tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-79140132111598222742024-03-05T12:02:38.416+00:00Violetta CrisisMe but in no sensible order. Things constantly remind me of other things.Vickyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11713978747815185893noreply@blogger.comBlogger70125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7914013211159822274.post-33771760912116112372018-05-15T01:40:00.000+01:002018-05-15T01:40:49.622+01:00Reflections on time and on loss[Content: grieving and death, including an oblique reference to suicide]<br />
<br />
I don't know exactly when I stopped believing in the Christian idea of heaven and started to develop my own thoughts about loss and grief. At some point I took on board the concept that time has properties beyond those which we experience from our limited perspective. I began to believe in "space-time" in the same way that I had believed in the Holy Trinity: not as a coherent unit of knowledge but as a set of paths down which I could send my thoughts when ideas of existence and its inevitable end became overwhelming. The possibilities of time as something which only appeared to be linear did not form themselves into anything amounting to a philosophy or a conviction I would advocate to another person, but they did act as a source of soothing thoughts. These have developed over the course of several losses - lives, relationships, circumstances - into a set of small candles to be lit as a familiar ritual in my own personal darkness.<br />
<br />
An ending does not affect what went before it.<br />
<br />
In the immediate turmoil of grief, as we are forced in our minds to wrench someone out of our living present and into our vanishing past, there is no room for such a statement. But when the initial waves of anger and sickness have subsided I try to remember that the act of remembrance itself does not have to be so painful as to be avoided for long. An ending cannot blemish what went before it. As we continue to experience the passage of time, what has passed only passes away for us. The past is only lost to us, it is not lost to itself. The people who are no longer with us do not cease to exist; they had always existed at that locus of time and place and they will always exist there, though they have not moved with us into our present. Everything they ever were is still there, is still happening on its own terms, only we can no longer access it as we continue on our trajectory through time.<br />
<br />
The end of a person's life no more defines them than its beginning, or any point in between.<br />
<br />
We place a great deal of emphasis on what happens in the final moments of a person's life and while this can be a source of comfort when our ideals are met, we should not let this concept add to our grief. A moment of pain or of isolation is no more significant for having happened at the end of a life. Conversely, a moment of joy and companionship is no less important or definitive for having fallen in the middle of a lifetime. Every second of happiness which we bring to each other carries the same weight and our mere, human desire for a linear path cannot make one moment negate another. We should not underestimate the good which we do for each other, or the immutable light and warmth which we contribute to the wholeness of each other's lives.<br />
<br />
I am still angry at every loss and I still grieve for those relationships which now only continue across an incomprehensible divide, but an end cannot sully what went before it. Someone is no longer with us but we are still with them, as we always were and always will be, in the incorruptible moments we share.<br />
<br />
The loss is all ours but what we can take with us - what is never lost - is everything a person was to us. The memories, the ideas, the experiences and the emotions which they contributed to our lives reach across that divide and will continue to develop and change as we do. The people who are no longer with us still touch our lives even as they themselves experience no loss. But who is to say that the love and regard which we continue to feel for them cannot also echo across that divide, to that location is space and time which they continue to inhabit? I like to think that those echoes were always there.<br />
<br />Vickyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11713978747815185893noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7914013211159822274.post-33220622358646922892016-04-13T22:46:00.000+01:002016-04-13T22:48:50.834+01:00Why I, as a historian, really appreciate content warningsI posted this on Facebook earlier and as it's an argument that seems to crop up every few days at the moment I thought I'd add it here. Two additional points: 1) People can be strong and capable and intelligent and determined and still need things. We should not be shaming people for requesting an accommodation, even if it turns out not to be practical. Equally, just because someone can deal with something when they have to doesn't mean they should always have to. 2) I haven't taught a seminar on the Holocaust although I have covered some harrowing material related to other events. I hope that any student of mine would feel comfortable asking to take a short break / leave the room for a minute if they needed to collect themselves before continuing. If I return to tutoring in a future role, I'll be sure to make that explicit. There's no benefit to shaming people into suffering in silence.<br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
<br />
<span style="color: #141823; font-family: "helvetica" , "arial" , sans-serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 19.32px;">A thought on trigger warnings etc. speaking only for myself...</span><span style="color: #141823; font-family: "helvetica" , "arial" , sans-serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 19.32px;">I work in Holocaust education at the moment, specifically looking at photographs of atrocities. I look at and think about a lot of very horrible things as my actual job. This is, as I'm sure you can imagine, not very pleasant. I'm never going to be fully desensitised to it but I can maintain some critical distance in order to do my job.</span> </blockquote>
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
<span style="color: #141823; font-family: "helvetica" , "arial" , sans-serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 19.32px;">If someone springs a horrific image or a graphic description on me without warning, when I haven't had chance to get myself in the right frame of mind, then it will have a strong effect on me. My brain will automatically connect it to similar images or draw comparisons with other graphic descriptions. This could go on for hours. From experience, the images will make their way into my dreams. I'll dream about friends and family members being in these images, having these things happen to them.</span> </blockquote>
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
<span style="color: #141823; font-family: "helvetica" , "arial" , sans-serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 19.32px;">I'd like to be able to choose to avoid certain topics and material sometimes not because I'm a coddled, fragile little snowflake who needs to grow up and accept the real world for what it is, but because I want some control over when and how I encounter this material. I need to carve out a few hours every day when I'm not thinking about genocide, sexual violence, dead bodies etc. so that I can carry on doing this work. Deny me any sort of space which is reliably safe from this stuff and I will have to quit. Just a quick heads-up about what's coming is enough for me to mentally prepare myself, or remove myself from the conversation for a bit. That way you can carry on having the conversation without the interruption caused by my turning green, going dizzy, putting my fingers in my ears and trying to think about kittens, or (for repeat offenders after several warnings) throwing my drink in your face and never coming near you again.</span> </blockquote>
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
<span style="color: #141823; font-family: "helvetica" , "arial" , sans-serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 19.32px;">This is a plea from someone who's never been the victim of an attack or witnessed anything traumatic. If someone who *has* been through a traumatic experience asks you not to spring something on them without warning, then don't bang on about free speech and victim culture. Treat it the same way as an allergy: you can make all the peanut butter cookies you like so long as you warn people what's in them.</span></blockquote>
Vickyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11713978747815185893noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7914013211159822274.post-88743486109584259812016-02-18T17:52:00.001+00:002016-02-18T17:54:23.788+00:00Arrow's Laurel Lance writes to the World's Worst Advice Columnist<br />
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><br />[Spoilers for Arrow here, in case that's something you're concerned about]<br /><br /> I've been reading advice columns a lot recently (<a href="http://captainawkward.com/">Captain Awkward</a> for self confidence, <a href="http://www.askamanager.org/">Ask a Manager</a> for work stuff, and the superbly cathartic <a href="http://thatbadadvice.tumblr.com/">Here's that bad advice you were hoping for</a>) and have also been punishing myself with some truly terrible episodes of Arrow. I particularly hate the fact that I've been given no choice but to despair of Laurel Lance - she's just so badly written that none of what she does makes the slightest sense. I'm sure you could replace anything another character says to her in any episode with "What the hell were you thinking?" and the script would hang together, possibly even be improved. Actually, the same could be said of most of the characters' "motivations", but Laurel somehow manages to be even worse that the others.<br /><br /> So I'm choosing to believe that all of them have been turning to a local advice columnist for help with their difficult decisions, that Laurel has been doing this more than most, and that Star(ling) City just happens to have The World's Worst Advice Columnist. All of a sudden, the series makes sense.</span><br />
<br />
<br />
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: "courier new" , "courier" , monospace;">Dear Ethic-quette HQ,</span></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: "courier new" , "courier" , monospace;">My vigilante sister has been killed by my ex-boyfriend's sister and is now buried in the grave we dug for her the first time we thought she'd died. My father has a severe heart condition - how can I tell him she's dead? P.S. He is Chief of Police but please don't print that bit.</span></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: "courier new" , "courier" , monospace;">Lost Lawyer</span></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: "courier new" , "courier" , monospace;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: "courier new" , "courier" , monospace;">Dear Lost,</span></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: "courier new" , "courier" , monospace;">Do you have any sort of martial arts training, even just a few weeks of boxing classes? If so, simply take on your sister's crime-busting identity! There is absolutely no risk that your father will figure out that you are now pretending to be both of his daughters. He is also highly unlikely to ever mention your sister to you, so don't worry too much about having to control your facial expressions around him. Happy punching!</span></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: "courier new" , "courier" , monospace;">HQ</span></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: "courier new" , "courier" , monospace;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: "courier new" , "courier" , monospace;">Dear Ethic-quette HQ,</span></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: "courier new" , "courier" , monospace;">An update on the dead sister situation: I managed to bring her back to life! Unfortunately she appears to have no idea who she is, doesn't speak, is highly aggressive and everyone thinks she might be possessed. How can I get her back and prove them all wrong?</span></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: "courier new" , "courier" , monospace;">Lost Lawyer</span></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: "courier new" , "courier" , monospace;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: "courier new" , "courier" , monospace;">Dear Lost,</span></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: "courier new" , "courier" , monospace;">The only way to bring someone back to their senses after the traumatic experience of being dead for a year is to chain them to some pipes in your basement. Make sure that they have nowhere to sleep or relieve themselves and that they are still in the clothes you buried them in. You didn't mention in your letter whether you intended to tell your father that his other daughter has been resurrected. In light of his heart condition, make sure you do this in the most alarming way possible.</span></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: "courier new" , "courier" , monospace;">HQ</span></div>
Vickyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11713978747815185893noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7914013211159822274.post-20906025436620410662015-10-01T15:39:00.000+01:002016-02-18T17:54:43.179+00:00Guess what I've been doing a lot of recently<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg17EB9vaDmCoB-yjoV1z2x_xuFq7Cp30cg6bHmzb1-98OF2ScrJdJeJH0vDmXDAzwlFuaZ903CPWthX8fwsVGUW4_mmOqBUunFDFInegcPi9E5dv_0PljjWJWRhfzFZTOEU9Cbxy07e9gY/s1600/Cop+Show+Plots.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img alt="The image consists of a table with the following plot types: single body part; this body isn't dead; corrupt cop; character's fab new partner is the murderer; cop buddies no longer on speaking terms; strangers on a train; a series of unfortunate events or coincidences can happen; baby in the precinct; corrupt fed; victim has multiple wives / girlfriends; retired cop's the-one-that-got-away; no body no crime; dog in the precinct; fake kidnapping; vampires! and/or werewolves!; fictional murders coming true." border="0" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg17EB9vaDmCoB-yjoV1z2x_xuFq7Cp30cg6bHmzb1-98OF2ScrJdJeJH0vDmXDAzwlFuaZ903CPWthX8fwsVGUW4_mmOqBUunFDFInegcPi9E5dv_0PljjWJWRhfzFZTOEU9Cbxy07e9gY/s400/Cop+Show+Plots.jpg" title="Plots for the first sixteen episodes of you unoriginal cop show" width="320" /></a></div>
<br />Vickyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11713978747815185893noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7914013211159822274.post-62431613763204890942015-09-16T11:00:00.000+01:002016-02-18T17:55:00.111+00:00"The country will never stand for that"The sum total of my opinion on whether Labour can win an election with Jeremy Corbyn as leader is that we don't know enough to make a reliable prediction. Moving on to something that doesn't quite constitute a settled opinion, here are two things I read in quick succession yesterday:<br />
<br />
Item The First - The Daily Mash, <i><a href="http://www.thedailymash.co.uk/politics/politics-headlines/man-who-just-got-elected-definitely-unelectable-20150914101940">Man who just got elected 'definitely unelectable'</a></i><br />
<br />
Item The Second - Paul Addison, <i>The Road to 1945: British politics and the Second World War </i>(Pimlico edition, 1994)<br />
<i><br /></i>
From pp.14-15 of the Introduction:<br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
"The [1945] election gave Labour its first independent majority in the House of Commons and its largest of the post-war era to date - 146 overall. The result came as a profound shock to most of the political world which, having divined public opinion by the old techniques of impressionism and wishful-thinking, was convinced that Churchill's charisma would carry the day. Hence the well-known story of the lady at Claridge's who was heard to exclaim: 'But this is terrible. They have elected a Labour government and the country will never stand for that.'* If one main theme of the home front is the evolution of a new consensus at the top, the other must be the movement of popular opinion below."</blockquote>
The only thing that elections tell us for sure is how people voted in that election. The only thing that press coverage tells us for sure is how the press are covering things. Beyond that, people need to show how they have arrived at their predictions and must be prepared to consider new information and different lines of reasoning. Anything else is just white noise.<br />
<br />
* Addison's reference for this anecdote: J.L.Hodson, <i>Home Front</i> (Harmondsworth: Penguin, 1947), I.Vickyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11713978747815185893noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7914013211159822274.post-80518173741023284682015-08-20T13:53:00.000+01:002016-02-18T17:55:29.796+00:00They didn’t build this – The “new” Manchester Skeptics groupIf you search Meetup.com for “skeptics” in Manchester at the moment* you get the “<a href="http://www.meetup.com/McrSkeptics/">Manchester Skeptics</a>”. This group is described as being “a new 2015 group” but also has 132 “past Meetups”, 474 members, and was founded Nov 20th, 2009. A pretty impressive feat of time-bending organisation, I’m sure you’ll agree. How have the organisers achieved this staggering success?<br />
<br />
Well… they didn’t. These are the successes of the Greater Manchester Skeptics Society, which has been the work of many dedicated volunteers, myself included, over the past six years. We built up that membership. We ran those events. We poured our time and energy into building this community, in some cases putting our own funds on the line where necessary in the hope that the gamble would pay off.<br />
<br />
Unfortunately, being human and having a lot of plates to spin, we dropped one of the plates. Through a combination of (well-deserved) summer holidays, work stress, bereavement, job-hunting and side projects, exacerbated by a regrettable but inevitable amount of miscommunication, there was a period in which our subscription to Meetup was up for renewal. With hindsight, we should have sorted it out sooner but then we were naïve enough to assume that none of our members would take advantage of the situation before the final deadline. We are, after all, a pretty friendly, supportive community.<br />
<br />
But there’s always somebody who has to go and spoil things. For reasons which are still somewhat unclear, somebody else paid the subscription and took over the Meetup group. Rather than work with the existing organisers they removed our admin privileges and are now removing people from the group for either criticising their actions or for being “inactive”. They emailed the existing members to explain their grand plan, insulting the “previous” organisers in the process. They’ve changed the name, the branding, the description of the group, cancelled future events (on the site only – the events themselves are going ahead as planned) and added links to some rather dubious websites. To all intents and purposes, they have created a “new” group, exactly how they want it to be.<br />
<br />
But they’re still passing off our hard work as their own.<br />
<br />
That large membership and the long list of past events, both of which lend an air of success to their group - they amount to misrepresentation. You want to start a new group for the discussion and promotion of skepticism (or scepticism, whichever you prefer)? Have at it. The more the merrier. But have the guts to build it yourself, from scratch. The more established groups will be more than happy to help, if asked.<br />
<br />
Of course, now that they've caused such disruption to our operation and our members by removing scheduled events from the calendar, spreading misinformation, accusing us of mismanagement or incompetence and refusing to return control of the mailing list (which, remember, was created for a group with different stated aims, different organisers and so on), future cooperation with the wider network of Skeptics in the Pub groups seems unlikely to say the least.<br />
<br />
Even when trying to suppress all my anger and frustration (some of which is directed at myself for not realising this could happen) I can’t attribute what they’ve done to pure motives. Why take over a group only to change everything? Why not start a new group? It’s difficult not to assume that they preferred to take the opportunity to buy our membership and our record of events from Meetup.<br />
<br />
Not illegal. Not outside the rules of the site. But also not the actions of considerate, ethical, honest human beings.<br />
<br />
<br />
*That moment being 9:45am, 20/08/2015<br />
<br />
______________<br />
<br />
Below is a copy of the email they sent. I considered going through it with a red pen but on reflection, I think it speaks well enough for itself. Suffice to say that GMSS exists in the real world, beyond the statistics on Meetup, that the group is active and thriving, and that we have a great working relationship with our fantastic regular venues (none of which deserve the kind of insult levelled at them here).<br />
<br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
<div style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: verdana, arial, sans-serif; font-size: 12px;">
<strong>Welcome to your new skeptic meetup</strong></div>
<br style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: verdana, arial, sans-serif; font-size: 12px;" />
<div style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: verdana, arial, sans-serif; font-size: 12px;">
So you may have noticed a lot of changes to the group lately and have many questions. I hope in satisfy your curiosity and hopefully inspire you back into the skeptic community so lets begin.<br />
<br />
Firstly we have acquired this group after the overly bureaucratic leadership team failed to make the small payment fees that are accosted to the organizers. In the several days left to fix the issue no one coffed up the 15£ and just as in real life if you don’t pay your bills your house gets repossessed. Finally to our surprise <a href="http://meetup.com/" style="color: #1155cc;" target="_blank">meetup.com</a> gave us full ownership, this is actually a common occurrence on meetup when groups are failing.</div>
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<div style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: verdana, arial, sans-serif; font-size: 12px;">
<strong>We</strong><br />
<br />
Who is we you say, we are two passionate meetup organizers that already run two fast growing active meetups in Manchester. We live here and support the community via scientifically driven food and mental health groups. We also have been interested in science and the like for many years and have a large collection of materials to share/recommend which to our surprise we notice was totally vacant from the group more on that soon in the pages section.</div>
<div style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: verdana, arial, sans-serif; font-size: 12px;">
<strong>Out with the Old</strong></div>
<div style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: verdana, arial, sans-serif; font-size: 12px;">
<strong></strong><br />
Briefly here are some clues as to why the group was failing to grow which likely lead to it changing hands.</div>
<div style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: verdana, arial, sans-serif; font-size: 12px;">
One fact that resonates this point most is the very poor active members rates of the group. If you don't run a meetup you won't know about this hidden feature but it gives clear graphs and insight into how much your members actually care about the kind of group you create.<br />
<br />
We also noticed a very large users base hasn't even checked the meetup in over a year (insome cases 6 years!), very poor by our standards. It's often a clear reflection that users aren't happy with the group's direction. Meeting new people especially critical thinkers can be fairly daunting if not handled properly. One worry sign of this was how common a users had attended once and never come back, another statistic that is only viewable by organizers.</div>
<div style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: verdana, arial, sans-serif; font-size: 12px;">
“Too many cooks spoil the broth” they say and there was a lot we noticed about the overly bureaucratic nature of the organisation. Many leaders and a lengthy list of rules etc seemed very authoritarian by design. We personally prefer conversations in almost all cases whether conflict or nurture. In our previous meetups we have had much success with taking a true liberal attitude. Being down to earth in way that makes members feel they are equal to the organisers seems lacking here and something we really want to change. At the end of the day meetup is a tool that we are part of and nothing more. We want to embolden the group's properties to be the most conducive conduit towards real human connection within the skeptically inclined whether you’re an old member or brand new.</div>
<div style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: verdana, arial, sans-serif; font-size: 12px;">
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The leadership team has indeed messaged us for a second chance but we feel that it would be doing a disservice to the group's quality to go back to the old ways. Meetup takes a lot of effort and if it’s not there meetups evitable becomes a stagnate contact lists which is mostly what we found. You may have noticed this effect present in a lot of “Top” meetup groups that have over 1000 members but only 10 people at their events.<br />
<br />
Last msg sent below by old leader(in our group ther wont really be leaders)<br />
<br />
<em>“Hi Sophie, I'm the current elected chair of Greater Manchester Skeptics (and have been for the past three years or so - you can see that I'm the event organiser from the Meetup page). I'm currently on my holidays in Cornwall so have been away from technology for a couple of weeks. I'm sure you have stepped up and taken over our Meetup group with the best of intentions, however could you please step down as organiser so we can carry on using our group. As you can see we are more than a Meetup group, as we also have a website and Facebook page.If you're interested in attending future events you are more than welcome and you can put yourself forward for election at the AGM.”</em></div>
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</div>
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Unfortunate but no accident...</div>
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<strong>In with the New</strong></div>
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<br />
Overall I hope you are starting understand the fact of the matter that it was high time this group needed to relaunch whether it was us or others. I hope you also see that we make a lot of careful consideration towards any aspect possible that we can tweak in terms of quality. We have already begun to implementing and planning many of our ideas to get the group going with a bang.<br />
<br />
We have already and will continue to embolden the ascetic of the meetup which members have already told us has a much fresher look. Notable also was the low quality photography which will be rectified as we have access to high quality DSLRs to make some memorable moments.<br />
<br />
We also want to improve the quality of members without compromising on the openness needed to have open skepticism. Obviously anyone should be able to come along and challenge the strength of the groups skeptical nature that said flakes are flakes. I was reminded of this just this week in a recent Tony Robbins video<br />
<br />
<a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TfDTdKH1GhY" style="color: #1155cc;" target="_blank">https://www.youtube.com/watch?<wbr></wbr>v=TfDTdKH1GhY</a></div>
<div style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: verdana, arial, sans-serif; font-size: 12px;">
The point being not only logically but in our experience culling members that no show or never attend helps the health of the group. We hate the idea of acting like a group that is big when really we have many faux members.</div>
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Last to mention will be the improvement of locations the Church Inn being a perfect example of everything that we don’t want. Old, low quality and it has the word church in it. We like the idea of constantly changing the location as there are many quality places in Manchester to explore. Currently we are looking towards Font Chorlton its basically a brand new contemporary facility with high quality service at a similar price.<br />
<br />
<strong>Lets get together</strong><br />
<br />
I hope this honest message takes a good chunk of your queries away and makes you feel safe in our hands. We also hope this message pumps some much needed excitement into your future social life.</div>
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</div>
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<br />
As mentioned we want to be leaders only by administration as we feel members should feel equally valued. Equal in conversation and opportunity to speak their views so tell your friends and join for some exciting conversations and connections at our next social.<br />
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<strong>Cheers.</strong><br />
<br />
p.s.<br />
<br />
We realise there will always be those opposed to change as a counselor I can speak with experience that change is gross to most people. So inevitably we expect some drop off from the hardcore fans of the old group maybe even some flames. Ultimately we took over the group without breaking any laws or even <a href="http://meetup.com/" style="color: #1155cc;" target="_blank">meetup.com</a> policy. So threats etc don’t cause us to have any hard feelings either way so if you want to leave the group and think of other options we still support that and you're still always welcome.</div>
<div style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: verdana, arial, sans-serif; font-size: 12px;">
Life is too short to be angry.<br />
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<strong>Good luck in life and everything you aspire to be.</strong></div>
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Vickyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11713978747815185893noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7914013211159822274.post-10842500185885818132015-04-07T23:12:00.000+01:002016-02-18T18:02:16.490+00:00Old, fluffy feminist allsorts from the bottom of my think-bag<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">None of these things are new, I'm just putting them in an appropriate place as part of an ongoing spring-cleaning operation. The part of the spring-cleaning I've reached is that bit where I pretend to be organising my thoughts in order to avoid organising actual objects such as the large piles of papers which occupy every corner of every room in the flat.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><br />
<a href="http://www.thegloss.com/2012/11/12/career/bullish-life-men-are-too-emotional-to-have-a-rational-argument">Thing The First:</a> An article from a couple of years ago by Jen Dziura which says a lot of sensible things about how yelling at somebody in a clearly emotional, irrational way is not a debating skill but is somehow considered more acceptable (on TV, at least) than letting your opponent complete a full sentence. I particularly like this illustration of why "dominating the discussion" shouldn't be viewed as "winning the argument":</span><br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">On a talk radio show, I would undoubtedly lose the fight to grab airspace for myself, just as I often lose the fight for airspace in many barroom discussions and bloviating dinner-table talks. So obviously my ideas are invalid.<br />The way most “debates” happen, on television and otherwise, is like beginning a writing contest by making all the writers physically fight each other for paper. Obviously, writers who don’t get any paper are the worst writers, right?</span></blockquote>
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">This seems especially relevant with all the UK election TV debate stuff. It could be argued that we need politicians who can make their point effectively while being shouted down and jeered at from all sides, because that's what they have to do in the House of Commons. What would be better all round is if our Parliament resembled an intelligible exchange of facts and opinions, rather than a prison riot.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><br />
<a href="http://captainawkward.com/2014/06/06/notes-from-a-boner/#more-6877">Thing The Second:</a> A piece from last year called "Notes From a Boner", from the truly awesome and invaluable Captain Awkward blog. Most posts contain thoughtful and supportive advice on all manner of life problems and I highly recommend it for anyone who has a relationship, friendship, work or family issue, or simply isn't sure if the thing they've been obsessing over all week is actually A Thing. This post is different, and is a lovely description of those many, many times when idiotic, sexist comments come streaking through life, mooning at everyone in sight:</span><br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">And in every. freaking. internet discussion, there they are. Fucking boners. Women can be discussing literally any topic, and dudes will come interrupt to tell us how it makes boners feel. Sometimes they want to reassure us, like, when we talk about being fat as a feminist issue, or the constrictions of conventional beauty standards, they chime into say “But I like bigger girls.” Well thanks, Internet Stranger-boner! That totally makes up for every bad thing women have ever experienced at the hands of the patriarchy, which definitely for sure does not include you. Other times women will be talking about particle physics or literature or their very responsible jobs, like, running the world and stuff, and the boners feel left out and confused, so they just say completely inane stuff. As if “I would/would not do her” is the one true standard on earth.</span></blockquote>
<blockquote>
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">[...]</span></blockquote>
<blockquote>
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">I guess what I’m saying is that I need the boners to shut the hell up for a while. PEOPLE can speak, just, try to go like a month without letting your boner chime in to offer its thoughts on whether someone is sufficiently hot. Please. I beg you. </span></blockquote>
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">Thing the Third: I was chatting to someone the other day and the topic of feminism came up. The conversation ran for a bit in a very well-worn groove: this person agrees with many of the progressive issues covered by the umbrella of feminism but thinks that that it goes too far sometimes and that the "going too far" is reflected in the name. He'd prefer it to be called "equalicism" or similar, to reflect that it isn't just advocating for women. Well... yes, but no. It would be nice if the names of things conveyed to absolutely everyone, with perfect accuracy, the nature of that thing. But they don't. They can't. And on top of the natural limitations of language, some people are always going to go out of their way to assign other meanings to things, especially to political movements advocating for change to which they are opposed.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">If we start bending over backwards to accommodate people who can't be bothered to find out what something actually is before kicking off against it, then we will spend our lives as immobile pretzels. If someone said that they'd like to hire you but they've heard that some people with your first name have been known to punch koalas and could you please call yourself something else in future, I suspect you'd withdraw your application.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">---</span></div>
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">*** THIS NEXT PART IS ABOUT A PARTICULAR SWEAR WORD AND WILL, I'M SURE, GET RIGHT UP SOME PEOPLE'S NOSES. If you're in a bad mood or are sick of having this argument with people who definitely are sexist trolls and you're therefore likely to dislike me if you read on then please stop here. Please. I don't want to annoy anyone but I do need to get this off my chest.***</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">Slightly Related Thing The Fourth: On the subject of the word "cunt" and whether using it as an insult is necessarily sexist. I don't think it is in all contexts, no matter how many times I read people's arguments on this matter (and holy crap, this doesn't half come up a lot). However, because a lot of people on a lot of websites I visit frequently find the word offensive, I've decided not to throw it about online. I completely understand the absolutist position. Particularly for websites which are continually under siege from armies of commenters, well-meaning or otherwise, seeking to question or attack every damn thing they say, I can see how the use of the word and a reluctance to stop using it once people have objected would be a huge red flag.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">What gets my back up, not that I'm going to go whine about this on someone else's blog*, is the argument that over here in the UK, where we throw the word round more than in the USA and generally with less malice behind it, we're somehow ignorant of how offensive we're being. Especially when someone tells a British feminist that they shouldn't use the word, suggesting that they have somehow missed the fact that it refers to female genitalia, I can feel my claws start to lengthen. Words are complicated things. Context is complicated. I'm not arguing that someone else's feelings and associations upon hearing the word are less valid that my own. If you're upset by something then you have the right to ask someone to stop doing it. Equally, if you know a word upsets someone then by using it <i>at them</i>, you are accepting those feelings as a consequence.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">But but BUT... words exist within a web of meanings formed by past usage and other cultural considerations. There are positive reasons for saying "cunt": it doesn't have that creepy, demeaning association with swords that "vagina" does. It can be pretty empowering, as a woman, to use that word about a part of myself, particularly when someone's expecting me to say something infantilised like "hoo-hah". It's pretty damn superb as a plot element in <i>Atonement</i>. It sounds so much better and more subversive than other swear words in a Lancashire accent (which I have, sometimes, depending on who I'm talking to). There are times, when talking to people who I'm pretty sure share my web of associations, when only that word will do. As much as I try to use "turd" or "arsehole" as my go-to insult, sometimes"fuck you, and the crashing wave of self-important twaddle you surfed in on" can only be capped off with the words "you cunt". I want people to stop being afraid of the word. I want it to be reclaimed rather than shunned. I certainly don't want it to become the sole property of Men's Rights Activists and only ever used to reduce whole human persons to the only one of their organs which is considered valuable to those... pigs. Calling someone a "cunt" was never a simple case of demonising a gender-specific orifice**. Yes, it can be used in a sexist way but there's a whole lot more going on and it would be a shame if all of that got stripped away leaving only the sexism.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">So those are some of the things swirling round in my head when I consider using the word. And if I've carefully considered all of this, thought about my audience and the effect I'm trying to create, as writers - even ones in this quaint little backwater of Britain - tend to do, it would be nice if that effort wasn't ignored as running counter to the ONE TRUE MEANING of the word. Unlike racist insults, which are imposed by a dominant group in an act of dehumanisation and oppression, the words for body parts belong to everyone. People in that cultural context over there do not get to tell people in this cultural context over here that their word for a body part is always and forever off limits. Again, that doesn't mean that the people who have a reaction against the word are wrong, or that they should be subjected to the word more as retribution, just that both sides should acknowledge that these different contexts, associations and communication needs exist. In other words, if someone says that they don't personally find the word offensive and certainly had no intention of being sexist, try not to be a total earlobe about it.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: x-small;">*I've jumped into a comment section on this topic before and am sorry for having done so. There was an American writer complaining about the use of the word in a British TV show, several British people, including myself, offered our perspectives (which seemed valid as it was a script written by and for British people) and it all got very nasty. I'll admit that some of the pro-"cunt" arguments weren't very persuasive and echoed the defenses of some people when called out on racist or other definitely discriminatory language. It still doesn't make it right to point at another culture's output and declare "that very definitely means exactly what I think it means and it should be stopped" without properly listening to what people from that culture are telling you.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: x-small;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: x-small;">**If that's not a sensible way to use the term gender then please do tell me and maybe point me at some explanatory material. I keep trying to put the time in to making sure I don't get this wrong but I'm going to slip up sometimes and will require some prodding in the right direction. I don't intend to suggest here that the Venn diagram of people with vaginas and people who identify as women is a single circle or that it would be a particularly worthwhile diagram.</span>Vickyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11713978747815185893noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7914013211159822274.post-72187114523977841332014-06-06T15:27:00.000+01:002016-02-18T18:04:45.794+00:00On the mutual compatibility of funbags and feminism.This lunchtime, someone whose intellect I generally have a lot of respect for expressed the opinion that a woman who "goes out in a low-cut top to get men to buy her drinks" cannot call herself a feminist. This is the response I would have given had I not been busy refraining from shoving a fork up his nose.<br />
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Feminism is about the right to equal treatment, bodily autonomy, and questions of safety and consent. Unless the breasts in question have magic, hypnotic powers or emit mind-altering gases, there is no contradiction or hypocrisy here. What you're ranting about is a transaction consented to by equal parties, in a way that infringes on nobody's rights or even personal space. It may offend your sensibilities for whatever reason, but it does not run counter to feminist principles.<br />
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In so far as it isn't illegal and doesn't cause harm to others, what someone does on a night out is their own business and in no way affects their right to a progressive political or moral stance. This applies equally to a feminist enjoying her own attractiveness and a frequent drinker arguing in favour of the NHS. To be judged only on what is pertinent, rather than on irrelevant personal matters coloured by people's prejudices, is a right we should all be fighting for - not only when it affects us and the things we care about, but also regarding people who annoy the hell out of us.<br />
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By all means find fault with a person's reasoning. But if you dismiss their opinions wholesale or deny them the right to an opinion at all based on what they choose to do with their own body, don't you dare call yourself anything other than a fascist.<br />
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Incidentally, are there any clean forks about?Vickyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11713978747815185893noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7914013211159822274.post-74348139388286240672014-04-14T00:55:00.000+01:002016-02-18T18:05:22.647+00:00On Nate Phelps and "Leaving Hate Behind"[The purpose of this post is mainly catharsis on my part, and I'm writing it in the full knowledge that describing my emotional reactions to some else's suffering is a self-indulgent frippery.]<br />
<br />
As the final item on the schedule of this year's <a href="https://qedcon.org/speakers/#nate-phelps">QED convention</a>, Nate Phelps spoke about his childhood in the Westboro Baptist Church, and the series of "aha moments" he has experienced both while living under his father's rules, and since leaving home. It is an intensely moving story, told with great humanity and not without humour; his family are the butt of many scornful jokes, but his explanation of the often ridiculous inconsistencies in their interpretation of the bible are entirely without hate or derision.
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<br />
I listened, unable to cry but full of tears and saturated with anger, sadness and impotence. It took every effort not to shout "Stop!" not at the speaker but at the past. All that mattered for much of that hour was pausing the story, removing the characters from this setting which was so desperately wrong, and setting the plot on a different course. And there was fear too - a plummeting sense of futility - once I realised when I'd last experienced the same feelings.<br />
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For several months last spring and summer, I did an internship at the Beth Shalom Holocaust Centre in Nottinghamshire. There is an exhibition there and a memorial garden, but its main work is as a venue for survivors of the Holocaust to talk to school groups about their experiences. While there, I sat in on two of these talks, neither of which will ever quite leave me.<br />
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There is a sad and inevitable shift in Holocaust education and remembrance approaching as the number of living survivors decreases. It was pointed out by (I think) both speakers that the children present were realistically the last generation who would be able to listen to a Holocaust survivor in person. There is a great deal of work being done to record survivor testimony in order to give as close an approximation of this experience as possible to future generations, and this work is very important. However, no digital recreation could ever have the same emotional effect as being in a room with someone who is reliving, for you, the darkest episodes of their life.<br />
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My feeling on finishing the internship was gratitude that I had been given this opportunity, but also a sense that I could put a lid on those paralysing feelings. I assumed that unless I deliberately looked for an emotional response from myself, humanity's darkest episode* could become an increasingly distant (but nevertheless essential) object of study.<br />
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Nate Phelps has proven me wrong. Through his calm, measured explanation of his experiences, told with gut-wrenching self-control, he drew for his audience a picture, the essence of which was the same as that of the survivors' stories. They are stories of children forced to adapt to a situation in which family and community life was disrupted and destroyed by incomprehensible forces of hatred and blind, uncompromising conviction. They are also stories of survival, which show the deep scars which inhumanity leaves on those it doesn't kill, but also show what "leaving hatred behind" actually involves.<br />
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The fear I felt today was caused by realising that the "event" I dread the repetition of is not <i>one</i> massive occurrence which exists <i>only</i> in the past. I realised that there will always be an inexhaustible supply of "survivors"; incredible people who will retell and so relive everything that they want to forget, because we need to understand that their humanity was not stamped out. Every day, whether by individuals, groups, or whole nations, future survivors are being created through hatred, misplaced faith, indifference and inaction. The crimes and tragedies which create them will look very different, the scale will vary enormously, and comparisons will often seem sensationalist and distasteful, but the basic units will be the same; individual lives marked by violence, fear and a complete loss of self, where there should have been love, trust and hope.<br />
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I've thanked all three speakers for speaking, but couldn't explain that I was thanking them for making me feel this anger, sadness, impotence and fear. I couldn't possibly explain to someone's face how grateful I am to them for surviving not once, but every time they tell their story. I couldn't thank them for the way they carry their pain or the way they rebuilt themselves and their lives according to models they were never given but had to find for themselves. It seems such an inadequate, self-serving thing to do to say that they are an inspiration to someone who hasn't suffered at all.<br />
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I'm going to push all of this down again tomorrow, and get back to my thesis-writing and strategic cynicism and all the rest of it. But when I start to forget what's really important, I'll be forever grateful to have three borrowed memories to remind me, the newest of which is of a little boy being beaten by his father for refusing to hate enough.<br />
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<span style="font-size: x-small;">*As many people view it, and it is a perfectly valid description in many ways. It's not the way I'd describe the Holocaust when speaking as a researcher, but this is my gut reaction.</span>Vickyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11713978747815185893noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7914013211159822274.post-7327016596642217542013-05-05T13:48:00.000+01:002016-02-18T18:07:36.422+00:00Q: When is a door not a door?A. When it's a jar of angry worms.<br />
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That long-running men opening doors for women thing. Or offering them their seat on the bus. Very few people get worked up about this but rather more people seem to assume that they do. I think both areas are yawning pits of social awkwardness but that's because I'm all kinds of socially awkward.<br />
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<a href="http://twitpic.com/codk4v">This micro-musing</a> by Peter Hitchens, tweeted by @RopesToInfinity is why I'm thinking through this now.* The key phrase is, "it's so deep it feels like an instinct". For Hitchens, holding a door open for a woman feels like the right thing to do. I'm sure that's what's going on with most men who habitually extend small courtesies to women; it just feels like the done thing. If you want to understand why some people might have a problem with this, ask yourself how it would feel to have a man treat another man in the same way.<br />
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Off the top of my head, I can think of three reasons why a man would feel a gut urge to hold a door open for another man**, other than the fact that he got there first. The same reasons apply to giving up your seat.<br />
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1. The other person is incapacitated in some way, maybe carrying something or on crutches.<br />
2. The other person is a guest or someone whose comfort you feel in some way responsible for.<br />
3. The other person is of a higher or lower professional standing and you are somehow trying to bridge that gap. You fuss around a superior because you want them to think well of you; you may show extra politeness towards a subordinate because you want to show them that you value them.<br />
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There will be others I haven't thought of. Again, I'm not talking about the universal politeness of not letting the door slam in someone's face after you've gone through it. I'm talking about the "deep" "instinct" that dictates that you should try to get to the door first and make a bit of a show of it, because that would be better than them opening the door themselves. With that in mind (and please imagine the situation as giving up your seat if you still don't get where I'm coming from), what does it convey to a woman if, all other factors being equal, a man goes to some extra effort to open a door for her?<br />
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1. That the man sees her as in some way incapacitated.<br />
2. That the man sees her as a guest in this location, or feels somehow especially responsible for her comfort.<br />
3. That the man sees some kind of difference in social or professional standing, which needs to be bridged.<br />
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The discomfort caused by the first two implications should be fairly clear. With point three, I'd like to emphasise that it doesn't matter which way that difference in status works. Regardless of whether it is yourself or the other person that you (or your deep-seated instincts) are placing on an ever-so slightly higher rung, the problem is that you're acting according to a supposed difference. Whether you'd class it as chivalry or a special favour, something in your brain has gone ACHTUNG: FEMALE and caused you to slightly change your behaviour.<br />
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The worry is that if someone displays that "deep", "instinctive" assumption of difference in one situation, and doesn't realise why they're doing it or how it might come across, what else might it affect?<br />
___<br />
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*The resulting conversation also led me to<a href="http://timmylee.wordpress.com/2011/09/03/mad-women-wordplay-2/"> this post</a>, which is all kinds of excellent.<br />
** Or a woman for another woman, or any other combination... I'm using the example of two men because it best shows the weirdness of what's going on. I'm not assuming that every reader is male, but I would like you to imagine yourself as male for the purpose of the exercise.Vickyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11713978747815185893noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7914013211159822274.post-994897029097662902013-04-15T19:41:00.000+01:002016-02-18T18:10:06.458+00:00Eight Signs of a Bogus Historical NarrativeOn Saturday afternoon, as an attendee of the <a href="http://qedcon.org/">QED convention</a> in Manchester, I sat through a panel discussion entitled "Is Science the New Religion?". At least, it was intended to be a four-way discussion. Despite the moderator's best efforts, it quite quickly deteriorated into an exasperated and highly entertaining bun-fight between the journalist who made the opening statement (which he has posted as a "speech" <a href="http://brendanoneill.co.uk/post/47866744738/is-science-becoming-a-new-religion">here</a>) and the comedian and critical-thinking promoter Robin Ince (who has blogged about the exchange <a href="http://robinince.wordpress.com/2013/04/14/the-fascism-of-knowing-stuff/">here</a>).<br />
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I spent the time playing "Bullshit Narrative Bingo" as the journalist obligingly ran through nearly every one of the tell-tale signs of a bogus fall-from-grace story. These red flags are the narrative tricks I look for whenever I suspect that someone is seeking to rail against the current state of affairs, but knows absolutely nothing about how, when or why it came about, or what can be done to change it. I thought I'd share my observations, because these are useful indications of Bad History, in the same way that incomplete or misinterpreted statistics are indications of Bad Science.<br />
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My notes are rather sketchy, and I don't wish to misrepresent the journalist's arguments (much of the fun happened when he was asked to elaborate on the points made in his opening statement) but here are the items I ticked off, and the examples I wrote down at the time. Hopefully, there will be an official recording or transcript available, at which point I will amend anything which I have reported incorrectly.<br />
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1. <b>A "look how far we've come" introduction</b>, establishing the speaker's credentials as a lover of the right kind of progress. In this case, it is the gradual extension of voting rights to people who were not considered to have specialised knowledge; In the past, working men and all women were excluded from the political process because it was assumed they did not have the intellectual capacity for it. Nothing to disagree with here, but for an opener, it was suspiciously unrelated to the question.<br />
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2. <b>Assumption of novelty</b>, without recourse to actual facts. The argument seemed to be that politicians nowadays lack the moral confidence to argue for their preferred course of action, and so are looking to scientific authority instead (I think this was when the smoking ban was mentioned as an example of when scientific arguments trumped moral ones). In fact, medical research and scientific developments were used by politicians back in the Victorian era and almost certainly earlier.<br />
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3. <b>Description of a previously unbroken tradition</b>. I can't remember if the number given was 2000 or 3000 years of politics being driven by morality and a sense of responsibility, but either way, this would be something of an oversimplification. Quite often in a bogus narrative, it is the 1950s which is described as the pinnacle of any such trend, and therefore as a golden age destroyed by the excesses of the 1960s. Which brings us to...<br />
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4. <b>Call for a return to a more 'natural', 'traditional' or 'healthy' state</b>. When asked, repeatedly for some indication of what scientists should do instead, one of the answers given was, "We need a healthy public space". I have no idea what this means, exactly, but who could possibly argue against health of any kind?<br />
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5. <b>Magic keywords</b>. Pro-tip: If you feel that your argument is looking a little thin in places, or that your audience may have forgotten that you're on the Right Side, sprinkle in some references to undeniably positive qualities such as "individual freedom" and "moral autonomy", even though these have little to do with the matter being discussed.<br />
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6. <b>Unsubstantiated turning point</b>. My recollection of this part is hazy, as there was a lot of grumbling, shouting and laughter from the audience and the argument seemed too ridiculous for anyone to make... but I think it was argued that since the 1970s, we've stopped pushing for economic growth because we've prioritised science-led environmental concerns instead. There may also have been something about a recent hatred of industrialisation around the same time because 'science' makes us worry about public health? In any case, the golden age of responsible, morality-based politics at some point changed to the current technocratic tyranny. Evidence for when and how this is supposed to have come about was not provided.<br />
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7. <b>Ignoring other, obvious factors</b>. In this case, I was surprised that nobody mentioned the development of the environmental movement, which is not known for having completely overlapping aims with all scientists.<br />
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8. <b>Accusations</b>.Veiled (or not) suggestion that the other side's argument is very like racism. From what I can remember, arguing that politicians should understand the probable impact of their policies (and gain this understanding via solid, scientifically-tested research) was compared to the introduction of tests designed to exclude minority voters in the American South. Understandably, this did not go down well.<br />
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All of this means that the only thing preventing me from shouting "house" was a lack of mention of the Nazis, and a reference to "authoritarian governments since Labour", combined with the racism comparison, came pretty damn close.<br />
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___<br />
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For some further reflection on the panel: <a href="http://geekdom.daphshez.com/2013/04/i-went-to-manchester-and-all-i-got-you.html">http://geekdom.daphshez.com/2013/04/i-went-to-manchester-and-all-i-got-you.html</a>Vickyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11713978747815185893noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7914013211159822274.post-38502264863788199262012-12-05T01:42:00.000+00:002016-02-18T18:12:02.577+00:00This is how easy it is. No more excuses.There have been <a href="http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2012/nov/27/sweden-christmas-gift-girl-nerf-gun?INTCMP=SRCH">some delighted reactions</a> to the news that a particular toy company has released a catalogue which does not perpetuate the common gender divisions: girls learning how to be good mothers and home-makers, while boys get all the really cool stuff. There have also been the very predictable rumblings from people claiming this is all very unnecessary and PC and can't it just go away already so normal people don't have to wrap their heads around the disturbing notion that girls and boys may occasionally - of their own volition - play the same games with the same lumps of plastic.<br />
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Bloggers and websites such as <a href="http://www.pinkstinks.co%2Cuk/">Pink Stinks</a> do a great job of showing just how widespread this ridiculous, arbitrary division of pretend items is, but pointing out examples of such an omnipresent problem can give the impression that the change being called for would involve a massive restructuring of whole industries. Some of the arguing I've done on forums recently has been against people who think that businesses need to follow these established marketing patterns, or risk losing customers by being too radical, too political, or just plain confusing. In fact, this stuff is really bloody easy, and happens all the time without exploding anyone's heads.<br />
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Here's one example that struck me a while ago, and I'm hoping you guys will suggest some more. In <a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LbwzviroHck">this advert</a> for a building society, a man is greeted at the door by a boy and a girl. They both fly down the hallway with imaginary rocket packs. The little girl's rocket pack is the same size as the boy's and nothing about it is pink. It's just a little girl, playing at being in space. This ground-breaking destruction of the traditional, natural, universally-accepted-except-by-feminists gender roles in space - this utopian vision of sexless childhood - is entirely incidental to the product being sold. If the people doing marketing for a bank account can do this without fanfare, why can't the toy companies?<br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiLTZ7r3gF8Ovx2DEWH_rx_82wcUwF0RTPQ8J0DybakhTP-4zMCOWBYjYOTKAI4CqQrFqljl-8l184Eqk-QvGN2IvDqpChdoc8ECZKxyaLtB-6ZY4LaP93c97pj2LSt7dPVSuf4uzxBWnGP/s1600/rocket+girl.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="230" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiLTZ7r3gF8Ovx2DEWH_rx_82wcUwF0RTPQ8J0DybakhTP-4zMCOWBYjYOTKAI4CqQrFqljl-8l184Eqk-QvGN2IvDqpChdoc8ECZKxyaLtB-6ZY4LaP93c97pj2LSt7dPVSuf4uzxBWnGP/s320/rocket+girl.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>
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As a bonus, <a href="http://www.xkcd.com/1104/">this</a> is a cartoon in which a woman and a little girl get very excited about dinosaurs. It didn't strike me as at all unusual until I was writing this post.Vickyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11713978747815185893noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7914013211159822274.post-21736367244709772782012-09-02T18:30:00.001+01:002016-02-18T18:20:48.949+00:00What's the Evidence-Based Cure for Sexism?<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiru6bRL0osNSS2W5eM2PZO9_Wb_dPQ8_YrqfGX5cf8m4Y-7N0pRdJXxG93FeiScCZrjTJUwq934kJ1moS3ot20HeS2pqDW5f0g4-GSaLWf9moRyR7r304BrpzZhnVgPOuoq6hWYmlNER0_/s1600/Pink+pills.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="190" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiru6bRL0osNSS2W5eM2PZO9_Wb_dPQ8_YrqfGX5cf8m4Y-7N0pRdJXxG93FeiScCZrjTJUwq934kJ1moS3ot20HeS2pqDW5f0g4-GSaLWf9moRyR7r304BrpzZhnVgPOuoq6hWYmlNER0_/s320/Pink+pills.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>
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<i>For improved gender equality, swallow one</i></div>
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<i>capsule twice a day, with or after meals.</i></div>
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Seriously though, does anyone have a clue about this yet? Despite many centuries of discussion about the best way to organise a society composed of examples of two distinct physical types, we don't seem to be getting much closer to a definitive answer. The jury's still out on whether medieval codes of chivalry existed to protect women or to restrict the spectrum of possible gender roles. The debate still rages over whether women's suffrage groups achieved their aims or if World War One did the trick either in tandem with or in spite of some branches' tactics. Anyone who's tried to have a conversation either online or in person about the exact nature, history, aims, successes and possible continuing relevance of 'feminism' will have experienced the feeling that they're trying to pin a liquid tail on a gaseous donkey while sinking into a mire of rapidly-thrown shit. That's the feeling I get as a woman, discussing something I supposedly have an innate understanding of; I pity any man trying to make an informed and well-intentioned contribution. If we're ever going to rationally assess the best way to rid the world of sexism in all its forms, as it adversely effects the lives of both men and women, then we need to be aware of and try to eliminate those barriers to debate which have left us going round in angry, shouty circles. Particularly for those of us who call ourselves skeptics or rationalists, the principles of evidence-based reasoning must be respected:<br />
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RULE ONE: YOU ARE ALMOST CERTAINLY WRONG.<br />
We as humans are very bad at assessing what is important, at accurately weighing up the relative merits of arguments, and at forming truly unbiased opinions. Our personal experience or that of people we know is not sufficient basis for an opinion; on the other hand, personal anecdotes make up most of the data we have regarding the effects of sexism. We need to bear in mind at all times that we are having this debate within a heavily flawed social order, using language which is not ideal for the purpose, referring to a woefully inadequate amount of reliable information. Everyone in the conversation, including you, will be wrong in some way. The point is therefore not to win the argument, but to become slightly less wrong together.<br />
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RULE TWO: FOCUS ON THE INFORMATION, NOT HOW IT IS PRESENTED.<br />
It is not possible to have a productive conversation while simultaneously trying to change the way in which the conversation can be had. It is therefore best to assume that everyone in the conversation is trying to work towards better mutual understanding, no matter how much you may take issue with the way they express particular contributions or questions. Aim to criticise less, while both requesting and providing more context for what is being said.<br />
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RULE THREE: DO NOT IGNORE INCONVENIENT INFORMATION.<br />
Men can be victims of sexism too. More importantly, almost nobody needs to be told this at any point of the conversation and almost nobody claims otherwise. It would however be fair to say that men tend to experience it less often and in less severe forms than women do, and that they therefore don't suffer quite the same cumulative effects that 'everyday sexism' can have over time. That said, the gender of the speaker is not a reliable indicator of the validity of their opinion, or their ability to understand and relate to your argument. I'm one of those lucky females who has not experienced anything like the level of sexism most women in the world are facing. Reading the examples collected by the <a href="http://everydaysexism.com/">Everyday Sexism</a> project has made me realise how much I have been happily spared, by chance alone. I think that makes me less able to effectively relate to an argument about the nature and effects of sexism than a man who <b>has</b> experienced it or any other kind of discrimination. For example, I can't recall ever having handed my card to a waiter, only to have him hand the card reader to a male companion; if this ever has happened, I probably put it down to a lapse in concentration rather than conscious or subconscious sexism. I have never personally experienced the feelings of frustration and supposed dependence that this could cause when encountered often, but I expect that a male who has been frequently made aware that society as a whole expects him to pay for female companions would be every bit as keen to see attitudes change. It is easy to both over-exaggerate the significance of individual incidents, and to disregard them if they happen to a member of a group which suffers less discrimination on the whole. Both of these tendencies, and the ways in which we try to compensate for them, serve to skew our understanding and impair our progress to an evidence-based solution.<br />
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RULE FOUR: BE WARY OF GENERALISATIONS.<br />
Every example, however small or easily dismissed, is part of a larger, interconnected structure. Unfortunately, trying to treat every symptom of sexism could, hypothetically, make it harder to cure the underlying disease. As with the arguments about maintaining herd-immunity to diseases through universal vaccination or preventing the overuse of antibiotics, it is very difficult to tell people to suffer minor side-effects so that a more serious but less personal problem can be solved. I try not to look or sound annoyed when asked at a beer festival if I'd prefer something more 'girly' because I think that happily and enthusiastically chatting to the server about my preferences is more likely to have a positive, lasting effect on their assumptions. That's how I aim to approach most disagreements (though I usually fall far short of that goal) and, being human, I think my strategy is probably best. However, I don't blame other people for not smiling when told to do so by a stranger for the tenth time in a morning, or being all sweetness and light when groped on the bus, or staying perfectly calm while being told that they are the wrong gender for their chosen profession. Somehow it should be possible to establish whether a calm, positive approach within the overall public debate is more effective, without denying people the right to defend themselves or to release their frustration when they feel that the situation they are in at that moment demands it.<br />
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RULE FIVE: AVOID EMOTION.<br />
Perhaps more than any other area of debate, effective discussion of sexism stamps all over things which are personal and emotive. Everyone involved needs to be aware of this; if you or the person you are talking to is clearly getting upset, then take a step back, clearly indicate that you are doing so, and only carry on once you have re-established the aim and parameters of the conversation. Be aware that accusations of being emotional are commonly misused to dismiss people's opinions, but also be aware that there will likely be some truth to the accusation. Think I'm being unfair? Go and read RULE ONE again.<br />
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And, perhaps the most important rule for all debates:<br />
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RULE SIX: ANSWER ONE QUESTION AT A TIME.<br />
Data collected for one specific purpose cannot be used for another purpose entirely unproblematically. Arguments put forward by the defence in a specific rape trial are just that. The character flaws of Emmeline Pankhurst are just that. By all means have a discussion about whether a particular feminist has argued a particular point in the best possible way, or discuss the flaws in anti-sexist discourse as a whole, but make it absolutely clear at the outset which question you are answering and with what data. Don't be the person who tries to turn a call for boys to feature in adverts for toy prams into a discussion about the child support system. Don't assume that someone's opinion about the VAT on sanitary towels or their attitude towards nudity on Page Three is indicative of their stance on equal rights as a whole.<br />
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The success of all fields of research rests on a cycle of collecting and weighing up accurate information, finding reliable answers to small questions, establishing likely rules and models to answer big questions, and testing these rules with specific examples. Zoom in, zoom out, and zoom in again; all the while maintaining a clear idea of what you are trying to achieve. There's no reason why the problem of sexism can't be treated in the same way, apart from the fact that everyone involved, as established in RULE ONE, is always mostly wrong and is really bad at being told why.Vickyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11713978747815185893noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7914013211159822274.post-66601272144688927042012-08-16T23:23:00.003+01:002012-08-16T23:23:40.309+01:00Soundtrack to Skeptical StuffSongs chosen due to title, content or sheer bloody awesomeness. Further suggestions more than welcome, unless you suggest that I may like to get on with some proper work. If you're on Spotify then they're all here: <span style="background-color: whitesmoke; color: #333333; font-family: Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 18px;"> </span><a class="twitter-timeline-link" data-bitly-type="bitly_hover_card" data-expanded-url="http://spoti.fi/PseB0d" data-ultimate-url="http://open.spotify.com/user/vcrisis/playlist/7bsWrAj9xBCg1GWFCaBJOl" href="http://t.co/C6Z7ZLC5" rel="nofollow" style="background-color: whitesmoke; color: #0905f7; font-family: Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 18px; outline: 0px;" target="_blank" title="http://spoti.fi/PseB0d • 0 clicks via bitly">http://spoti.fi/PseB0d</a>.<br />
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Batman Soundtrack: Descent Into Mystery<br />
Lemon Jelly: Spacewalk<br />
The Lemonheads: Mrs. Robinson<br />
New York Dolls: Dance Like A Monkey<br />
The Hives: Hate To Say I Told You So<br />
The Vines: Highly Evolved<br />
The Black Angels: Science Killer<br />
Television: Prove It<br />
Devo: Praying Hands<br />
Supertramp: The Logical Song<br />
Eels: Mystery Of Life<br />
Miike Snow: God Help This Divorce<br />
Stars: I Died So I Could Haunt You<br />
Bombay Bicycle Club: Ghost<br />
Primal Scream: Movin' On Up<br />
Lord Of The New Church: New Church<br />
Queen: It's A Kind Of Magic<br />
Arrogant Worms: Jesus' Brother Bob<br />
Flight Of The Conchords: RobotsVickyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11713978747815185893noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7914013211159822274.post-15873193982416795632011-10-06T15:38:00.000+01:002011-10-06T15:51:08.683+01:00On not throwing poo in the Twitter zooFully aware of how oversensitive I was being, I've spent much of this afternoon frustrated, in tears, and on the phone*, because two people I'm friends with in real life, and whose general well-being I care about very strongly, were having the mother of all punch ups right there on my Twitter feed. It doesn't matter who started it; they're both in the wrong for having an argument on Twitter in the first place. Here's why:<br /><ul><li>Twitter is still a very small world. That person you just called a cunt, and invited to commit suicide? There's a good chance that someone following you knows them and will be more than a little upset at what you've said.</li><li>Twitter is public in the worst possible way. It's true that most people won't pay any attention to what you've said and it's almost possible to assume that you'll only piss off followers you were best off without anyway. However, the only people who will see the whole argument are those who follow you both, and they might not want a screen full of their friends hurling abuse at each other.</li><li>Twitter is not the context. Everyone sees their own stream and their statements are not taking place in the same environment as your statements. Twitter's weird in that the pool of people whose comments we read and respond to, particularly indirectly, is not the same as the pool of people who read our commentary. Brevity means that we can't introduce our remarks by explaining what prompted them. Anything anyone says is likely influenced by a lot of other stuff you've not seen, and it's not for you to judge whether their irony, sarcasm, hyperbole, self-deprecation, or outright venting was appropriate or not.<br /> </li><li>A lot of that anger you're feeling is because someone who doesn't know you has had the barefaced cheek to misjudge and insult you. Their anger is most likely rooted in the same feeling. The mere fact that you're in vague communication with them means you have a lot in common with them compared to the majority of the population, so refrain from projecting too much hatred onto them.</li></ul> If you're reading this, you're probably a friend of mine. I only tend to befriend, follow and interact with people I think are good, sensible people: left-leaning, human-rights supporting, critical-thinking, humourous, self-aware people who'd go miles out of their way to help a stranger. They're also mainly a bit messed up, selectively thin-skinned, provocative and prone to very dark days. You know, humans. So be nice to each other or I'll bang your bloody heads together.<br /><br />If, like me, you struggle to keep you cool and maintain a sense of perspective during online disagreements, stick a bit of Bill Hicks on the wall by your screen:<br /><br /><blockquote>"Today a young man on acid realized that all matter is merely energy condensed to a slow vibration, that we are all one consciousness experiencing itself subjectively. There's no such thing as death, life is only a dream, and we're the imagination of ourselves. Here's Tom with the weather."</blockquote>*Essentially trying to do this, but without the superpowers: <a url="xkcd.com/438/" url="http://xkcd.com/438/" href="http://t.co/sxp6kdGE" url="http://xkcd.com/438/" title="http://xkcd.com/438/" target="_blank" rel="nofollow" class="twitter-timeline-link">http://xkcd.com/438/</a>Vickyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11713978747815185893noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7914013211159822274.post-68107102157859571622011-08-24T22:37:00.000+01:002011-08-24T23:32:49.456+01:00Suggested supplementary training for ticket-inspection staff<div>To whom it may concern,</div><div>
<br /></div><div>I wish to bring to your attention a recent encounter with Virgin-affiliated ticket-checking staff working at Preston Station, following my journey on a Northern Rail service. In doing so, I hope to make staff at both Northern Rail and Virgin aware of the levels of rage they are conspiring to evoke in customers unlucky enough to have to negotiate between them.</div><div>
<br /></div><div>At 8.55am on Wednesday 24th August, myself and around 40 other passengers boarded Northern Rail's Colne service at Ansdell and Fairhaven. Railcard in hand, I was ready and waiting to pay for an open return to Manchester. Anyone familiar with this service will know that there is no means of buying or collecting tickets at the station (or at the next two stops) and that during the summer in particular, this hourly service can reach sardine-tin levels of overcrowding. Unsurprisingly and despite his best efforts, the conductor on this train was unable to sell every passenger a ticket by the time the train reached Preston, where most of us disembarked.</div><div>
<br /></div><div>It transpired that the unsmiling, bouncer-like ticket inspection staff at Preston were not at all familiar with the hourly train from Ansdell and Fairhaven, as first evidenced by their inability to find "Ansdell" on their machines. Never having found myself mid-journey without a ticket before, I assumed that the staff were stationed between platforms partly as an auxiliary means of selling honest passengers coming from unstaffed platforms on overcrowded trains the correct tickets. Apparently not. Apparently the job of these enforcement personnel is first and foremost to make people without tickets - whatever the reason - feel as though they were about to be hauled into custody at any moment.</div><div>
<br /></div><div>I was told, sniffily, that railcard discounts could not be applied to tickets bought "after you've set off", by which I assume was meant "after one leg of the journey has been completed". Unwilling to add another 50% to my travel costs due to my own honesty in the light of circumstances beyond my control, I explained the situation again, emphasising that this really was the earliest time I could have bought a ticket. Taking on the tones of the strictest of Victorian schoolmistresses , the woman in question told me that it was my responsibility to find the conductor, wherever he may be on the train. She repeated this statement at least four more times, despite my increasingly vivid accounts of the conductor's valiant passage down the train, pausing in his epic task of supplying tickets only when called upon to open the train doors. No, it was still my responsibility to procure from him a ticket, presumably via some kind of death-match competition against other passengers. Regarding her manner, I cannot remember having been subjected to such tones of belittlement and assumed guilt since I was last falsely accused of eating in class at primary school.</div><div>
<br /></div><div>A further suggestion from the front-line, friendly face of Virgin customer service: "You should have found the conductor on the platform when you got off here". If this is standard practice, and I have to say that I've never seen it attempted, I think we may have identified a major cause of those delays you're all so keen to cut down on.</div><div>
<br /></div><div>I had tried my best to remain calm and polite throughout this exchange, but I fear I was only saved from paying the penalty (for that is what the extra 50% most certainly is) by the fact that a far more openly enraged (and smartly-dressed) ex-banker next to me was having the same argument regarding her daughter's fare. Maybe if my t-shirt had featured "Mature Student and Ex-Teacher" in an imposing font, rather than a cartoon picture of an owl, I'd have been treated with less obvious contempt. On the other hand, maybe the supposed social standing and lung capacity of the passenger should have no bearing on how they are treated.</div><div>
<br /></div><div>I am long beyond hoping that the overcrowding on my local branch-line will one day cease to be a problem. If, however, you are to continue with the system of having staff from one company check that passengers travelling with another company have bought a ticket when they should have done, then those staff should be familiar with the conditions on that route. I therefore recommend a "gauntlet day" to be added to whatever training ticket inspection staff currently receive. This will consist of the following:</div><div><ul><li>Trainees should be deposited at one of the unstaffed stations on the Blackpool South line, preferably coinciding with the Pleasure Beach's opening weekend, the Illuminations switch-on ceremony, or a local derby at Bloomfield Road, and instructed to purchase a ticket from the conductor before the train reaches Preston. In the interests of health and safety, helmets and knuckle-dusters should be supplied.</li></ul><ul><li>If unsuccessful, they will be required to accost the conductor on the platform and purchase the required number of tickets from him or her, in the face of those passengers still on the train, whose journey they are now delaying.</li></ul><ul><li>To ensure that this training exercise conforms as closely as possible to the real-life user experience, trainees will be expected to figure out this final step on their own, as there are no signs in either train or station - or, I suspect, anywhere outside of certain ticket-inspectors' imaginations - indicating that this is an acceptable course of action.</li></ul></div><div>Of course I do not expect my suggested remedy to be adopted immediately. In the meantime, I would like to have official confirmation that I should have either jumped in ahead of other customers on the train, or held up the conductor on the platform, in order to avoid paying a much higher fare a few metres further into the station.</div><div>
<br /></div><div>Yours faithfully,</div><div>
<br /></div><div>V</div>Vickyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11713978747815185893noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7914013211159822274.post-82377291382699407092011-08-18T13:53:00.000+01:002011-08-18T14:01:31.426+01:00Stefan Collini on University Funding ReformsThe<a href="http://www.lrb.co.uk/v33/n16/stefan-collini/from-robbins-to-mckinsey"> full article</a> is well worth a read as it goes into some detail about how the government will attempt to control student numbers while maintaining the façade of university autonomy and student choice. This passage is from the final paragraph, and states something which should be right at the core of education policy:
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<br /><blockquote>The expansion of the proportion of the age-cohort entering higher education from 6 per cent to 44 per cent is a great democratic gain that this society should not wish to retreat from. To the contrary, we should be seeking to ensure that those now entering universities in still increasing numbers are not cheated of their entitlement to an <em>education</em>, not palmed off, in the name of ‘meeting the needs of employers’, with a narrow training that is thought by right-wing policy-formers to be ‘good enough for the likes of them’, while the children of the privileged classes continue to attend properly resourced universities that can continue to boast of their standing in global league tables. There is nothing fanciful or irresponsible in believing that this great public good of expanded education can and should be largely publicly funded. </blockquote>Vickyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11713978747815185893noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7914013211159822274.post-77148643254751834472011-07-11T21:25:00.000+01:002011-07-11T21:51:11.341+01:00Thanks, homeopaths!..for providing me with the easiest blog-post ever. Here are my answers to<a href="http://www.surveymonkey.com/s/KJL3D2N"> this survey</a> on the regulation of homeopathy (which contains not one molecule of balance, within bucket-loads of both leading and misleading questions).<br /><br />Preamble: "Homeopathy as a profession is under attack from groups such as Sense about Science and groups such as the Nightingale Collaboration. This Research will gauge public opinion as to the amount of information that the public and prospective patients wish to be able to access from professionally Qualified Practitioners only."<br /><br />(I would like to point out that I am not a member of either group, but of a group which would no doubt be considered similar. I still count my answers as part of 'public opinion'.)<br /><br />1. "Do you know what Homeopathy is?" - Yes<br /><br />2. "If you had a health concern, would you consider supplementing conventional medicine with alternative medicine such as Homeopathy?" - No<br /><br />3. "Have you ever taken a Homeopathic Remedy?" - No<br />(I've drunk a lot of bottles of water, many of which were whacked about quite a bit beforehand, but none of them have the kind of price-tag which would indicate that they were intended as remedies for anything other than thirst.)<br /><br />4. "Qualified Homeopaths are no longer permitted to explain how Homeopathy works or offer any evidence on their websites because of a ruling by the Advertising Standards Agency. Do you think Homeopaths should be allowed to explain how Homeopathy works?" - No. Homeopathy does not "work" (i.e. perform better than placebo). Any explanation of how "qualified homeopaths" may believe it works is therefore misleading.<br /><br />5. "Qualified Homeopaths are no longer allowed to state which medical conditions they treat. If you visited a Homeopaths website, would you find it useful or not useful to know which conditions they can treat?" - Not useful. The number of conditions which can be treated by homeopathy is zero. Attempting to list them is a waste of time.<br /><br />6. "Qualified Homeopaths are no longer allowed to give testimonials from genuine patients if those patients want to state that their health has improved as a result of homeopathy. (Testimonials means comments only from verifiable, genuine patients). Do you think testimonials giving details of improvement from genuine patients should be not allowed or allowed?" - Not allowed. There is no way of knowing from individual cases whether the improvement was due to the treatment given or any number of other factors. Personal anecdotes are not evidence that a treatment has worked.<br /><br />7. "Why do you think Homeopaths are being treated in this way?" - Because they have so far failed to check properly whether their treatments actually work, relying instead on the good-will and hopes of their patients. If homeopathic remedies did indeed have provable physical effects, this lack of testing and accountability would be reckless. Luckily for their patients, there is no trace of active ingredients.Vickyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11713978747815185893noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7914013211159822274.post-59986406761927205022011-06-06T13:19:00.000+01:002011-06-06T14:34:27.405+01:00Nothing's that amazing so no, we're not ecstatic.Charlie Brooker's right; it is incredibly petulant of us all to complain about something excellent and free suddenly becoming a little less excellent. <a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8r1CZTLk-Gk">Louis C.K.</a> is also right; we do have a tendency to complain about tiny insignificant aspects of a process which is, by the standards of previous generations, mind-blowingly awesome. Like air travel, for example:<div><br /></div><div><blockquote></blockquote></div><blockquote><div>Flying is the worst one because people come back from flights and they tell you their story. And it's like a horror story. [...] First of all we didn't board for twenty minutes. And then we get on the plane and they made us sit there. On the runway. For forty minutes. We had to sit there.</div><div>Oh really, what happened next, did you <i>fly through the air</i>, incredibly, like a bird? Did you partake in the miracle that is human flight, you non-contributing zero?</div></blockquote><div></div><div><br /></div><div>Valid point. But we didn't get this spoiled all by ourselves. We don't expect stuff to be perfect just because it's for us, we also have its providers constantly screeching at us about how life-changing an experience we're going to have just taking it out of the packaging.</div><div><br /></div><div>Brooker's <a href="http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2011/jun/06/spotify-problem-getting-people-to-pay">Guardian piece</a> centred around complaints that Spotify, as a free service, now limits you to a maximum of ten hours' listening a month. The next level up is £5 for unlimited, advert-free listening. Both of these options are much better than any way of getting hold of music that existed before it all became noise anyway*. But I can still understand why people are annoyed with Spotify, because I am too. Around 50% of the adverts - unmutable and significantly louder than the music - are for their own services. Don't have a smart phone? No matter, you'll still be told every ten minutes how much better the Spotify experience would be if you did. Synced the playlists on your computer already? That hip, young, friendly voice will still keep telling you what a swell idea it'd be to do so, right in the middle of you listening to one of them. Because nobody's allowed to be happy with a basic free thing any more, we have to be constantly told how much better it can get. </div><div><br /></div><div>Yoghurts. I'm struggling to find a variety of yoghurt that claims to only feed me, without reconfiguring my digestive or immune systems too. I don't want a fabric softener that makes strangers want to smell me or causes giant flowers to follow me to the shops. If I drove, I think I'd want something mostly like a car, not like a panther or a grand piano.</div><div><br /></div><div>We've developed this slow-burning, unfocused feeling of dissatisfaction and annoyance because we know that we're constantly being lied to by companies pushing their largely unremarkable tat. Yes, it's pretty damn fantastic that little old me can fly through the air and be in another country in less than an hour. I will never lose my sense of wonder at looking down on a cloud from above. But I will still be annoyed if you claim that making me print my own boarding card somehow benefits me, and if the plane's filthy but you still keep badgering me to make sure I've not left any rubbish behind. And incidentally, where's the smiling, flirting cabin crew your advert featured so prominently?</div><div><br /></div><div>Advertisers have trained us to be both spoiled and cynical. We may often choose the wrong targets for our complaints, but there's only so many sky-high expectations we can suppress at once. I've just about got the toiletries side of things under control. I can accept that foundation does not need to be breathable, that there is no DNA in skin cream but nor would it be better if there was, and that no camomile-scented, precision-engineered plastic backed wad of tissue will make me "have a happy period". But something's always going to give, so I'll be disappointed when a posh chocolate fails to make the room go all swirly, no matter how thankful I am that chocolate was invented at all.</div><div><br /></div><div><br /></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span">*Roughly around the time Beethoven started to lose his hearing.</span></div><div><br /></div>Vickyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11713978747815185893noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7914013211159822274.post-72679649115612995292011-06-01T03:56:00.000+01:002011-06-01T03:59:50.456+01:00A long-overdue follow-up...to <a href="http://violettacrisis.blogspot.com/2011/04/what-i-would-like-to-hear-in-speech-on.html">my post</a> back in April about David Cameron's utterly infuriating immigration speech. This one's over on my <a href="http://bit.ly/ii2TaN">history blog</a> because it includes a quote from the olden days and a picture of Frederick the Great.Vickyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11713978747815185893noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7914013211159822274.post-38226962836903753542011-05-31T21:17:00.000+01:002011-05-31T21:23:33.940+01:00Cake!<div style="text-align: left;">Regardless of whether I baked them as a <a href="http://violettacrisis.blogspot.com/2011/05/anecdotal-lack-of-evidence.html">headache cure</a> or a <a href="http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2011/may/31/nigella-lawson-baking-feminist-act?CMP=twt_gu">feminist statement</a> on the worthiness of women's work (both quite dubious claims), they taste pretty damn good.</div><div><br /></div><div><img src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjVJHB5Pb06LGlz18OvPvNhALxzIdhikD7bqF_r7er6LbpuRGNsjzZOO6GVGRGrqhXbbOXt6RaR3bw4Iszwmv_7cfSj5MKHYfMAlfI7oILLQzfR2Y88sL7Muj35XCb87yIg8WMQAG7qK_49/s400/IMAG0068.jpg" style="display:block; margin:0px auto 10px; text-align:center;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 400px; height: 267px;" border="0" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5612977791370651554" /></div><div><br /></div><div style="text-align: center;">Chocolate butterfly cakes with whisky butter cream.</div>Vickyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11713978747815185893noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7914013211159822274.post-12989549277613150132011-05-31T19:48:00.000+01:002011-05-31T21:25:00.670+01:00Anecdotal lack of evidenceAbout two hours ago I got a really bad headache - one of those that makes your eye sockets burn and makes you want to run and throw up as soon as the room stops spinning. Even half an hour after taking painkillers it hadn't let up. Now, thankfully, it's gone. I'd love to know what stopped it so I can try the same thing again next time but I don't know whether it was:<div><ul><li>Having a glass of water</li><li>Lying down for 15 mins</li><li>My flatmate coming home and distracting me for a while</li><li>Having my tea cooked for me</li><li>Drinking a glass of fizzy sugary stuff</li><li>My flatmate leaving again and no longer distracting me</li><li>Looking at cake porn for a bit, deciding what to bake for a picnic tomorrow</li><li>Baking the usual basic <a href="http://violettacrisis.blogspot.com/2011/05/cake.html">chocolate fairy cakes</a></li><li>Listening to the White Album*</li><li>The painkillers finally kicking in</li><li>The temperature dropping slightly</li><li>Someone in the vicinity doing a bit of yogic flying</li><li>None, all, or several of the above</li></ul><div>There's absolutely no way to say for sure, and no way to even come close to an educated guess. That's why next time any of my friends has a headache I won't be advising them to drink water lying down in a cool room for fifteen minutes, as someone bakes cakes for them while singing along to <i>Everybody's Got Something to Hide Except for Me and My Monkey... </i>not even if I thought telling them that would distract them enough to make them forget they ever had a headache. I'll fetch the water and painkillers, because at least that's worked on more than just me.</div><div><br /></div><div><br /></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span">*Actually, I'm pretty sure this didn't help. The White Album is one of the worst possible things to listen to with a headache, second only to <i><span class="Apple-style-span">Einst<span class="Apple-style-span" style="line-height: 20px; ">ü</span>rzende Neubauten.</span></i></span></div></div>Vickyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11713978747815185893noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7914013211159822274.post-52608357367535391102011-05-29T22:12:00.000+01:002011-05-29T22:53:15.089+01:00Stop blowing holes in your plotsI'm looking at you, Pirates of the Caribbean team. <i>On Stranger Tides</i> was a great film, and worked well even without reference to the previous three. The silliness works well, to a point, but there's only so much my disbelief can be suspended before at least part of it has to drop. Here are the top five groan-worthy moments:<div><br /></div><div><ol><li>Does coal really catch fire that quickly?</li><li>I'm not convinced by that combination of king, palace, interior and location relative to the rest of London.</li><li>We have other prisons, you know, not just the Tower of London. If you're going to always go for the most popular local references, why not go the whole hog and drive them there in an anachronistic red bus?</li><li>Why would a pirate ship be so badly looked after? And holes in the sails? Your main character is pretty much entirely motivated by his love for a ship, and the freedom it represents to a pirate. Are we really supposed to believe that Blackbeard, with all the resources at his command, would put up with his ship having sails like fishnet stockings?</li><li>If you stand on a small tree, loop a rope around a thicker tree, and pull on the rope, the first thing that moves will not be the big tree.</li></ol><div>There was so much else that was done well in this film, it seems a shame to not put just that little more thought into it, and not set good actors out in very leaky vessels.</div><div><br /></div></div>Vickyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11713978747815185893noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7914013211159822274.post-90667103842427409002011-04-15T16:56:00.000+01:002011-04-15T17:09:39.944+01:00Letting everyone eat cakeI watched <a href="http://www.private-eye.co.uk/eyeplayer.php?media=142&">this video</a> on the Private Eye website, and nearly screamed. Going into a sweet shop is as far removed from the democratic system as you can get, because voting is not about you, as an individual, getting a favourite chocolate bar to eat all by yourself. The only system which allows that is a dictatorship, if you're lucky enough to be the dictator.<br /><br />Democracy is more like trying to settle on a set menu for a large group, to make sure that most people get a lot of what they like or what is good for them, and nobody has to go hungry. I tried to think through if AV is a better way of doing this, and realised that it's not really the system of voting that's the problem:<a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhGNvkD0yHT2TMWT27brULPUYo4-xpa6eUNV8-jJChrxDyAejGFGa-pGDb74uI0U01KneT_shgsAUmAAydhCjkQGSO67BLEYPiHgsWZbuPYtL7_n9-uGKKBGqtzQYjai76mdp_0_9qg10d_/s1600/Preferences.jpg"><br /></a><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhzoOfKoH5VmgiHIakGZcfCqpAl6J8PHPl7WClVA3bwnvAt8-akLoCj9rfXW85EHdWAqoVVKDnC_e-A6SFy5jGyBDIJYC6xjCfWqO9lw3wJElpOWJgwveQBt0yZ3kuAtbQi_4F_dO-P-3wL/s1600/Preferences.jpg"><img style="display:block; margin:0px auto 10px; text-align:center;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 134px; height: 400px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhzoOfKoH5VmgiHIakGZcfCqpAl6J8PHPl7WClVA3bwnvAt8-akLoCj9rfXW85EHdWAqoVVKDnC_e-A6SFy5jGyBDIJYC6xjCfWqO9lw3wJElpOWJgwveQBt0yZ3kuAtbQi_4F_dO-P-3wL/s400/Preferences.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5595842911494217570" border="0" /></a>Vickyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11713978747815185893noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7914013211159822274.post-90099698408936345422011-04-14T09:50:00.000+01:002011-04-15T16:56:28.984+01:00What I would like to hear in a speech on (im)migrationNo-one can compare Britain's communities today with the communities of the past and not see a decline in cohesion. Time was when people had roots in the place where they lived, and a useful role to play in society. People understood each other, took an interest in each others' business, took care of their common areas, and respected one another. Individuals sacrificed their time and resources for the good of the group, and outsiders had to work hard to prove their worth and justify their presence.<br /><br />Then a great plague came to Europe from the East, ripping the heart out of this age-old system. It was called the Black Death. As the death-toll grew and the feudal lords' workforce was decimated, those peasants who survived suddenly increased in value. They no longer needed to be as grateful for the mere fact that they were allowed to exist and to scrape out a living on the planet they had been born onto. They got it into their heads that maybe it wasn't just the very rich who could move to a different area, try new ventures, and improve their lot, but maybe everyone had the right to take some control over their lives. Quite often the question was not one of advancement, but of continuing survival.<br /><br />By the seventeenth century, however, most people were still staying where they had been put by Almighty God. Whether urban or rural, communities were stable, self-regulating entities, largely free from disruptive influxes of outsiders (who mostly just died by the roadside). But once again a change came to turn this peaceful, ordered world upside-down. Tens of thousands of people were forcibly evicted from their homes, and whole communities wiped off the map, as land was enclosed by those who were presumed to own it. Suddenly survival depended on the value an employer would place on your labour, and being valuable meant being in a city.<br /><br />The developments of the following four centuries; the growth of industries, better travel and communication, global imperialism, lower mortality rates; have meant that those same migration patterns, and the disruption they cause, are now happening on a massive scale. The same problems with integration which were once caused and faced by, say, families from rural Cheshire moving to slums in Stockport, is now caused and faced by groups of ex-pats working in Irish pubs for English tourists in Prague.<br /><br />Communities can be destroyed, conflict caused, people displaced and isolated for all kinds of reasons. Every time a residential area is bulldozed to make way for new business development, every time a large employer ups sticks to somewhere cheaper, every time a housing estate is built with no public buildings where people can congregate, every time a library or a community centre closes due to lack of funding, every time a village becomes the latest trendy target for holiday-home buyers or part of a city is owned almost entirely by student letting agents; each of these things prevents integration and stunts the growth of healthy, supportive communities.<br /><br />The only way to counteract the negative effects of migration both within and between national borders - apart from the reestablishment of the feudal system - is through government spending. It is local councils, charities and organisations which provide spaces where people can interact, and interaction is the only path to integration. If there's no museum or library to learn about local history, no town club day to bring people together, no drop-in centres for people to come to for help, then of course society will fragment as people have only their own families and friends to turn to.<br /><br />It would be wrong for a member of this government to blame immigrants from abroad for the damage done by market forces and crippling cuts to local services. It would be utterly perverse for them to demand integration while denying people the means to do so. It should be acknowledged that every individual has the right to earn a living, and that no-one should be punished for seeking work elsewhere, when the place of their birth cannot adequately support them due to forces beyond their control.<br /><br />This fact should certainly be acknowledged by those in power, who benefit from the very mechanisms which make migration from one's home and community a necessity for so many people.Vickyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11713978747815185893noreply@blogger.com1