tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-35974345741350853232024-03-13T08:52:04.045-07:00The Elwell PressAnonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15278292523531432633noreply@blogger.comBlogger20125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3597434574135085323.post-47933662373617309162013-12-16T12:07:00.003-08:002013-12-16T12:07:33.948-08:00Angry Birds: What Essex Girls Can Give To Feminism<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">From working-class Basildon and Southend on the river, to the homogenised nouveau riche vulgarity of Brentwood and the manicured affluence of Colchester, the women of Essex are arbiters of bad taste and barometers of the county's shifting fortunes - like Christmas trees, wealth is dangled from them in the form of glitzy baubles. The dedication to conspicuous consumption is tangible; first Lakeside, then Bluewater, and finally Westfield have sprung up within driving distance of Basildon.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial;"></span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Each High Street is a seemingly endless procession of beauty salons, nail bars, and estate agents; particularly important towns benefit from the addition of a big Primark. The stereotype has become an archetype, but that's not to say it hasn't evolved - the crunchy perm of the '90s, fossilised by hairspray and wet-look mousse, resembling nothing more than uncooked Ramen noodles, has all but vanished, replaced by the ubiquitous sock bun. But the area's defining feature - the insurmountable, indisputable Shibboleth of the Estuary - is the reputation.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial;"></span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Even at the furthest reaches of the UK and beyond, the reputation is hard to escape; in pubs in the Highlands and clubs in the States, new acquaintances will ask where the white stilettos are. There's no denying it; the second we speak, the game's up. Even an accent that sounds comparatively refined in Essex is instantly recognisable outside the Home Counties, and the dialect fares no better. The first glimpse of an 'innit?' or an excitable 'oh my God!' are proof conclusive, as if any were needed, that this particular specimen is a dyed-in-the-wool Essex original.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial;"></span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Last month, seemingly in response to UsVsTh3m's 'North-o-meter’, Facebook has been colonised by an Estuary variation: 'How Essex Are You?' Inevitably, I scored 100% - far higher than anyone else I know, and a source of enormous hilarity for those who scored less. Much of this article was composed in the stylist's chair at Toni & Guy Basildon; the resulting cut was a layered bob, not ratty extensions, but the very fact that I feel the need to defend myself indicates how much judgement I anticipate. And if it had been extensions, should I be ashamed? There's no need to give up your roots totally, is there?</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial;"></span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Unlike personal politics or subcultural affiliation, our county of origin is manifestly not a conscious choice. If Yorkshire and Lancashire can inspire civic pride even in their southbound émigrés, why should other counties be a source of shame and embarrassment? Until last year, I hadn't heard an Essex Girl joke used in earnest for 20 years - now, possibly thanks to the inexplicable recent popularity of a reality TV programme set in the county, it seems they're back in style.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial;"></span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Against all expectation, though, Essex has had a pivotal role to play in women's rights. The striking women of the Ford plant in Dagenham, demanding equal pay for machining car upholstery compared to what the men on the production line earned, were instrumental in shepherding in debate and subsequent legislation protecting equal rights in the workplace. When the cry went up - 'everybody out!' - the women of Essex did not falter. Earning the vote might have been the domain of genteel middle-class ladies of means, but the opening salvo in the battle for equal pay was fired by resolutely proletarian foot soldiers - the rank-and-file, not the officer class.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial;"></span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">But what of the stereotype? Maybe it does hold some power after all. Perhaps in our hurry to defy the limitations of fashion and beauty, we've made the mistake of assuming that the trappings of traditional femininity hold no value. Perhaps the archetypal Essex girl is due a critical reassessment. Perhaps our intellectual posturing doesn't entitle us to look down our noses at those who choose differently. Perhaps the hair, the heels, the makeup, are 'glamour' in the occult sense - a spell cast to obscure reality, carrying its own special power.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial;"></span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">'Innit' is a useful filler word - if female speech is traditionally characterised by approval-seeking phatics and tag questions, why should this low-rent elision be any less acceptable? It may make the speaker sound as if they lack class, but not nearly as much as sneering at someone's unalterable background and origins does. If an Essex girl - or, more often, whole groups of them - are having a good time getting dressed up and drinking pitchers of sticky-sweet cocktails at Bas Vegas, do you want to be the one that tells them they mustn't?</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Despite the efforts of the feminist intelligentsia to forcefully introduce sophisticated notions of liberation to the county's oppressed sisterhood, even a fleeting visit will reveal a homegrown brand of tried-and-true female resilience. Wronged women - and there are many - will tolerate so much and then no more; past a certain point, they're not being funny, but they're not having it. He ain't worth it. You can do better, babes. Ultimately we can all do better.</span>Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09110706293017714307noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3597434574135085323.post-90172779847355317382013-10-14T05:56:00.000-07:002013-10-14T05:56:25.833-07:00Guest Post: The False Scourge of the False Widow<!--[if !mso]>
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<span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">Unless you’ve been hiding inoffensively in a dark corner
(much like our chosen subject) you cannot have failed to notice the recent mounting
hysteria surrounding a certain type of spider. Pictures of horrific injuries and
tales of ‘vicious’ attacks by False Widow spiders have been dominating the
local tabloids with every Tom, Dick, and Harry apparently having a brush with
death at the hands of these largely harmless arachnids. Now this may come as
some surprise to you, but very little of this hyperbole is based upon truth.
The media are fuelling and feeding off the public’s fear, which in turn is based
upon ignorance. So, I am going to set the record straight in an attempt to
support the beleaguered False Widow. </span></div>
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<br /></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">The Invasion</b></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">Firstly, the False Widow is nothing new. These spiders have
been in the UK longer than you, regardless of how old you are. Believed to have
come into the country on goods imported from the Canary Islands, the first
documented sightings date from around 1879 and they have been slowly spreading throughout
the south of England, living in fairly close proximity to us since then. It is
hypothesized that recent changes in climate have prompted the False Widow’s accelerated
expansion into most areas of the UK, although it is still confined mainly to
the south. </span></div>
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<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">The Spider</b></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">The reports of the False Widow that have been circulating
have been focussing upon <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Steatoda nobilis</i>
or the Noble Widow. However, this is only one of an entire family of spiders,
many of which are present in the UK. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The
genus <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Steatoda</i> is a relative of <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Latrodectus, </i>which contains <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">L.mactans </i>or the Black Widow. What many people
don’t realise is that the Black Widow has also made its way over to the UK,
albeit in vastly reduced numbers. And it’s the FALSE Widow that people are
concerned about! <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Steatoda</i> has a few
species that are present in the UK and all of them are capable of inflicting a
bite. But then a Garden Spider (<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Araneus
diadematus</i>) is also capable of biting and that bite is extremely benign. (I
should know, I have been bitten by one as a child – and yes it was totally my
fault, I picked the spider up) </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">The Bite</b></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">Now the bite itself. <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Steatoda</i>,
and <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Latrodectus</i> (and indeed most
arachnids) have neurotoxic venom, which can cause pain, swelling, nausea and,
in rare cases, even cramps and a fever. It doesn’t cause the skin to rot and
fall off, nor does it result in significant muscle loss. What CAN cause that is
secondary staph infection - even MRSA - or potentially a very severe allergic
reaction to the venom. However this reaction would only occur in an EXTREMELY
small percentage of people. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">The most you should expect from a False Widow bite would be
some swelling, some pain and possibly generally feeling unwell, and much of
that may be psychosomatic <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>- no worse
than a nasty bee or wasp sting. If bitten, clean and dress the bite. If you
start feeling ill go to A&E for treatment; it’s unlikely to amount to any more
than administering pain medication and antihistamines. This said, the effect is
likely to be more profound for those in poor health, the very old, or the very
young so caution should still be exercised in those cases.</span></div>
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<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">The Coverage</b></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">So that’s the spider’s history and the bite itself covered,
let’s talk about the reports and the errors within. Aside from the fact that
the spider actually pictured varies from <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Tegenaria
gigantea</i> (the large Common House spider you often see crawling about – usually
a male in search of a mate) to the Laceweb spider <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Amaurobius similis</i> (both utterly harmless), in these articles the
spiders are described as killers, deadly, poisonous, vicious, and flesh eating.
<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Let’s handle these one at a time. </span></div>
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<ul style="margin-top: 0cm;" type="disc">
<li class="MsoNormal" style="mso-list: l0 level1 lfo1;"><span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">Killers: these spiders
have killed NO-ONE. Peanuts and wasps have caused more deaths than <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">S.nobilis</i>. Then again, so have elephants
and stepladders.</span></li>
<li class="MsoNormal" style="mso-list: l0 level1 lfo1;"><span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">Deadly: admittedly most
papers do normally specify that a bite can be lethal only in the case of
the most extreme allergic reaction. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>This being the case, why keep spouting
about how ‘deadly’ they are? Unless ,of course, you’re in Ireland, where
deadly has entirely different connotations, it is a grossly unfair
adjective to use - unless you are also going to start referring to peanuts,
wasps, bees, ants, strawberries, coffee, or anything else to which you
might suffer an allergic reaction to in the same manner. </span></li>
<li class="MsoNormal" style="mso-list: l0 level1 lfo1;"><span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">Poisonous: poison refers
to a toxin ingested or absorbed through the skin; venom is injected by an
animal by a bite or sting. A small distinction, but an important one - how
can you trust a report if they don’t even get the basics right? A False
Widow probably wouldn’t taste nice but it won’t harm you by eating it, so
they are not poisonous.</span></li>
<li class="MsoNormal" style="mso-list: l0 level1 lfo1;"><span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">Vicious: <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Steadota,</i> and for that matter most
spiders, are NOT vicious. They are shy, retiring creatures that want to be
left alone and undisturbed and will only react if they are provoked or
threatened. Most False Widow bites occur because the spider has ended up
in clothing and was disturbed as the ‘victim’ dressed. That said, shirts
and trousers are not the chosen habitat of the false widow; they prefer
dark corners and will often be found in a shed or garage. It is only with
the arrival of the colder weather that these arachnids start to encroach
upon our homes. So they aren’t vicious or malicious unlike some of the
pieces of journalistic fiction that have been written about them. </span></li>
<li class="MsoNormal" style="mso-list: l0 level1 lfo1;"><span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">Flesh Eating: despite the
sensationalist headlines like ‘Spider Tried To Eat My Leg!’ and ‘Millions Of
Flesh Eating Spiders Invade Britain!’ the lower limb of the average human
is FAR too large for even the largest spider in the world to consume. <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">S.nobilis</i> would much prefer to feed
upon flies or other small insects. These spiders are only around 2cm in
size! Hardly the terror they have been portrayed as. </span></li>
</ul>
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<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"><a href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-kX0NbXTlZVk/Ulvo-RwyM-I/AAAAAAAAAE4/TwM5zCJcrdU/s1600/IMG_1169.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="213" src="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-kX0NbXTlZVk/Ulvo-RwyM-I/AAAAAAAAAE4/TwM5zCJcrdU/s320/IMG_1169.jpg" width="320" /></a></span></div>
<div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"><span style="mso-fareast-language: EN-GB; mso-no-proof: yes;"></span></span></div>
<div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"><i>And you’re SCARED of
this?! Look at the way it viciously attacks anything in its path!</i></span></div>
<div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"><i>Image copyright: Richard @ The-Poms.com </i></span></div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">So hopefully this has gone someway to defuse the hysteria
surrounding these unfairly maligned creatures. The truth is that these spiders
are not out to get you, they have been around for over 100 years and just want
to be left alone. They have no desire to attack ‘like out of a horror film’ and
will not eat your flesh. They can bite and it can be a painful one but apart
from very, very rare occurrences it will be no worse than a severe bee sting.
Spiders perform a vital role in ecology; they control the populations of the small
disease-carrying bugs that otherwise would plague us in the summer months and
should be seen as useful creatures rather than something to be feared. </span></div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">The upshot of these horrendous articles is that people are
killing every spider they come across, regardless of species and, although our
eight-legged friends are probably numerous enough to not be wiped out by our
misguided indiscriminate slaughter, ecosystems can be a fragile thing and a
natural equilibrium can easily be disrupted. Don’t kill them; if you are
concerned then remove them with a jar and a piece of card - they won’t spring
at you with fangs bared - and put them outside.</span></div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">Not every spider you see is a False Widow. They are small
with noticeably longer front legs (a trait of <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Steatoda/Latrodectus</i>) and round bulbous dark abdomens which in the
case of <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Nobilis</i> have a dull cream
pattern on them. The press are feeding off people’s fears and the information
they are spouting is both inaccurate and unhelpful. Treat any animal with
respect and it will have no reason to react in a negative manner. Hopefully the
ridiculous furore surrounding False Widows will die down soon and we can return
to the pedestrian levels of spider hatred and intolerance these misunderstood
yet wonderful creatures have to endure.</span></div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"><i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Allen Ward is an
experienced keeper and breeder of arachnids, sharing his home with more than 300
spiders and tarantulas from all over the world - many of which have medically
significant venom. He also has a large collection of various invertebrates and
reptiles. The only times he has ever been bitten by spiders was when he was a
child and was in the habit of just picking them up in the wild for a better
look. He is still in possession of all of his limbs. He is available to advise
on all relevant stories until the False Widow drama has died down – please
contact the Elwell Press for details.</i></span></div>
Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09110706293017714307noreply@blogger.com5tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3597434574135085323.post-75147455241151806642013-09-27T10:28:00.008-07:002013-09-27T12:29:12.888-07:00They Fuck You Up, Your Mum And Dad<!--[if gte mso 9]><xml>
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<![endif]--><span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"><i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">They might not mean
to, but they do. They fill you with the faults they had, and add some extra,
just for you. The Elwell Press investigates the legacy of poor parenting
and asks, are we compelled to forgive a parent that hurts us?</i></span><br />
<br />
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">In the past, politicians railed against single mothers,
blaming them for the decline of modern society. But which was worse – for one
parent to be entirely absent, or for them to be present, permanently or periodically,
casting a pall of intimidation and control over the household? You were a
child, you reacted based on the developing emotional intelligence you had at
your disposal. Maybe you hated them. Then hate turns to contempt, contempt to
scorn, and scorn to pity. From there, pity may turn into a total absence of
feeling, or it may become forgiveness.</span><br />
<br />
</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">Each had their own reasons for acting the way they did.
Whether through mental illness, the scars of their own bad childhood, or
countless other reasons, their behaviour was both damaging and incomprehensible
to the people around them – maybe not through their own malice, but by the
nature of their psychology. Because you’re a decent person, you tried to help
as best you could. But you were never going to be able to fix their problems.
Only they could do that.</span><br />
<br />
</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">This isn’t an excuse to insult or dismiss people with mental
illnesses. Many mentally ill people make wonderful parents in spite of their
conditions. But some parents, not deliberately but as a consequence of their
illness and their circumstances, unwittingly provided home lives that were
unstable, stressful, or frightening for their children. This article isn’t
about them. Many people without mental health problems provide harmful
environments for their children. This article is about those parents.</span><br />
<br />
</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">This article is about the parents that behaved disgracefully
for no apparent reason; violent, controlling, abusive, uninterested, manipulative,
neglectful, selfish, or fucked up in their turn, their behaviour was as
incomprehensible as it was hurtful. Like many children in this situation, Laura
felt she was responsible for her father’s erratic and spiteful behaviour, and
felt like adapting her own actions would help heal the deep wounds.</span><br />
<br />
</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"><span class="null">“My father was never really around and when
he was it wasn't a pleasant experience. I spent years as a child trying to fix
the situation, trying to forgive him for leaving me and treating me so badly. I
gave him far too many chances to change, but he never did. I’ll never forgive
him for the way he treated my brother and I. I have severed all ties; I
couldn’t stand the constant promises of change and the disappointment.”</span></span><br />
<br />
</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">The absent parent, whether dead or living separately,
represents potential. They may be a saint, they may have loved us dearly, every
moment could have wounded them like a knife to the heart. The present parent was
no such benevolent unknown quantity. Their behaviour, even if erratic, was
usually reasonably predictable. Perhaps there was a point when you decided your
life was better without them in it. Perhaps they just disappeared one day, and
you moved on. Either way, you haven’t seen them in years.</span><br />
<br />
</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">When you explain this to people, they ask you stupid
questions. Who do you take your boyfriends to for approval? They’ll come to
your graduation though, surely? Who will give you away when you get married?
What will happen when you have your first baby? As if you need, or would even
want, their presence at the high points of your life. When people say that cessation
of contact is their loss, not yours, it’s these days that they’re talking
about.</span><br />
<br />
</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"><span class="null">Natasha* hasn’t seen her mother in over
fifteen years. “She tries to get in touch every now and then, but I don't ever
want that woman in my life. I just can't bring myself to forgive her for how
she treated me whilst I was growing up. I've had friends who understand and some
who don't; even family pressure to forgive and forget. They tell me that she's
changed. Whether she has or not, I can't forgive her - as far as I'm concerned
there is no excuse for what she put me through.”</span></span><br />
<br />
</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"><span class="null">Young women in particular feel unusually
pressurised to rebuild the familial bond, to forgive and make peace. Perhaps
it’s the idea that women should be family-orientated, or the notion that weddings
and births will bring the family together, or the desire of outsiders to see
their idea of a happy ending made manifest in your life, even if you tell them
that’s not what’s right for you. </span></span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"><span class="null">Whatever causes it, even people who know you
well can still sometimes wish that you could make peace with the parent that
hurt you, for your sake if not the parent’s.</span></span><br />
<br />
</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"><span class="null">Well, here’s a revolutionary piece of
advice that therapists and self-help books won’t necessarily give you: you
don’t have to. It’s okay; you don’t have to forgive them, to welcome them back
into your life with open arms like nothing ever happened. Maybe you’re not even
still angry, although no-one would blame you if you were. You just want nothing
to do with them. It’s fair enough that you don’t want them in your life. That’s
the really critical point; it’s your life. If you don’t like your job, you
leave it. If you don’t like someone new you meet, you don’t see them again. And
if someone you happen to be related to treats you like shit, why would you want
to be around them?</span></span><br />
<br />
</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"><span class="null">The only person you really owe any loyalty
to is yourself; sometimes, that’s the person we treat worst of all. You don’t
have to forgive the person that hurt you, even if they’re your dad. You can
walk away, start again, pretend they don’t exist. You can move on, refuse to
follow their bad example, and define yourself. You can do better. You can do so
much better.</span></span></div>
Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09110706293017714307noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3597434574135085323.post-75485710307590683762013-09-11T09:13:00.004-07:002013-09-11T09:24:35.119-07:00“It is a crime to be born a woman in India” <div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><b>For <cite style="background-color: white; font-style: normal; white-space: nowrap;">femusings.org </cite><span style="background-color: white; line-height: 15px; white-space: nowrap;">- link to follow</span></b></span></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<span style="background-color: white; color: #666666; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: x-small; line-height: 15px; white-space: nowrap;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="http://www.scoopwhoop.com/uploads/image/9520131200001914501208god.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="266" src="http://www.scoopwhoop.com/uploads/image/9520131200001914501208god.jpg" width="400" /></a></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="background: white; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="background: white; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="background: white; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">In
Hindi and Punjabi, the word for shame is “sharam.” Shame is a powerful concept,
used to control and modify behaviour the world over. It’s the root of guilt,
both religious and social, and some commentators suggest that it’s a weapon
wielded against women particularly. Now the broadcast journalist Anita Anand is
turning the shame on Indian society, saying “the Sharam is yours, unless you
address the roots of these attitudes. The Sharam is yours, unless you treat
women better from the womb to the grave. The Sharam is yours, if you hide away
your daughters until the day they are married in response to these awful
crimes.”<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="background: white; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="background: white; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">She
speaks with reference to the rape and murder of an unnamed 23-year-old student
in Delhi last December. The student was travelling home from the cinema with a
male friend when she was set upon, gang-raped, mutilated with an iron bar, and
thrown from the bus. Five men and one juvenile male were arrested. Mukesh
Singh, Vinay Sharma, Akshay Thakur and Pawan Gupta were found guilty of both
rape and murder and will be sentenced on Friday 13<sup>th</sup> September. <span class="apple-converted-space"> <o:p></o:p></span></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="background: white; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span class="apple-converted-space"><br /></span></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="background: white; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Ram
Singh, the ringleader who told police that the murder was necessary so their
crimes would “not come to light”, was found hanged in his cell in March. The
17-year-old juvenile was sentenced to three years in prison; there was an
international outcry over the perceived brevity of the term, but this case is
exceptional; in India, it takes between six and eight years on average for a
rape case to come to court, and the conviction rate is four per cent. It’s
estimated that there are currently 90,000 rape cases pending trial in the
Indian court system.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="background: white; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span style="background: white;">The student’s father
condemned the existing culture with the words “It is a crime to be born a woman
in India,” and Anita Anand illustrates just how accurate this is: “</span>They are the same words uttered by a woman police
officer who was dragged from her car just over two weeks ago, while making her
way to her sister's funeral. She was gang raped by men wielding axes in
Jharkhand state in eastern India. They are also the words used last week by
social activists, after a six-year-old girl, who was locked in a room and
repeatedly raped by a 40-year-old man, was forced by a council of elders in
Rajasthan to marry the eight-year-old son of her attacker.”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">It’s understandable,
then, that so many victims grow impatient or mistrustful of the legal system.
Shortly before the student’s case came to trial, the <i>Times Of India</i> reported the case of a rapist, <span style="background: white;">Raju Vishvakarma,</span>
burned to death by his victim after visiting her home to negotiate an
out-of-court settlement. His victim had invited <span style="background: white;">Vishvakarma</span> there after he was
released on bail, but when he arrived she and her brothers doused him in
kerosene and set him alight. The unnamed rape victim is being charged with his
murder, although her actions met with widespread support and approval on
Twitter. A series of gang rapes in a disused mill in an affluent area of Mumbai
have also provoked public condemnation and anger.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Rape in India is, beyond
a doubt, a sensitive and vital subject. It’s also a difficult subject for
white, Western feminists to discuss without accusations of privilege and
racism. All the good intentions in the world can’t replace dialogue and the
voice of experience, and history has shown – and is showing us still – that
inflicting one worldview onto another country will never be easy or wise. <span style="background: white;">It’s possible, and it is to be hoped, that this case marks a sea change in women’s rights in India and beyond. </span>Women everywhere deserve better treatment than
this, and Western feminists must support Indian feminists in any way they can. <span style="background: white;"><o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">In February 2009, the <span style="background: white; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial; mso-bidi-font-style: italic;">Consortium
of Pub-Going, Loose and Forward Women launched the<i> </i></span>Pink Chaddi campaign – mailing pink underwear in
protest to a religious leader who threatened to marry any young couples found
together on Valentine’s Day. The Blank Noise project targets street harassment
– known as Eve Teasing – in the same way that Every Day Harassment and Reclaim
The Night do, and introduced the Safe City Pledge in response to the December
2012 rape case. And most strikingly, Save The Children India has launched Save
Our Sisters, an anti-violence campaign featuring images of the goddesses
Saraswati, Lakshmi and Durga bearing cuts and bruises.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Indian feminists know
what needs to happen, even though the cultural obstacles may seem almost
insurmountable. Women’s rights are changing globally, making huge leaps
forward, even in countries where cultural relativism seemed to excuse such
inequalities. Saudi Arabian feminists such as <span style="background: white; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial;">Wajeha <span class="MsoHyperlink">a</span>l-Huwaider</span> called for domestic violence laws, and this August
saw the introduction of the nation’s first DV legislation. Change is possible,
change is achievable, and change is inevitable. As feminists, it’s our job to
lend our support to projects worldwide that endeavour to improve lives of women
everywhere.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="http://www.scoopwhoop.com/uploads/image/95201312000019145050410god.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="640" src="http://www.scoopwhoop.com/uploads/image/95201312000019145050410god.jpg" width="426" /></a></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="background: white; line-height: 17.75pt; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09110706293017714307noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3597434574135085323.post-74822261695918188422013-08-01T08:15:00.001-07:002013-08-01T08:21:14.090-07:00Twitter Rape Threats: A Glimpse Of A Crumbling World<div class="MsoNormal">
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Since the Bank of England announced the presence of Jane
Austen on the new £10 note, Caroline Criado-Perez, who spearheaded the campaign
to put more women on UK money, has been subjected to a well-documented and
much-discussed barrage of abuse via Twitter and her personal email. It’s been
described as trolling, but the difference between trolls and Caroline’s
aggressors is palpable. Trolling is the act of being deliberately provocative
to elicit an angry response; a threat of rape is a criminal act. There exists a
gulf of meaning between trolling and threatening violence against someone whose
opinions you disagree with. It’s the difference between playing devil’s
advocate and leading a targeted campaign of aggression and hate.</span></div>
</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span></div>
</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">In addition to this, Caroline, her supporters, and other
prominent feminists including two female MPs have been subject to bomb threats
and racist abuse on the site. Twitter’s response to the tweets has grown
sterner and faster over the week, but still the threats keep coming. The senders
are quick to reiterate their numbers and resilience against banning, but
Caroline and the others continue to pass each new tweet onto the police. </span></div>
</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span></div>
</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">At the time of writing, two men have been arrested; the
first aged 25, the second just 21. Their youth is striking – born well after
the advent of the feminist movement, these young men won’t even remember a time
before the UK’s female Prime Minister, much less a time when women weren’t
welcome in workplaces or universities. For a generation who take women’s rights
almost for granted, for those who have never had to afford it much thought,
it’s a startling deviation from the party line.</span></div>
</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span></div>
</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">For these men, the threat of violence is a means of control.
Like the cases of ‘corrective’ rape seen in South Africa, the threats are a way
to assert dominance over a woman who challenges their fragile, crumbling
masculinity. Regardless of whether they would actually act on their threats or
not, their weak self-concept and chauvinistic protection of outmoded gender
relations reveals a complicated and defensive psychology. </span></div>
</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span></div>
</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">They system they know how to operate in has failed, and the
world has changed around them. Like a small child denied their own way, the
aggressors respond by lashing out – in short, they throw a tantrum. Unlike a
small child, though, they have sufficient knowledge of social convention to
channel their rage into the most effective form and target it at the most
vulnerable area. While they deny that they would actually commit rape, the
threat of sexual violence is still powerfully intimidating; fortunately, the
women in question refuse to be intimidated.</span></div>
</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span></div>
</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">In response to the story, print and broadcast journalist Emma
Barnett gave the aggressors the right to reply on her radio show. Her callers
provided a telling insight into their mindset: they insist “she was asking for
it... if you put your head above the parapet, like she has, then you deserve
this type of abuse. It’s what you get when you are a woman shouting about
something,” that “feminists like Caroline are undermining what it is to be a
man” and subsequently require “sorting out”. They justify their actions by
claiming “men are predators... and this is what we do... <span style="background: white; color: #282828; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial;">these men
wouldn’t actually come and rape her. They don’t mean it. Rape is a metaphor.</span>”
</span></div>
</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span></div>
</div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Rape isn’t a metaphor. Rape is a tool of domination, of
control, of power. Rape is a taboo that these individuals have exploited to
intimidate a woman who, in their eyes, has developed ideas beyond her station
and must be brought back into line. As journalists, as activists, as feminists,
we must resist the fear forced upon us. These threats are an attempt to control
a woman who, in their eyes, has too much to say and too big a platform from
which to say it. They insist feminism will change nothing, has changed nothing,
but their fear is visible behind their anger and spite; in time the mask of
anonymity will slip and Caroline’s opponents will stand exposed for all to see.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Behind the explicit threats and creeping menace lies another
wave of attempts to discredit; the commentators, both journalists and private
citizens, who insist that retweeting threats is ‘attention-seeking’ and that
ignoring the problem will make it go away. Chiming in with these are the men
who write long articles and aggressive tweets claiming that feminism is no
threat - if this were the case, there would be no need to confront it or
publicly mock it. Ignore it and it’ll go away, right?</span></div>
</div>
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<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span></div>
</div>
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<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Those with a vested interest in maintaining the patriarchal
status quo have been ignoring feminism since its first faltering steps. It’s
100 years since Emily Wilding Davison fell under the King’s horse, 95 years
since women were given the vote, 48 years since the UK gained its first female
MP, 38 years since the Sex Discrimination Act, 19 years since rape within
marriage became a crime, two years since changes to the law of succession
allowed a Princess to take the British throne. Campaigners have achieved all
this with tenacity, patient effort, and a refusal to remain silent. We did not
submit to ignorance then, and we must not submit to it now.</span></div>
</div>
Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15278292523531432633noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3597434574135085323.post-12540688850584683522013-06-16T12:45:00.002-07:002013-08-01T08:21:31.007-07:00What Nigella Can Teach Us About Violence Against Women<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">
</span><br />
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<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="color: black; mso-themecolor: text1;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">To outward
appearances, Nigella Lawson has things all figured out: she runs her own media business,
has a successful publishing career, and makes frequent public appearances looking
impossibly glamorous. She’s everything that an ambitious woman is meant to
aspire to be. And, it emerged on Sunday, she also appears to be a victim of
domestic violence.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
</div>
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<span style="color: black; mso-themecolor: text1;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">At first, the
images published by the <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">People </i>were
shocking, as you’d expect of any depiction of violence against women. But then
we started to think about what happened, started to ask questions, and a more
insidious suspicion took root: the casual and callous way in which Charles
Saatchi laid hands on his wife in public led some commentators to suggest that
this wasn’t his first attack on her.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
</div>
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</span><br />
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<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="color: black; mso-themecolor: text1;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">For him to so
brazenly attack Nigella in full view of both passers-by and fellow Scott’s
patrons, without trying to conceal or disguise his actions, implied much about
the dynamic of their relationship.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>Witnesses told the newspaper that Nigella had attempted to placate her
husband by speaking reassuringly and kissing him on the cheek; many readers
will be able to identify this as the classic response of a woman threatened by
her spouse.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
</div>
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</span><br />
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<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="color: black; mso-themecolor: text1;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">But Nigella
doesn’t fit the traditional profile of a victim of domestic abuse: she has
economic independence, makes regular trips overseas on business, and presumably
does not lack the resources to move away from her abuser. So, we wonder, why
does she stay? A 1998 study</span><a href="http://www.blogger.com/blogger.g?blogID=3597434574135085323#_ftn1" name="_ftnref1" style="mso-footnote-id: ftn1;" title=""><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span style="mso-special-character: footnote;"><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span style="color: black; font-family: "Calibri","sans-serif"; font-size: 11pt; line-height: 115%; mso-ansi-language: EN-GB; mso-ascii-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-bidi; mso-fareast-font-family: Calibri; mso-fareast-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-hansi-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-themecolor: text1;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">[1]</span></span></span></span></span></a><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"> reported
by <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Psychology</i> <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Today</i> may provide some answers: “</span></span><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span style="color: black; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial; mso-themecolor: text1;">Emotional abuse plays a vital role in
battering, undermining a woman's confidence.”</span><span style="color: black; mso-themecolor: text1;"><o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
</div>
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">
</span><br />
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<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="color: black; mso-themecolor: text1;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">While it
seems that Nigella and women like her have sufficient self-esteem and personal
agency to succeed in business and personal endeavours, their intimate
relationships are far less clear-cut. What the events of this weekend
demonstrate beyond anything else is that even independent, capable women can be
bullied and manipulated into accepting physical and verbal attacks that, for
whatever reason, they won’t or can’t walk away from.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
</div>
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">
</span><br />
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<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="color: black; mso-themecolor: text1;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">The emotional
manipulation used by abusers is well-documented and wholly discomforting; their
victims are isolated from friends and family, deprived of the resources that
would help them escape, and worn down to such a low ebb that they accept
violence they would never have tolerated previously. In the case of successful
or high-profile women, their visibility might discourage them from seeking
help; the gap between their private and public personas might seem so great
that to report being abused feels like admitting a weakness.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
</div>
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</span><br />
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<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="color: black; mso-themecolor: text1;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">At the time
of writing, the UK press is reporting that the police are investigating Charles
Saatchi following the publication of these images. Saatchi may later face
charges; in spite of his wealth, it seems unwise for him to pursue a libel case
when the evidence is so damning. It’s inappropriate to conjecture on the future
of Charles and Nigella’s marriage – perhaps she will remain with him in spite
of public condemnation of his actions.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
</div>
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</span><br />
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<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="color: black; mso-themecolor: text1;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">If nothing
else, we can hope that the story – so shocking when presented against a backdrop
of middle-class media comfort – inspires other women to seek advice and
assistance if they find themselves in similar situations. This week, like every
week, two women in the UK will die at the hands of their violent partners. This
week, like every week, all women deserve better.</span></span></div>
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<br /></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">
</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"></span><br />
<hr size="1" style="text-align: left;" width="33%" />
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</span><br />
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</span><br />
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<div style="text-align: justify;">
<a href="http://www.blogger.com/blogger.g?blogID=3597434574135085323#_ftnref1" name="_ftn1" style="mso-footnote-id: ftn1;" title=""><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span style="mso-special-character: footnote;"><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span style="font-family: "Calibri","sans-serif"; font-size: 10pt; line-height: 115%; mso-ansi-language: EN-GB; mso-ascii-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-bidi; mso-fareast-font-family: Calibri; mso-fareast-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-hansi-theme-font: minor-latin;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">[1]</span></span></span></span></span></a><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: x-small;"> http://www.psychologytoday.com/articles/199803/anatomy-violent-relationship</span></div>
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</span>Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15278292523531432633noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3597434574135085323.post-79225760187127695122013-04-23T10:13:00.002-07:002013-06-16T15:03:36.172-07:00Of Bread And Circuses<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Juvenal referred to it as ‘bread and circuses’, George Orwell characterised its worst excesses as prolefeed, and Victorians despaired of the corrupting influence of the penny dreadfuls. It’s plain to see, then, that our love affair with escapism through entertainment is almost as old as society itself.</span></div>
</div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span></div>
</div>
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<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Marxists, echoing Juvenal’s and Orwell’s sentiments, fear that focusing on the narratives of fiction – be it classic literature, blockbuster films, or soap operas – would distract the proletariat from their struggle towards revolution. In many ways they’re correct; even now, the politically aware cringe as the country invests more attention in TV talent shows than in the comings and goings of our politicians. But perhaps we overlook a significant point – perhaps these distractions are important precisely because they allow us to escape from our reality.</span></div>
</div>
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<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span></div>
</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Times are hard, and they’re hard for almost everyone. Perhaps what we really need is to escape into someone else’s life for a while; to try out a different set of burdens like a different suit of clothes, to look out on the world from behind another pair of eyes, to walk a mile in someone else’s shoes.</span></div>
</div>
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<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span></div>
</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">The shoes may take us across Dartmoor pursuing a gigantic hound, or to Stonehenge with our doomed love, or to the shores of Innsmouth fleeing unthinkable horrors. They may stand on the green grass of the Shire, the cobbles of Edinburgh, the grey earth of Winterfell or the dusty concrete of London Below. But they bear us away from our own lives, our own problems, and permit us to lose ourselves in impossible and fantastic worlds.</span></div>
</div>
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<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span></div>
</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">We submit to almighty terrors, to wrenching losses, to every twist and machination of vindictive fate, because we know we can close the book and walk away. We can explore our own strength and character without having to experience what Shakespeare called “the thousand natural shocks that flesh is heir to”. Here we test our emotional fortitude, pitching ourselves against blow after blow to examine how well we weather the storm.</span></div>
</div>
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<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span></div>
</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">We solve mysteries, protect the innocent, play the hero or the villain. Often we don’t decide which we are until the end. We meet soldiers, lovers, wizards, murderers, queens, poets, tyrants, heroes, angels, vampires, monks, prostitutes, revolutionaries, scholars, searchers and seekers, mothers and fathers, brothers and sisters, children. And in time, inexorably, we begin to care.</span></div>
</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span></div>
</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">We dedicate precious time and space in our minds to these characters. We despair that the word ‘character’ makes them sound so flat, so trivial; to us, they are people. We give them sequels, films, TV shows. We make them real in our heads and then we try to make them real in the world. We share them with our friends, discuss incarnations and iterations – are Sherlock Holmes, Hercule Poirot, and John Rebus really so different? Whose face does each of those names conjure up?</span></div>
</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span></div>
</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">We need stories. Like dreams, we use them to explore and make sense of the world. They speak to us about human nature, the subtle dance of interaction and disclosure that takes a lifetime to master. Stories are how we investigate and memorialise our humanity. Stories are what make us human.</span></div>
</div>
Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15278292523531432633noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3597434574135085323.post-83846749307431359332013-04-17T12:41:00.000-07:002013-04-23T11:34:36.631-07:00Too Many Protest Singers, Not Enough Protest Songs<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; line-height: 115%; text-align: justify;">Today we buried one of the
most politically important Prime Ministers this country has ever seen. That,
I’m afraid, is the last good thing I can find to say about her. Like many
people who were left high and dry by her policies, I had little time for Thatcher,
her cabinet, or her legacy. While I agree that it’s distasteful to publicly
celebrate her demise, I was secretly pleased to observe that her detractors
marked the occasion with a uniquely British and increasingly popular form of
protest – inflating the sales of a particular song to register their protest
through the UK Top 40 chart.</span><br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; line-height: 115%;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; line-height: 115%;">In a post-Blair society
where a million people can march on Westminster and be utterly ignored, it
seems the nature of protest has changed. The UK pop charts, formerly the record
of an important yet ephemeral cultural progression, have become the
battleground for all manner of political and personal rebellion.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; line-height: 115%;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; line-height: 115%;">For years, music has been an
indicator of politics, ideology and cultural identity. Now it’s become a means
of registering dissent in a public arena in a manner totally removed from its
previous efforts. Gone, perhaps, are the protest songs of Woody Guthrie and Bob
Dylan; here instead are Cowell-baiting online campaigns featuring Rage Against
The Machine, inspired and perpetrated by web-savvy millennials who have
identified the potential that rapidly advancing technology can provide.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; line-height: 115%;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; line-height: 115%;">A disenfranchised public,
seemingly aware that placards and chanting no longer carry as much weight as
before, can now convey their anger and disapproval by purchasing a 79p download
from iTunes. Surely even the most broadminded futurologists would have failed
to envision such a development in technologically-enabled civil disobedience.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; line-height: 115%;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; line-height: 115%;">It’s not a flawless system
by any means – on this most recent occasion, the BBC declined to broadcast the
entire song, and their track record for banning controversial songs has been a
matter of discussion for decades. Fortunately for those trying to make a point,
the nation’s news media have not been reluctant to publicise the campaign; even
as they condemn it for its disrespect, they provide the oxygen of publicity. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; line-height: 115%;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; line-height: 115%;">Of course, the nature of the
legal download system – the only way to perform the act of protest is to
purchase the track from a recognised provider – means that to register our
dissent we must indulge in a singularly undemocratic act; we pay to protest.
But contrast this with the alternatives and the recommendations of the new
process become clear – rather than travelling to London, marching and chanting,
and risking arrest if the protest degenerates into violence, the objector can
make their point simply by clicking the button marked “buy”. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; line-height: 115%;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="line-height: 115%;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Should we be shocked that
political dissent has now been rendered marketable, and that profit can be
derived? Maybe, but we should be more grateful still that individuals still
want to protest.</span><span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 12pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15278292523531432633noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3597434574135085323.post-7240426549718813092013-03-07T13:23:00.001-08:002013-03-09T05:41:26.259-08:00Why Every Day Should Be World Book Day<div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 10pt; text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span style="mso-fareast-language: EN-GB;">“You don't have to burn books to destroy a culture. Just get people to stop reading them.” </span>― Ray Bradbury</i><i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span style="mso-fareast-language: EN-GB;"><o:p></o:p></span></i></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 10pt; text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">When I was a child, my parents used to hide my books while I slept. It wasn’t out of malice or sport, but necessity; hiding the books was the only way to avoid spending the entire day reading them to me. I didn’t learn to read until I was five years old and attending school, mostly because my mother doubted her ability to teach me, but once I had there was little that could stop me. Independently of the National Curriculum, I read Tolkien at age 10, Dickens at 12, Shakespeare at 14 and Chaucer at 16. Words had power, I knew, and they could take you places.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 10pt; text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Today is World Book Day in Britain and Ireland; something of a contradiction, since the rest of the world celebrates it on April 23<sup>rd</sup>. We’ve been marking the day since 1995, and I remember the first event. I went as pre-transformation Cinderella in an apron made from an old blue sheet – a poor substitute for my first choice of costume, the peach from Roald Dahl’s <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">James and the Giant Peach.</i> It was precisely my kind of event; from the moment my parents had read me <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">The Very Hungry Caterpillar</i>, books had been my favourite thing in the world. I appeared to be in the minority there, though.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 10pt; text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">For a bibliophile like me, it was never easy to get along with the other kids at school. I liked reading; I wanted to read the books they disdained. They wanted to watch obnoxious TV shows and talk about ephemeral boybands. It only got worse once I reached senior school. It wasn’t cool to know things. It wasn’t cool to actually understand and enjoy the Shakespeare the others pretended to read. They didn’t want to learn; I did. I wanted to go onto college and university and do nothing except inhale and exhale words for the rest of my life; I’d wanted to do nothing but that since I was eight years old.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 10pt; text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">The society I grew up in displayed – and still displays – a rabid anti-intellectual streak that imperils the potential of every intelligent, curious child within it. It’s not cool to be intelligent; a large vocabulary is a burden, not a blessing. Grammar is something that happens to other people. We communicate in writing more than ever before. We read more than at any other point in our history. We are never far away from words on a screen, if not in print, and yet so many people still struggle to make themselves understood. Eventually I found a place where I fit in, surrounded by university lecturers and creative types in pubs filled with vibrant conversation. There was no going back.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 10pt; text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Books are amazing. They take us to places we could never go by ourselves, places that only exist in the landscape of the mind. I’ve been to the Shire, Wonderland, Narnia, the Discworld, other planets and other times. I’ve spoken with witches in the Highlands of Scotland, watched young lovers swoon in Verona, charged across bloodied battlefields in France and accompanied pilgrims to Canterbury. I’ve shivered in the trenches of World War One and battled dragons under mountains at the edge of a different world. I’ve run through moonlit woods with werewolves and hunted in the night with countless vampires. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">I’ve solved murder after murder and tracked the course of endless lives and loves. I’ve burnt books with Ray Bradbury, spiralled between blissful highs and desperate lows with Sylvia Plath, been on a boating holiday with Jerome K Jerome, and fled from unspeakable horrors with H P Lovecraft. I was in 1930s Paris with Ana<span style="font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%; mso-ascii-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-hansi-font-family: Calibri;">ï</span>s Nin, 1900s Dublin with James Joyce, and 1970s Las Vegas with Hunter S Thompson. I’ve lived more lives than anyone has any right to, and there’s no way I’m stopping now. The feel of a book, of paper under fingers, is a trigger no less powerful than the kiss of a lover, and I am not ashamed to feed the addiction.</span></div>
Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15278292523531432633noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3597434574135085323.post-63355202238313480802013-02-27T07:11:00.000-08:002013-02-27T07:18:46.253-08:00Basildon Hospital Have My Gallbladder, My Trust, And My Thanks<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 10pt; text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">A week ago, I had my gallbladder – and the numerous large gallstones within it – removed. For geographical convenience, the procedure was performed at Basildon University Hospital, part of the beleaguered Basildon and Thurrock NHS Trust. It wasn’t my first encounter with the hospital – I was born there, I’ve had migraines and disc prolapses treated there – and I doubt it will be my last. It was, however, possibly the best.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Speaking as the owner of long-standing and problematic phobias of both hospitals and needles, the experience was never going to inspire feelings of hope and contentment. No-one likes going to hospital, of course, but my fear was liable to make me tense, anxious, and, regrettably, unco-operative toward the medical staff treating me. To give this some perspective, previous visits have demonstrated that it requires no fewer than four qualified, experienced clinicians to insert a cannula into the back of my hand. I was never going to be Basildon’s biggest cheerleader, and stood a decent chance of becoming their fiercest critic.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">In the weeks immediately preceding my visit to the hospital, Basildon and Thurrock NHS Trust were named in the enquiry resulting from the Mid Staffs investigation – one of five NHS Trusts to be singled out for special attention. Concerns were initially raised over the hospital’s “persistent high death rates”, but as the story progressed, former patients came forward with tales of unchanged dressings, unheeded toilet requests, missed medications and Legionella outbreaks.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">None of this inspired me with much confidence as the date of my operation drew closer. Gallbladder removal – or Laparoscopic Cholecystectomy, as it’s known to professionals – is a relatively commonplace procedure, but is not without risk. An unexpected bleed or overly large gallbladder can compel the surgeon to move from keyhole surgery to an open procedure, increasing healing time and necessitating a longer hospital stay. Given the reports circulating at the time, this wasn’t a possibility I was relishing. As it turns out, and to my considerable relief, the procedure went well.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">It now remains only for me to credit the staff of Basildon Hospital and the extended NHS Trust for ensuring that I’ve had such a smooth ride over the last nine months. My GP, for taking my bellyaching seriously, for pushing on for ever more diagnostic tests and anti-emetic drugs, and for calming me down when I thought I’d inherited the liver tumour that killed my grandfather. My surgeon, for answering my nervous questions when he was obviously up against it and keen to get on. His Senior House Officer, for talking to me like an intelligent, autonomous, informed adult with a degree of insight into their own condition. His registrar, for ensuring that the SHO had gone through absolutely everything I needed to know, and then drawing me a diagram so I really was perfectly clear.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Beyond the surgical team, there’s also the Day Unit nurses who clerked me in and helped me push my dodgy leg into the restrictive TED stocking. There’s the nurses in the blood clinic who looked after me when I began to faint in their chair, and didn’t even mind that needles make me panicky and subsequently ridiculous. There’s the Endoscopy team who were doubtless frustrated beyond the bounds of patience when they eventually abandoned all attempts to perform the biopsy I needed, particularly the nurse who succeeded with the cannula where six previous efforts had failed. There’s the doctor in the ultrasound clinic who finally confirmed a diagnosis of gallstones, showed me them on the screen, and looked only a little surprised when I laughed and told her I’d won a bet.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">There’s the theatre nurse and anaesthetist who did everything they could to keep me calm when panic really set in, just before I went under. Most of all, there’s the nurse on Laindon ward who was there when I woke up, helped me to the lavatory when I was still dazed from the anaesthetic, carefully and attentively performed observations on six woozy patients every 30 minutes, brought me endless glasses of water, called my family to reassure them when she really didn’t have to, gave me the only painkillers my body would tolerate, kept me calm while she removed the cannulas from my hand and wrist, and discharged me professionally and patiently whilst running the ward single-handed and still called everyone “darling” like she meant it.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Basildon might be struggling as a hospital. It might be a victim of circumstance, or it might genuinely have a minority of staff members who are incompetent or lazy or both. In this way, it differs from no other workplace. But what it also has is staff who are dedicated to their jobs and their patients, even difficult patients like me. Many of their staff are probably overstretched and might feel underpaid, and many departments are likely underfunded and potentially understaffed sometimes, even if only due to occasional staff sickness. Basildon has its problems, but it also has a body of staff who perform difficult and often unpleasant jobs with professionalism, dedication and grace, and without whom all patients would be at a complete loss. When you denigrate Basildon Hospital, you denigrate them too.</span></div>
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"></span>Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15278292523531432633noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3597434574135085323.post-31124353988561144462012-12-20T04:45:00.002-08:002012-12-20T06:10:38.727-08:00Words Matter<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 115%; margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt; text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: 'Arial','sans-serif'; mso-fareast-font-family: 'Arial Unicode MS';">Some time ago, I got involved in a Facebook debate over offensive humour, which rapidly disintegrated into an argument over free speech. We managed to avoid invoking Godwin’s Law, but we did successfully provoke the following comment, which typifies the public attitude to free expression: “FREEDOM OF SPEECH means you can say anything to anyone! That does not mean you are right or even moral but you can say it!”</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: 'Arial','sans-serif'; mso-fareast-font-family: 'Arial Unicode MS';">To anyone that’s encountered the UN’s Universal Declaration of Human Rights, the error will be obvious. Free speech is not an absolute right - most countries have laws which state that freedom of expression may be limited in "</span><span lang="EN" style="font-family: 'Arial','sans-serif'; mso-ansi-language: EN;">the interests of national security, territorial integrity or public safety; the prevention of disorder or crime; [or] the protection of health or morals”. </span><span style="font-family: 'Arial','sans-serif'; mso-fareast-font-family: 'Arial Unicode MS';">Most mouthy schoolboys and drunken racists will insist that they have a right to say what they like about who they like, but a quick examination of statute will reveal that it's simply not so.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: 'Arial','sans-serif'; mso-fareast-font-family: 'Arial Unicode MS';">Additionally, the Malicious Communications Act and recent Hate Crime legislation, not to mention defamation law for attacks on specific individuals, have clarified the law on what you may or may not say in a public arena such as Facebook or Twitter. Freedom of speech should be invoked in countries where you're imprisoned indefinitely without trial for criticising your government, not bleated about by people who are cocky enough to think that their need to be funny is more important than respecting the feelings of other people around them. Freedom of speech is a conditional right, not an absolute one, and when you think about it, there’s a good reason for that.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: 'Arial','sans-serif'; mso-fareast-font-family: 'Arial Unicode MS';">The truth is, words matter. Words are how we make contracts, build relationships, connect with others, and describe the human experience. We’re by no means the only species that communicates meaningfully, but we’re the only one capable of such subtlety and nuance. Albanians, for instance, can distinguish between 15 different types of facial hair, and are similarly specific about eyebrows. Perhaps unsurprisingly, Italians can name 500 different types of pasta, and the descriptions of colour in Webster’s dictionary are a symphony of shade and comparison.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: 'Arial','sans-serif'; mso-fareast-font-family: 'Arial Unicode MS';">There are currently more than a million words in the English language, their ranks swelled by new coinages like “vajazzle” and “selfie”. A tabloid newspaper will use about 8,000 individual words in a single edition. The average person regularly uses 35,000, a university graduate 50,000, and a writer as many as 75,000. Many are beautiful. Some are ugly, inelegant, or too often overlooked. All are powerful, but some are more powerful than others.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: 'Arial','sans-serif'; mso-fareast-font-family: 'Arial Unicode MS';">Of course, with great power comes great responsibility. Some words can comfort, praise, and reassure, but others can sting, wound and affront. For some people, it’s difficult to respect the broad vista that language opens up for us. They would use it like an indentured servant, all the while claiming that by doing so, they protect its freedom from those who want to see it muzzled and caged.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: 'Arial','sans-serif'; mso-fareast-font-family: 'Arial Unicode MS';">Instead, we must treat language – all language – like the rare and delicate gift that it is. Where in the past we’ve hurled shards of it at women, disabled people, those of other races, religions and sexualities, to mock the wounds it makes on impact. The time has come to pick up the pieces. This isn’t being ‘PC’ or ‘leftie’ or any other such ridiculous notion; this is about not deliberately insulting the other people we share the planet with. It’s easy to imagine that our house, our marriage, our family is a tiny ship tossed on a stormy sea of outsiders, battered by the wind and waves – in fact, that’s how we should view our planet.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: 'Arial','sans-serif'; mso-fareast-font-family: 'Arial Unicode MS';">In an unimportant solar system, in a modest galaxy, in one corner of an infinite and uncaring universe, intelligent life has struggled from a swamp and established an empire greater than that of Rome or Britain – the empire of the Earth. We have developed language, enabling us to begin to comprehend the vastness of our reality, or just gossip about inconsequential details. <a href="http://elwellpress.blogspot.co.uk/2012/11/an-atheist-finds-hope.html" target="_blank">As I’ve said before</a>, we have only each other – seven billion of us against the infinite coldness of space. We are fellow passengers on that storm-tossed sea, and yet we don’t huddle together for warmth and security; we keep confined to our quarters, the doors and stairwells blocked by obstructive, angry words. The worst of it is, we put them there.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: 'Arial','sans-serif'; mso-fareast-font-family: 'Arial Unicode MS';">What I’m trying to say, I suppose, is best summed up by a seasonal message that we let our children sing but never actually heed. We’ll pick it up, remove its historical gender bias, and repackage it for use all year round. Dickens said it, Dawkins implied it, and I can only echo it: peace on Earth, and goodwill to all humanity.</span><span style="font-family: 'Arial','sans-serif'; mso-ansi-language: #0400; mso-bidi-language: X-NONE; mso-fareast-language: #0400;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15278292523531432633noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3597434574135085323.post-72142102142986086302012-11-25T14:15:00.000-08:002012-11-25T14:46:03.798-08:00Rape And Responsibility [Trigger Warning]<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">In today’s <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Mail on Sunday</i>, <a href="http://www.dailymail.co.uk/debate/article-2237909/Who-teach-boys-women-arent-meat-Men--means-footballers-singers-Top-Gear-presenters.html" target="_blank">Mariella Frostrup’s column</a> focuses on a report prepared by Deputy Children’s Commissioner, Sue
Berelowitz. The report, entitled <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Child
Sexual Exploitation in Gangs and Groups</i>, was released last week and
describes the number of girls forced into sexual activity by gang members. In
response to the report, which is no doubt truly disturbing reading, she argues,
“we need a Man Army determined to change cultural stereotypes, full of blokes
that boys revere – footballers, musicians, actors and even Top Gear presenters
(not normally short of opinions) – saying, loud and proud, that rape is for
cowards, child abuse is despicable and treating girls like pieces of meat is
simply unacceptable.”</span><span lang="EN" style="color: black; font-size: 14.5pt; line-height: 115%; mso-ansi-language: EN;"><br /><span style="font-family: Calibri;">
</span></span><span lang="EN" style="color: black; mso-ansi-language: EN;"><br /><span style="font-family: Calibri;">
</span></span><span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">Frostrup
presumes that men can be immunised against committing rape by seeing anti-assault
messages from men they respect and admire, an approach that suggests that men
commit rape because they believe it’s somehow acceptable. She is sorely
mistaken – men commit rape precisely because they know it is not acceptable. The
power imbalance implied by the act, the misuse and subjugation of a victim by
that assault, is very often the entire focus of the act. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">For rapists of this type, rape
is rarely about sex or the lack of it; it’s about power and domination, control
and shame. It’s about telling a person that they mean so little that they can
be used in whichever way their attacker chooses. Sexual assault, like domestic
violence and emotional abuse, is a way to dehumanise someone; their aggressor
shows them that they have so little power that they cannot prevent their own
mistreatment. They become, as the article suggests, a piece of meat, lacking
agency and control – the shock of rape emanates as much from the complete
denigration of the victim’s personality and humanity as it does from any
violent physical act.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">There is, of course, another
type of rapist – one who misreads signals, assumes consent where none has been
given, or fails to notice that his partner has lost interest in continuing. These
men are not psychopaths, nor do they necessarily set out to cause harm, but the
effect on their partner can be no less powerful. Some of these men notice their
partners’ waning interest and stop in good time, some never notice and so
continue, and some notice and make a conscious choice to keep going.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">Some months ago, a
discussion on Reddit emerged that allegedly contained contributions from men
who had committed rape. Most were from young men who took a previously
consensual act too far; few seemed to exhibit the psychopathic aggression we’re
led to expect – perhaps these men were present but declined to post,
understanding the negative reaction they’d receive. All those who posted were
aware of what they’d done, and many knew they were committing rape when they
were still in the moment of committing it. The following quotes are taken
directly from the discussion, and seem to make little effort to excuse the acts
of each correspondent. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<br /></div>
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<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">“<span style="mso-bidi-font-style: italic;">I ignored her and did it. She realized what
was happening and tried to clamp her legs shut, but it was too late and I was
much stronger than her.”<o:p></o:p></span></span></i></div>
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<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-GB;">“My
hormones were going insane, I didn't have any empathy in my heart at that
moment just my own concerns. She wasn't a person anymore just a path, a tool, a
means to an end. Then once again, I can't remember. I don't remember what
happened, I never asked her. I almost don't want to know. But I know I got off.
I hate to say it but after it was done I went to bed, she stayed up crying. It
wasn't until two days later that I realized I had done something awful.”<o:p></o:p></span></i></div>
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<i><span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>“Most girls don't really understand how horny
guys are, how much stronger guys are, how guys will rationalize what they do. I
see feminists and women on the Internet saying that no means no and women
should be able to get as drunk as they want and not be sexually assaulted, and
I couldn't agree more. But the reality of the situation is that women have to be
careful because guys are one way when they're hanging out and another way when
they're horny or worse drunk and horny.”<o:p></o:p></span></i></div>
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<br /></div>
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<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-GB;">“My rapist (ex's best friend) told me he knew it
was wrong, but would have probably done it again given the chance. He also was
surprised that forced sex didn't make me want to be his girlfriend.”<o:p></o:p></span></i></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;"></span><br /></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">A further objection can be
raised to Frostrup’s assertion that perpetrators of rape and sexual assault “</span><span lang="EN" style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%; mso-ansi-language: EN;">steal their [victims’] innocence and their futures</span><span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">”. In
recent decades, the feminist movement has made efforts to transform the
perception of the raped woman from ‘victim’ to 'survivor’ – a semantic shift,
but one that can make a powerful difference to the way a woman experiences the
time following her assault. Tell her that her life is ruined and she may well
believe you, but tell her she can recover and you give her the power to overcome
the experience; it’s not difficult to imagine which is the better impression to
give someone in that position.</span></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;"><o:p></o:p></span><br /></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">The kind of person inclined
to commit rape for power will not be swayed by the words of a TV presenter or a
football player, particularly words that have been put in their mouths by
well-meaning authority. When one person decides to violently assault another,
logic and government-sponsored messages play no part in the thought process. The
kind of person who commits rape through misreading signals is unlikely to
consider such advice in the heat of the moment; how can they, if they don’t realise
they’re doing anything wrong?<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">Rapists commit rape for
various reasons, none of which excuse the trauma they inflict upon their
victim. Some do so to intimidate or punish, to inflict fear and denigrate their
victim. Some do so because they misread signals or inaction from their partners,
some do so because they simply don’t respect their partner’s wishes enough to
stop. None of these situations can be remedied by a public service announcement
or advertising campaign. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">Rape is a cultural problem,
but one that occurs in all cultures and throughout history. It’s not the job of
public figures to tackle it with good intentions and a public service
announcement; instead it’s the job of parents, teachers, sex educators, and
then the media. From films like <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Grease</i>
onwards, certain media products have positioned men as pursuer and women as the
person who must exercise control and resistance; through these stories, we
normalise sexually threatening behaviour. Young women come to expect and
tolerate it, and young men feel they are excused to act as their hormones
allegedly dictate. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 10pt; text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">To lower rape statistics, we
much challenge the culture that excuses male sexual aggression and tells women
that they must take sole responsibility for their own safety. We must abandon
the macho culture that places to much emphasis on sexual experience, and instil
a sense of respect and consideration for one’s sexual partners. It’s a
difficult task, given the extent to which modern life is permeated with messages
about sexual behaviour, but it can be done. We must start at the beginning and
maintain a consistent message, and in doing so we can ensure that another
generation of young women aren’t exposed to the same fear and exploitation as
the ones that go before them.</span></div>
Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15278292523531432633noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3597434574135085323.post-78596621562180301282012-11-24T06:00:00.001-08:002012-11-25T14:46:36.457-08:00How We Failed Savita Halappanavar<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span lang="EN-US">On October 21<sup>st</sup>, Savita <span class="st1"><span style="color: #222222;">Halappanavar walked into </span></span></span><span lang="EN" style="mso-ansi-language: EN;">Galway University Hospital complaining of severe back pain. A week later she was dead, fallen victim to septicaemia and e. coli. But Savita could have lived had she been offered one simple and common medical procedure – termination of a failing pregnancy.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span lang="EN" style="mso-ansi-language: EN;">When Savita was examined upon admission to the hospital, she was found to be miscarrying, but doctors could still detect a </span><span lang="EN-US">foetal</span><span lang="EN" style="mso-ansi-language: EN;"> heartbeat. For this reason, she was denied the termination – Ireland’s strict abortion laws forbid the procedure unless the mother’s life is in imminent danger. Instead, she was left to endure the pain and sorrow of a miscarriage, refused the option of inducing labour to hasten the process. <o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span lang="EN" style="mso-ansi-language: EN;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">The distress of the experience, prolonged by those who doubtless wished they could help her, is unimaginable to someone that hasn’t experienced it. Savita’s husband, Parveen, said that she dealt with the situation well, even discussing trying for another baby. Savita seemed determined not to let the experience ruin her life; instead, it ended it. <o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">The doctors and nurses who cared for Savita surely saw how she suffered; even though they must have been wracked with compassion and remorse, an unclear law said they could not help her. Whatever their personal politics and morals, regardless of their religious position or Hippocratic oath to protect life, they were compelled to manage and oversee the death of a young woman that they could otherwise have saved.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Savita's foetus was not viable, there was no hope of survival; instead of working to save one life, her doctors were forced to witness the end of two. They will have worked to combat the septicaemia that is believed to have killed her; they will have tried to keep her liver and kidneys healthy and functioning for as long as they could. But the awful truth is that one procedure could have obviated the need for all of that, and she was denied it - not by her doctors, but by the law.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Had Savita refused a termination, we could respect the decision that she had made, assured that she had her reasons for doing so. Had her doctors performed the procedure, there would be no news story; Savita and Parveen could have returned home and slowly come to terms with their loss. Instead, Parveen has lost not just his wife and his child, but his hopes and dreams for the future; everything he thought his life would become has been taken from him because of cruel and unsympathetic legislation.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Ireland's legal position on abortion is well-known; a historic cause for concern. For generations, girls and women have been forced to scrape together all the money they could and travel to England in secrecy - once by ferry into Liverpool, now by Ryanair and Easyjet flights into Heathrow and Luton. We cannot know their stories, but we may be assured that every one was different: some were young girls in the first flush of love who hadn't expected to conceive, some were victims of rape who now faced an additional burden of Catholic guilt to add to their trauma, some were women whose physical and mental ill-health meant that the strain of carrying a baby was an unthinkable challenge.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="mso-bidi-language: X-NONE; mso-fareast-language: #0400;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Thousands of men and women have marched in London, Dublin, and New York in Savita’s name. Across India, political and journalistic voices have been raised, questioning the Irish system. Savita’s parents and her husband have challenged the Irish authorities to explain why an Indian Hindu should be killed by a law intended for Irish Catholics – they have yet to receive an answer. <o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">No-one who claims to respect the sanctity of human life could pardon this unpardonable offence. Anyone who believes that Savita's death was justified and that Irish law is correct has no right to call themselves pro-life; they are pro-foetus, no more and no less. We have permitted a religious position to influence the state, and by doing so ensured that a Christian moral has killed a Hindu woman. If we do not insist on the reassessment and abolition of this murderous legislation, we lose our claim to humanity and empathy.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">It would be easy for us as atheists to exploit Savita's death to serve our own moral argument; we must resist the urge to do so. As feminists, we could hold her experience up as damning evidence of the sheer ignorance and foolhardiness of the pro-life movement; we must not. We must instead act in Savita's memory to ensure that this miserable, barbaric chain of events never befalls another woman.</span></div>
Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15278292523531432633noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3597434574135085323.post-30683527628519952672012-11-08T09:58:00.001-08:002012-11-25T14:35:30.024-08:00Perfume, Professionalism And The Perfect Gentleman<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 10pt; text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">This week, I’ve mostly been deciding whether my body is a weapon or a vessel, and whether I’m more devoted to integrity or the drive for success. Like most people, the flesh-and-bone part of me seems to be there to extract energy from food and move me around; it’s not until something goes wrong with it, or until I’m surprised by someone’s reaction to it, that I really even notice it’s there.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">As usual, this self-discovery trip has been prompted by a couple of incidents; goatish comments from a trusted advisor, the realisation that I perform better in job interviews when one of the interviewers is a man, and being approached and sniffed at uncomfortably close range in a supermarket by a stranger who was apparently so intrigued by my new perfume that he was willing to risk (and return) an aggressive reaction from both me and my fiancé. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">We confronted him angrily and, despite the presence of his young son, he became abusive and threatened us. Plainly he felt it was reasonable to place his own face six inches from the face and neck of a temporarily unaccompanied woman, inhale deeply, and tell her she smelt good, and that she should “cheer up” when she looked perturbed; we disagreed. He eventually went away; I doubt my concerns will be so obliging.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">I’m currently in the process of taking on freelance writing work, with the help of a self-employment advisor on a Government-mandated employment program. When discussing the necessity of approaching publications and pitching articles - an intimidating but necessary part of the process - various people have suggested using my gender, “attributes” and “engaging personality” to “intrigue” editors; essentially, flirting my way into a job. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">I remain incredulous. I’m not Samantha Brick; I’m simply not confident enough in my own looks and personality to try that. When I look into a mirror I see my father, and he’s overweight and bald with a face like that of a veteran scrum-half. Besides which, even if I looked like Angelina Jolie, shouldn’t a good feminist be outraged by the very suggestion?</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">This is, at its heart, an entirely sexist issue: male colleagues are not forced to make the same decision. I’ve worked for male managers who flirted remorselessly with contacts of both genders, and for female managers who dispensed with sparkle and charm and got by on talent and professionalism alone, but it’s easy to understand that women surely spend more time agonising over their professional appearance. We must also consider if this approach confers an unfair advantage to attractive colleagues – an anecdote tells of a man who hired pretty girls to work in his office, “because they cost the same as plain ones.” </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">We know shouldn’t happen, but we know beyond a doubt that it does. It’s just another dubious journalistic practice, and it carries over into other trades too. The approach is likely to be of limited use against female editors; not only is it unlikely to work against them, it will also prove utterly transparent to a woman who has at some point faced the same decision. That said, it’ll prove transparent to anyone, male or female, who is shrewd and perceptive enough to have made it to the top of their industry. A good journalist can read people, break down pretences, and identify dodgy motives in a heartbeat – there’s no way a self-consciously flirty woman in a too-low sweater is going to get past them. Editors will notice it, and colleagues will surely resent it.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">This isn’t a problem of my own creation; left to my own devices, I’d make the same effort when I meet with people as I do on any other day, the self-defined minimum appropriate degree of care and attention. The conundrum is thrown up by other people’s reactions to me, not my own opinion of myself. This is another point, one of many, at which I have to decide what kind of person I am. Can I really adopt this approach? Does it devalue my education and skills? What does it say about my feminist principles? Could I – or anyone else – respect a career based on titillating middle-aged men in positions of power? Can I be confident of the integrity I thought I had, or am I as motivated by money and success as the people I thought I stood against?</span></div>
Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15278292523531432633noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3597434574135085323.post-90803686572248401272012-11-04T15:24:00.000-08:002012-11-25T14:52:02.104-08:00Romney, Republicans, And Rape<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="-webkit-composition-fill-color: rgba(175, 192, 227, 0.230469); -webkit-composition-frame-color: rgba(77, 128, 180, 0.230469); -webkit-tap-highlight-color: rgba(26, 26, 26, 0.292969); font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Ladies and gentleman, welcome to the uterus. A number of important and complex things happen here, and each of us owes our existence to this useful and multi-talented organ.</span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="-webkit-composition-fill-color: rgba(175, 192, 227, 0.230469); -webkit-composition-frame-color: rgba(77, 128, 180, 0.230469); -webkit-tap-highlight-color: rgba(26, 26, 26, 0.296875); font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">You've seen one before, of course, and understand what it spends its time doing. Of course, depending on our biology and education, some of us have a better idea than others of its purpose and function. Women, for instance, will understand it, perhaps, as something they don't have cause to consider unless something unusual happens there. Some men may think that it transforms the normally placid and genial women in their lives into raging hellbeasts with no grasp of logic or reason - indeed, some women may agree with them. But if you're a male Republican politician in the United States, you may believe that it's equipped with a top-of-the-range security system to repel invaders, or that it's an item that women aren't responsible enough to control independently and so must be marshalled and regulated by legislation.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">If you are a Republican who subscribes to this school of thought, there's an excellent chance you've already shared your profound insight with the rest of us. Below, with the assistance of many of righteously angry bloggers and commentators, I present a list of some of the most ignorant and insensitive statements ever to issue forth from Republican mouths.</span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="-webkit-composition-fill-color: rgba(175, 192, 227, 0.230469); -webkit-composition-frame-color: rgba(77, 128, 180, 0.230469); -webkit-tap-highlight-color: rgba(26, 26, 26, 0.296875); font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Todd Akin: “If it’s a legitimate rape, the female body has ways of shutting that whole thing down” - 2012 Senate Campaign </span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="-webkit-composition-fill-color: rgba(175, 192, 227, 0.230469); -webkit-composition-frame-color: rgba(77, 128, 180, 0.230469); -webkit-tap-highlight-color: rgba(26, 26, 26, 0.296875); font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Clayton Williams: “If it’s inevitable, just relax and enjoy it” - 1990</span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="-webkit-composition-fill-color: rgba(175, 192, 227, 0.230469); -webkit-composition-frame-color: rgba(77, 128, 180, 0.230469); -webkit-tap-highlight-color: rgba(26, 26, 26, 0.296875); font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Chuck Winder: “I would hope that when a woman goes in to a physician with a rape issue, that physician will indeed ask her about perhaps her marriage, was this pregnancy caused by normal relations in a marriage or was it truly caused by a rape. I assume that’s part of the counseling that goes on.” - March 2012 </span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="-webkit-composition-fill-color: rgba(175, 192, 227, 0.230469); -webkit-composition-frame-color: rgba(77, 128, 180, 0.230469); -webkit-tap-highlight-color: rgba(26, 26, 26, 0.296875); font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Ken Buck: “A jury could very well conclude that this is a case of buyer’s remorse … It appears to me … you invited him over… the appearance is of consent.” - October 2010 </span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="-webkit-composition-fill-color: rgba(175, 192, 227, 0.230469); -webkit-composition-frame-color: rgba(77, 128, 180, 0.230469); -webkit-tap-highlight-color: rgba(26, 26, 26, 0.296875); font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Rick Santorum: “I think the right approach is to accept this horribly created — in the sense of rape — but nevertheless a gift in a very broken way, the gift of human life, and accept what God has given to you… rape victims should make the best of a bad situation.” - January 2012</span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="-webkit-composition-fill-color: rgba(175, 192, 227, 0.230469); -webkit-composition-frame-color: rgba(77, 128, 180, 0.230469); -webkit-tap-highlight-color: rgba(26, 26, 26, 0.296875); font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Richard Mourdock: "I struggled with it myself for a long time, but I came to realize that life is that gift from God. And, I think, even when life begins in that horrible situation of rape, that it is something that God intended to happened." - 2012</span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="-webkit-composition-fill-color: rgba(175, 192, 227, 0.230469); -webkit-composition-frame-color: rgba(77, 128, 180, 0.230469); -webkit-tap-highlight-color: rgba(26, 26, 26, 0.296875); font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">North Carolina state Rep. Henry Aldridge: “The facts show that people who are raped — who are truly raped — the juices don’t flow, the body functions don’t work and they don’t get pregnant. Medical authorities agree that this is a rarity, if ever … to get pregnant, it takes a little cooperation. And there ain’t much cooperation in a rape.” - 1995</span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="-webkit-composition-fill-color: rgba(175, 192, 227, 0.230469); -webkit-composition-frame-color: rgba(77, 128, 180, 0.230469); -webkit-tap-highlight-color: rgba(26, 26, 26, 0.296875); font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Delaware state Rep. Stephen Freind: “The odds that a woman who is raped will get pregnant are one in millions and millions and millions […] The traumatic experience of rape causes a woman to secrete a certain secretion that tends to kill sperm.” - 1988</span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="-webkit-composition-fill-color: rgba(175, 192, 227, 0.230469); -webkit-composition-frame-color: rgba(77, 128, 180, 0.230469); -webkit-tap-highlight-color: rgba(26, 26, 26, 0.296875); font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Dr. Richard Dobbins, 20-year GOP contributor: “Most women either are not fertile during assault or do not become pregnant because the trauma prompts a hormonal response that prevents ovulation.” - 2006</span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="-webkit-composition-fill-color: rgba(175, 192, 227, 0.230469); -webkit-composition-frame-color: rgba(77, 128, 180, 0.230469); -webkit-tap-highlight-color: rgba(26, 26, 26, 0.296875); font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Judge James Leon Holmes, Bush appointee - “Concern for rape victims is a red herring because conceptions from rape occur with approximately the same frequency as snowfall in Miami.”</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">I don't even know where to begin addressing these, and I'm frankly disgusted that I should have to. If a British politician said something so crass, so ignorant, so entirely devoid of fact, he would be seeking new employment within days. In May this year, Justice Secretary Ken Clark was broadly castigated for making a reference to "serious rape" (which he later clarified as "forcible rape... with a bit of violence") - in response, his party were urged to sack him, and he will surely struggle to escape the contempt his comments provoked. Beyond a considerable online outcry, few of the men (and it is usually men, isn't it?) quoted above experienced any censure.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">America, you can do something about this. You can prevent repeated challenges to Roe vs Wade. You can halt the decay of women's hard-earned rights. You can protect other countries from following you into disaster; your decision, and the political moves that result from it, will affect people the world over. You have a chance to stop this aggressive ignorance from spreading, and you can achieve it simply making an 'X' in a box. America, it's time to make the right decision.</span></div>
Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15278292523531432633noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3597434574135085323.post-3874516373031670842012-11-03T08:20:00.002-07:002012-11-25T14:55:45.957-08:00Assisted Suicide: A Debate<h3 style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">
<em><span style="font-size: small;">This article first appeared on </span></em></span><a href="http://www.dancinggiraffe.com/"><em><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: small;">www.dancinggiraffe.com</span></em></a><em><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: small;"> in April 2012. We reprint it here, entirely unabridged, to mark 10 years since the Dignitas clinic in Switzerland first opened its doors. With thanks to Dancing Giraffe and Peter McAllister, my collaborator and anti-AS opposite number on this piece. </span></em></h3>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><em><span style="font-size: small;"><strong>Since this article was published, campaigner Tony Nicklinson has passed away. We have chosen to leave the article intact as a respectful tribute to the discussion that Mr. Nicklinson's efforts produced.</strong></span></em></span></div>
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<span style="mso-fareast-language: EN-GB;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">In March 2012, </span><a href="http://www.guardian.co.uk/society/2012/mar/12/right-to-die-hearing-tony-nicklinson"><span style="color: blue; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Tony Nicklinson</span></a><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"> approached the High Court seeking leave to pursue a clarification of the law surrounding assisted suicide. Mr Nicklinson had a massive stroke in 2005 while on holiday in Greece and was left paralysed save for slight movements of his head and eyes – a condition known as </span><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Locked-in_syndrome"><span style="color: blue; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">locked-in syndrome</span></a><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">. His mind is unaffected and he is entirely conscious, but unable to move or communicate.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="mso-fareast-language: EN-GB;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Since the stroke, Mr Nicklinson has been able to communicate only by using a voice synthesiser that interprets his blinking. When approached for comment following his appeal to the legal system, he has stated that he wishes the doctors in Athens had not saved his life. He described his current existence as, “dull, miserable, demeaning, undignified and intolerable”. The UK legal system is by now well-accustomed to such challenges.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="mso-fareast-language: EN-GB;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">In 2009, </span><a href="http://www.guardian.co.uk/society/2009/jul/30/debbie-purdy-assisted-suicide-legal-victory"><span style="color: blue; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Debbie Purdy</span></a><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"> went through the courts in an effort to discover whether her husband would face prosecution if he accompanied her to a clinic such as </span><a href="http://www.dignitas.ch/index.php?lang=en"><span style="color: blue; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Dignitas</span></a><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">. The House of Lords agreed that it was a breach of her human rights not to know, particularly since this information was likely to play a large part in choosing when and how to end her life. The BBC reports the case of </span><a href="http://news.bbc.co.uk/onthisday/hi/dates/stories/november/19/newsid_2520000/2520581.stm"><span style="color: blue; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Tony Bland</span></a><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">: “crushed in the Hillsborough disaster [...] allowed to die through the withdrawal of feeding tubes. He was in a persistent vegetative state after suffering severe brain damage and the judges said that it was in his best interests to be allowed to die.”<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="mso-fareast-language: EN-GB;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Yet despite these legal successes, and no shortage of discussion in debate amongst medical professionals and within the national press, little actual legal change has been effected. The consultation process for any change in the law is likely to be lengthy and complex, as befits such a weighty issue. Any change in the law, even a relatively minor one, will doubtless alter our society; our attitudes to disability will affect and be affected by the eventual outcome. To investigate the issue further, Peter McAllister and Christie Louise Tucker present a debate of the issues at hand.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="mso-fareast-language: EN-GB;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Argument <em>Against</em> Assisted Suicide<o:p></o:p></span></span></b></div>
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<span style="mso-fareast-language: EN-GB;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Firstly I would like to make it clear, I am not an apologist for antediluvian values, nor is this a polemic discourse on the dangers to spirituality of assisted suicide. My intentions are as much a deep-seated personalisation as they are borne of any religious conviction. I do concede, however that religion has played its part in my disagreements to assisted suicide and indeed suicide, but not exclusively.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="mso-fareast-language: EN-GB;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">One of the most ardent opponents to assisted suicide is the Christian Faith. Suicide of any form is morally wrong because, having given life; God is the only one who has the right to take it away. The Fifth Commandment, 'Thou shalt not kill' (Exodus 20, verse 13), makes the point quite unequivocally. I have always found this particular Commandment non-negotiable.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="mso-fareast-language: EN-GB;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">There are arguments raising the point about serious concerns in legislating assisted suicide due to unsavoury family members and shifty doctors who would rather persuade a person to end their life, against the person’s will. Are there selfish reasons involved from particular family members? Do they stand to gain financially? Surely their motives are not borne out of a selfless empathy?<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="mso-fareast-language: EN-GB;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">In free will there is another potential problem, that of capacity. Is the person contemplating assisted suicide competent to make such a decision? Are the drugs that people take for pain relief compromising their ability to make clear decisions? From experience, yes this is a factor. Psychiatric conditions may make someone desire suicide. Conditions such as </span><a href="http://www.nhs.uk/Conditions/Depression/Pages/Introduction.aspx"><span style="color: blue; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Depression</span></a><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"> and </span><a href="http://www.nhs.uk/conditions/schizophrenia/Pages/Introduction.aspx"><span style="color: blue; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Schizophrenia</span></a><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"> disorder can go undiagnosed; people who suffer such disorders could in fact choose to be unnecessarily supported to take their own lives?<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="mso-fareast-language: EN-GB;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Many people fear that assisted suicide will create a climate in which some people are pressured into it. The old, the poor, or minorities and other vulnerable groups might be persuaded to shorten their lives, rather than to "burden" their families. Will the definition stop short of a human’s ability to be productive?<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="mso-fareast-language: EN-GB;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">People with severe and enduring disabilities may in turn have to justify staying alive. Is this a situation we really want to embrace? Writers such as The Times columnist, </span><a href="http://www.thetimes.co.uk/tto/public/profile/Melanie-Reid"><span style="color: blue; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Melanie Reid</span></a><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"> use emotional tactics to further the cause for assisted suicide. But in my view this masks a very self-pitying nature, expounding their self-interested agenda and turning it into an exercise in scaremongering a civilised society.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="mso-fareast-language: EN-GB;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Argument <em>For</em> Assisted Suicide<o:p></o:p></span></span></b></div>
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<span style="mso-fareast-language: EN-GB;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">The distinction between suicide and physician-assisted dying is at times subtle, but always important. For a coroner to return a clear verdict of suicide, the Government’s legal definition states that it must be apparent that the deceased, “took their own life whilst the balance of their mind was disturbed.” But for a change of the laws surrounding assisted suicide to work, establishing sound mind prior to acting would be paramount.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="mso-fareast-language: EN-GB;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">This is already the case at the Dignitas clinic in Switzerland, where each client must consult an expert psychiatrist and submit medical records to an affiliated doctor before a prescription can be written, and there can be no doubting the value and importance of this requirement. Currently the only medical procedure in the UK to require the consent of two doctors is an elective termination; of course assisted suicide should be the same, and for the same reasons.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="mso-fareast-language: EN-GB;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">The loudest protests against changes to the law are usually from religious groups arguing the sanctity of life, or those concerned about potential misuse of the eventual act. But when retired American Episcopalian bishop, </span><a href="http://johnshelbyspong.com/"><span style="color: blue; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">John Shelby Spong</span></a> <span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">states that “the right to a good death is a basic human freedom”, it’s plain that the debate is a long way from conclusion.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="mso-fareast-language: EN-GB;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Much is made of“valuing life”, the implication being that those who support assisted suicide lack this conviction. Nothing could be further from the truth. Valuing a worthwhile and fulfilling life is central to our argument; not wanting to continue a life shattered by absolute incapacity is merely a continuation of this.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="mso-fareast-language: EN-GB;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">It’s vital to make clear that it is severe incapacity that is under discussion here – the end stages of degenerative disease, or massive injuries caused by accident or injury. The argument is made best by the individuals attending court to challenge the law, and those close to them: the initiator of this current challenge, Tony Nicklinson, describes his life as “dull, miserable, demeaning, undignified and intolerable.” The parents of </span><a href="http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/uknews/8536475/Daniel-James-GP-knew-he-would-go-to-Dignitas-but-did-not-tell-police.html"><span style="color: blue; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Daniel James</span></a><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">, who ended his life at a Dignitas clinic in 2008, characterised their son as "an intelligent young man of sound mind" who was "not prepared to live what he felt was a second-class existence".<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="mso-fareast-language: EN-GB;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">A southern African saying once related to the author of this article comes to mind; upon the death of a relative, the grieving family are reminded to give thanks to God for “a long life, well lived.” Even non-religious readers will acknowledge the truth and value in this. This is truly when assisted suicide should be considered; at the end of a long and full life, when all other options have been exhausted and the loss of faculty is too great for the individual to accommodate.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="mso-fareast-language: EN-GB;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">In Conclusion<o:p></o:p></span></span></b></div>
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<span style="mso-fareast-language: EN-GB;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">The purpose of the assisted suicide debate is not to imply that the lives of disabled people, or anyone else, are in any way miserable or intolerable. Instead, the aim is to enable individuals to make their own decision about when, where and how to die, and to do so with dignity and comfort.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="mso-fareast-language: EN-GB;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">At present, someone seeking physician-assisted suicide must travel to the Dignitas clinic in Switzerland: previously an anonymous, nondescript concrete tower block just outside Zurich, now a pleasant house in a residential district of the city. Many opt to make the journey alone; to have a relative accompany them could expose their companion to prosecution for attempting to “aid, abet, counsel or procure” suicide, a charge that carries a 14-year sentence.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="mso-fareast-language: EN-GB;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Both sides of the argument talk about dignity, quality of life, control, and ethics, but in the end, the decision is nothing more than a personal choice. What is needed now is discussion – in Parliament, between ministers and the sick and dying, between doctors, between couples and within families. The onus should not be on individuals to ask permission to be allowed to die peacefully.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="mso-fareast-language: EN-GB;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Assisted suicide is an act of mercy, no less than the actions of a doctor or nurse on any other day in their career. The real enemy is silence and hypocrisy; wishing a dignified death for oneself and others isn’t selfish or unfeeling, it’s human. And our humanity is what necessitates the freedom to make our choice.</span></span></div>
Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15278292523531432633noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3597434574135085323.post-47507266538625978522012-11-03T08:19:00.005-07:002012-11-25T14:56:21.846-08:00Doctor, Doctor, Are All These Pills Really Necessary?<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; mso-ascii-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-GB; mso-hansi-font-family: Calibri;">It’s always the same; you wait a week for a story and two come along at once. Just as I was settling down to write about Ben Goldacre’s <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Bad Pharma, </i>the BBC broke a story reporting that doctors will now face annual appraisals and five-yearly license revalidations. Whereas a doctor could previously work for 40 years without further testing or formal training, as Goldacre’s book observes, these new proposals will ensure that from December, their clinical knowledge and competency will be exposed to regular scrutiny.</span><span style="mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-GB;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span style="mso-ascii-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-GB; mso-hansi-font-family: Calibri;">In the coverage that resulted from the GMC/DoH announcement, we learnt that perhaps 0.7 per cent of doctors have shortfalls that would be regarded as threats to patient safety. The <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Telegraph </i>talks about “more than 1,000 bad doctors” – with </span><span lang="EN" style="mso-ansi-language: EN; mso-ascii-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-GB; mso-hansi-font-family: Calibri;">129 foundation trusts and 151 primary care trusts in England, this works out to three or four per trust. This might not sound like many, but it’s enough to have the GMC and the Health Secretary worried, and is more worrying still if you’re actually receiving medical treatment.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; mso-ascii-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-GB; mso-hansi-font-family: Calibri;">And here we reach the heart of the matter – public perception. We might like to watch medical dramas, but our understanding of present clinical concerns is far sketchier. Fortunately for the patient, they need never consider medical ethics or whether the benefits of surgery outweigh the risks; they are only compelled to attend appointments, submit to examination, take the prescription they’re offered, languish on a waiting list and sign a consent form. We complain about cuts, budgets and those waiting lists, but we forget that we’re benefitting from a system that remains free at the point of cost – many despair at the state of the NHS, but many others know that they’d be at a loss on their own without it.</span><span style="mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-GB;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; mso-ascii-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-GB; mso-hansi-font-family: Calibri;">For the average patient, seeing phrases like“clitoral enlargement” or “suicidal thoughts or behaviour” on an information sheet, or noting that their newly-prescribed anti-emetic was originally an antipsychotic and can cause dangerous side-effects, is very alarming. Are these conditions permanent, or reversible upon withdrawal? Can I really not even have one drink on these antibiotics? How likely is it they’ll make my contraceptive pill fail? How serious is this headache? Do I need an aspirin, or an ambulance? Who do we even take our questions to? The pharmacist can discuss side-effects and interactions, but may lack the knowledge of the existing condition or potential prognosis to make the right call.</span><span style="mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-GB;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; mso-ascii-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-GB; mso-hansi-font-family: Calibri;">When you consider the complex nature of drug therapy for even a relatively simple symptom, it’s easy to see why a clinician must train for so long: antihistamines used as sleeping pills, antipsychotics for nausea, blood pressure drugs for erectile dysfunction, anticonvulsants for anxiety and migraine, and anti-depressants for seemingly everyone. While each specialism has their own arsenal of relevant drugs, and each consultant will have his own personal favourites, an ongoing and intractable condition can often lead to secondary or off-license uses for unexpected or seemingly unrelated drugs. In this case, a side-effect can become a positive boon. </span><span style="mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-GB;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; mso-ascii-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-GB; mso-hansi-font-family: Calibri;">A number of years ago, a charity I worked for began to see a large number of people with various conditions all being prescribed the same drug; previously used to treat epilepsy, it was now being prescribed for anxiety, depression, personality disorders, neuropathic pain in diabetes, nerve damage through trauma, insomnia, migraines, cluster headaches and sundry other problems. Some patients saw considerable improvements; still others experienced disruptive headaches, terrible nightmares, and serious confusion. Some had it far worse; they found themselves troubled by unwelcome ideas that disrupted their thinking, by suicidal thoughts and urges. It seemed as if the local doctors were throwing the drug at everyone just to see where it worked; we considered ourselves lucky that none of our clients had actually given in to the suggestions and harmed themselves, as had been seen previously with certain antidepressant medications.</span><span style="mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-GB;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="mso-ascii-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-GB; mso-hansi-font-family: Calibri;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">As Ben Goldacre observes in his book, doctors cease their lengthy tuition and “spend forty years practising medicine, with very little formal education after their initial training. Medicine changes completely in four decades, and as they try to keep up, doctors are bombarded with information: from adverts that misrepresent the benefits and risks of new medicines; from sales reps who spy on patients’ confidential prescribing records; from colleagues who are quietly paid by drugs companies; from ‘teaching’that is sponsored by industry; from independent ‘academic’ journals that are quietly written by drug company employees; and worse.” <o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span style="mso-ascii-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-GB; mso-hansi-font-family: Calibri;"><o:p> </o:p></span><span style="mso-ascii-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-GB; mso-hansi-font-family: Calibri;">Perhaps the new checks, dubbed “medical MOTs” (by people who have forgotten, or don’t care, what “MOT” stands for) will assist with this – if a lack of ongoing training make it easy for pharmaceutical companies to exploit knowledge gaps, then maybe identifying and sealing these gaps will make it harder for them to exert their considerable influence. Perhaps this recommendation was introduced as a response to concerns like those shared by Goldacre; perhaps the timing is purely coincidental. We’ll never know, but we can hope that the plans will lead to improvements in clinical education and patient care. We must hope so; we all stand to benefit from it.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; mso-ascii-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-GB; mso-hansi-font-family: Calibri;">This is, of course, the opinion of a lay individual who has spent eight years depending on the NHS’ best and brightest – the pain clinic consultant willing to exhaust every possibility, the patient and gentle GP who took the time to explain the surgery and was more annoyed by the six-month waiting list than I was, the safety net that provides free prescriptions, regardless of quantity or regularity, when one’s luck runs out and unemployment bites. I’ve seen the NHS at its worst, and at its very best. </span><span style="mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-GB;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; mso-ascii-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-GB; mso-hansi-font-family: Calibri;">It is doubtlessly flawed – jetlagged by bureaucracy, slowed by overuse, hobbled by budgets and dented by news story after news story bemoaning all of these faults and more – but it remains the best system available to us. In the main, those of us born after 1950 take it entirely for granted, and those who remember the public reaction to its inception are becoming thin on the ground. It’s been accused of being alternately bloated and pinched, and its relationship with pharmaceutical companies is obviously in need of close examination, but it remains one of our greatest assets. It is, in every possible sense, a lifesaver.</span></div>
Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15278292523531432633noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3597434574135085323.post-81896476895565471852012-11-03T08:19:00.002-07:002012-11-25T14:59:22.784-08:00The Ghost of Sexism Present<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">When you're of a mind to set the world to rights, even listening to the radio can be fraught with danger. Having resisted the pull of commercial TV and radio for a quarter of a century, I finally yielded. Contemporary music criticism has been done more elegantly by more knowledgable writers elsewhere, so let us just conclude that swapping a non-commercial station for a commercial one was ultimately trading one set of frustrations for another.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"></span><br /></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">I'd managed to successfully limit my exposure to awful music, but had opened myself up to a whole new world of problems: radio advertising. Eschewing my local station for a national one took off most of the rough edges, particularly when it came to maddening double-glazing jingles, but it was while listening to aforesaid national digital station that I encountered the Ghost of Sexism Present.</span></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"></span><br /></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Plunged into my own Dickensian fantasy, I quickly assessed my surroundings; the Ghost of Sexism Past faded away with the passing of grubby seaside postcards, the miniskirted typist-cum-secretary and woeful situation comedies; in short, around the time the '70s surrendered to the rampaging '80s. The Ghost of Sexism Future, more's the pity, does not limit its moaning and chain-rattling to the company of women. Instead, as did Dickens' rosy-cheeked host, it spreads its arms wide and cries "come forth, and know me better, man!"</span></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"></span><br /></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">This restless spirit, made bold by years of uncorrected manifestations and liberally sprinkled phantasmagoria, approaches both men and women with equal vigour. It's subtle, though, and has distinct approaches for each gender. Its main failing, as with so many bad teachers and politicians, is that it tries to tell us what, and how, we should think and feel. This afternoon, as if to demonstrate its multiplicity, it taunted me with whispered tales of spent headlight bulbs in the darkening autumn night.</span></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"></span><br /></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">It told me that I wouldn't be able to change the bulb - not because of my feminine dearth of technical skill, but because my nails - obviously long, and immaculately lacquered - would weaken and break the very second I lifted a screwdriver. Apparently this is undesirable. Speaking as someone that frequently uses their thumbnails as a makeshift flathead screwdriver for the purposes of spectacle repair and basic home maintenance, my suspicion was piqued from the start.</span></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"></span><br /></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Next, as if sensing my mistrust, it endeavoured to convince me that my husband - which I don't actually have - would be unwilling or unable to do the job for me. Because of course, as a helpless princess awaiting rescue with attendant melancholy, only a man could possibly fix my car for me. Whether it was due to fecklessness, laziness or technical ineptness, my husband would never fix my car. Of course he won't; like I said, I don't have either.</span></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"></span><br /></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">But, as with Scrooge's ghosts, this entity's message was one of hope as well as foreboding: a modern-day white knight could fix the thing for me. He would do this on the condition that I return to my house (haven't one of those, either) and remark to my pseudo-husband that I'd found "a real man" to complete the Sisyphean task that so far had defeated both of us. Joy! Jubilation! Some orange-clad spanner with a spanner can suck his teeth at me and charge me a nominal fee for performing a chore that my obligatory feminine beauty rituals had until now prohibited me from achieving! Sing Hallelujah, and pass the bucket...</span></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"></span><br /></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">The job of feminism today is basically as it always was; to achieve parity and equality between the sexes. It must achieve this in every sphere of our lives; from the workplace, to the bedroom, to the TV screen. And at the same time that it combats pay and hiring discrepancies, social expectations, threats to healthcare provision, sexual aggression, domestic violence, genital mutilation and wrongheaded laws, it must also manage the hinterland between the experiences of Team XX and Team XY.</span></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"></span><br /></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">When women first cried out for equality, they were addressing the gulf of power and possibility that existed between men and women at a time when, if you wanted to get your entitled male hands on a woman's property, you could simply have her conveniently shipped off to the nearest insane asylum. While we have made headway enough to allow us to own property, we're still insulted when it comes to obtaining more or maintaining what we already possess.</span></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"></span><br /></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">I don't believe that all men, as a symptom of being "a bit blokey", are truly feckless, impractical, selfish and lazy, any more than I believe that women really are all vain, duplicitous, gossipy and obsessed with 'naughty' food and effective cleaning products. But this is what advertising says to us, and I resent its malicious whisper. The cry for equality, now and in years gone by, was an effort to improve the lot of everyone involved, men and women both.</span></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"></span><br /></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Had I been born male, I would have resented the implications made about me as surely and as strongly as I do having been born female. When we push to attain an equal footing, we aim for higher ground, not the reeking swamp of mutual negation. The aim should be mutual improvement, not the denigration of both. In literature and film, we use prayer and religious iconography to lay restless spirits; in reality, our toolkit is different, but no less important. Words, balanced, thoughtful and tenacious, are our holy water and crucifix. The power of Christ may not compel advertisers, but the power of popular opinion certainly can.</span></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"></span><br /></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Each of the spirits that visited Ebeneezer Scrooge vanished again within the course of one Christmas Eve. Can we expect our restless phantom to disappear overnight? No, I fear not; but we can tear away the clanking chains and unmask it like the Scooby-Doo schmuck it really is.</span></div>
Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15278292523531432633noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3597434574135085323.post-52468256026193222962012-11-03T08:17:00.002-07:002012-11-25T14:37:36.950-08:00When I Say I Grew Up On An Estate, I Didn't Mean Downton Abbey<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 10pt; text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span style="mso-bidi-font-family: Arial; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-GB;">Earlier this year, <em>the F Word</em> ran an article concerning feminism and working-class women. The piece included a quote from a teacher in a senior school in Lincoln, “</span>slap bang in the middle of one of the Midlands' largest housing estates,” who is concerned about that lack of feminist influence her students receive.<span style="mso-fareast-language: EN-GB;"><o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div style="line-height: 115%; text-align: justify;">
<span style="color: windowtext; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; line-height: 115%; mso-ascii-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-hansi-theme-font: minor-latin;"><em>"When they get older, middle-class girls know the talk, the language to use, and so they have louder voices when it comes to the feminist movement. They're more educated, more confident, and feel they deserve opinions, maybe because their role models were professional women with assertive attitudes. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>You're not going to be like that if your mum struggled on benefits. Girls from low-income families have had to struggle more so they can be excellent at debating, but not necessarily in the very intellectual way that debating is taught in private schools. It's not deliberate, but our voices and issues can be drowned out, so we don't relate to it all because we're not part of it."</em></span></div>
<div style="line-height: 115%; text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"></span><br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 10pt; text-align: justify;">
<span style="color: black; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; mso-ascii-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-GB; mso-hansi-font-family: Calibri;">The basic premise of the article is correct; yes, feminism should be open to women of all classes. But to achieve that, we must shed our prejudices about those who belong to other classes. The patronising tone so often adopted when discussing working-class women bears an unpleasant aftertaste of the treatment disabled feminists and feminists of colour still resist – we are a subject to be written presumptuously about, not a group to accept contributions and insight from. It seems they would sooner discuss us than listen to us; rather talk about us than to us.</span><span style="color: black; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-GB;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 10pt; text-align: justify;">
<span style="color: black; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; mso-ascii-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-GB; mso-hansi-font-family: Calibri;">Rather than being limited by watching a mother “struggle on benefits”, some children are enlightened by it; they develop tenacity and resolve, and a precocious understanding of the workings of the world. While the teacher grants that “girls from low-income families have had to struggle more so they can be excellent at debating“, she still condemns the absence of “<i>The Guardian's</i> women's section lying on the coffee table, or political discussion ringing around their ears”, which she takes as an indication that “they are less likely to access feminist discussion early on.”</span><span style="color: black; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-GB;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 10pt; text-align: justify;">
<span style="color: black; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; mso-ascii-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-GB; mso-hansi-font-family: Calibri;">But why ought this be the case? Who is more inclined to espouse feminist principles; a single mother, struggling with underemployment, a feckless ex, a tiny income and no childcare, or comfortable middle-class couple with two jobs, two cars, and an after-school childminder? Who, more importantly, is this childminder that the middle-class mother in full-time employment is so beholden to? Even if they don’t know it, the girls in question will be absorbing feminist principles like background radiation – they might not discuss the works of Germaine Greer and Camille Paglia around the dinner table, but they’ve little doubt about their own ability to hold their own in a world that's set against them.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 10pt; text-align: justify;">
<span style="color: black; mso-ascii-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-GB; mso-hansi-font-family: Calibri;"></span><span style="color: black; mso-ascii-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-GB; mso-hansi-font-family: Calibri;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">The teacher’s reference to “benefits” in general seems to expose ignorance of the system; are we discussing unemployment benefit, disability benefit, child support, or just working family tax credit? Or, to this woman, are “benefits” just something that only poor people need concern themselves with, like puffa jackets, pound shops and ITV? <o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 10pt; text-align: justify;">
<span style="color: black; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; mso-ascii-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-GB; mso-hansi-font-family: Calibri;">In the interests of transparency, I should explain that the reason I’m so provoked by this is because that’s me they’re talking about; a writer for <em>the F Word</em> has just insulted my mum. Are my opinions worth less because I wasn’t dressed in Boden or sent on skiing holidays as a child? Because we had spaghetti on toast, not penne al pesto? Tesco Value rather than Waitrose? Were my lecturers at University correct – should I have taken voice training classes to eradicate the wide Essex sound? If the cut-glass vowels of the Fawcett Society fundraiser at the end of the line are anything to go by, the answer’s a well-enunciated “yes”.</span><span style="color: black; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-GB;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 10pt; text-align: justify;">
<span style="color: black; mso-ascii-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-GB; mso-hansi-font-family: Calibri;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">What writers of articles like this seems to overlook is that anyone, anyone at all, can be compelled to claim benefits – an employment advice service in the next town over regularly sees doctors and lawyers claiming Jobseekers’ Allowance; even the most qualified and privileged can fall ill and require sickness benefits. What’s more, the authors seem to be missing a salient and important point: high intelligence leads to increased likelihood of mental illness, as do divorce and unemployment. Bouts of mental ill-health are statistically likely to lead to periods of unemployment, financial difficulties and longer-term incapacity – all factors that drive an individual to seek financial support from the State.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 10pt; text-align: justify;">
<span style="color: black; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; mso-ascii-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-GB; mso-hansi-font-family: Calibri;">For too long commentators have disseminated the myth that only the working classes – ill-educated, understimulated, petty, ignorant or deprived – need to claim benefits. For too long, also, have they ignored the improved social mobility that post-war society has facilitated. Does the education process make one middle-class? Maybe the increased earning power and career potential of a successful graduate do lead to a perspective shift, entry into a brave new world of mortgages, not housing benefit; dinner parties, not chips on the way home. But few people that grew up in an impoverished household will forget their early years – however much they might want to. For many, those early experiences will be what drives them on through college and university, always pushing onwards to better results, more pay, a less uncertain future. And when they reach that point, if it takes two years or twenty, they’ll be proud, anxious for dignity and recognition. And after all that, someone who doesn’t know them, who has only a tiny window onto their experiences, belittles their struggle, repudiates their opinion, and – most heinous of all – insults their mum.</span></div>
Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15278292523531432633noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3597434574135085323.post-91782526136303871692012-11-03T08:16:00.002-07:002012-11-25T14:37:59.371-08:00An Atheist Finds Hope<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"></span><br />
<div style="line-height: 115%; text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; mso-ascii-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-hansi-theme-font: minor-latin;">Losing faith
in God - or never having had any to begin with - means creating a worldview
free from the usual guarantees: no eternal life, no supernatural punishment for
'sins', no comforting hand on the wheel when we feel we're losing control. It
requires the ultimate reality check - the realisation that we alone are
responsible for our actions, with no heavenly third party to refer to when
things go wrong. For many people with faith, this proves a difficult concept to
understand.</span></div>
<u1:p></u1:p><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">
</span><br />
<div style="line-height: 115%; text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; mso-ascii-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-hansi-theme-font: minor-latin;">When
atheists face questions from those who have faith, often the same few enquiries
come up. With no holy text to dictate our morals, what stops us from committing
heinous crimes? With no fear of hell, what prevents us from mistreating those
around us? Many atheists find this notion hilarious - the threat of judgement
by God is all that prevents a decent, moral believer from committing murder?
The sense of right and wrong that we imbue young children with is insufficient
to this end? </span></div>
<u1:p></u1:p><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">
</span><br />
<div style="line-height: 115%; text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; mso-ascii-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-hansi-theme-font: minor-latin;">Perhaps the
issue is one of simple and understandable ignorance: if a believer has spent
their entire life taking their moral cues from the Bible, maybe they simply
don't appreciate humanity's ability to regulate their own behaviour without
that hand on their shoulder. If you'd spent your entire life breathing oxygen
from a canister with a mask, would you trust your ability to breathe the air?
Would you be prepared to slip the mask off and take the risk?</span></div>
<u1:p></u1:p><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">
</span><br />
<div style="line-height: 115%; text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; mso-ascii-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-hansi-theme-font: minor-latin;">One of the
finest (and most surreal) questions of this type, though, is an example that
was circulating on the Internet this summer. Discussing a post on another blog
entitled "20 Questions Atheists Struggle To Answer" the author
applauds her comrade's efforts to "engage with a group who simply don’t
understand Christians" - a curious description, given that a great many
atheists have become so after moving away from the religion of their youth. But
her crusading counterpart has been remiss in his interrogation; he has missed a
vital opportunity to ask a question which these godless heathens will be
completely disarmed by.</span><o:p></o:p></div>
<u1:p></u1:p><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">
</span><br />
<div style="line-height: 115%; text-align: justify;">
<span style="mso-ascii-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-hansi-theme-font: minor-latin;"><u1:p></u1:p><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">"How
do you live without hope?"</span></span></div>
<u1:p></u1:p><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">
</span><br />
<div style="line-height: 115%; text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; mso-ascii-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-hansi-theme-font: minor-latin;">"This
really is a cruel world that almost seems to be thinking of ways to disappoint,
damage, or ultimately destroy us. So I ask, how do you live without a hope in
the after-life? I simply cannot understand how someone faces life each day,
believing that their existence and that of those they love can be permanently
snuffed out in an instant. Believing that they will never meet again with those
that have died. Believing that ultimately this short life is all there is."</span></div>
<u1:p></u1:p><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">
</span><br />
<div style="line-height: 115%; text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; mso-ascii-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-hansi-theme-font: minor-latin;">We concede
that this is a painful conclusion for any new atheist to come to: that we will
not see our beloved friends and family members again, that innocent people lead
good lives and die meaningless deaths without the promise of heaven to console
those that loved them, that death really is the end. No-one likes to consider
that they can be "snuffed out in an instant", or to realise that they
too will be passed over and forgotten by history, their efforts trivialised by
the passage of time. But acknowledging the absence of an afterlife is not the
same as giving up on the future: it forces a shift of focus to the present and
the people we share it with.</span></div>
<u1:p></u1:p><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">
</span><br />
<div style="line-height: 115%; text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; mso-ascii-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-hansi-theme-font: minor-latin;">It takes a
special kind of ignorance not to look around and notice the struggles and
misfortune of those around us. Between countries torn apart by war, communities
decimated by famine, natural disasters and disease, and the private struggles
against ill health, addiction, poverty and hopelessness fought by families and
individuals the world over, one could be forgiven for briefly wondering if the
fabled Horsemen of the Apocalypse already rode amongst us. But it is our
response to this suffering, rather than our beliefs about the cause of it, that
defines us as human beings.</span></div>
<u1:p></u1:p><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">
</span><br />
<div style="line-height: 115%; text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; mso-ascii-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-hansi-theme-font: minor-latin;">Let us
consider the online responses to a natural disaster like that which affected
Japan in 2011. Facebook, 21st-century almanac of public opinion, lit up with
emergency appeals for assistance. But the specific requests varied wildly in
their nature. Some asked for money - in the UK, the Disasters Emergency
Committee were quick to set up a dedicated number to facilitate the giving of
donations to the Red Cross, Medecins Sans Frontières and similar aid
organisations. Some asked for donations of food, clothing, blankets and
children's toys to be sent out to those in Japan who had lost everything. Some
asked people to petition their government to pledge millions in aid, even in
countries struggling against recession. And some asked people to pray.</span></div>
<u1:p></u1:p><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">
</span><br />
<div style="line-height: 115%; text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; mso-ascii-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-hansi-theme-font: minor-latin;">To pray. Not
to give money AND pray, not to send warm clothing AND pray, just to pray. As if
prayer alone would solve the problems. As if prayer alone would provide shelter
for the displaced, food for the hungry, and comfort to those who had watched
loved ones swept away by the endless, swirling, dirty water. As if prayer would
induce God, whose involvement with the human race has been at best minimal from
the alleged moment he placed us on this earth, to return from his current
residence on high, look at what one of his creations had done to another, see
that it was not good, and somehow fix it for everyone.</span></div>
<u1:p></u1:p><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">
</span><br />
<div style="line-height: 115%; text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; mso-ascii-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-hansi-theme-font: minor-latin;">Maybe I am
mistaken, or being too literal. Maybe God was present. Maybe he was in the
hearts of the rescuers, and in the minds of the people that tended to the injured,
comforted the bereaved, and sheltered the dispossessed. Maybe he was in the
actions of everyone that donated money to the charities on the ground, and of
those that helped to rebuild the shattered cities. Maybe he was in the hearts
of the men that walked into a compromised and dangerous nuclear facility,
securing and controlling the material that threatened to cause a bigger
disaster than Chernobyl, in the certain knowledge that doing so would lead to a
desperate illness and a horrible death.</span></div>
<u1:p></u1:p><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">
</span><br />
<div style="line-height: 115%; text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; mso-ascii-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-hansi-theme-font: minor-latin;">Or maybe
that was not God. Maybe it was something far more real, and far more useful to
us as a fragile species clinging to the face of a lonely planet: human
compassion. The simple concern for another human being that comes from a place
that psychologists and evolutionary biologists still cannot agree on. When you
accept that God doesn't exist, and you consider our planet, circling endlessly
under a cold and empty sky, you realise that all we have is each other. If God
will not help us, all we can do is help one another. If God will not provide a
blissful eternity for those that suffer, we must do what we can to make things
better for them in this life. If this is the only life we have, we must use it
to make our flawed and difficult world better.</span></div>
<u1:p></u1:p><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">
</span><br />
<div style="line-height: 115%; text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; mso-ascii-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-hansi-theme-font: minor-latin;">Let us
return to the words of the blogger mentioned earlier. She continues, "the
Christian believes that behind a broken world there is a sovereign God who will
one day fix it all, and in the meantime is working everything round for good to
those who love him (Romans 8:28)"</span></div>
<u1:p></u1:p><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">
</span><br />
<div style="line-height: 115%; text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; mso-ascii-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-hansi-theme-font: minor-latin;">Of course!
How silly of us to forget! God's going to fix things for everyone, and we
needn't worry about taking any action at all. We don't need to give money to
support cancer research or treatments for catastrophic spinal injuries. God
will "fix it all", and if we want him to move a bit more quickly, we
can just pray! That's why you see so many of those appeals on Facebook:
"pray for my friend's sister, she has cancer" or "pray for the
people of [disaster-struck country]". Conversely, of course, those who
don't "love him" can expect to receive none of his goodwill - an
atheist fallen on hard times deserves it, then?</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; mso-ascii-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-hansi-theme-font: minor-latin;">If God
exhibited even the slightest inclination to assist the day-to-day struggles of
the sick and the dispossessed, these requests for prayer would be far easier to
swallow. If you believe in God, pray for sick children if you feel you must;
but be ready to donate to a group who do practical things to make their lives
better. As it is, we're asked to believe that we're his greatest creation and
he still doesn't seem to give a damn about us. Instead of praying, we must
continue to support organisations taking practical steps to combat these
problems. If God will not remove them, then humanity must strive together to
overcome them. And that, Christian bloggers, is where atheists find hope.</span></div>
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