{"id":909,"date":"2020-09-24T12:00:38","date_gmt":"2020-09-24T11:00:38","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/alphawriters.net\/new\/?p=909"},"modified":"2020-09-24T12:00:38","modified_gmt":"2020-09-24T11:00:38","slug":"season-xvii-alphaday-2","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/alphawriters.net\/new\/season-xvii-alphaday-2\/","title":{"rendered":"Season XVII &#8211; Alphaday 2"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p>Hi Alphas,<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Welcome to Alphaday 2, Season XVII. We\u2019re moving on into the season and gradually winding up the machinery until we reach full power. It isn\u2019t far off; already next Alphaday our agenda will be complete with everything we\u2019ve come to expect dished up lavishly for all to enjoy.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>For today we\u2019ll be satisfied with the following treats that are not to be sneezed at. As usual they\u2019ve been put together by the combined efforts of all Alphas as we\u2019ve responded to the calls for contributions with the help of those who offered to be in charge.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>Alphaday 2, Season XVII agenda:<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<ul class=\"wp-block-list\"><li>This Bulletin from me<\/li><li>The collated entries for the \u2018Waking up\u2019 challenge from Phil<\/li><li>The brief for Challenge 2 from Jackie<\/li><li>Your news in Alpha Log 1 from Phil<\/li><\/ul>\n\n\n\n<p>If that looks a bit lean, it\u2019s because you haven\u2019t yet checked out what\u2019s behind these item headings. Some of us are already impatient to get our teeth into it. Newbies will be pleasantly surprised, we hope.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>There\u2019s no particular <strong>Alpha news <\/strong>for me to pass on. I\u2019ll leave the interesting parts for Phil to reveal in his Log.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>General news<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>I usually try to pick out a point that\u2019s vaguely related to the creative arts and\/or to our Alpha experiences. I\u2019m always hoping to trigger a reaction from other Alphas to my crooked way of thinking.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>These thoughts started with the Proms crisis, caused by the sudden discovery that the much-loved sing-along of \u2018Rule, Britannia\u2019 on the final night was a racist, colonial gesture and insulting to the BAME population and the BLM cause.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>This brought back memories of last season\u2019s challenge where we re-wrote \u2018God Save the Queen\u2019 in words that sung the praise of Great Britain for positive reasons like beautiful scenery, democratic principles, \u2018love thy neighbour\u2019 etc.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>\u2018A pity we didn\u2019t choose \u2018Rule, Britannia\u2019 for our rewrite,\u2019 I thought.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>I looked up the lyrics to see how objectionable they were. Clearly the refrain extols Britain as <em>the<\/em> supreme power, but then it would do, being a patriotic song, and with that same fervent enthusiasm for being on the winning side that you\u2019d find at a football match. (Here I must confess to a strong distaste for the flag-waving at football matches where opposite sides whip up aggression. Still, not being a football fan I can\u2019t make judgments.)<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>The \u2018Rule Britannia\u2019 spat, however, slotted into the sudden mania for getting rid of works of art that reveal unpalatable episodes in history. Paintings, statues, music, street names, rice, restoration comedies and more. Bernard Shaw was more or less kicked out of the London school of drama for his eugenics attitude. He had a big mouth, he did, and enjoyed being provocative.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>The Russians excelled at rewriting history about the tsar and Stalin. They had auto-da-f\u00e9s and persecutions. They\u2019re not the only ones and Britain is learning fast. It\u2019s probably a peer pressure thing. You should ban or erase everything to do with e.g. the stately home and restoration comedy era\u2019s addiction to coffee, sugar and tobacco. All that was run by cartels that piled up their fortunes with a total disregard for the human lives they destroyed. Whistleblower William Wilberforce received death threats.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Perhaps we shouldn\u2019t have rewritten \u2018God Save the Queen\u2019. It\u2019s probably better to leave history to reveal its secrets through the works of art \u2013 good and bad \u2013 that it spawned.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Christine<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Hi Alphas, Welcome to Alphaday 2, Season XVII. We\u2019re moving on into the season and gradually winding up the machinery until we reach full power. It isn\u2019t far off; already next Alphaday&#8230;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[20],"class_list":["post-909","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-alphaday-bulletins","tag-alphaday-bulletins-2"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/alphawriters.net\/new\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/909","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/alphawriters.net\/new\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/alphawriters.net\/new\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alphawriters.net\/new\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alphawriters.net\/new\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=909"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/alphawriters.net\/new\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/909\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/alphawriters.net\/new\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=909"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alphawriters.net\/new\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=909"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alphawriters.net\/new\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=909"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}