So it seems that the Government is now no longer content to blame immigrants, pensioners, disabled people and the unemployed for this countries problems. Now they have to have a go at the youth of today.
A front cover of a Spectator September edition featured a sulky teenager being carried on the back of a speedy old gentleman. Message = the youth of today are lazy yobs who rely on their parents to survive.
Excuse me? The youth of today would like to have a job thank you very much, if the Government would make sure that there is one going.
Take for example the case of the health food shop Julian Graves. Earlier this year it shut because nobody was willing to buy it. So, sure, there are Internet alternatives but the Internet does not provide jobs on the shop floor. Sure the warehouse and delivery jobs are still there but the shop floor ones are now gone so that's what? A third of a business' potential jobs gone? This was a perfect opportunity for the Government to make a economic and public relations coup. If the Government had bought Julian Graves then those jobs would have stayed and the Government would have had a business, simple model of goods out money in, to help pay off the national debt, the debt that they helped cause.
The youth of today is being penalised at every turn. More and more business are going solely Internet based so there are less jobs going. With less jobs more and more people aren't buying so more and more companies, both high street and Internet, are shutting down, which means even more jobs being lost.
The Government says that it is plugging the gaps with benefits but it is cutting back on them as well so that's even less money to spend on keeping someone else in a job doing, making, selling the service that the people want. Instead of trying to discover ways to make new jobs, the Government is trying to cut 'expenses' by selling off every public service it can think of. You only need to look at the train system of Britain to realise that this model of 'economic saving' doesn't work. You just sent yourself up for a nasty collapse as the share holders demand the prices are pushed up so that their quarterly statements look good and then everybody starts using their cars instead because they can't afford public transport. Come to think of it that can't help the environment either can it? All those extra exhausts on the road.
A better model of 'economic saving' would be if all the MPs took a ten per cent pay cut and used that money to invest in a business like Julian Graves, a business that could then start exporting it's wears to places like America and Europe so that we could start paying of our nation debt. Oh wait, a moment that would take common sense and common sense is just too common for the likes of the elites that sit in the Houses of Commons.
After all, why else should students now have to pay £9,000 for their tuition at University in a world were further education is becoming a must, where as fifteen (15) years ago they would have received it for free? It is so that the little darlings of the upper crust rich don't have to mingle with us commoners because we just might corrupt their minds with the idea that every human being, from the lowest working class to the riches old money, has a right to a worthwhile job and a secure future in this world. Now that we can't afford to go to University the rich are secure in their fastness while the rest of us slid into poverty.
That is why I applauded the youth of today, who using their technology know-how, have created websites, apps and software that they can then sell to the big companies such as Yahoo for a slice of the rich man's pie.
Well done to the Youth of Today, who keep finding ways around the road blocks the elites set up. Now all you have to do is find the Holy Grail of science - a clean, renewable, non-polluting energy source - and we're away. Then the old gentleman of Parliament can realise that the only thing he's been carrying has been his own prejudices.
Come on, Youth who's up for proving the elites wrong?
Wednesday, 20 November 2013
Monday, 18 November 2013
Nyumbani
It sounds like a type of sweet does it? And with what it is doing it could well be the best sweet in the world.
Nyumbani exists between Nairobi and the Kenyan desert. It is a village with a difference. Built around a central football pitch it expands out in sections like a budding flower that is slowly opening it's petals. Each cluster of four houses has a garden and each house of each cluster has its own water tank. Complete with a farm and rows and rows of trees Nyumbani is full of children, hundreds of them running to and from the two schools where the only 'parent' age adults come to teach during the day before going home at night. For that is what sets this village apart - there are children, there are 'grandparents' but there are no adults. There is a missing generation in this place.
Nyumbani is an experiment. Africa has been gutted by two modern plagues: the AIDS pandemic and the food crisis but the founders of Nyumbani think they have the solution to both ills - house the orphans of AIDS with grieving grandparents and teach them the mixture of modern and ancient farming techniques which allows them to grow enough, precisely, to feed them.
Joseph Lentunyoi, a sustainability manager says:
“This village is unique”, he says. “You see we are not diverting the children into a quite different life, like other orphanages, but are managing to maintain their culture.”
There are thousands of orphans in the surrounding area and those lucky enough to be taken care of usually grow up in school-like buildings in Nairobi, sleeping in long dormitories far from their villages. Re-integration to rural life, at 18, is almost impossible. Nyumbani has another vision, which Joseph explains:
“The children stay in touch with their villages, which are near. The kids they secure their ancestral land. When the child is an adult, independent, they can go back to the land they came from.”
There are other advantages, too. “We place them in a family set up, which is of course an African set up.” Each grandparent will take on 10 children, and they share a home together which is provided for them.
There is a great advantage to this set up - mental care. These 'grandparents' have seen it all; war, disease, famine, there isn't one of them that hasn't come their way. They have lost sons and daughters and felt the bewildering chaos of grief, experience that they can then use to help the traumatised children that come under their care.
Africa is one of the few societies were age is the ultimate badge of honour and respect. If you have made it to being a grandparent you have seen the world and your knowledge is the knowledge of mountains. While 'parents' teach education, it is to the 'grandparent' that the child turn to for wisdom. By enshrining that at the centre of the 'families' of Nyumbani, the village founders have captured part of the soul of Africa.
Out of the stability of the village has come sustainability. Some of the children that went back to their homelands at eighteen have now returned as teachers and the village has reached out hands to the surrounding villages, both feeding them and feeding from them. In this way it has become the model, in an insecure continent, for food security. The simplicity and generosity with this has been done is mind boggling.
For instant, the village is too big for a perimeter fence. So instead the outer plots were given away to surrounding villages, which could then feed themselves instead of stealing from Nyumbani and what is more, sell the surplus back to Nyumbani. Now if someone tries to damage this community, it is the communities surrounding it that leap to it's defence.
“They have become our fence, but also our friends”, one resident of Nyambani says. “Once you put up a fence, they are not your friends.”
Local knowledge is used too. “We have a gentleman who digs the wells here and he has been doing it for years”, says Joseph. “He knows how to find water just using a stick. This saves us money – we don’t have to hire guys from the ministry of water.”
There was a long drought in east Africa between 2007 and 2009, particularly in east Kenya. But the wells at Nyumbani, built using modern techniques which sink water slowly into the soil, never ran dry. These shallow sink-wells have fertilized the soil and helped form a microclimate around the village, which is noticeably cooler and breezier than the area around it. Growing trees is a long term project, nourishing the soil and producing timber to sell, while vegetables and the farm will feed the village in the short term. The place is moving steadily towards its target: self-sustainability by 2018.
Another benefit that the trees bring is that, once there is enough of them to cool the atmosphere above the village, they will encourage the rain to fall again and when it does the trees will help hold it to the surface. The man who planted trees would be proud of these people.
This village may have been started with aid but a huge lump of its success is down to the ideas with which is was founded, the gusto that the ordinary, 'little' people have worked on making them work and the fact that some of the people who founded the project are still here, making sure that it will be able to stand up on its own two feet before they leave.
Sister Mary Owens, a nun from Ireland, was here at the project’s conception. Such a completed vision, she says dryly, is rare, as other charities often come in only to leave again before projects are able to stand up on their own.
“The World food programme, for example, is now having to pull back. They worked in 3 month targets, which is too short a time to get anything done. Practically, there needs to be a much more comprehensive approach to solving this, and that is a government task.”
But with such success, just why is the village so unique? Joseph says government ministers have been to see the village, but have no plans to replicate it. “They are very good at saying yes. But then nothing is done.”
The concept, though, he says, is very straightforward: act locally, and use the resources you have.
“It’s really quite simple, but people complicate it. You need to work with nature and not against nature. The moment we work against nature is the moment we are preparing to die.”
“At the moment I am thinking about buying fertiliser from Nairobi, which is too expensive, is not affordable, is not sustainable, and I am preparing to die. Why can’t I just make my own compost? It is friendly to the soil.”
The concept is certainly working here. An artificial village? Yes, but aren't all villages man made when you stop and think about it? The only creatures that come close to building permanent 'towns' akin to the ones humans build are ants and termites. Doesn't that give you something to think about? A test tube? Certainly, but when a test tube is growing something this healthy, happy and undeniably sweet you just can't break it. Not if you love your fellow human beings.
Nyumbani exists between Nairobi and the Kenyan desert. It is a village with a difference. Built around a central football pitch it expands out in sections like a budding flower that is slowly opening it's petals. Each cluster of four houses has a garden and each house of each cluster has its own water tank. Complete with a farm and rows and rows of trees Nyumbani is full of children, hundreds of them running to and from the two schools where the only 'parent' age adults come to teach during the day before going home at night. For that is what sets this village apart - there are children, there are 'grandparents' but there are no adults. There is a missing generation in this place.
Nyumbani is an experiment. Africa has been gutted by two modern plagues: the AIDS pandemic and the food crisis but the founders of Nyumbani think they have the solution to both ills - house the orphans of AIDS with grieving grandparents and teach them the mixture of modern and ancient farming techniques which allows them to grow enough, precisely, to feed them.
Joseph Lentunyoi, a sustainability manager says:
“This village is unique”, he says. “You see we are not diverting the children into a quite different life, like other orphanages, but are managing to maintain their culture.”
There are thousands of orphans in the surrounding area and those lucky enough to be taken care of usually grow up in school-like buildings in Nairobi, sleeping in long dormitories far from their villages. Re-integration to rural life, at 18, is almost impossible. Nyumbani has another vision, which Joseph explains:
“The children stay in touch with their villages, which are near. The kids they secure their ancestral land. When the child is an adult, independent, they can go back to the land they came from.”
There are other advantages, too. “We place them in a family set up, which is of course an African set up.” Each grandparent will take on 10 children, and they share a home together which is provided for them.
There is a great advantage to this set up - mental care. These 'grandparents' have seen it all; war, disease, famine, there isn't one of them that hasn't come their way. They have lost sons and daughters and felt the bewildering chaos of grief, experience that they can then use to help the traumatised children that come under their care.
Africa is one of the few societies were age is the ultimate badge of honour and respect. If you have made it to being a grandparent you have seen the world and your knowledge is the knowledge of mountains. While 'parents' teach education, it is to the 'grandparent' that the child turn to for wisdom. By enshrining that at the centre of the 'families' of Nyumbani, the village founders have captured part of the soul of Africa.
Out of the stability of the village has come sustainability. Some of the children that went back to their homelands at eighteen have now returned as teachers and the village has reached out hands to the surrounding villages, both feeding them and feeding from them. In this way it has become the model, in an insecure continent, for food security. The simplicity and generosity with this has been done is mind boggling.
For instant, the village is too big for a perimeter fence. So instead the outer plots were given away to surrounding villages, which could then feed themselves instead of stealing from Nyumbani and what is more, sell the surplus back to Nyumbani. Now if someone tries to damage this community, it is the communities surrounding it that leap to it's defence.
“They have become our fence, but also our friends”, one resident of Nyambani says. “Once you put up a fence, they are not your friends.”
Local knowledge is used too. “We have a gentleman who digs the wells here and he has been doing it for years”, says Joseph. “He knows how to find water just using a stick. This saves us money – we don’t have to hire guys from the ministry of water.”
There was a long drought in east Africa between 2007 and 2009, particularly in east Kenya. But the wells at Nyumbani, built using modern techniques which sink water slowly into the soil, never ran dry. These shallow sink-wells have fertilized the soil and helped form a microclimate around the village, which is noticeably cooler and breezier than the area around it. Growing trees is a long term project, nourishing the soil and producing timber to sell, while vegetables and the farm will feed the village in the short term. The place is moving steadily towards its target: self-sustainability by 2018.
Another benefit that the trees bring is that, once there is enough of them to cool the atmosphere above the village, they will encourage the rain to fall again and when it does the trees will help hold it to the surface. The man who planted trees would be proud of these people.
This village may have been started with aid but a huge lump of its success is down to the ideas with which is was founded, the gusto that the ordinary, 'little' people have worked on making them work and the fact that some of the people who founded the project are still here, making sure that it will be able to stand up on its own two feet before they leave.
Sister Mary Owens, a nun from Ireland, was here at the project’s conception. Such a completed vision, she says dryly, is rare, as other charities often come in only to leave again before projects are able to stand up on their own.
“The World food programme, for example, is now having to pull back. They worked in 3 month targets, which is too short a time to get anything done. Practically, there needs to be a much more comprehensive approach to solving this, and that is a government task.”
But with such success, just why is the village so unique? Joseph says government ministers have been to see the village, but have no plans to replicate it. “They are very good at saying yes. But then nothing is done.”
The concept, though, he says, is very straightforward: act locally, and use the resources you have.
“It’s really quite simple, but people complicate it. You need to work with nature and not against nature. The moment we work against nature is the moment we are preparing to die.”
“At the moment I am thinking about buying fertiliser from Nairobi, which is too expensive, is not affordable, is not sustainable, and I am preparing to die. Why can’t I just make my own compost? It is friendly to the soil.”
The concept is certainly working here. An artificial village? Yes, but aren't all villages man made when you stop and think about it? The only creatures that come close to building permanent 'towns' akin to the ones humans build are ants and termites. Doesn't that give you something to think about? A test tube? Certainly, but when a test tube is growing something this healthy, happy and undeniably sweet you just can't break it. Not if you love your fellow human beings.
Wednesday, 6 November 2013
Murder and the Eton Scholarship Exam
Here's a brilliant one from the elites of our country. To double check that any prospective scholarship candidate will fit right in with the sons of the country Eton recently had this question in it's entrance exam:
So to become the Prime Minister in the good old tradition of your forebears of Eton you have to be able to justify the murder of civilians by your armed services, when civil order breaks down because of your incompetence and acceptance of the quick buck over the long term good of your people.
Apparently the headmaster of Eton has claimed that "this was an intellectual exercise, based on Machiavelli’s The Prince, and was taken out of context." Oh really? I was under the impression that intellectual exercises where brain exercises used to prepare the mind to respond to situations. The intellectual version of the combat drills you have to do when you are in the armed services. So if this was an 'intellectual exercise' then it is obviously one designed to prepare the young men of Eton to defend the indefensible solely in the name of 'order' and the party's good. In short to win at all costs.
It doesn't matter how many are hurt and killed in the process, as long as you win, or your party wins that is all that is important.
Then people wonder why perfectly decent young man get carried away defending genocide by poverty in these public speaking competitions, which are modeled on Parliament for the reason that the winners add another point to their chances of getting into that august body. Those that are unable to defend their subject, be that nuclear power or abortion of the disabled, are taught that they have no right to hold political opinions.
The people being trained to be the future elite of our world are not rewarded for the humane, compassionate or even sensible answer. They are rewarded for smashing apart the argument of the 'enemy'. That's why we have politicians who are willing to argue on forever defending their point, even when it is blatantly obvious that their point of view is wrong. That's how they have been conditioned to view success. Success to the future politicians of Eton is measured in destroying your 'enemies' in any way possible and enacting any policy your party tells you to, no matter how many people are hurt.
What is more it is a self perpetuating circle. The masters of Eton were Eton boy's themselves and will do their best to pass on their grand 'vision' of Eton tradition to the next generation.
This wasn't a homework question - it was a question in the scholarship examination. The examination sat by the young hopefuls who want, or their parents want, to join the ranks of the privileged and powerful by merit of brains rather than old family money. Most of the fee-taking schools have this system in place as they have to keep up the appearance of public conscience so they can hang on to their tax exempt charity status (yes, Eton college is actually a charity). However, by including questions like the one above, it makes sure that the middle class swots it takes on are mentally mouldable enough that they can be fashioned into little replicas of their High Born class mates.
If you want to be part of the ruling elite you have to share the elites values and one of those values is holding on to power at any cost. That's telling, isn't it?
Also one other thing, Machiavelli's 'The Prince' is a satire, not an instruction manual. Do any of those Eton 'boys' understand what a political satire is?
So to become the Prime Minister in the good old tradition of your forebears of Eton you have to be able to justify the murder of civilians by your armed services, when civil order breaks down because of your incompetence and acceptance of the quick buck over the long term good of your people.
Apparently the headmaster of Eton has claimed that "this was an intellectual exercise, based on Machiavelli’s The Prince, and was taken out of context." Oh really? I was under the impression that intellectual exercises where brain exercises used to prepare the mind to respond to situations. The intellectual version of the combat drills you have to do when you are in the armed services. So if this was an 'intellectual exercise' then it is obviously one designed to prepare the young men of Eton to defend the indefensible solely in the name of 'order' and the party's good. In short to win at all costs.
It doesn't matter how many are hurt and killed in the process, as long as you win, or your party wins that is all that is important.
Then people wonder why perfectly decent young man get carried away defending genocide by poverty in these public speaking competitions, which are modeled on Parliament for the reason that the winners add another point to their chances of getting into that august body. Those that are unable to defend their subject, be that nuclear power or abortion of the disabled, are taught that they have no right to hold political opinions.
The people being trained to be the future elite of our world are not rewarded for the humane, compassionate or even sensible answer. They are rewarded for smashing apart the argument of the 'enemy'. That's why we have politicians who are willing to argue on forever defending their point, even when it is blatantly obvious that their point of view is wrong. That's how they have been conditioned to view success. Success to the future politicians of Eton is measured in destroying your 'enemies' in any way possible and enacting any policy your party tells you to, no matter how many people are hurt.
What is more it is a self perpetuating circle. The masters of Eton were Eton boy's themselves and will do their best to pass on their grand 'vision' of Eton tradition to the next generation.
This wasn't a homework question - it was a question in the scholarship examination. The examination sat by the young hopefuls who want, or their parents want, to join the ranks of the privileged and powerful by merit of brains rather than old family money. Most of the fee-taking schools have this system in place as they have to keep up the appearance of public conscience so they can hang on to their tax exempt charity status (yes, Eton college is actually a charity). However, by including questions like the one above, it makes sure that the middle class swots it takes on are mentally mouldable enough that they can be fashioned into little replicas of their High Born class mates.
If you want to be part of the ruling elite you have to share the elites values and one of those values is holding on to power at any cost. That's telling, isn't it?
Also one other thing, Machiavelli's 'The Prince' is a satire, not an instruction manual. Do any of those Eton 'boys' understand what a political satire is?
Thursday, 31 October 2013
In Service
O.K. call me behind the times but I was recently clearing out the magazine draw and I came across a Big Issue that contains something that I would like to take issue with (if you will pardon the pun).
The thing that bugged me was Noel Hoey's letter in the September 2-8 issue of the Big Issue. There again I correct myself, it wasn't the whole of the letter, just the last to paragraphs that I objected to.
The main body of the letter, which tackled the issues of the 'single point of view' that is becoming mainstream in our newscasts (are we surprised when most of them are owned by one person) and the fact that forty per cent (40%) of the newspapers output is used up by fashion addicts and royal gossip.
Now I am not adverse to knowing that Will and Kate's little un made it into the world healthy, good on both Mother and child as far as I'm concerned, but I don't need an update about it every single week. And as for the fashion columns, what planet are they on? People are having to decide between heating and eating, we don't have the money for those fads.
I also heartily agreed with Noel Hoey's summary of the US and UK politicians who sit there in judgement of the 'Arab Spring':
"without seeking to impart a big slice of the fact - that a large part of the blame for the Middle East turmoil lies squarely at the doors of our UK and Us politicians, who put in place and funded the dictators in Iran, Iraq and Egypt and turned a blind eye to their atrocities."
The other thing that they have tried their best to sweep under the rug of history is the fact that the UK is directly responsible for the shape of the modern Middle East. The British Empire and Common Wealth stuck it's big nose into the Ottoman Empire during the First World War, sending troops to Egypt and Turkey and bringing about the fall of one of the longest lasting Empires of history. The UK then had a direct hand in divided up the land of the Ottoman Empire and setting out the boundary lines of the modern countries.
We did it in Africa and we did it in the Middle East and guess what? It hasn't brought lasting peace in either place.
So for the most part I thoroughly agree with Noel's view of the world. However, I dislike his comments about:
"we feel browbeaten if we dare to question the hypocrisy of the wars we are engaged in and the fact that every returning soldier must be named a hero, fearing we might be hospitalised if we dare question the moral right of the jingoistic charity Help for Heroes, which demands we all pay homage to injured or fallen soldiers, ignoring the countless dead and injured victims left behind in these war torn countries."
For one thing, just about every soldier in Her Majesties Armed Forces did not want to go to war in either Afghanistan or Iraq, especially Iraq. However, they were told that they either went or were dishonourably discharged. If you are dishonourably discharged from the Armed Services your chance of getting a job any where else are slim to nothing, in the most part nothing. So getting dishonourably discharged is passing a sentence of poverty and destitution on your family. When you are facing that you have to obey orders because how are you going to explain to your children that you have just destroyed their chances of growing up normally?
Or, if they want to, going into work for the police force because if you have a parent who has been dishonourably discharged from the Armed Services you can't join the police force. It is illegal to join the police force if one of your parents has a criminal record and a dishonourable discharge counts as a criminal record in the eyes of the police.
For another, Help for Heroes only exists because if it didn't then those soldiers who have come home leaving half of themselves on the sand of the desert would have no help at all. After all there is one young man who had his leg blown off by a landmine and his local Council refused to give him a blue badge for disabled parking because "his condition might improve". Oh really? Just how, exactly is 'his condition' going to improve, may I ask?
Also, if Noel Hoey had read 'It's All About Treo' by Dave Heyhoe, he would understand that, particularly in Afghanistan, the Armed Forces were not just removing landmines from areas of military activity. They were also removing them from civilian areas to try and protect those civilians from the Taliban.
So question the hypocrisy of the politics that has embroiled our country in these illegal wars by all means, but leave the men and women who are being blown up on the front line out of it; at least until you've listen to 'Letters Home from the Garden of Stone', sung by Everlast, written by an unnamed soldier in his last letter home to his family before his death.
The thing that bugged me was Noel Hoey's letter in the September 2-8 issue of the Big Issue. There again I correct myself, it wasn't the whole of the letter, just the last to paragraphs that I objected to.
The main body of the letter, which tackled the issues of the 'single point of view' that is becoming mainstream in our newscasts (are we surprised when most of them are owned by one person) and the fact that forty per cent (40%) of the newspapers output is used up by fashion addicts and royal gossip.
Now I am not adverse to knowing that Will and Kate's little un made it into the world healthy, good on both Mother and child as far as I'm concerned, but I don't need an update about it every single week. And as for the fashion columns, what planet are they on? People are having to decide between heating and eating, we don't have the money for those fads.
I also heartily agreed with Noel Hoey's summary of the US and UK politicians who sit there in judgement of the 'Arab Spring':
"without seeking to impart a big slice of the fact - that a large part of the blame for the Middle East turmoil lies squarely at the doors of our UK and Us politicians, who put in place and funded the dictators in Iran, Iraq and Egypt and turned a blind eye to their atrocities."
The other thing that they have tried their best to sweep under the rug of history is the fact that the UK is directly responsible for the shape of the modern Middle East. The British Empire and Common Wealth stuck it's big nose into the Ottoman Empire during the First World War, sending troops to Egypt and Turkey and bringing about the fall of one of the longest lasting Empires of history. The UK then had a direct hand in divided up the land of the Ottoman Empire and setting out the boundary lines of the modern countries.
We did it in Africa and we did it in the Middle East and guess what? It hasn't brought lasting peace in either place.
So for the most part I thoroughly agree with Noel's view of the world. However, I dislike his comments about:
"we feel browbeaten if we dare to question the hypocrisy of the wars we are engaged in and the fact that every returning soldier must be named a hero, fearing we might be hospitalised if we dare question the moral right of the jingoistic charity Help for Heroes, which demands we all pay homage to injured or fallen soldiers, ignoring the countless dead and injured victims left behind in these war torn countries."
For one thing, just about every soldier in Her Majesties Armed Forces did not want to go to war in either Afghanistan or Iraq, especially Iraq. However, they were told that they either went or were dishonourably discharged. If you are dishonourably discharged from the Armed Services your chance of getting a job any where else are slim to nothing, in the most part nothing. So getting dishonourably discharged is passing a sentence of poverty and destitution on your family. When you are facing that you have to obey orders because how are you going to explain to your children that you have just destroyed their chances of growing up normally?
Or, if they want to, going into work for the police force because if you have a parent who has been dishonourably discharged from the Armed Services you can't join the police force. It is illegal to join the police force if one of your parents has a criminal record and a dishonourable discharge counts as a criminal record in the eyes of the police.
For another, Help for Heroes only exists because if it didn't then those soldiers who have come home leaving half of themselves on the sand of the desert would have no help at all. After all there is one young man who had his leg blown off by a landmine and his local Council refused to give him a blue badge for disabled parking because "his condition might improve". Oh really? Just how, exactly is 'his condition' going to improve, may I ask?
Also, if Noel Hoey had read 'It's All About Treo' by Dave Heyhoe, he would understand that, particularly in Afghanistan, the Armed Forces were not just removing landmines from areas of military activity. They were also removing them from civilian areas to try and protect those civilians from the Taliban.
So question the hypocrisy of the politics that has embroiled our country in these illegal wars by all means, but leave the men and women who are being blown up on the front line out of it; at least until you've listen to 'Letters Home from the Garden of Stone', sung by Everlast, written by an unnamed soldier in his last letter home to his family before his death.
Monday, 21 October 2013
Unnatural
What do you see in the mirror?
According to the What I See project, a lot more and a lot less than a twenty seven year old with not quite brushed hair and a blood shot eye from doing too much computer work all in one go.
The self style 'online platform for women's voices' has spent months asking the above question of women around the world and they have had responses that range from the affirmative 'I see me' to the hurting 'I see flaws that need covering up' to the one that sums up the entire problem 'I see a society obsessed with appearances.
Coupled with the Dove 'Real Beauty Sketches' and The Daily Mail 'silhouette test' they underline just how many women have been indoctrinated from birth to find flaws with the way we look. Women are not allowed to be content with how we look. We are too fat, too thin, too short, too tall, too young, too old.
This can be seen every time we walk down the 'beauty produce' aisle in the supermarkets. Compare the number of beauty produces on sale for women and the number on sale for men. Without getting out a tape measure and measuring it I'm pretty sure that four fifths of the shelf space is for women and only a fifth for men.
Women are not allowed to believe that we can be naturally beautiful. We must have a beauty routine, we must have thing we buy and use to make ourselves look better.
In short the female body is an unnatural thing that must be washed, powered, painted, scented, coloured and splashed to be acceptable. A whole industry has grown up around this obsession that women cannot be proud of who and what they are.
Being passive and modest are the tradition female attributes and part of that is the belief that you must be continually striving to improve yourself to be acceptable. What is more while you try and reach the bar of what society believes you must do to make yourself acceptable to it you will be accused of crimes as varied as supporting feminism ("If women have such bad judgement, why should we let them become board directors?") and existing in the first place. (See the comments from the Mail readership on the response page to the silhouette test on Mail Online.)
And yet if you try and break the model and say 'I am a women who is comfortable with her beauty and I don't need all that stuff' you will receive a torrent of abuse for being , among other things, vain, selfish and not feminine. Is it me or can we not seem to win either way?
If we feed into society's demands that we aren't comfortable with ourselves we are abused for having poor judgement but if we take the stand and say that we are comfortable with ourselves and don't need all that crap we are slayed for being 'unfeminine'.
It seems that we have been fed this idea that only 'women who aren't like women' or 'women who don't like women' succeed. In other words, the only women who is comfortable with her appearance and is therefore not distracted from her chosen path in life by it, is a ball breaker who is an unnatural woman.
Why can't we be women who are comfortable in our own skin and feminine? After all, men can be comfortable in their own skin and be considered masculine.
I'd say it's about time we stopped listening to all those voices that say that we aren't 'natural' and start supporting each other to enjoy who and what we are exactly as we are. And to Hell with the commercials!
According to the What I See project, a lot more and a lot less than a twenty seven year old with not quite brushed hair and a blood shot eye from doing too much computer work all in one go.
The self style 'online platform for women's voices' has spent months asking the above question of women around the world and they have had responses that range from the affirmative 'I see me' to the hurting 'I see flaws that need covering up' to the one that sums up the entire problem 'I see a society obsessed with appearances.
Coupled with the Dove 'Real Beauty Sketches' and The Daily Mail 'silhouette test' they underline just how many women have been indoctrinated from birth to find flaws with the way we look. Women are not allowed to be content with how we look. We are too fat, too thin, too short, too tall, too young, too old.
This can be seen every time we walk down the 'beauty produce' aisle in the supermarkets. Compare the number of beauty produces on sale for women and the number on sale for men. Without getting out a tape measure and measuring it I'm pretty sure that four fifths of the shelf space is for women and only a fifth for men.
Women are not allowed to believe that we can be naturally beautiful. We must have a beauty routine, we must have thing we buy and use to make ourselves look better.
In short the female body is an unnatural thing that must be washed, powered, painted, scented, coloured and splashed to be acceptable. A whole industry has grown up around this obsession that women cannot be proud of who and what they are.
Being passive and modest are the tradition female attributes and part of that is the belief that you must be continually striving to improve yourself to be acceptable. What is more while you try and reach the bar of what society believes you must do to make yourself acceptable to it you will be accused of crimes as varied as supporting feminism ("If women have such bad judgement, why should we let them become board directors?") and existing in the first place. (See the comments from the Mail readership on the response page to the silhouette test on Mail Online.)
And yet if you try and break the model and say 'I am a women who is comfortable with her beauty and I don't need all that stuff' you will receive a torrent of abuse for being , among other things, vain, selfish and not feminine. Is it me or can we not seem to win either way?
If we feed into society's demands that we aren't comfortable with ourselves we are abused for having poor judgement but if we take the stand and say that we are comfortable with ourselves and don't need all that crap we are slayed for being 'unfeminine'.
It seems that we have been fed this idea that only 'women who aren't like women' or 'women who don't like women' succeed. In other words, the only women who is comfortable with her appearance and is therefore not distracted from her chosen path in life by it, is a ball breaker who is an unnatural woman.
Why can't we be women who are comfortable in our own skin and feminine? After all, men can be comfortable in their own skin and be considered masculine.
I'd say it's about time we stopped listening to all those voices that say that we aren't 'natural' and start supporting each other to enjoy who and what we are exactly as we are. And to Hell with the commercials!
Wednesday, 16 October 2013
Sluts
That's the word that has been doing the rounds in the media again this year, in connection to Milney Cyrus.
I don't like the term. It has a very bad meaning. I'm sorry but it does. If a girl is deemed a slut then all she cares about is sex, sex and more sex. It's a case of you don't even have to have the right moves, if your males she'll spread her legs.
Quite frankly, it's disgusting, the meaning of that word that is.
It seems that any woman who is open about the fact that she is a sexual creature, that she has needs for physical contact, that she enjoys or talks about or simulates or even 'invites' sex is a slut who wouldn't say no, or if she does then it's only a joke. How you 'invite' sex depends on which misogynist you are talking to but is not limited to your clothes, your make-up, whether you are drunk or if you are saying no. I had an experience in High School where the more I said no the more they put their hands where they weren't wanted. Considering I wore dress that reached at least my knees in an effort to stop that sort of thing you would think that I would not be 'slut' material but apparently if you say no then you are a slut who's giving the come on. Thankfully I have developed a good set of lungs over the years and when the enraged shrieks started drawing attention to the boys loos where they had dragged me they decided to leave off.
And that's the major problem. We were meant to have a sexual liberation when we went through the sixties and seventies but I'm sorry, we are still stuck in the same old cycle where boys are encouraged by various medias to think of girls as 'only good for just one thing' and any woman who speaks up against this is shouted down as being 'unable to take a joke'.
Woman should be able to be open about the fact that we are sexually alive and active creatures but any woman who does speak out about the fact that she's had more than one sexual partner risks being judged as 'demeaning sex itself' rather than a real live human being.
Then people wonder why hordes of young girls go crazy over boy bands. Most are too young for the mad wanting to be labelled 'lust', its the safety of a boy band crush. By fixating on someone securely unobtainable you get to practise all the wildness of desire without making too many mistakes, embarrassing yourself too badly or hurting anyone too much.
What does it say about me that when I caught up with my peer group my crushes were always on the older actors? Maybe that I'm drawn to maturity more than most.
But anyway, the question remains of why do we keep pretending that 'sexualisation' is something forced on girls from the outside? Yes, I agree that twelve years old shouldn't go out wearing skirts so short they are non-existent but when you get to eighteen talking about desire and sex and relationships should be considered normal and natural.
It's a disservice to both genders that girls are still being taught that boys 'only want one thing and they mustn't give it'. Sex stops being a collaborative pleasure and becomes a thing of take and very little give because while girls are being taught that the only 'consent' they are allowed is the ability to say no, boys are being taught that 'affection equals sex'.
Both my relationships suffered and ultimately broke down because of the 'affection = sex' syndrome. I'm sorry but there is a lot more to a relationship than how often you are in bed. Every kiss and touch and cuddle does not need to end with his hands in your pants and your hands in his.
Affection is the little things, like hugging you while you are washing up, giving him a kiss while his working on the computer, sitting with your sides touching when you are having a read in the evening. This affection! Yes affection is part of sex but sex is not the whole of affection.
This is where we are going wrong, we are teaching about sex and contraception in school (so again, a girl can say 'no') but we are not teaching about affection and we are certainly not teaching about how to build long lasting relationships.
As far as I can see, while this one sided education goes on, women who are open about their sexual desires are going to continue to be called 'sluts' and girls who say 'no' are going to continue being ignored.
I don't like the term. It has a very bad meaning. I'm sorry but it does. If a girl is deemed a slut then all she cares about is sex, sex and more sex. It's a case of you don't even have to have the right moves, if your males she'll spread her legs.
Quite frankly, it's disgusting, the meaning of that word that is.
It seems that any woman who is open about the fact that she is a sexual creature, that she has needs for physical contact, that she enjoys or talks about or simulates or even 'invites' sex is a slut who wouldn't say no, or if she does then it's only a joke. How you 'invite' sex depends on which misogynist you are talking to but is not limited to your clothes, your make-up, whether you are drunk or if you are saying no. I had an experience in High School where the more I said no the more they put their hands where they weren't wanted. Considering I wore dress that reached at least my knees in an effort to stop that sort of thing you would think that I would not be 'slut' material but apparently if you say no then you are a slut who's giving the come on. Thankfully I have developed a good set of lungs over the years and when the enraged shrieks started drawing attention to the boys loos where they had dragged me they decided to leave off.
And that's the major problem. We were meant to have a sexual liberation when we went through the sixties and seventies but I'm sorry, we are still stuck in the same old cycle where boys are encouraged by various medias to think of girls as 'only good for just one thing' and any woman who speaks up against this is shouted down as being 'unable to take a joke'.
Woman should be able to be open about the fact that we are sexually alive and active creatures but any woman who does speak out about the fact that she's had more than one sexual partner risks being judged as 'demeaning sex itself' rather than a real live human being.
Then people wonder why hordes of young girls go crazy over boy bands. Most are too young for the mad wanting to be labelled 'lust', its the safety of a boy band crush. By fixating on someone securely unobtainable you get to practise all the wildness of desire without making too many mistakes, embarrassing yourself too badly or hurting anyone too much.
What does it say about me that when I caught up with my peer group my crushes were always on the older actors? Maybe that I'm drawn to maturity more than most.
But anyway, the question remains of why do we keep pretending that 'sexualisation' is something forced on girls from the outside? Yes, I agree that twelve years old shouldn't go out wearing skirts so short they are non-existent but when you get to eighteen talking about desire and sex and relationships should be considered normal and natural.
It's a disservice to both genders that girls are still being taught that boys 'only want one thing and they mustn't give it'. Sex stops being a collaborative pleasure and becomes a thing of take and very little give because while girls are being taught that the only 'consent' they are allowed is the ability to say no, boys are being taught that 'affection equals sex'.
Both my relationships suffered and ultimately broke down because of the 'affection = sex' syndrome. I'm sorry but there is a lot more to a relationship than how often you are in bed. Every kiss and touch and cuddle does not need to end with his hands in your pants and your hands in his.
Affection is the little things, like hugging you while you are washing up, giving him a kiss while his working on the computer, sitting with your sides touching when you are having a read in the evening. This affection! Yes affection is part of sex but sex is not the whole of affection.
This is where we are going wrong, we are teaching about sex and contraception in school (so again, a girl can say 'no') but we are not teaching about affection and we are certainly not teaching about how to build long lasting relationships.
As far as I can see, while this one sided education goes on, women who are open about their sexual desires are going to continue to be called 'sluts' and girls who say 'no' are going to continue being ignored.
Tuesday, 15 October 2013
Mental Health
Some of you may recall the Sun's drooling headline '1,200 killed by mental patients' last week. The Sun claims that it isn't really trying to stigmatise people with mental heal issues but rather draw attention to the number of people who have been let down by the poor mental health provision of this country.
Well, if that was true then they would point out that there has, according to the most recently available figures, been "a fall in homicide by people with mental illness, including people with psychosis". They would also lead, as the Eastern Daily Press did, with a headline about the number of vulnerable people who have committed suicide while supposedly receiving support from the mental health profession.
Across the global north, one in four people will experience mental health problems in their lifetimes. Most make a full recovery, some of us need on going care. However a huge number of us struggle on without help, mostly because we fear what we will get if we speak out considering the 'Mental Patient' and 'Psycho Ward' Halloween costumes on sale this year. That's just brilliant Tesco and Asda, just encourage the cruel stereotypes 'cause that's exactly just what we don't need.
Then people wonder why places like the Winterbourne View care home and Rycroft go on for years without anything being done about them. It's because people with mental disabilities and mental health problems have been depicted as animalist, sub-human, violent monsters for years. That's why the Government has been able to leave the mental care system so beggarly short of funds. It's easy to syphon money away from the benefits of mentally ill 'animals' and give it to 'real people'.
I can well believe that people with severe and on going mental health problems are ten times more likely to be the victims of violent crime than they are to perpetrate it. I should know I've been there. I've been to the bottom of that deep, dark pit called depression and far from knifing someone else, all I wanted to do was curl up in a corner some where and just die.
Depression like that leaves it's marks but I did not have any help, either during my mental breakdown or for ten years afterwards until I was offered mental support while I was nursing my Mother during the treatment for her diagnosed terminal cancer.
This is why people with mental illnesses won't speak out - if we do, half the time we are ignored and the other half the time we might get help but only if it's coupled to people looking at us as if we are a threat to society.
One last thing, By law anyone who has been sectioned due to mental health problems has no human rights. So all those nursing staff that beat them up can be done for cruelty and a breach of the Hippocratic Oath but not for a breach of human rights because the patients have none.
Well, if that was true then they would point out that there has, according to the most recently available figures, been "a fall in homicide by people with mental illness, including people with psychosis". They would also lead, as the Eastern Daily Press did, with a headline about the number of vulnerable people who have committed suicide while supposedly receiving support from the mental health profession.
Across the global north, one in four people will experience mental health problems in their lifetimes. Most make a full recovery, some of us need on going care. However a huge number of us struggle on without help, mostly because we fear what we will get if we speak out considering the 'Mental Patient' and 'Psycho Ward' Halloween costumes on sale this year. That's just brilliant Tesco and Asda, just encourage the cruel stereotypes 'cause that's exactly just what we don't need.
Then people wonder why places like the Winterbourne View care home and Rycroft go on for years without anything being done about them. It's because people with mental disabilities and mental health problems have been depicted as animalist, sub-human, violent monsters for years. That's why the Government has been able to leave the mental care system so beggarly short of funds. It's easy to syphon money away from the benefits of mentally ill 'animals' and give it to 'real people'.
I can well believe that people with severe and on going mental health problems are ten times more likely to be the victims of violent crime than they are to perpetrate it. I should know I've been there. I've been to the bottom of that deep, dark pit called depression and far from knifing someone else, all I wanted to do was curl up in a corner some where and just die.
Depression like that leaves it's marks but I did not have any help, either during my mental breakdown or for ten years afterwards until I was offered mental support while I was nursing my Mother during the treatment for her diagnosed terminal cancer.
This is why people with mental illnesses won't speak out - if we do, half the time we are ignored and the other half the time we might get help but only if it's coupled to people looking at us as if we are a threat to society.
One last thing, By law anyone who has been sectioned due to mental health problems has no human rights. So all those nursing staff that beat them up can be done for cruelty and a breach of the Hippocratic Oath but not for a breach of human rights because the patients have none.
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