: what were they doing there? The road they were traveling at the time of their capture is notorious for Taliban kidnappings. They had no armed guards and had notified no authority of their intention to travel that route.

Assessing the situation from a broader perspective, there appear to be only two reasons for anyone to independently place themselves in such danger, and while many would applaud the South Koreans for risking their lives to help those in need, what drove them to do so is disturbing.

In Iraq, the vast majority of foreign kidnap victims have been there for no better reason than greed. The draw was high wages, particularly in the early years after the US/UK invasion. The gambol of making pots of money in a relative short period, and hopefully getting out before attracting harm, was magnetic for some. For many, it was lethal.

But the South Koreans were there for another reason. They were Christians and believed they were doing God’s will by assisting others in distress. They were also intelligent, otherwise sensible human beings. The Taliban’s latest victim worked in IT before going to Afghanistan. It appears they put their trust in their God to protect them, and as is so frequently the case, their God badly let them down.

Was it, however, their God who let them down? Or, was it just their egos?

There have been many over the centuries who have surrendered common sense to faith, and paid a heavy price. There will be many more in the future. Taking onboard a belief that God intends you do his work is, in reality, no more than a huge ego boost, a self-deception for the sake of a “feel-good” factor.

Self deception is one of the human species’ most overworked traits. Few of the workers who traveled to Iraq for the high wages would admit they were driven by greed. Most explained their reason as heavy debt at home, an inability to cope financially on US wages. Better, it seemed, to risk torture and death than a lowered standard of living.

Perhaps the brutal truth for the South Korean hostages is that theirs was just another kind of greed – the lust for eternal life; that egotistical sense of superiority self-deceiving the human psyche into believing it is both invulnerable and immortal.

Whatever the fate of the remaining South Koreans in Afghanistan, whether the end result is tragedy or fortune, the self-deceiving egotism of the human species will reign supreme as the outcome is tritely explained away by most as “God’s will.”

Filed under: Lethal self deceptions