Halloween in the UK

You often hear people say that "Halloween is an imported American festival". In a sense this is true - many of the practices we see today in Britain were rare when I was a child. November 5th was a much bigger occasion. For weeks before children would make and take from door to door (often very amateurish) effigies asking "a penny for the Guy". Guy Fawkes was the former mercenary who was the person tasked with collecting the gunpowder; guarding it and setting it off - which would have blown the Palace of Westminster up & killed King James I and many of the members of the Houses of Lords and Commons. He was discovered only hours before the attack was due. Since that day, "Guy Fawkes Night" has been celebrated with bonfires and fireworks.

BUT we did celebrate Halloween - there were some games (I remember "Apple-Bobbing" - at which I did not excel) & we had pumpkins - but it is only in recent years that Halloween has eclipsed Guy Fawkes Night and taken on the characteristics of the American holiday. Of course its roots were in celtic practices - and there is an excellent website about the British traditions and history of Halloween.

For more information on Guy Fawkes see previous posts on Washminster - Guy Fawkes; The New Session; and the Bonfire Night website.

Parliament Week

This coming week will see a number of events to celebrate "Parliament Week" (I suspect that the dates were not chosen by accident - November 5th was, by order of Parliament in the 17th Century, to be kept as an annual day of "public thanksgiving to Almighty God...that unfeigned thankfulness may never be forgotten, and that all ages to come may yield praises to God's divine majesty for the same." It was on that day that Guy Fawkes' attempt to blow up Parliament was thwarted in 1605).

Details of the events (which occur across the country) can be found at a special website - http://www.parliamentweek.org/

I hope to be attending a few of the events, both at Westminster and in Birmingham. Do drop me a line if you will be attending any of the events.

How Congress Monitors and Assesses Budgets

The Congressional Budget Office was set up by Congress to give specialist advice on costing and budgetary issues. It reviews legislatives proposals and the budget put forward by the Executive Branch. As a former elected official myself, I know how important it is to challenge the assumptions behind claims about the costs and savings of proposed actions.

The agency is composed primarily of economists and public policy analysts. About three-quarters of its professional staff hold advanced degrees, mostly in economics or public policy.

A fact sheet on the CBO is available here.

CBO Reports are published on its website http://www.cbo.gov/

The Analysis of the President's proposed budget for FY 2012 can be accessed here.

What numbers!

I inputed my date of birth via a link on the BBC News website - and was informed that

When you were born, you were the:

3,012,356,208th person alive on Earth
76,640,530,951st person to have lived since history began

It's a website worth visiting.

The Statue of Liberty

Today is the anniversary of the dedication of the Statute of Liberty in 1886 by President Grover Cleveland. The statue, a gift from France, represents the Roman Goddess "Libertas". In France this deity of Freedom is personified as Marianne.

In Poitiers, one of my favourite cities in France, where I was once a visiting lecturer at The Sup de Co, and a student (part time) at the Universite - there is smaller replica of the Statue. If you are ever in that city, it's worth a visit - I did not know of its existence - but a friend, without telling me where I was being taken, surprised me as we turned the corner into La Place de la Liberte. An interactive map of Poitiers is available here.

The National Park Service website for the New York statue is available here.