Superficiality

I was reading this article by Johann Hari about the superficiality of Dubai. In recent years it has been the fastest developing city in the world and the planners have worked hard to create an engineered image of modernism and industriousness. As you can tell from the article there is a lot more to the city than that.

I mention this because it reminds me a lot of the Tory party. As much as they like to pretend that they're caring and compassionate and that they want to help people, in the the end they're still the party that says: “Yes, we will be a do nothing party, if the only alternative is to make things worse”, and that a recession if good for the nation's health

As much as they try to hide it deep down the Tory party is the party for people who are out for themselves.

The Bush administration in ten words

Here's a simple(ish) challenge for you, summarise the Bush Presidency in 10 words.
Here's Johann Hari's effort:

Collapsing economy, unravelling climate, 1,000,0000 dead Iraqis. Heckuvajob, Bushie.

I'm sure that anyone brilliant enough to choose this blog to read can come up with something equally (if not more) cutting. I will post mine later (when I've thought of something, I'm a Science student not Arts so don't expect too much).

Olbermann summarises the presidency:

A nice video of Johann Hari taking a slice out of Richard Littlejohn

I think Johann raises a very good point; publications like the Daily Mail that constantly stir up bile against immigrants and Islam and whatever else they happen to hate that week create a climate in which that kind of behaviour is acceptable. Littlejohn's response tells you a lot about the man, he had no arguements with which he could defend himself so he had to resort to being patronising.

This article gives a good summary of quite what makes Littlejohn such an unpleasant individual. It includes this segment which quotes from one of Littlejohn's own columns:

But when another genocide was being perpetrated – this time by black Hutus against black Tutsis in Rwanda in 1994 – he wrote, "Does anyone really give a monkey's about what happens in Rwanda? If the Mbongo tribe wants to wipe out the Mbingo tribe then as far as I am concerned that is entirely a matter for them."

Note the (possibly subliminal) use of the word ‘monkey’. Note the implicit idea that black people’s ethnic identifications are ridiculous – from a man who constantly ridicules the “smelly” French and “dictatorial” Germans.

I find this kind of bigotry disgusting; the fact that he is completely unable to empathise at all with the plight of fellow human beings absolutely appals me. That anyone in modern bBritain could so easily dismiss the brutal murder of over a million and the rape of even more speaks volumes about how far we still have to progress as a society.

Wikipedia has a list of incidents involving him and people who share the same low opinion of him that I do.

Here's another quote from Johann Hari's article:

The brilliant Marina Hyde of the Guardian has helpfully compiled a log of Dick’s references to homosexuality. In 2003, he referred “24 times to gays, 17 to homosexuals, 15 to cottaging, seven to rent boys, six to lesbians, six times to being "homophobic" and four times to "homophobia" (note Richard's scornful inverted commas), twice to poovery and once to buggery. That's a mere 82 mentions in 90-odd columns.” In 2004, he excelled himself, and “referred 42 times to gays, 16 times to lesbians, 15 to homosexuals, eight to bisexuals, twice to "homophobia" and six to being "homophobic" (note his scornful inverted commas), five times to cottaging, four to "gay sex in public toilets", three to poofs, twice to lesbianism, and once each to buggery, dykery, and poovery. This amounts to 104 references in 90-odd columns.”

I think it is an important role of the Labour Party to fight against the casual homophobia that permeates through society. Many times I have heard people casually throw out homophobic slurs such as "poof" or describe someone or something as "gay" if they do something stupid or "unmanly".

The use of slurs creates an atmosphere in which those slurs are acceptable, by doing so it brings violence against oppressed groups closer to the main stream. it is for this reason why we as believers in equality must do more than simply believe in it. We must speak out against intolerance, not just in speeches or at political gatherings but in public and social settings as well.

This recent ad makes the point very well:



(What would we do without Youtube?)

Christmas blood shortage warning

Some less than cheerful news from the BBC this holiday season on the problem caused by a drop in blood donation before Christmas:

"More people need to give blood to avoid a 50% drop in donations over the festive period, the Scottish National Blood Transfusion Service has warned.

The service said donations fell by 25% during the same period in 2007.

It fears the situation could be worse this year because Christmas falls on a Thursday, the most popular day for giving blood."

Donating blood is a fantastic thing and it's one very easy way to make a tangible difference in the life of a stranger.




But...

"If you have ever had gay sex, the NHS considers your blood contaminated for life."

If you get a tatoo of visit a country that has a high incidence of malaria you cannot donate blood for a year. If you have unprotected sex with a woman or if you're a woman you have unprotected sex with a man you can donate, no problem. However if you are a man and you have sex with a man (It doesn't matter if it's protected sex or not.) you are banned from ever donating blood. To some this policy is justifiable; gay men do have a higher chance of having HIV than other groups. However when you look at the risks this assessment is shown to be fundamentally flawed:

"The US epidemiologist and bio-ethicist Dr Scott Halpern crunched the figures for the court. Some 1 in 100 people who are infused with blood older than 14 days will die – and 13 per cent of infused blood offered by the Red Cross is older than that. This, he explained, poses a risk "thousands of times greater" than "the very worst predictions of HIV infection" if you let latex-loving gay men donate. Why? Because if the ban is lifted and gay men who practice safe sex are allowed to donate, a single HIV-positive blood donation will slip through clinical screening once every 5,769 years. That's one time between now and the year 7777 – or equivalent to it happening once since 3761 BC, when cities had not yet been invented."

I don't like having to employ caveats when I'm talking about something as selfless as blood donation, an act which is uncompensated and is to help someone that the donor will never meet. But i feel in this case it is necessary, the National Blood Service is discriminating against a group of people using very shaky reasoning and that weakens their ability to fulfill their purpose.

I have found an online petition that aims to convince the NBS to overturn their ban, I have signed it and I hope you will too.

Oh, and if you want to give blood in Aberdeen you can go to the Aberdeen Blood Donor Centre. There should be a chance to donate on campus in the near future but I couldn't find anything online, some organisations need to be a bit more internet savvy.

Senatus Populusque Britannicus

"Supreme executive power derives from a mandate from the masses..."

-Dennis

Monty Python and the Holy Grail

Wise words from Michael Palin there. I have been inspired to quote them by this article by Johann Hari in the Independent. It would seem that Prince Charles has decided that his position, achieved by birth, gives him the knowledge and expertise to make pronouncements on a variety of issues which he is at best partially familiair with.

However, as much as I could say about Charles' anti-science positions, including amongst others his campaigning to have "alternative" medicine practiced in the NHS (alternative because it hasn't been shown to work) at the expense of the taxpayer. But no, this post is instead a more general one. This is about the existence of the monarchy itself.

There are those who defend the monarchy, they say that spead over the 65,000,000 people in the UK the cost of the monarchy is very low. They say that the monarchy is a big tourist attraction and the Queen in an important ambassador for this country.

Well I say, I don't care. I don't care how much the monarchy costs, I don't care how much public work they do, I don't care how many tourists they bring in. I don't care because fundamentally for me this argument is not about logisitics, it's about ideals. It's about the idea that a person's status can determined not by their character or their achievements or by their own hard work, but instead that position can be determined simply by their birth. Be that birth "high" of "low".

I find it repugnant that in a modern country there is a family that by birth is set above all others. That there is a person who simply by birth has the right to decide who becomes PM, has access to government papers, and has direct access to a bully pulpit to propagate their ideas to the public and to politicians, no matter how asinine they may be. And not forgetting that it is a fundamentally discriminatory organisation; it is now 179 years since the passing of the Catholic Relief Act 1829 allowed catholics to sit in the House of Commons and yet still being a catholic, or being married to a catholic, makes a person ineligible to become the monarch. That is the reality of the monarchy, and such a thing as no place in a modern society.

What I'd like to know is what everone else thinks...

This is Obama's chance to end the Star Wars fantasy

Another well written and thought provoking article from the Independent's Johann Hari:

The US has spent $160bn, only to increase the nuclear danger to itself and the rest of us. 

The world is still pleasurably suffering from Woah-bama whiplash. Did he really win? Are we all awake? And would anybody mind if he starts a few months early? The need for decisions is rapidly piling up – and one of President-Elect Obama’s first choices is whether to bring to an end the strangest story ever told in American politics. 

It is the tale of how a man with Alzheimer’s Disease came up with a physically impossible fantasy based on a B-movie he once starred in – and how the US spent $160bn trying to make it come true. These billions succeeded only in making some defence companies very rich, and making Russia point its nukes at Poland and Britain once more. Oh, and if Obama doesn’t decide to close this long-running farce now, it will make one more contribution to world history: the number of Weapons of Mass Destruction in the world will dramatically increase.

Read the rest here.