Suzanne Robinson's blog

Gaddafi dead

2011-10-21T13:29:00.003+01:00

This is the monstrosity of a front page published in the Sun today. I have blacked out the images because some of you may find them disturbing and not wish to see them. Although I suspect they already caught your eye if you happened to go past any news agents. If you really want to see it in its full ‘glory’ please click here to see various newspaper pages.
“THAT’S FOR LOCKERBIE And Yvonne Fletcher. And IRA Semtex victims.”
So ok Yyonne Fletcher was shot by a gunman in the Libyan embassy and Gaddafi was apparently a friend of the IRA and provided them with Semtex.

But hold on a minute, hasn’t the British government sold arms worth tens of millions of pounds to Gaddafi’s regime? Didn’t they sell a £5million package of water cannons and armed personnel carriers back in 2007?

The regime used these weapons to slaughter pro-democracy protestors

The list goes on, lasts summer the Coalition government approved licences to sell products to Libya including ‘crowd control ammunition’ and ‘tear gas/irritant ammunition’ and towards the end of last year sniper rifles were shipped to Libya.

Military export licenses to Libya alone since the start of 2009 totalled £61.3million, according to Department for Business figures.

If we are to agree with the Sun’s headline then a Libyan who has lost a family member could just as easily hunt down and kill David Cameron and Nick Clegg and say “That’s for my son!”

Did you know that we also sell arms to Mugabe’s regime? I have to wonder if he’s the next target...

There are also many other countries we sell to: Saudi Arabia, Egypt, Algeria.

And then our media frown upon the Chinese government who were going to sell £124m worth of weaponry to Muammar Gaddafi's government.

Pot. Kettle. Black.

Remembering 9/11

2011-09-11T14:29:00.005+01:00

If I were to pick a date of the top of my head and then ask you what you were doing on that date ten years ago, I doubt you’d be able to tell me exactly what you were doing. That is of course unless it was your birthday or some sort of anniversary or if you were somewhere special. Yet virtually everyone could tell you exactly what they were doing on September 11 2001.

I remember being sat in a history classroom at secondary school. I can even picture who was sat round the table. Suddenly our teacher was telling us something about a plane hitting a building in New York. Of course most of us thought it must have been an accident.

When I got home that afternoon it was obvious that this was no accident. By that time the towers and the people trapped inside them had all ready been reduced to dust.

Horrified, I watched dreadful footage which looked like it had come from a multi-million dollar action adventure film be repeated before my eyes. Huge passenger planes disintegrating into nothing, desperate people waving pieces of cloth or items of their clothing from the windows of the towers, panic-stricken people plunging to their deaths, two enormous towers collapsing into a pile of debris. It took just 12 seconds for each tower to fall.

Once when I visited New York I stayed in a hotel in the financial district. The view from the window would once have been the Twin Towers stretching up into the sky. Instead I saw a building site. I could barely imagine what someone must have felt if they had have been stood watching at that window as the horror unfolded.

It sickened me that as I walked around this area people were coming up to me trying to sell souvenirs. One woman, for example, was trying to peddle 9/11 calendars. Each month had a different sickening image in it. Families and friends who lost loved ones there must be disgusted when confronted by such a thing.

I also noticed one man on the subway wearing a 9/11 cap embroidered with an image of one tower still standing and the other disintegrating as if it was a hat with the Eiffel Tower on it. But then again perhaps he too was directly affected by the tragedy.

Nearby the towers is a fire station and upon its wall is a long piece of artwork “dedicated to those who fell and those who carry on” which depicts valiant firefighters and the smoking towers and at the bottom of it are the names of those who died. To its left is a poster with each of their photographs. A total of 343 paramedics and firefigthers died that day.

In total there were 2819 deaths and 3051 children lost a parent

A mere 26 days later bombs began to hit Afghanistan. The bloodshed took a different turn.

By the end of November 2010, 4,409 American soldiers had died in Operation Iraqi Freedom and 31,395 were wounded.

In Operation New Dawn, more than 300 servicemen from other nations had been killed and many more maimed, disabled or psychologically injured for life.

In Afghanistan, in excess of 2,000 soldiers from 48 different countries were killed in the first nine years of the conflict, including 1,300 Americans, 340 Britons, 153 Canadians, 43 Frenchmen and 44 Germans.

Around 12,000 police were killed in Iraq between 2003 and 2010.

In Afghanistan, Afghan National Army casualties totalled 2,820 in August 2010.

Then there are the civilians who, victims of living in a war torn country – as many as 14,000 people dead and at least three or four times that number wounded or permanently disabled.

An Afghan’s average life expectancy is a shocking 45 years. You would have to go back a long way to match that in Britain or America.

For Iraq estimates vary, but a very conservative estimate suggests that between 65,000 and 125,000 have lost their lives from the eve of the invasion of 2003 to the end of 2010.

I still have to ask: “Why return bloodshed with bloodshed?”

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To see more figures click here and and here

Burning for attention

2011-08-10T15:58:00.005+01:00

Politicians, media commentators and the general public are busy trying to make a sense of these riots. What caused them? they ask.

There are many hypotheses floating around; some blame police, some blame the government, some blame social media and some even say it is because of the Grand Theft Auto Game.

One the one camp you have people who say it is just pure criminality, hooliganism, in the other there are those who argue it is political protest. Personally, I sit in neither camp.

I am not here to pin down a specific reason for the unrest - personally I believe the causes are multiple.

There has been mass condemnation of the violence. Indeed, it is not something to be praised and is repulsive but there has never been any doubt that arson, muggings and lootings are dreadful occurrences.

But let me tell you what is also dreadful: it has taken this explosion of violence for the community of Tottenham to be noticed.

We are constantly bombarded with images of dying African children and war victims but we miss the suffering that goes on in our own country.

Tottenham is one of the poorest London boroughs with 10,000 people claiming jobseeker’s allowance and 54 applicants chasing each and every registered job vacancy; a situation which has clearly not been improved by the government’s violent cuts.

A community that has felt marginalised, harassed and desperate finally gets noticed, albeit for the wrong reasons.

In an NBC report, a young man in Tottenham sums up it all when asked if the riots were achieving anything: He replied. "Yes. You wouldn't be talking to me now if we didn't riot, would you?"

The young man then added: "Two months ago we marched to Scotland Yard, more than 2,000 of us, all blacks, and it was peaceful and calm and you know what? Not a word in the press. Last night a bit of rioting and looting and look around you."

Those gathered outside the police station in protest against Mark Duggan’s shooting, were equally ignored.

Tired and frustrated after hours of silence, anger exploded and a riot ensued.

The tragic life and death of Amy Winehouse

2011-08-02T14:06:00.003+01:00

Last night I dreamt of the last few moments of Amy Winehouse, and awoke thinking how sad it was that she was completely alone. It is one thing to take drugs with friends, but to take something when completely alone seems so profoundly sad to me. Clearly she was trying to escape from life because it felt too much for her. I don't imagine it was ever her intention to die. We are still awaiting the results of toxicology tests and it may be revealed that it was in fact alcohol withdrawal which killed her . If people go cold-turkey after alcohol addiction, without the help of benzodiazepine, this can cause hallucinations, fever, strokes, heart attacks and seizures. It is woefully sad if it was in trying to claim her life back from alcohol was what killed her and equally distressing if it was because of her continuing her drug-fueled lifestyle. Perhaps it was a tragic combination of the two.

Tragic star Amy Winehouse died because of her drug and alcohol-fueled lifestyle

To die at 27 is such a waste of a life, and really her last remaining years were no life. The poor girl desperately needed help but instead the media enjoyed shaming Amy when she was at her lowest moments. For example one video the star made herself showed her asleep on a sofa with drug paraphernalia on a table in front of her after a long night of partying. She had invited her fans to come into her apartment for an after-party. Later in the video she turned down a request from her husband to perform public oral sex. In another low moment she was shown blooded and bruised wandering the streets of London following a fight with Blake Fielder-Civil. And these are just two examples.

I remember switching on the television once and seeing her performing live on stage. Within 30 seconds I had to switch off because I could not bear watching her in such a state. I could not bear watching her destroy herself.

Her voice was beautiful but her music gave a harrowing insight into her life and mind. "Rehab" is the classic example but I think the saddest songs for me are "Tears Dry on Their Own", because it reflects how lonely she was and how she was reliant on having a man for happiness and "Back to Black" because it shows how drugs became her life.

Singing and songwriting seemed to be her outlet but they were never enough, she still always turned to drugs and alcohol to escape from life. It seems that it was entertaining for the British public to watch her demise. It reminds me of the paparazzi camping outside Britney Spears' house to capture every moment of her deteriorating mental health. Thankfully, Britney Spears seems to have worked through the terribly dark times but sadly Amy Winehouse never did. She was another casualty to celebrity culture. And I wonder how little time it will be before it claims its next victim. Perhaps it will be 25-year-old Lindsay Lohan who is clearly in desperate need for help too.

Amy is not the only star to die at 27. Jimmy Hendrix, Jim Morrisson, Janis Joplin, Kurt Kobain, Robert Johnson are just the most famous people in the 27-club. This is not the full picture either because thousands of young people die young every year because of drugs. The number of drug deaths is also on the rise [NOTE: I link to this article but I do not approve of what the journalist has written. Even if the statistic was only 1% of 11-15 year-olds have tried drugs this would not be 'promising'].

Rachel Whitear's body as it was found in her flat

Some such as Rachel Whitear whose mum wanted a graphic photograph of her dead daughter to be used as a warning, make it into the public eye, but many die unnoticed. I do hope that Amy Winehouse's death will help others to claim their lives back from drugs and alcohol but it is so sad that she did not become an inspirational figure for winning the fight against addiction.

Sickening abortion statistics

2011-06-07T18:06:00.004+01:00

A statistic equally as distressing as the one that one in three people will get cancer is that one in three one out of every three women will have had an abortion by the age of 45.

This was just one of the statistics which shocked me about abortion.

Disgustingly the bpas website seems to use this as something to encourage women to consider abortion – “you are not alone” it says.

The Department of Health last month published the 2010 abortion figures for England and Wales.

In total there were almost 190,000 terminations, 0.3 per cent more than the previous year and 8% more than in 2000.

This is compared with 4,990 in 1969, the first full year after legalisation.
Shockingly, the abortion rate is now 17.5 per 1,000 women aged between 15 to 44.
More 19 and 20 year-olds underwent the procedure than women of any other age (33 abortions per 1,000 women) and there were 1,042 abortions among girls under the age of 15.

Perhaps the most shocking figure is that since the passing of the Abortion Act the total number of abortions in Britain has now reached over 7 million.

Imagine the difference those 7 million lives may have made to the world? Perhaps one of these unborn children could have found a cure for cancer or a way to stop global warming, or perhaps they could have convinced world leaders not to go to war. The possibilities are endless, or should I say were endless?

The proportion of women ending their pregnancies through the use of a pill has risen from 12 per cent in 2000 to a record 43 per cent last year. These so-called ‘medical abortions’ are only available at the start of pregnancy.

The proportion of terminations taking place under 10 weeks gestation also rose from 58 per cent in 2000 to 77 per cent last year.

Figures also show that more women are having repeat abortions. In 2010, 34 per cent of women ending pregnancies had had at least one previous abortion, up from 30 per cent a decade ago. In total, 85 women have ended seven or more pregnancies.

The total number of abortions in Britain since the Abortion Act was passed in 1967 is now well over seven million. There is now one abortion for every four live births in Britain and one out of every three women by the age of 45 will have had an abortion.

Sadly the government’s approach of reducing teenage pregnancy is not working. They build it around values-free sex education, condoms and morning after pills and the numbers of unplanned pregnancies are not going down. Instead it seems that abortion is currently being used purely as another form of contraception. But, and this is a huge but, it is not contraception.

Contraceptives work mainly by preventing fertilisation taking place in the first place whilst abortion ends a human life.

Now I understand that a woman who has been raped will probably not want to go through the traumatic experience of having the rapist’s baby. But I have to ask is it the unborn child’s fault?

There are always alternatives to abortion such as family members helping to raise the child, fostering or adoption.

An eight-week old unborn baby

Indeed, approximately one in three women will choose not to have an abortion if given time, space and support to consider alternative options.

Statistics regarding disabled babies are also shocking. There were 147 cases in 2010 where doctors ended pregnancies beyond the 24th week. Virtually all of these were carried on grounds that there was a ‘significant risk’ of ‘serious abnormality’ in the baby – in other words these babies were in the main severely disabled.
Note that 24 weeks is considered by most as the age at which babies can survive in a neonatal unit with good care.

According to Peter Saunders, a Sheffield doctor, most of these 147 babies, had they been in a neonatal unit rather than in the womb, would have been cared for like any other baby and most would have survived.

He argues that this shows that late abortion for disability is morally equivalent to infanticide and I have to say that I am starting to share his view.
Horrifyingly, abortion was made legal up until birth (40 weeks) for disabled babies through the Human Fertilisation and Embryology Act in 1990.
The total number of babies aborted in 2010 because they were in some way disabled (most of which were at less than 24 weeks gestation) was 2,290, nearly 10% higher than in 2009. The average for the past 5 years has been under 2000.

Now just because someone is disabled does not mean that they cannot leave a happy life. Of course they will still have more difficulties than a perfectly able person but they can still lead enjoyable and rewarding lives.

A friend of mine, for example, has a brother with Spina Bifida. Indeed he often has problems due to this disability but has still been able to enjoy a happy life, has enjoyed a good career and has a wonderful girlfriend.

None of this would have been possible had his mother decided to abort him.
And perhaps many, or even all, of the 128 babies aborted last year due to Spina Bifida could also have enjoyed equally as fulfilling lives.

Now if one of these babies had have been allowed to grow up but then was killed by one of his parents this would be seen as disgusting. Yet such bloodshed in the womb does not seem to cause such an outcry.

Researching a little more on the internet I also found that having an abortion can also increase the likelihood of Cerebal Pausy and premature births.

The book Women's Health After Abortion The Medical and Psychological Evidence, published in 2003 by the deVeber Institute for Bioethics and Social Research, reveals that the most recent studies point to an approximately 85 per cent increase in premature (or "very preterm", i.e. less than 33 weeks' gestation) births to women who have had a previous induced abortion. And this risk increases sharply with every additional abortion that a woman undergoes.

As well as Cerebal Pausy being 38 times more likely, premature infants suffer a very high rate of disability

Induced abortion, therefore, can have appalling implications for women who subsequently wish to bear a child.

This research also revealed to me that women are not being made aware of the range of physical and psychological risks they face.

A record-based, government-funded study of 9,192 Finnish women published in 1997 in a Scandinavian obstetrics journal also revealed that women who have an abortion are four times more likely to die from its psychological impact than those who have given birth.

The data suggests that that induced abortion produces an unnatural physical and psychological stress on women that can result in a negative impact on their general health.

A study by New Zealand's Dr. David Fergusson, published in the January 2006 Journal of Child Psychology and Psychiatry, found that women who aborted were at higher risk for suicide, major depression, anxiety disorder and drug dependence.

The need for psychiatric care also increases following abortion. A study published in the May 2003 Canadian Medical Association Journal revealed that women who have an abortion are more likely to be hospitalised afterwards for psychiatric care, compared to women who carry their baby to term. The study revealed that those who had abortions were 2.6 times more likely than women carrying a child to term to be hospitalized for psychiatric treatment in the first 90 days following the abortion or the birth.

Abortions also carry health risks. For example a study of 41,039 women sponsored by the College of Physicians and Surgeons of Ontario found that, in the three month period following an induced abortion, hospital patients had a more than four-times higher rate of hospitalizations for infections, a five-times higher rate of "surgical events", and a nearly five times higher rate of hospitalization for psychiatric problems than the matching group of women who did not have abortions.
Terminations also increase the risk of breast cancer by denying woman of the protective effect of full-term pregnancy.

Indeed, approximately 70 epidemiological studies dating back to 1957 have reported data on induced abortion and breast cancer, and 80% of them show increased risk of breast cancer among women who chose abortion.

A 1996 meta-analysis also concluded that an abortion elevates a woman's overall risk of developing breast cancer by 30%.

Furthermore, whilst abortion is often regarded as a “cure” for the depression and stress of a crisis pregnancy, a study found that women are more likely to commit suicide after abortion than after giving birth to a child.

Gianna Jessen has Cerebal Pausy as a result of a failed termination

Gianna Jessen has Cerebal Pausy as a result of a failed terminationAbortion does not always kill the baby. Gianna Jessen for example survived a termination in which a saline solution was injected into her seven-and-a half week pregnant mother’s womb.

As a direct result of the procedure she developed Cerebal Pausy

The saline solution was meant to burn the baby which gulps it in the womb.
Gianna was burned alive for 18 hours.

I cannot see anyone seeing this acceptable to do to a baby outside the womb. Yet it is acceptable for an unborn child. Astonishing.

Abby Johnson has written a book about her journey from a worker in a clinic which performed abortions to someone who campaigns against abortion

And foetuses do indeed feel pain. As shown by Abby Johnson in her book “Unplanned”. This is a true story of a woman who used to be a director of a clinic where abortions took place but now campaigns for saving unborn babies lives.

At first, the baby didn’t seem aware of the cannula. It gently probed the baby’s side, and for a quick second I felt relief. “Of course, I thought. “The fetus doesn’t feel pain.” I had reassured countlesswomen of this as I’d been taught by Planned Parenthood. The fetal tissue feels nothing as it is removed. Get a grip, Abby. This is a simple, quick medical procedure. My head was working hard to control my responses, but I couldn’t shake an inner disquiet that was quickly mounting to horror as I watched the screen.

The next movement was the sudden jerk of a tiny foot as the baby started kicking, as if trying to move away from the probing invader. As the cannula pressed in, the baby began struggling to turn and twist away.”

She continues to describe how the baby’s tiny body was violently twisting with the cannula and that for the briefest moment it looked as if the baby were being wrung like a dishcloth, twirled and squeezed. The tiny body crumpled and began disappearing into the cannula leaving an empty womb.

You can read or listen to the first chapter of this book by visiting this website

There is nothing pleasant about abortions, not before, during nor after and I sincerely hope that the release of these shocking statistics will cause the government and others to campaign against them.

If you yourself or someone you know is considering an abortion please consider everything you have just read and remember that there are always alternatives.

Devastating hair loss with chemotherapy not inevitable

2011-06-04T13:42:00.002+01:00

Cancer will infect one in three of us at one point in our lives. And you are probably no stranger than this. I can think of so many people I know who have had family members get really ill or even die of cancer. A housemate of a friend was diagnosed with brain cancer part way through her medic degree. Fortunately she has now fully recovered. My own mother is suffering from oesophageal cancer. One girl I my volunteer work in New Zealand died of leukaemia. She was only in her twenties. A close friend’s sister did not even reach her 18th birthday after getting a rare form of cancer. And sadly this list is even exhaustive.

For many the devastating news that they have cancer is made yet more agonising knowing that they will lose their hair due to chemotherapy treatment. This is traumatising and psychologically devastating for men and women alike. For some this loss is permanent and they have to wear a wig for the rest of their lives, which serves as a constant reminder of the deadly disease. For others hair does grow back but it is never close to its former glory.

It is also often the most revealing sign that someone has cancer and some patients even refuse treatment knowing that hair loss is usually inevitable.However, I post this blog in the hope that someone reading this, or their friend or family member, may no longer have to suffer from losing their hair.

Paxman Coolers Ltd have developed a scalp cooling system which results in between 70-90% of users not requiring a wig after use and thus allows users to retain their dignity.
It also helps psychologically because it allows patients self esteem to be retained which can help to fight the disease.

Scalp cooling works by inducing the vaso-constriction of blood vessels in the scalp. It reduces the blood flow to the hair follicles during peak plasma concentration of the relevant chemotherapy agent (including epirubicin, FEC, FAC, docetaxel and paclitaxel). They extract heat from the scalp insuring even, constant temperature all over the scalp.

The caps are even light weight, soft and comfortable and cater for most head shapes and hairlines.

They are worn 30 minutes before the start of chemotherapy, during the treatment itself and for a period of time after infusion of the chemotherapy depending on the toxicity of the drugs.

If you would like more information on the system please visit Paxman Cooler’s website and please do tell others about their amazing system.

Ken Clark under fire

2011-05-23T13:24:00.010+01:00

I have just listened to Victoria Derbyshire’s interview with Justice Secretary Ken Clark and I have to say that I can partly understand why there was uproar about his comments on the programme.

It can be interpreted that he was saying that date rape is not a serious rape if you take certain comments made on the programme out of context.

In my opinion rape is rape. There is little or no difference to me between a man jumping onto a woman in the middle of the night as she walked alone through a park and then proceeding to rape her and a man seducing a woman in a bar, slipping rohypnol into her drink and then taking advantage of her and raping her.

Ken Clark came under fire for comments he made regarding rape on 5 Live radio interview

In both those cases the woman has been violated and has been made to do something she was unwilling to do. In both cases the woman is going to be extremely traumatised for a significant period of time, most likely for the rest of her life.

I can see where Ken Clark is coming from about trying to avoid a woman having to go through yet more trauma by having to relive her experience in a court room, nearby the perpetrator and being grilled by a defence lawyer. Indeed as a journalism student I have sat through rape trials and they are a gruelling experience.

Trials are necessary, however, because one has to be sure that the ‘perpetrator’ is indeed guilty because if he is not his life will be ruined. And there are indeed women who accuse someone of raping them when this is completely false.

However I do not agree that the perpetrator’s sentence should be halved if he were to plead guilty because this would put far more women in danger and would not deter him from re-offending.

Date rape is still rape. It can be just as traumatic as another form of rape

Having said all the above, however, I also feel that things have been blown a little out of proportion and the media have not taken into account the whole interview. I do not think that Ken Clarke was trivialising rape. Indeed he even admitted that date rape can be as serious as another type of rape.

He was still rightfully saying that rape is a serious crime. And Victoria’s interview technique did nothing to help him get this point across. I think the point he was trying to make is that if a rape is a particularly violent one then the perpetrator should be given a more serious sentence because it would be even more traumatic than if it was less violent. However, rape is of course ALWAYS traumatic. And just because violence was not involved does not mean it was not rape.

I also fail to see how someone being let out on licence can be a good thing for the public because even if the rapist is supervised this does not stop them from re-offending, as shown by Gabrielle on the 5 Live interview.

I also do not think that being put on the Sex Offenders Register acts as a deterrent.

The interview serves to remind us that rape is a very complicated issue to deal with and that it is important not to take something out of context.

I do not think Ken Clarke should resign. Victoria Derbyshire, however, should brush up on her interview techniques and actually take time to properly listen to the person she is interviewing.

To listen to the interview click here or to read the full transcript click here

If you are a victim of rape, or know someone who is, and would like to support you can go to the Rape Crisis website and find your nearest support centre.

Viral criticism

2011-03-22T21:18:00.004Z

It takes very little time for something to be a viral global sensation.

Quickly a video spreads like a disease. You watch it and then you tell your friends about it and they tell their friends and before you know it has reached all over the world.

When I was a lot younger I used to drive my brother mad with recording myself singing and performing radio shows on the tape player that had been offered to me as a Christmas present.

I used to pretend I was Suzannah Louisina, a global radio sensation. Sometimes I’d even stand in front of the television pretending that I was on the Suzannah Louisiana Show, putting on a very American voice and acting a little like a cowgirl.

I, like many, dreamt of being famous all over the world.

The latest viral sensation is a song by a 13-year-old American teenager which has been widely described as the worst song ever.

When I last checked Rebecca Black's pop song called Friday has been viewed on YouTube almost 40 million times.

It has trended on Twitter and has been the subject of huge online comment and discussion.

People have criticised the lyrics saying they are awful.

They include: "yesterday was Thursday Thursday, today it is Friday Friday", "gotta get down to the bus stop, gotta get my bus, I see my friends" and "we we we so excited, we so excited".

Ok I admit the lyrics are pretty cheesy and somewhat lacking in correct grammar but in my opinion they just reflect slightly innocent teenage life in which pleasure is taken just from going out with friends.

We must all remember such a time, before the pressure kicked in to start drinking alcohol and before life got harder.

People have also criticised the teenager's heavily auto tuned singing and video.
But let’s face it a lot of songs out today have been heavily doctored on audio programmes.

It was shocking to read some of the comments on the video and it is here where to me the word “viral” fits the picture.

It seemed that criticism and mocking of an innocent 13year old girl spread like a disease.

Admittedly “Friday” is not a stunning piece of music but there is no need for such nasty criticism of a 13-year old girl who is just trying to live out her dream of being a famous singer.

At the time of writing the song is at the number 33 position on the ITunes download chart so it would appear that she may live out her dream after all despite all the scoffers.

I’d much rather listen to innocent and somewhat childish lyrics such as these than songs which make light of domestic abuse, drug abuse etc.

Save our forests

2011-02-11T17:43:00.003Z

Do you remember the last time you were in a forest admiring the dappled light from the sun breaking through the cover of the trees or watching a squirrel hopping from tree to tree or listening to birds singing their hearts out?

Sadly, if the government gets what it wants, the next time you are in that area you may instead be 'greeted' with a golf course or holiday village. Or perhaps the forest will be there but only for you to admire from a distance behind an ugly fence.

The government is planning a massive sell off of our national forests. Once a forest is gone it is gone. Trees take tens or hundreds of years to be grand. This would severely impact wildlife. Imagine for example that the New Forest was lost; there would be nowhere for the ponies to roam and many other animals and insects, would lose their habitat too.

Beautiful squirrels and other wildlife could lose their homes

Furthermore trees are so important because they provide homes for wildlife but also plants are the start of the majority of food chains. And they help to reduce the amount of carbon dioxide in the air.

The Forestry Commission has the expertise to sustain, protect and conserve woodland wildlife. A private company would not have this vital knowledge.

The government have announced that they will pause forest sell-offs for a few months. But this doesn't mean that our forests are not still in danger. The government is still going full steam ahead with changing the law to press ahead with changing the law to clear the way for a 100% sell-off.

It appears that they hope the fuss will die down if they pause a few sales here and there whilst they press on with quietly scrapping legal protection for our public woodlands.

Sheffield South East MP Clive Betts, of Labour, said: "According to the Government, this is a measure geared towards boosting public control of the environment as part of their ‘localism’ agenda.
"This comes despite evidence suggesting that the public are opposed to the plans.
"In a poll conducted by YouGov for example, three quarters of the two thousand polled were against privatisation."

Supposedly it is to give the public far greater control of their environment. Yet they could so easily be prevented from accessing the forests that 30 million walkers, runners, bikers etc currently enjoy.

David Cameron can only change the law – and sell all our forests – if MPs vote the changes through Parliament. That makes MPs a key target for stopping the sell-off.

To see what your MP has to say click here.

Unfortunately my local MP happens to be Nick Clegg, who unsurprisingly is saying what a good thing it will be for everyone.

He said: "Under the consultation paper recently published by Environment Secretary Caroline Spelman, England’s best known historic forests will be protected for future generations through the possible transfer of heritage forests such as the New Forest and the Forest of Dean to charitable trusts, while commercial land could be leased, with strict protections built into its clauses. "

But in my opinion why should non-historic forests be given any less protection?

If you want to stop this happening sign the petition and or email your MP

Raw materials grab

2011-02-10T13:53:00.005Z

Kenya is a country with high unemployment, crime and poverty; most

"I lost my job in the tanneries in the 1990s. Employment was down then and, when I eventually found a job, it was only as a casual labourer. I earned very little. Now I’m back full-time."
Joseph Njugauna, a skilled worker in Kenya.

Kenyans live below the poverty level of $1 a day and droughts frequently put millions of people at risk.

The lucrative tourist industry certainly helps the country greatly as tourists are regularly attracted by the scenic beauty and abundant wildlife and the prospect of going on a safari adventure.

Around 7,000 people recently came out of unemployment and the leather industry sector’s earnings have gone up by almost €8 million due to the government of Kenya placing export taxes on raw hides and skins in recent years.

This move has helped to keep the raw materials in the country, boosting the Kenyan leather industry.

But this is severely under threat because the EU is still calling for major restrictions on the use of export taxes in Kenya and elsewhere, for all raw materials such as hides, ores from mining and wood from deforestation.

This means that the growth in many sectors will be severely stunted which could cripple poor and developing countries. And we also cannot ignore the impact this will have on the environment because it will encourage deforestation and increase air miles.

I strongly believe that the EU must let poorer countries manage their raw materials and exports in the public interest as well as negotiate investment agreements in line with their social, economic and environmental needs.

The European Union is acting selfishly in its own interests and we must stop this from happening.

SPEAK, with Traidcraft and a coalition of campaigners across Europe are campaigning to stop this from happening and you should to.

Take Action by or signing a SPEAK Pray & Post Card.

Psychological bullying is physical

2011-01-18T15:25:00.006Z

Virtually all of us will have experienced bullying at some point in our lives; perhaps as a victim, perhaps as a witness or perhaps even as a bully. In a Beat Bullying survey 69% of children said that they were a victim of bullying and 87% of parents said that their child had been bullied. Furthermore, 20% of those surveyed admitted to bullying whilst 85% said that they had witnessed it. This shows a rise in bullying, which is no surprise considering that the soar of social media and the popularity of smart phones have made it easier and easier. Indeed according to research conducted in 2009 67% of teenagers in the UK spend most of their time using social media whilst 29% of teens say they have been bullied via the internet.

Bullying isn’t just simple, jokey name-calling. Bullying is sustained, repetitive harassment of a person in order to hurt them (physically and or mentally) for the sake of it. It is very serious and can have detrimental effects.

It is estimated that at least 20 children and adolescents a year commit suicide because of being bullied and this estimate is conservative. It also does not include the number of suicide attempts.

Bullied children are also more likely to be depressed and anxious and often struggle in school or play truant. They are more likely to carry weapons, get in fights, and use drugs.

Bullying can be psychological as well as physical.

It can also make people more likely to commit crime. A Swedish study by Dan Olweus in 1993 He found that approximately 60% of boys described as bullies in grades 6-9 had been convicted of at least one crime by the age of 24. Moreover, 35% - 40%of these boys who had bullied in school had three or more criminal convictions by their mid twenties.

Psychological bullying is often considered as “soft” because it is felt that it leaves no long-lasting physical damage. People think “Yes it may have made their childhood difficult but they grow up and get over it”. However, the latest research suggests otherwise.

According to neurologists being bullied leaves an indelible imprint on a teen’s brain at a time when it is still growing and developing.

Their hormones can be thrown even further out of whack, lead to reduced connectivity in the brain, and even sabotage the growth of new neurons.

Being ostracised by their peers leaves long term physical damage to their brain.

Sickeningly, these neurological scars closely resemble those of children who are physically or sexually abused in early childhood.

It is as damaging to mental health as emotional abuse from parents.

Martin Teicher, a neuroscientist at McLean Hospital in Belmont studied the effects of being verbally abused by a parent. The study included more than 1,000 young adults.

Teicher found that verbal abuse could be as damaging to psychological functioning as the physical kind. So basically words can be as hurtful as sticks and stones.

This sparked the idea of looking at peer victimisation.

He scanned the brains of 63 of his young adult subjects who had no history of parental abuse.

He found that those who were mistreated by their peers had observable abnormalities in a part of the brain known as the corpus callosum. It is a thick bundle of fibres connecting the right and left hemispheres of the brain. It is vital in visual processing, memory, and more. The neurons in their corpus callosums had less myelin, a coating that speeds communication between the cells. Myelin is vital in an organ like the brain where milliseconds matter.

It remains to be seen what these changes may lead or whether they’re connected to the higher rates of depression that Teicher found in bullied children.

“There may be some subtle neurocognitive difficulties,” he said. “We’re currently doing research that will allow us to answer this question better.”

This is not the only study to suggest there are physical effects of bullying.
Tracy Vaillancourt, a psychologist at the University of Ottawa, has been following a group of 12-year-olds, including some with a history of peer victimisation. She has been assessing their functioning every six months.

She discovered that being tormented by peers can recalibrate children’s levels of cortisol which is a hormone pumped out by the body during times of stress.
She found that boys who are occasional bullied have a higher level of cortisol whilst bullied girls have abnormally low levels of the chemical.

Bullies can make children's lives hell but organisations such as Beat Bullying are helping to stamp it out

Cortisol can weaken the immune system. At high levels it can damage and even kill neurons in the hippocampus, potentially leading to memory problems that could make academics more difficult.

She also found that that teens who are bullied perform worse on tests of verbal memory than their peers.

Research into this area is still in its early days and much remains to be understood by neuroscientists. It remains difficult to thoroughly disentangle cause and effect.
For example it is possible that children with certain hormonal levels or brain characteristics are more likely to be bullied in the first place.

Encouragingly, however, changes in the brain do not always result in long-term damage.

Indeed, some of the subjects who researchers suspected to have bullying-related brain changes went on to be happy, healthy adults.

However, the findings of this research are certainly provocative.
They raise some serious questions about how we should deal with and think about bullying.

I sincerely hope that schools and governments all over the world will take heed of this research and act accordingly.

The Conservative party appears to be taking some steps to reduce bullying. For example in April George Osborne announced new plans to do more to address homophobic bullying in schools.

However, I fail to see how giving heads the power to exclude homophobic bullies tackles the real issue. Unless given profound education about how horrible bullying really is, the child is just going to carry on victimising in the next school that they end up in.

Furthermore a quick search on the Conservative Party’s website brings up very little about anti-bullying.
In addition, rules to protect pupils from bullying will be scrapped as part of Education

Secretary Michael Gove's desperate bid to boost his planned free schools network.
Measures include getting rid of guidelines that urge schools to record bullying incidents.

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To read more information on recent research click here

Beat Bullying is a fantastic organisation working with children and young people across the UK to provide them with opportunities to make positive and lasting changes to their lives and outlook. They work intensively with those so deeply affected by bullying that they can barely face going to school that next morning and aim to change the attitudes and behaviours of bullies themselves. If you are feeling generous why not donate?

And why not contact your local MP to say that more needs to be done to beat the bullies?

Buy a beautiful single and help beat cervical cancer

2010-12-21T13:39:00.004Z

In the kitchen of her family home sits a blue and empty chair. It is where her mum always sat.

It is so iconic of the emptiness felt at the loss of a parent.

There are always little things, objects of sentimental value, photographs, hearing certain words, a song, which remind you of them.

Sarah Phillips

Her name is Sarah Phillips and back in February, aged just 16, she poured her heart out in bedroom, recording her note-perfect version of Paolo Nutini’s Autumn Leaves on her mobile phone.

It was one of her mother’s favourite songs. Just four and a half hours later her mother Debbie died at the family home in Chiswick surrounded by her family, losing her fight against cervical cancer. Debbie was 48.

Sarah wanted to sing Autumn at her funeral but knew that she would probably break down.

So a family friend Charlie Mole set her recording to music, added some clips from the Phillips’s family videos.

It was first played at Debbie’s funeral and was released on YouTube just days later.

Sarah’s hope was for it to bring comfort to other families facing a similar tragedy but it was even more successful than that. It quickly became an internet sensation.

In just five days the clip had more than 5,000 hits and became the second highest new entry in the music charts.

Since then it has had more than 450,000 hits and has raised more than £100,000 for cancer research.

Sarah’s mum was born on 22 October 1961.

She was Head Girl at Sheffield Girls’ High School and, and in 1983 she was awarded a First Class degree in Law at Bristol University, achieving the highest mark ever recorded.

It is at University she met her husband, Mark. They married in 1984.

Debbie qualified as a solicitor and worked for six years at the City law firm, Freshfields, where she excelled. As and Queen’s Counsel her clients included Lewis Hamiliton and Arsenal Football Club.

In 1990, her eldest daughter Katy was born. Debbie chose to stop working and became a full time mother.

Sarah was born and in 1993 followed by her brother Jack in 1996.

The Phillips family: Sarah, Jack, Debbie, Mark and Katy

Debbie devoted herself fully to the care of her children. She was active on many class and parents’ committees, helped out in the library and the school shop.

She was described as a mother who always had time to listen and help.

She was warm, kind and generous and loved by everyone who met her.

Debbie had regular cervical smear tests and between 1990 and 2005 these were reported as negative.

But these smears were misread. Both in 1990 and 1999 the smear tests should have raised alarm.

Her cervical cancer was only identified in 2006, less than 12 months since her last smear test. Her cervix was 100% tumour and the cancer had spread into her ovaries and lymphatic system.

In November she was declared cancer free. But sadly after just 10 months the cancer was back.
Intensive chemotherapy, surgery radiotherapy failed to cure the cancer. By 2008, the cancer had spread to Debbie’s brain. She fell into a coma following a brain haemorrhage.

She was hospitalised for weeks and despite more extensive treatments she was left blind. For another 14 months she battled on following two further courses of chemotherapy.

As her health detiorioated her children bravely carried on their lives as normally as possible, according to their loving mother’s wishes. Katy achieving four A grades at A Level and secured a place at Oxford University to read Spanish and French. Sarah achieved an equally impressive ten A stars in her GCSEs and Jack continued to play football and shine in school reports.

The family spent their last summer at their five-bedroomed villa in France – the dream holiday home that Mark and Debbie had built eight years ago.

They went home at Christmas. Debbie asked for some time alone as she went to each room of the house. It was clear to her husband that she wanted to look at everything for the last time.
On 11 February 2010 Debbie could fight no longer and died of another brain haemorrhage triggered by her tumour.

Two days before, she became paralysed and bedridden, but was lucid to the last and on the eve of her death was able to speak lovingly to each of her children.

Her last words to Katy and Sarah were simply, ‘I love you.’ Her last words to Jack, having told him he was a ‘gorgeous boy’ were, ‘You are going to bed now, aren’t you.’

During the progression of the illness it became clear to Sarah’s friends and family that there was no dedicated research into a drug treatment specifically for Cervical Cancer. So they set up the Debbie Fund to raise sufficient funds to ensure that the necessary research can be carried out by a team of scientists at University College London.

It will be used to fund a senior post doctoral scientist with appropriate expertise to establish the laboratory programme. It will also fund a technician, and, from year two, a PhD studentship in order for the work to progress at a reasonable speed.

Professor Chris Boshoff and his team will work on novel drug development for cervical cancer with an aim to establish methods that will ultimately identify and test ways of treating cervical cancer.

Money raised by the Debbie Fund so far (almost £460,000) means that the research could start in a matter of months.

But this is just the beginning. Much larger scale activities will be needed for a major advancement towards cervical cancer treatment.

Every year around 1,000 women in the UK are killed by cervical cancer which is the 11th most common cancer in women in the UK.

It is the most common cancer amongst women in South Africa and Central America.
Each year 2,800 women are diagnosed with cervical cancer – that’s here are around 55 women every week.

More than half of all new cases — 1,650 — are diagnosed in women aged under 50.

Overall cervical cancer rates in Britain have almost halved in the past 20 years.
Death rates may be falling but cervical cancer still counts for one in ten cancer deaths among women worldwide.

Around two thirds of women diagnosed with cervical cancer survive their disease five years or more.

But there is still no cure.

However, those statistics could be far more promising if research is successful. But the only way it can be successful is if there is enough money for it to continue

One way you can help is by buying Sarah Phillip’s single “Say It’s Possible”. It includes her beautiful rendition of Autumn, her new song Say It’s Possible, which really tugs at the heart strings, and her version of the James Morrison song Broken Strings.

But my favourite has to be Blue Chair, which was written by Sarah and Charlie Mole.

She said: “These tracks are all about a positive outlook, possibility and hope. Being able to write the lyrics of ‘Blue Chair’ has been especially poignant for me; there is a blue chair in my kitchen where my mum used to sit and so even the title resonates strongly with my precious memories of her.

The lyrics are beautiful. The song makes me shiver especially the following lines:

“All I see is a blue and empty chair.

So don’t cry because it’s over. Don’t dwell on why or how. Smile because it happens. All you need is here and now.”

For as long as cervical cancer continues to be a killer there will continue to be empty chairs all over the country.

Help to stop leaving huge emptiness in families by buying the single.

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For more information about cervical cancer and how to spot the symptoms click here

To buy the CD click here

To download the MP3 on Amazon click here
To download the MP3 on ITunes click here

Tuition fee protest

2010-12-11T00:20:00.009Z

It started with tens of thousands of protestors, mostly students, gathered in solidarity against the motion to raise tuition fees to up to £9,000 (triple the existing fee).

As temperatures plunged and afternoon turned to evening students huddled together to keep warm. They sang and danced, chanted and tried to keep warm; some even lit small fires. But the fires that came afterwards were different.

The mood dramatically worsened when news rippled through that MPs had voted 323 votes to 302, a majority of 21, in favour of the motion despite vocal opposition from some Liberal Democrats and a handful of rebel Tory MPs.

Protestors wielding placards in protest against a rise in tuition fees

It started to turn ugly as gangs of teenage vandals began to appear. They overturned a disused plastic police booth and torched it, took placards off students and fuelled the flames.

They covered their faces with scarves, hoods or balaclavas began smashing the glass of phone boxes, pane by pane, with whatever they could find.

Other people tried to stop them but failed and they then turned on a cameraman. Iranian reporter Hassan Ghani was describing the day's violence live on PressTV when his Hungarian cameraman, Adam Apostol, panned around and captured the yobs on film.

There were cries ordering him to stop filming and the youths began sprinting towards him. He kept filming but retreated backwards as quickly as he could. But then he became caught up in his camera which caused him to fall to the ground.

The gang encircled him and began to kick his body and equipment as he covered his head.

No police officers were nearby so a few bystanders including Telegraph reporter Andy Bloxham placed themselves in between and shouted at the yobs to stop.

But the youths did not listen and started to attack the people trying to intervene. One boy of about 16 even pulled out a claw hammer. He was stopped by another gang member.

It is clear that these thugs and others had planned violence. They were intent on violence from the off and their target was always going to be Parliament.

Shameful: A protestor urinates on a statue of Winston Churchill

Fellow thugs disgustingly defiled a statue of former Prime Minister Winston Churchill by urinating on it, defaced and ripped flags from the Cenotaph – Britains’s sacred memorial to their war dead - , lit fires and sprayed slogans on the ground in the shadow of the Houses of Parliament.

They threw bottles of urine and other missiles including concrete blocks and a snooker ball at police.

A police officer was dragged into a gutter.

I find such behaviour absolutely disgusting. And it’s sickening that something which should have shown student solidarity, people power and should have defended the rights of the less well off turned into violent clashes.

Police and protestors clash

I also disagree with the way police dealt with the protest and it is little surprising that protestors, penned in like animals by riot police and not allowed to leave, started to react against them.

For a start police did not fully anticipate the scale of the protests. The kettling in technique was already criticised when used on around 5,000 people were outside the Bank of England during the G20 protests last year.

Although, in my opinion, they were in the wrong to use this technique this does not however excuse protestors pelting them with missiles.

Brain injury: Alfie Meadows, 20,needed emergency surgery when he developed bleeding on the brain after he was allegedly hit with a police truncheon.

But I also wouldn’t excuse the behaviour of certain officers - hitting a 20 year over the head with a truncheon hard enough to cause bleeding on the brain, pulling a disabled person from a wheelchair.

Apparently police described yesterday as a “good operation”. I’d hate to see how bad violence would have had to have gotten for them to say differently.

Aaron Porter, NUS President, said in a statement: "On 9 December, NUS organised a lobby of Parliament and a rally on Victoria Embankment.

Both of these passed off entirely peacefully and without incident. Unfortunately, another march not organised by NUS descended into chaos, as many of us will have witnessed in the media.

"NUS has consistently condemned violent protest as not only morally reprehensible, but also counter-productive."

But let us not ignore what their leader Aaron Porter wanted the government do.

He would prefer maintenance grants be cut rather than tuition fees be raised. According to the Telegraph he wrote to Vince Cable earlier this year to propose that student grants be cut by 61% over the next four years and that students be charged a higher rate of interest on loans.

The NUS also proposed that £2.4 billion be cut from the universities’ teaching budget over the next four years, which is a massive reduction of 48%.

Put briefly the NUS would prefer that the government drastically cuts support for low income students, thus making it much harder for people from socially disadvantaged backgrounds to go to university.

The NUS president told protesters: "We're in the fight of our lives. We face an unprecedented attack on our future before it has even begun. They're proposing barbaric cuts that would brutalise our colleges and universities."

Yet he himself suggested a 48% decrease in teaching budget. Such a huge cut in teaching budget would drastically reduce the quality of teaching. Such proposals hardly seem to be proposals which defend student’s rights, which by its very nature the National UNION of Students should be doing.

Daily Star falls for Chilean mine theme park spoof

2010-10-18T10:39:00.003+01:00

It was wonderful news that all Chilean miners came out of their ordeal unscathed.

It must have been so gruelling to be stuck down a mine for over two months.

The rescue was a beautiful display of human courage and determination.

The miners never gave up hope and neither did their rescuers.

It just goes to show how strong a human being can be.

I'm sure many people were astonished by their bravery, but perhaps more surprising is how gullible reporters and editors at the Daily Star are.

They exclusively revealed that the mine was going to be turned into a theme park:

"The Chilean Tourist Board now aims to turn the mine site into a money-spinning theme park. They are also set to offer adventure holidays including a trip underground on the rescue capsule that brought the 33 to safety.

No decision has been made on when it could be opened but a spokesman for Turismo Chile said: "We think many people will be attracted. There is great tourist potential."

It was no surprise that the story was an exclusive. They had in fact been fooled by a spoof story carried on a website called The Spoof.

Surely it would have taken all of thirty seconds to Google "Chilean Mine, theme park" to confirm that the story was fake?

Either the Daily Star staff are victims of falling money in the media and being over worked or they just lack common sense. I'm going to reckon for the latter.

Rise in tuition fees but fall in Lib Dem opposition

2010-10-12T17:56:00.002+01:00

As a student I’m very familiar with how much debt university can land you in. Not coming from a rich family I have to take out a tuition fee loan and a maintenance loan every year.

I still remember my mum handing me a letter from the student loan company one Christmas Eve outlining that I was already in £14,000 of debt.

I have to say it came as quite a shock having not done the sums myself, since I never really wanted to think about it.

Now the Browne review suggests that students could be set to pay even more money.

A review comprised of business people, vice chancellors and university employees.

The existing cap on tuition fees is £3,290 but this could be abolished and universities could decide for themselves what the fees should be.

Browne recommends that universities should charge according to their reputation and popularity.

In my opinion the danger is that rather than acting like universities, universities will behave like international corporations with more concern about how much money they are raking in than for the quality of education.

Universities would be encouraged to charge between £6,000 and £7,000 per year with the government allowing certain universities to go above those figures in special circumstances.

Universities should be democratic. But they would not be if they were charging up to £12,000 per year. That’s £36,000 for a three year course.

If the current plans do go ahead graduates will have to repay their loans at a rate of about nine per cent of earnings each year as soon as they begin to earn more than £21,000.

Those earning above this amount would face interest rate of about 2 per cent more than inflation.

Some graduates on the most popular courses at the best universities could be burdened with debts approaching £50,000.

The prospect of huge debt is very discouraging for poorer students and this could lead to a never ending cycle of poverty spanning generations.

Just one of the photos published by students of Lib Dems opposing tuition fees. This photograph includes Nick Clegg. The 'picture' is very different now.

I feel severely let down by the Liberal Democrats. How many more broken promises will there be?

They used to fight for the student cause in parliament.

When running for election the Lib Dem manifesto said that the party would abolish tuition fees if Nick Clegg was elected.
Nick Clegg said that tuition fees are “unfair” and “wrong”.

On 23 April he said to students at Newcastle Aviation Academy: “We want to abolish tuition fees. We think they're wrong. At a time the economy is submerged in debt, more debt is not the answer to debt".

The National Union of students claimed that up to 30 Lib Dem MPs were set to rebel yet today the Lib Dems appear to have completely backed down.

Business secretary and Lib Dem Vince Cable said the party had accepted that their opposition to graduate contributions was ''simply no longer feasible'' in the current economic climate.

Shadow business secretary John Denham hit the nail on the head when he said: "Isn't the truth that the coalition has decided to put the responsibility for reducing the deficit on to the personal banking accounts of this country's most ambitious and able young people?"

Clearly something had to be done to address the crisis in higher education funding with cuts of £518m in 2010/11. But the government is just trying to pass the deficit burden onto students the very people who will dictate the future of the economy. The very people the government should be helping.

Help will be offered to those in poorer families but, as suggested by Denham, people in middle income graduate jobs could suffer debt for the rest of their lives.

Denham said: "It's very obvious it's the people in the middle income graduate jobs - the nurses, the teachers, the middle managers - who will be hit because they will pay the debt off longer, many of them will still not have paid it off when their own children go to university."

This is extremely unfair and wrong… hmm don’t those words sound familiar?

If the Lib Dems won’t fight from their original corner it looks like it’s up to us students to do it ourselves.

ConDem changes to NHS Direct

2010-09-14T13:12:00.005+01:00

Every time I read about the changes the ConDem government are proposing to make I’m increasingly disgusted.

One such proposal was to reconfigure the way the NHS Direct service is run.

NHS Direct is a website and 24 hour telephone helpline “for health advice and reassurance, 24 hours a day, 365 days a year”. It also provides information about out-of-hours GPs, walk-in centres, emergency dentists and 24-hour chemists.

I have used it on numerous occasions and have found it exceedingly helpful.

Statements from the Department of Health last month suggested the service would be scrapped.

Proposals were to close down the existing service and replace it with a free 111 number.

More than 17,000 people have signed a petition to save the service.

Following this widespread public anger, Health Secretary Andrew Lansley made a “significant U-turn.”

Health Secretary Andrew Lansley has u-turned on plans to change the NHS Direct service

He claims that the only change made would be to the number itself.

"I have not announced plans to scrap NHS Direct. I have announced plans to phase out the NHS Direct number," he said.

But concern still remains that fewer medical staff will be employed by the new service.

NHS Direct employs 3,400 people, 40% of whom are trained nurses. It has been suggested that the number of trained nurses could be reduced to just one nurse manager to every 39 members of staff.

Callers would first speak to someone who had undergone 60 hours of training instead of a trained nurse.

Changes to the service were initially a Labour idea. But fortunately Labour people such as former deputy Prime Minister Lord Prescott have campaigned against them.

Labour has attacked Lansley for this "significant U-turn".

Andy Burnham, Labour leadership contender, said the back-track was a “significant victory” for the campaign to save the service.

I am very pleased that the Health Secretary has gone back on proposals but there is a huge danger that staff numbers will be significantly cut. This will result in a lower quality service and could potentially endanger lives.

Before we know it sick people could be phoning up a call centre where the staff member just reads of instructions on a screen instead of using any medical knowledge.
I encourage you to write to your local MP to stop this ever happening.

If you wish to sign the petition please click here.

And take a look at the Look After Our NHS website which campaigns against changes to the NHS service.

For example, they are fighting against plans for large multinational companies from the private sector being allowed to bid for contracts to supply NHS patient care on behalf of the NHS.

Profits made would not necessarily be fed back in the NHS. Share-holders would benefit whilst and patients would suffer.

Burn the religious hatred, not the books

2010-09-13T12:39:00.007+01:00

Two days ago saw the nine-year anniversary of the 911 terrorist attacks. From that terrible day the relationship between Islam and the USA was never to be the same again; it was severely wounded in an explosive blow. Nine-years on, far from being healed, the wounds are being freshly torn open and there is further bloodshed as a result.

Pastor Terry Jones called for a Burn-a-Koran day on September 11

Pastor Terry Jones disgustingly planned to burn copies of the Koran. Following international condemnation Jones has since cancelled his plans.

Although the event will no longer go ahead, there are bloody consequences of the plans. Three consecutive days of violent demonstrations have raged through Afghanistan. Two protestors were killed and several have been injured during a clash with security forces in the Logar province, south of Kabul.

The 500 demonstrators, who were chanting “Death to American” and “Death to Christians”, pelted security forces with stones.

The soldiers reacted by opening fire, killing two and wounding five others.

Protestors burn the US flag in Moltan, Afghanistan on 9 September, 2010.

I’ve no doubt that more lives will be lost in the next few days or weeks.

Apparently the pastor’s goal was to "expose that there is an element of Islam that is very dangerous and very radical." Clearly he missed the target.

As a religious leader, Jones should be advocating religious tolerance. Instead he has opened another of the can of worms labelled “religious hatred”.

By threatening to burn the Koran he encouraged the tendency of certain people to equate all Muslims with terrorists.

The 911 attacks were conducted by extremists. They called themselves Muslim, they claimed to be acting according to Allah’s wishes on behalf of all Muslims but in reality it was a small group of radicals acting according to their own despicable wishes.

The trouble is events like the proposed book burning encourage the (false) belief that all Muslims are related to terrorism. One would not equate all Christians to the IRA so why should one associate all Muslims to al-Qaeda?

And sadly this is also not the only example of Islamophobia in the news.

Proposals to build a mosque in the environs of Ground Zero have been strongly opposed. According to a TIME poll, 61% of Americans are opposed to plans to build an Islamic community centre and mosque at the lower Manhattan site.

If plans had been submitted to build a Christian church in exactly the same site there would be no uproar.

The proposed site is two blocks away from the northern edge of the Ground Zero site, which for those familiar to NYC is quite a distance - around the length of a football field.

Furthermore, just another two blocks away from the proposed site is a mosque called Masjid Manhattan. And another mosque, Masjid al-Farah is 12 blocks away. These two existing mosques have strong roots in the lower Manhattan community.

In my opinion it would be a good thing to build the Islamic centre near to the Ground Zero site because it can be symbolic of moving on from blaming entire religious groups for the actions of extremists who pretend to act in their name.

Come on America put religious intolerance under fire instead of allowing individuals like Jones burn religious hatred into the brains of citizens of the world.

Hell on Earth

2010-08-26T16:27:00.007+01:00

Willows weep in and around the grounds – a testament to the blood, sweat and tears shed here. Ruins still stand – a symbol of the lives destroyed. They called the entrance the gate to hell. This was hell on Earth. This is Auschwitz.

The ‘inmates’ were reduced to just a number tattooed on their forearm, even the children. Names didn’t matter anymore; they were either just animals for the slaughter or lab rats.

At nearby Birkenau, a camp build after Auschwitz was found to be too small, rows and rows of chimneys jut out of the ground, remnants of the wooden ‘cow sheds’ used to house the victims. Just as they destroyed the corpses, the Nazis had tried to burn down everything.

Work Will Set You Free. The people entering the camp often had no idea what was in store for them. Many came because of the promise of work.

Auschwitz was used as a working camp, prisoners forced to work for around 10 hours straight, every day apart from two Sundays a month. And for those who were punished for performing physiological needs even had this privilege taken away from them.
Every morning they marched to classical music through the camp gates which read “Arbeit Macht Frei” (Work Will Set You Free). The music was played by fellow prisoners.

And all they were fed to keep them going through these 10 long hours was a portion of coarse whole grain bread around the size of four thick slices and a large bowl of gray looking soup and perhaps some coffee or herbal tea. Daily they were given around 1,500 calories, half the amount needed for an active person.

Many died as a result of this gruelling regime or from punishments they received.
Others, especially the old, the infirm and the young, were sent to Birkenau for extermination.

They thought they were going for a shower. The gas chambers even contained fake showers to convince the prisoners.

The canisters of the lethal gas Zyklon B used to exterminate the prisoners

At Auschwitz is displayed seven tonnes of human hair, greyed with age just as the residents were aged by their stay there. One girl of 14 who was liberated resembled an 80 year old woman. The 7 tonnes of hair, thought to be mostly female, represents just a fraction of the total used as ‘hair-cloth’ for the German textile history. It was shaved off following gasing in the gas chambers, as if they hadn’t already taken their last shred of dignity as well. Gold teeth were also extracted from the dead bodies.

In general human hair does not deteriorate much with age but it has done so because the victims were killed with the poisonous gas Zyklon B. This gas, as proved by the analysis of the hair, contains lethal hydrogen cyanide.

In another room is a selection of suitcases, one bearing the word ‘waisenkind’ meaning ‘orphan’. The prisoners wrongly thought that they were going on holiday. How wrong they were. Amongst these suitcases there are also some baskets, which would have been used by the prisoners to carry their meagre belongings back to the camp.

Just some of the 43,000 shoes found at liberation

In yet another display case, taking up the length of an entire barrack are pairs of deteriorating shoes, mostly reduced to the same grey colour except for a handful of women and children’s shoes made of red leather. They were destined to be sold on to Germans. In total 43,000 shoes were found in a warehouse on the liberation of Auschwitz-Birkenau on January 27 1945.

Clothing too was collected to be sold on, even children’s clothing.

In another display is a huge collection of artificial legs and crutches. Apparently most of them belonged to wounded Polish war veterans.

And absolutely nothing was wasted, human ashes were used as fertiliser.

Fortunately we have never had to experience these horrors first hand, we have but images, remains, items and true stories to horrify us.

The Auschwitz camp was also a human laboratory. SS physicians carried out hugely inethical procedures on prisoners.

Doctor Carl Clauberg

Dr. Carl Clauberg for example experimented upon several hundred women housed in two large rooms in one of the barrack buildings at Auschwitz. He made them sterile by injecting a chemical directly into their reproductive system which caused severe irritation. This caused the fallopian tubes to shut. Many died from this procedures, whilst others were killed in order to perform autopsies.

He hoped to perfection this method in order to sterilise as many as 1,000 women in one day.

Dr Josef Mengele, perhaps the most infamous of all the physicians, performed experiments on twins, people with dwarfism and people with other physical peculiarities. This was to help perfection and spread the future German Arian super-race.

Doctor Josef Mengele - the "Angel of Death"

He was known as the ‘Angel of Death’

The first part of his experimentation involved gruelling and painful medical examination which would have been a particularly horrifying experience for starved and terrified children.

He then photographed the subjects, took plaster casts of their teeth and jaws and took their fingerprints.

This complete, Mengele then ordered the human lab rats to be killed using a phenol injection in order for the second stage of the experiments – the comparative analysis of internal organs at autopsy.

He was also interested in the colour of irises and was trying to find a way of turning all eyes blue.

And this was just two physicians. Other experiments conducted include X-ray sterilisation, examining the results of starvation and clinical trials.

Josef Mengele, the Chief Medical Doctor of Auschwitz, was never brought to justice. He never stood trial after fleeing to Argentina. He lived at liberty for 34 years.

Of course, even had he have been bought to justice it seems to me that it would still not be enough to pay for the horrors. Only hell would be justice enough; he and others could thus live an eternity in the way that their victims endured for but a few horrifying days, weeks or months.

If you are interested in visiting Auschwitz information can be found by clicking here. It is a very moving experience and I would definitely recommend it.

Ban the burka?

2010-07-16T21:18:00.003+01:00

On the eve of Bastille Day French MPs passed a law which forbids covering the face in public, or in other words prevents the wearing of Islamic veils.

There was only one vote against the passing of the law versus 335 in favour.

All that remains is for this law to be passed through the Senate in September. It is thought that it will sail through.

When the law goes through it will be against the law to wear the burka or the niqab in the streets.

Women who flout the law will be issued with a €150 (£125) fine and/or be ordered to follow citizenship classes.

Muslim husbands who force their wives to wear a niqab or burka risk a year of prison and a 30,000-euro (£25,000) fine, with both penalties doubled if the victim is a minor.

There are as many opinions on whether the law itself is ethical as there are on whether the burka and niqab are ethically acceptable.

I have to say that I am sitting on the fence. Or rather I’m clinging onto the fence, alternating between both sides.

I respect the opinion of some, such as Faiza Amjid, that the law itself could oppress muslim women further, the very people the French government are trying to help.

Amjid argues that the government is robbing the women of the chance to freely express themselves.

She says that the women who are oppressed by their husbands will now also be oppressed by their government.

Indeed, as Amjid explains, there will be some women who freely chose to wear the burka as part of spiritual development.

Traditionally Muslim women cover up because in their bible, the Coran, it asks that women be modest and cover their beauties such as their chest and hair.

There is no mention in the Coran about covering of the face. Wearing a burka is not an Islamic requirement but is rather something which comes from certain local cultures and traditions.
And for certain Muslim women this modesty can only satisfactorily be achieved by covering the face.

I do also sympathise with those who say that such dress should be banned. This is because in certain families women are forced to wear a burka or niqab as part of general subjugation by their husbands.

Certain Muslim women are beaten in submission by their husbands who claim that it is for their good so that they can enter into Paradise.

One such woman recounts her story in a book I read recently – Zeina, Sous mon niqab [Under my niqab].

To read extracts in French click here

Zeina, who belongs to a traditional Muslim family, remarks that during her childhood Muslim women who wore headscarves were few in number. Many wore jeans rather than jilbabs and allowed their hair to blow in the wind.

Her school life began much like any other French schoolchild but little by little a separation between ethnicities started. It became “Us” and “Them”.

She was never permitted to go to fellow students’ birthday parties and holidays were rather to see other family members than tourism.

She never went to the cinema or ate out in a restaurant.

But when she married the man she fell in love with her promised to take her to discover mulitplexes and to visit the Eiffel tower and the Champs-Elysées.

Their parents agreed to the young Muslim’s marriage and all went well at first. But it all started to change on a day that her and her husband crossed a veiled woman in the street.

“Macha’Allah! What God wants! Look at her, she is certainly a good wife. She is a good woman, who doesn’t want to show herself,” he said.

From then on every time they crossed a veiled woman in the street he exclaimed similar things.
Zeina pretended not to hear.

But one day he tells her that now she is married she should wear a headscarf. She didn’t really say anything to his demands at first and she felt she would wear some sort of veil later in life but much later, when she was retired. But he reiterated the demand again and again.

One day she is surprised by him on the landing. She laughs and asks why he is waiting for her there. Her laugh is cut short by a kick in the shin.

She asks what is the matter and he responds with a slap whether she counting on being an exhibitionist. According to him her clothing was “vulgar”.

This was just the start of the violence. Eventually she gives in and wears a bandana but this is entirely dissatisfactory for him; tresses of hair kept rebelliously revealing themselves. The violence escalates as he beats her into ‘perfection’; gradually she covers herself more and more beginning with a headscarf and finally ending up in a niqab and a piece of muslin to cover even her eyes.
When she sees her reflexion in the mirror of the lift it frightens her. She describes it as seeing herself in ghost form.

She describes how she became a shadow, without a face and without a name. She says she become “nothing”.

And nobody can see her bumps, cuts and bruises from the various beatings from her husband as punishment for not being a ‘good’ Muslim woman because they are covered by the niqab.

She becomes more and more isolated from the rest of the world, going out only to take her son to and from school.
It is only when a horrified neighbour catches sight of her wounds that she is finally liberated from hell on earth.

But this comes at a price because she ends up on the streets and her husband and family members constantly try and track her down for bringing shame to the family.

Fortunately she was able to escape from destitution and was taken back by the company she used to work with before her husband forbade her to work.

Zeina does not reveal how exactly she escaped so quickly from the streets because otherwise she risks identifying herself and being pursued by the family members. She explains that they want to punish her for being a “traitor” for daring to denounce the myth of their pretend way of perfection and of what that they call Islam but is instead a sect moving more and more towards violence in the name of Allah.

Her true horror story had a happy ending. But how many Muslim women die in the world every day never having lived?

How many Muslim women are still enduring a living hell?

How many Muslim women are prisoners of their own home?

How many Muslim women are beaten into nothing by husbands who want to ‘perfect’ them?

These women need help and I don’t feel that an outright ban on full Islamic dress is going to aid them. In fact the women who are suppressed into wearing a burka are likely to suffer more oppression from their husbands who will imprison them further because they refuse to allow them to leave the house without covering their face completely.

I think governments need to be less hung up on pieces of cloth and instead find more effective ways of tackling domestic violence.

Furthermore there needs to be better communication between the government and Muslim communities. Open communication needs to be encouraged rather than creating more and more barriers between different communities otherwise it won’t only be in schools like Zeina’s where there are sentiments of “Us” and “Them” but also in society, and even the world, as a whole.

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If you or anyone you know needs help or advice on domestic violence contact the Nation Domestic Violence Helpline on 0808 2000 247 or email helpine@womensaid.org.uk.

And for help on identifying if you are in an abusive relationship click here to read some advice.

Or if you know someone who is suffering form domestic violence click here for suggestions of how to help them.

Independence

2010-07-04T22:40:00.004+01:00

Happy Birthday the United States America! 234 years ago saw the official declaration of the independence from Britain of 13 Colonies in North America. Its declaration was welcomed by cheers and celebration by patriots at various cities of those colonies.

Early celebrations were nothing compared with those of today. The first anniversary was marked in Philadelphia with 13 gunshots, bell ringing, candles and firecrackers.
This modesty was understandable, however, given that the War of Independence which still dragged on until 1783.

In 1783 July 4 became a holiday in some places and it was marked by speeches, military events, parades and fireworks.

In 1941 it was declared a federal holiday. And today it remains the most important date on the calendar for American citizens with grand celebrations all over the States.

Today there are parades, fireworks, barbeques, picnics, carnivals, fayres, concerts and much more.

Nowadays far from being dependant, the USA is a super power, equalled only by Russia.

Today many countries are dependent of the USA. They rely upon the USA, especially in terms of arms forces and trade which can be helpful and or harmful for both countries alike.

Not being an American citizen, and not having any American relatives I will not be celebrating July 4. However, I think it marks a good occasion for myself and fellow non-Americans to remember the that many countries throughout the world do not have the luxury of independence.

All over the world men and women are being oppressed physically, culturally, spiritually, religiously etc.

These people long to be able to celebrate their own Independence day.

The country closest to my heart is Tibet, who’s leader the Dalai Lama will be celebrating his birthday in just two days time.

The Tibetans will not be rejoicing in celebration. They cannot even posses a picture of him, let alone pray or light incense to mark the 75th anniversary of his birth in the traditional way.

Neither will they will be waving the Tibetan flag in his honour. Like photographs of the Dalai Lama, it is banned.

Help the Tibetans move towards being able to celebrate by supporting the Free Tibet organisation.

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Whilst America celebrates its National holiday, the anniversary of another independence day is overshadowed – that of the Philippines from the USA.

Independence first dated from 1898 following three centuries of Spanish rule. It was a departure from the tyranny and oppression suffered by the Filipinos.

But this joy was short-lived. Five months later a new kind of oppression began. The Philippines were surrendered to the USA by the Spanish along with various other colonies (Mexico, Cuba etc).
And in 1941 war was declared on the USA and its allied nations, the Philippines included and many Filipino soldiers died in the war against Japan, fighting not in the interest of their own country but for the USA.

The Philippines were subject to Japanese rule for three years. This rule was ended following the devastating Hiroshima bombing.

Filipinos have in fact celebrated Philippine Independence on June 12 since president Diosdado Macapagal changed ‘Freedom Day’ from July 4.

For many this change greatly distorts Filipino history. Indeed the country’s real independence came on July 4 1946 when the Philippines were declared a Republican and this separate from American rule.

Nowadays it seems questionable that the Philippines are completely free. The country is still struggling and it is far behind in terms of economic progress compared with Japan, China and even the war-torn Vietnam.

On June 30 president-elect Benigno “Noynoy” Aquino III took over the presidency from La Gloria. All eyes are on him to lead the Philippines to the progress and democracy that has so far largely eluded them.

The Filipinos are looking at him for real freedom – freedom from poverty and freedom from foreign economic intervention.

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And finally something curious I noted today was that we say the United States IS rather than the United States ARE. This is grammatically incorrect but it reflects the national unity between each of the 50 states.

This is thought to have gradually become common parlance after the Civil War (1861-1865)

In the popular documentary series The Civil War, the late historian Shelby Foote explained:

“Before the war, it was said ‘the United States are.’ Grammatically, it was spoken that way and thought of as a collection of independent states. And after the war, it was always ‘the United States is’ as we say today without being self-conscious at all. And that sums up what the war accomplished. It made us an "is."

Photography and Willy Ronis

2010-06-27T18:04:00.005+01:00

I’ve always loved photography. There is just something so magic about it. Something so special about capturing a certain moment. Time is frozen. They say a picture can say a thousand words and it’s true that it is often easier to remember an event from a photograph than from just a memory in itself. Photography is powerful; it can change the course of a war, it can save lives, it can give us an experience of somewhere we would never be able to go.

Photography has changed greatly over the years.

The processes used for photography in factexisted long before the invention of photography itself.

The first of these processes is the Camera Obscura (latin for dark room) which was (reputedly) invited just before 1300 by Roger Bacon. There are even references of such a device from the 10th century when such a device is thought to have been used to look at solar eclipses. It was a dark box/room with a hole in one end which allowed an inverted image to be projected onto the opposite wall. And the principle of this was known as early as Aristotle circa 300 BC!

The second process was chemical. Certain people had already remarked that certain chemicals change colour when exposed to light and at the beginning of the 19th century Thomas Wedgewood successfully manage to capture silhouettes but was unable to capture them permanently.

The first successful capture of an image was by Niépce in the summer of 1827 using material which hardened when exposed to light. The exposure took eight hours.

This exposure time was reduced to half an hour by his business partner Louis Daguerr who created photographic plates and found he could make the image permanent by immersing it in salt.

This process, later known as the Daguerrotype, was bought by the French government, and quickly became popular. However, it was unwelcomed by certain people as it was felt that the process was sinful.

A newspaper report in the Leipzig City Advertise, for example stated:

"The wish to capture evanescent reflections is not only impossible... but the mere desire alone, the will to do so, is blasphemy. God created man in His own image, and no man- made machine may fix the image of God. Is it possible that God should have abandoned His eternal principles, and allowed a Frenchman... to give to the world an invention of the Devil?"

This process could only form one photograph. If more than one photograph was required two cameras had to be placed side by side.

The Calotype process solved this problem using paper negatives.

Who would have thought that these early processes would have developed into the technology we know today in the digital era?

Yesterday I visited the Willy Ronis exhibition at la Monnaie de Paris. It marks the approaching anniversary of his death (11 September 2009, aged 99). Willy Ronis (right in self portrait) is one of the most famous French photographers and is best known for his ‘poetic’ photography of daily Parisian life. The exhibition features a mixture of his best known works as well as others which were seldom published.

Surprisingly, in his childhood he seemed destined for the domain of music – he learnt how to compose and how to play the violin. He turned to photography firstly to help his sick father with his photographic studio in 1932 and secondly as a job as a freelance photographer in 1936 when he explored the world of the poor and working class.

He took pleasure in walking around the streets of Paris capturing scenes in the roads: picturesque scenes, children, lovers, people at the Louvre but also shanty towns and other housing for those with a low income.

The Parisian later captured the social movements at the Citroen (1938) and Renault (1950) factories as well as giving intimate images of the mining and the textile industries,

He was also commissioned to work for foreign press such as Time Magazine and Life.

He voyaged little since he preferred Parisian life, but on his travels he took many photographs (the Netherlands, England, the States, Belgium, The Reunion). For example, he was seduced by the ambiance of pubs and the multitude of neon adverts in London.

What I love about his photography is the fact that it is not posed. It is very different from his early experiences of photography which consisted of weddings, christenings and communions.

"Most of my photographs were taken on the spur of the moment, very quickly, just as they occurred," he once explained.

One image in particular takes my breath away – les Amoreux de la Bastille (The Lovers of the Bastille) . The view of Paris is magnificent but the most captivating part is the young amorous couple on the left-hand side. My love for it probably stems from the fact I can imagine myself standing there with a lover!

I shall leave you with a few of my favourite images.

Paris, 1953. This image is perhaps the most famous. I love how it captures the joy of childhood.

Rue Muller at Montmartre, Paris, 1934. I adore the lightning in this photograph. The light reflections in the rain moistened cobbles are magnificent and I’ve always had a soft spot for old fashioned cars.

Printemps [Spring] 1934. I also love how the sunlight is reflected upon the cars in this almost abstract photograph.

Vincent, airplane modeller. And finally I love this image of his son Vincent launching his model airplane, particularly because of the objects in the windowsill as they really give an idea of family life.

Seeing red on the 'unavoidable' emergency budget

2010-06-23T14:02:00.009+01:00

Chancellor George Osborne has announced the “unavoidable budget” as a move to “decisively” cut Britain’s debts.

The ‘tough’ package is set to raise £40bn more in tax rises and spending cuts than planned by the labour government.

VAT will increase from 17,5% to 20% from January and welfare spending will be cut.

Child benefit and public sector pay will be frozen.

There will be cuts too in most government departments’ budgets by around a quarter. However, cuts will not be made to health and foreign aid because they are ring fenced.

But most controversially they will be sliced for the disabled. This comes during announcements that The Independent Living Fund, which helps more than 21,000 people with severe disabilities has closed to applications less than three months into the financial year after running out of money for new grants.

In response to complaints that the budget will disadvantage the poor, Cameron says that there will be another three coalition budgets to help the poor.

This implies that more anti-poverty measures will be put in place in 2011. But in the mean time the poor will be forced to suffer.

"Everyone will pay something but the people at the bottom of the income scale will pay proportionately less than those at the top. This is a progressive Budget," Mr Osborne said.

He stressed that it would be done in a “fair” way with those who are better off taking most of the burden. But it is hardly fair that vulnerable people such as the disabled will suffer.

Furthermore, UK households, on average, will be about £400 a year worse off. The poorest 10% will lose £200 on average compared to £1,800 for the richest. The poorest will be hit harder than most as a percentage of their income.

The Conservatives claimed earlier in the year that families earning less than £40,000 per year would be affected by the tax credit policy.

This claim followed a Labour party election broadcast highlighting Conservative plans to “stop Child Tax Credit payments to hundreds of thousands of families on middle and modest incomes”.

‘Lies’ according to Home Secretary Theresa May. Who’s lying now?

I am disgusted by the cuts to disability benefits. I know people who are already struggling to live on the pittance they are given and now they will be forced to live on even less.

The Housing benefit will also be reduced to a maximum limit of £400 a week. The aim is to save £1.8bn a year by the end of the Parliament.

The health in pregnancy grant will also be reduced and the Sure Start maternity grant will be restricted to the first child only. Lone parents will also be expected to look for work when their youngest child goes to school.

The unemployment rate for the last quarter was 7,9% - up 0.1% on the last quarter. Trade unions warn that hundreds of thousands of jobs could be lost in the public services thus potentially wrecking local economies and sparking a "double-dip" recession. The country needs to create jobs, not haemorrhage them.

There is some good news, however. There will be an extra £150 a year for the poorest of families due to changes in family tax credits. And there are plans to help the low paid by raising personal tax allowances. This will mean around 880,000 people will be taken out of the tax system.

Basic rate tax payers will also see a cut of £200 per year. But for many that £200 cut will be annulled by losses in other areas.

The handicapped and disabled will be further crippled. It remains to be seen how long it will take for the rest of the country to be on its knees as well.

Picture 1: PA Images. The coaltion front bench listening Harriet Harman Picture 2: PA Images

Funny newspaper mistakes

2010-06-14T13:36:00.013+01:00

Newspapers do not always get it right. There’s no denying that. After all we journalists are only human beings. After seeing two absolutely killer mistakes recently I thought I would share them with you along with some others.

The first is on the Mid Bedfordshire edition of the Times and Citizen which appears to have given up on writing on headlines entirely because the filler headline was not replaced. Whilst this is quite amusing it just goes to show how hard pressed newspaper staff are nowadays due to lack of time, resources and staff. Copy editors are often cut which leads to mistakes being left in copy.
Times are definitely hard for newspapers. The Trinity Mirror Group for example recently announced savage cuts of a quarter of the journalists at its national titles Daily Mirror, Sunday Mirror and The People.

The second killer mistake was the on the sports page of the Murdoch-owned New York Post which claims that the USA football team won 1-1 against England. Ok I can see where they are coming from, it is the “greatest victory since Bunker Hill” and is therefore a moral victory but it’s no real win.

Here are a few more “great” mistakes for your amusement:

A journalist at Associated Press clearly needed to sign him/herself up to a literacy programme after failing to spell “Mississippi” correctly.

According to an American newspaper Tiger Wood’s plays with his own balls. I’m assuming they are talking about the golfing kind?

Staff at Reuters obviously had something else on their mind too when they were talking about the Large Hadron Collider.

A newspaper managed to turn a Grandparents' Day celebration into something more sinister.

But I think one of the best one has to be misspelling the name of your own paper.

In response to this error the editor said that “we sure feel silly”.

The university funding shakeup

2010-06-10T13:27:00.005+01:00

England’s University and Science Minister David Willetts says that the university system needs “radical change”. Maybe he should start by having a change of attitude towards students.

He said that the cost of hundreds of thousands of students' degree courses was a ”burden on the taxpayer that had to be tackled". He should wake up and realise the value that students have on society.

As Aaron Porter, president-elect of the National Union of Students, said Mr Willetts is undervaluing the benefit of higher education to society.

Far from being a burden to the taxpayer, students of today will be the innovators for getting the country out of the financial mess it finds itself in.
However, I do agree that a radical shakeup is necessary.

I know that at my university, the University of Sheffield, there are serious problems with funding. Money is being poured into renovations for the old library and the arts tower but departments are finding significant cuts to their budgets. This limits the amount of books they are able to buy and also threatens to reduce the number of staff members.

Students need to be provided with the most up to date information to keep up with the constantly changing world. And a high quality of education needs to be achieved and maintained. This will not happen if universities constantly have to make cutbacks.

In my opinion it is dangerous to completely scrap tuition fees because I feel that universities will have to perform huge cutbacks as a result of this. However, I do agree that the huge amount of debt students find themselves in is disgusting.

Despite the Liberal Democrate coalition partners fighting for a scrap in fees it appears that there are indications of the fees raising even higher.

Mr Willetts promotes the idea of students being able to study at any university in the UK.

“That means that you don't have the costs of living away from home but you do get a prestigious degree and that's actually how we spread our access to higher education," he said.

He suggests lectures and classes being held at local further education college or other institutes.

What he neglects to consider is the fact that many universities are specialised in certain subjects.

Mr Willets also wants to follow the London University system in which there is distance and flexible learning.
The University currently has 45,500 students studying by distance and flexible learning in 180 countries and 6,000 students doing the same in the UK.

In my opinion it is important for students to have regular face to face contact with their professors and lecturers. And distance learning deprives students of the whole university experience. After all university is not just about studying, it’s about the social aspect too.

Furthermore, I think it is a very rewarding experience for students to move away from home. It helps to build up maturity and independence and helps them gain valuable skills which will later help them in their adult working life.

Students should not be deprived of the full experience of university just because they are from a poorer background.

Picture of Mr Willetts taken by Eddie MULHOLLAND

Cumbria shootings and the aftermarth of war

2010-06-03T11:30:00.006+01:00

It has been a week for very shocking news. I was firstly touched by the aid-ship controversy but two other stories will stick in my mind for the significant future.

The first was the shooting rampage of taxi driver Derrick Bird in Cumbria. Twelve people were killed and eleven others were injured: three critically and five seriously. The father of two then shot himself dead.

It is the worst shooting in the UK since the Dunblane shootings in which Thomas Hamilton killed 16 children and their teacher at a school.

Police are still searching for a motive. But reports suggest that the new grandfather may have gone on his murderous journey following a row over a will

He shot innocent civilians indiscriminately.

This is a chilling reminder that bloodthirsty killers exist amongst us in the UK. Maybe even on our doorstep.

The second shocking news story was further away from home. A WWII bomb exploded killing three bomb squad members who were trying to defuse it.
World War Two had already been in my mind since visiting the Père Lachaise cemetery in Paris in which there are a number of disturbing monuments dedicated to holocaust victims.

I found myself thinking profoundly about war. And I thought, imagine how different the world would be if World War II hadn’t happened.

Perhaps you and I would not exist.

This bomb explosion was a reminder that all over the world people are still being affected by the war which broke so many families, so many lives.

And sadly we are still not immune from war. Somehow, even after millions of people were needlessly killed, wars are still going on all over the world.

It is saddening that everyday entire families are broken by bombs and gunshots.

PICTURES: Image of Derrick Bird released by his family. The second is my own, taken in the Père Lachaise cemetery. It is one of the monuments to holocaust victims

The Gaza controversy

2010-06-01T16:13:00.006+01:00

More than ten people were killed after Israeli commandos stormed a convoy of ships carrying 10,000 tonnes of aid due to arrive in Gaza.

This bloody interception reveals the continuous fragility and instability of the region of Gaza following over sixty years of problems since the creation of the state of Israel.

This is a huge step backwards for the peace process, which was already moving forward only in baby steps.

The relaunched “proximity talks” organised by the USA between Israel and the western-backed Palestinian Authority already appeared to be going nowhere.

Fresh hurdles will now have to be faced.

The unit was told to confront protesters verbally, use crowd control tactics and use firearms only to save their own lives, according to eyewitness Ron Ben Yishai who is a reporter of the Israeli newspaper Yediot Achronot.

The commandos expected just light resistance with the possibility of minor violence. But according to Israeli videos the passengers onboard began attacking with bats and other weapons.

The commandos used had been trained for combat, not crowd control and they were ill-prepared. It is claimed that they were acting in self-defence. But latest claims are that the Israelis opened fire before boarding the ships.

It is reported that paintball guns were initially used to calm the situation but tension increased and the commandos began using real weapons.

There was no legal right for them to storm the ships given this was in international waters. The passengers could be expected to use force against the commandos given the piracy and if the Israelis did open fire even before boarding this resistance is far from surprising.

Whatever the rights and wrongs of the commandos actions it is clear that serious action needs to be taken.

A huge amount of international attention has already been attracted following this controversy. It remains to be seen whether this outcry and condemnation will have any real effect or whether the area will remain further fragilised for the significant future.

I sincerely hope that the international community will finally stand-up to the Israeli regime.
PICTURE: AFP

Also featured on Up 2 the minute - a new website for blogs by journalism students.

Basic human rights

2010-05-31T21:50:00.006+01:00

Basic human rights: food, clean water, a decent standard of living, health care, education, freedom… the internet?

I’m lucky to live in a country where I have a relative freedom of information. I can access the vast majority of websites without too much intervention from my government. This is not the case for many other countries throughout the world. The most obvious example is China and its Great Firewall. Just scrolling down a list of sites which were blocked in 2002 the nature of the sites blocked is clear. Western media organisations are blocked, humanitarian organisation websites are blocked (such as Amnesty International for example), websites urging for freedom for China and Tibet are similarly inaccessible, websites which are anti-communism are also blocked, as well as religious websites.

China, which has the greatest number of internet users in the world, currently claims that internet access for citizens is completely open. Yet Chinese citizens still cannot search for certain keywords such as “Tiananmen”, “Dalai Lama”, “democracy” and “human rights.”

Censorship is managed by several ministries and administrations. In addition to the generalized filtering system, the largest blog platforms are also monitored. Search engines such as Google and Yahoo even contribute to the censorship.
State owned media websites are given daily instructions of what can and cannot be printed.

To create a website Chinese citizens have to register in person.

Breaking the rules can have extreme circumstances. There are many examples. In November 2009 Tibetan writer and photographer Kunga Tseyang received a five-year prison sentence for offenses that included publishing articles on the Internet. And the same month intellectual Liu Xiaobo was sentenced to an eleven year jail term for having written his opinions on the Internet and having participated in the launching of Charter 08 which was a an open letter signed by 303 intellectuals urging for legal reforms, democracy and protection of human rights in China.

The Xinjiang province was completely cut off from internet access. And to my knowledge it is still cut off today.

Everyday cyberpolice scan the internet for offenders and at cyber cafés users have to present photo ID and have their photo taken with a log of the websites they have visited.

Last year the censorship was particularly vigorous due to several controversial anniversaries: Tibet rebellion (in March), the 10th year since the Falun Gong spiritual movement was banned, and the 20th anniversary (in June) of the bloody quashing of student protests in Tiananmen Square (also June).
Upon each anniversary there was a blackout of Twitter, YouTube, Bing, Flickr, Opera, Live, WordPress and Blogger. In other words the main websites where Chinese people could have found out the truth.

Chinese citizens are getting wise to this censorship with more and more users turning to proxies and VPNs. But in doing so they are risking their freedom and ultimately their lives.

Cuban citizens must also bear extremely strict censorship . Like China, there is a communist regime.

There are only two parallel networks on the island: the international network and a tightly controlled Cuban Intranet which consists solely of an encyclopaedia, a few email addresses ending in “.cu” and some government news websites such as Granma. Outside of hotels, only a few privileged people have special clearance to connect to the international network. Moreover, whilst improvements have been made the internet remains out of touch for most citizens because of its high cost and low connection speeds.

The reason why these communist organisations impose such strict controls is because they know that the internet has the capability of causing an uprising. They know that the internet has the power to topple their regimes. Without the censorship the citizens would find out the truth about their governments. Without the censorship citizens could express their opinions and act as citizens journalists to show the world and fellow citizens what is really happening, just like Iranian citizens last year who used Western media organisations to inform the world about the resistance.

The internet is also a way of finding out the truth. The current BBC coverage of the Israeli attacks of the Gaza aid ships is thought to be very biased. To find potentially biased information users can simply find other sources such as Aljazeera

Complete freedom of information would of course be inacceptable. It is clear that certain websites should be blocked (and shutdown) such as child pornography websites and websites which incite violence and racism.

Above all, the internet is a way of exercising freedom of speech. And in my opinion the liberty of speech is a basic human right and thus the internet is by proxy a basic human right.

PICTURES: Original source unknown

The enrichment of a storm

2010-05-08T20:55:00.003+01:00

It can be easy to curse when the sky is full of dark, heavy clouds. We look up thinking “Don’t you dare rain!” And then it does. “Rotten luck,” we think. For me today it was, “Oh no but I’ve left the washing out!” That should have made me hurry along. But it didn’t. I was traversing a park. I stopped for a second. I looked at the grass, littered with buttercups and dandelions at various stages of flowering. In awe I looked at the trees and I thought how amazing they are, how vital they are to our lives. They are so majestic and tower above us. They sustain our lives. In looking up at the trees I found myself again looking at the sky. Suddenly the inky clouds were beautiful. We need those clouds. We need it to rain. Rain provides life. It feeds the earth and in turn feeds us. It such an amazing circle of life with everything dependant on everything else, in some way or another either directly or indirectly.
I watched Forest Gump today with a couple of friends. It’s such a beautiful film. It really shows how anyone can be capable of anything if they put their minds to it. Forest is a very simple guy but he does such incredible things such as saving comrades lives during the war of Vietnam. At first the Lieutenant curses him for having saved his life. He feels that he should have died in the battleground. For a large part of his life he drank away his sorrows unable to come to terms with losing both his legs. But by the end of the film he actually thanks Forest. By the end of the film he finds happiness.
It got me thinking about how amazing human beings are. How people are able to do such incredible things no matter what horrors life throws at them. When I was doing work experience for the Liverpool Echo I remember talking to the grandmother of Michelle Lewis who is endlessly doing things for charity. She doesn’t let her muscle wasting condition hold her back at all. Forest could have been held back by his lower than average IQ but he still ends up doing amazing things in life.
I was very sad to hear when a friend I’d met in New Zealand lost her battle with cancer. When I met I believe she was in remission but knew that the cancer could come back. But that didn’t seem to trouble her at all. She seemed blissfully happy. It’s so sad she died in her twenties but she did such amazing things in her life. The New Zealand trip being one of them. We spent two weeks doing conservation work and two week’s adventuring with a group made up of Americans, Brits and a German all in the cause of helping New Zealand’s native species. What was especially great for her was that she loved horses and was a HUGE Lord of the Rings fan. She fulfilled a dream doing a horseback ride across hobbit country. I’m so glad I was about to share the New Zealand experience with her. I know that it enriched her short life. It enriched all of our lives. After a month together we came back as totally different people. God bless you Katherine.
We all have certain things that appear to hold us back in life, whether it be illness, or lack of skill in a certain area or something else. We have more than enough other skills to make it so that the “problems” needn’t really get in the way.
There are always storms in our lives, but if we look at nature as a source of inspiration we need those storms. Sometimes we need it to pour down with rain. In nature lightening provides nutrients. We too can chose to allow “storms” in our lives be something enriching.
Life is beautiful. Life is precious. Have you ever just looked at the world and thought how incredible it is? And how amazing human beings can be? How beautiful life is? Why not spend a few moments now thinking about all the things you have to be thankful for. And if like me you believe in God, why not give thanks to Him?

Buttercup photo www.wildflowersofstrathclydepark.org.uk website

So this is democracy?

2010-05-07T04:07:00.017+01:00

I woke rather early this morning. My first thought was of the general election. I thus immediately checked the news. I was absolutely appalled by what I read. It is absolutely disgusting that voters were denied the right to vote. It is a violation of their basic human rights.

Police had to be called in at Sheffield, Manchester, Newcastle upon Tyne and several London after voters were left queueing after doors closed at 10pm despite some of these voters having got there on time.

At St John's polling station in Ranmoor, Sheffield, the returning office decided that it was the right for residents to vote before students. Thus treating students as though they are not complete human beings.

Voters protested outside Nick Clegg's house in Sheffield. And so they should! Voters in his constituency were left waiting up to 3 hours before they could vote.

Returning officer Mr Mothersole said the council was "caught out" by high turnouts.

I fail to see how this is possible.

The maximum number of voters to be expected was clearly known so there is absolutely no excuse.

The Electoral Commission said if people were issued their ballot paper by 2200 BST they were still legally able to vote after that time.

They added: "There should have been sufficient resources allocated to ensure that everyone who wished to vote was able to do so."

There were not sufficient resources. People were unable to vote because of under-staffing and lack of preparation. For many lateness of arrival was not the reason for them being turned away.

Someone in Sheffield for example was turned away at 22.05 despite having arrived at 21.15.

In Liverpool ballot papers run out in Wavetree and many voters were turning away before new ones arrived. Whilst at a Hackney polling station there were only three staff members and people who turned up as early as 8.30pm were turned away. Certain angry voters organised a sit in.

Certain polling stations extended their opening hours. This is against the law but I feel all the people who wished to vote in those particular areas should have been given the right to do so if they turned up within reasonable time, even if they were still queueing after the cut-off point.

I also heard on the BBC World Service that only one in five ex-pats who applied to vote by postal proxy were successfully able to vote.

I will not be satisfied until this is investigated.

I am disgusted at my own country. What a poor excuse of a modern democracy.

The dance of the polls

2010-05-06T18:21:00.011+01:00

The concept of the public opinion was born in the United States in the 1930s with the first opinion polls during the run up to the presidential elections. The results of the first survey in fact corresponded to the final results.

The American Elmo Roper was a pioneer in political forecasting using scientific polls, successfully predicating the re-election of President Franklin D. Roosevelt three times, in 1936, 1940, and 1944.

It was found rather than reflecting public opinion; these opinion polls actually constructed it.

In contrast, during the 1945 elections in the United Kingdom there was a difference in opinion between commentators. Gallup launched a subsidiary which correctly predicted Labour's victory. Few people took notice of him, especially since all other commentators expected a Conservative victory led by Winston Churchill.

Yet Labour successfully came into power, winning Tory strongholds in Wimbledon.

Three years later saw the failure of the opinion poll which predicted that Thomas Dewey would defeat Harry S. Truman in the 1948 US presidential election. The polls predicted he would get a landslide victory. Gallup got it wrong.

For the Conservative victories in 1970 and 1992 polls failed to predict the outcome and in 1974 polls did not predict Labour’s victory.

There was little correlation between ICM, Ipsos and Yougov (who’s first poll was in the previous election) polls during the previous 3 elections.

Perhaps unsurprisingly, the Guardian’s ICM polls consistently had a higher opinion of Labour's chances than other polls.

MORI’s predictions have been way off whilst Yougov was the most accurate in the last election.

Interestingly, the opinion polls seem to be more accurate in predicting results a year before the election rather than the day before.

The latest polls suggest this is to be the tightest election yet.

Conservatives appear to be in the lead, support ranging between 35% and 37%, whilst Labour appears to be edging slightly ahead on 28%-29% and the Liberal Democrats on 26%-28%.

It remains to be seen whether these results will be accurate. But in my opinion we pay far too much attention to such polls.

Almost half of voters are still undecided and there are around 100 or so Labour/Conservative marginals in the country, which will inevitably hold the key to the election result.

Polls certainly shape election campaigns. As soon as the results come out politicians adjust their campaign accordingly. Newspaper front pages change their tune and certain citizens even decide to change who they are going to vote for.

But at the end of the day, the votes which really matter are not the opinion polls but the election itself.
PICTURE: www.politics.co.uk

2010-04-25T09:23:00.007+01:00

With the Digital Economy law the government claims it will help protect the creative industry. I am rather sceptical.

The law itself is bathed in controversy. Firstly the bill was rushed into law before the upcoming genenral elections; with just a six month interval between it becoming law and the apperance of the white paper in June 2009.

And despite mass outcry to change certain aspects of the bill the most controversial aspects were still made law. For example, persistant illegal downloaders could be disconnected from the web and copyright holders will have the power to block access to any website hosting illegal content.

It is clear that the creative industries are suffering from piracy and something needs to be done to solve this ongoing problem. Around six million UK citizens regularly file-share copyrighted material without permission and a recent stud estimated that in 2008 the UK's creative industries lost £1.2 bn due to piracy.
We should support artists by assisting at their concerts, buying their music, going to the cinema, buying DVDs etctera.

However, an article I read recently in a French evangelical magazine got me thinking about pirarcy and the Digital Ecomony Law.

I fail to see how the law will significantly reduce illegal downloaded or protect creative industries because it supports the creative industries at the institutional level rather than protecting the creators themselves.

Most of the money in the creative industries does not go to the artists themselves.
The are generally at the bottom of a hiearchy of people, most of the money already filtered out by the time they receive some of the profit.

Artists often receive a pitiful percentage of the incomings and for as long as this continues consumers will not be willing to spend their hard earned cash by buying things legally.

Downloading illegally is a violation of the artists' rights. But in todays society it is not the artists themselves who are protected - it is the creative industries at the institutional level.

And these industries present piracy as a theft. You will all be familiar with that annoying little clip at the beginning of every film. You know the one that your DVD player won't let you skip? "You wouldn't steal a car would you?" The act of piracy is thus compared to the theft of something material.

But theft is the action of taking something PHYSICAL from someone else in order to permanently deprive them thereof. There would be a difference between me going to your house and slipping one of our CDs, DVDs or books into my bag and me borrowing a CD to put the music onto my computer.

No, piracy is the violation of an author's rights, which is something immaterial.
The rights of the authour are a commercial invetion of the creative industries in order to rake in the money at the artists' expense.

The principal of authors rights' is not bad in itself. We need people to create music, films, books etctera and we must respect and support their work.

"Craking down" on illegal downloading via the Digital Economy Law will not protect the artists themselves but will instead give more money to the fat cats at the top of the creative industries.

The government should instead be encouraging a shake up in the creative industries themselves so that consumers are actually willing to spend their cash on music, books, DVDs, games etctera knowing that they are directly supporting the artists rather than paying for a creative industry boss' next mansion.

Artists need to be given a fairer share of the profits in the digital age.
The government should therefore be providing support to groups such as the Featured Artists' Coalition which is made up of various musicians and campaigns for the protection of peformers' and musicians' rights.

What is art?

2010-04-07T22:30:00.008+01:00

When I visited the Centre Pompidou it dramatically changed my ideas on the concept of art as well as my preferences. Normally, I prefer paintings which clearly represent reality, and in particular impressionism - my favourite artist being Claude Monet. I was previously not very interested in abstract pieces. But something changed in my head in the galleries of the Pompidou. I found myself questionning: what it art? Is it simply paintings and statues? Or is it also objects, like chairs for example, videos, structures, posters, collections of objects arranged in a certain way, photographs? The galleries at the Pompidou Centre contain a huge variety of “artists” and thus raise the question “what is art”. And it also goes some way towards answering this question, as it should. Initially, when I looked around the galleries I was not convinced that all of the works in the museum could be classified as art. For example, there are some paintings which are simply a square of one colour and another with lines forming squares, some of the squares filled with brightly coloured false fur, I thought “I could make the same thing in five minutes! ”. (That is the piece on the right, it is by Slyvie Fleury and is called Tableu No1). However, having finished going round the gallery my perceptions changed. Art is something very personal - for the person who is looking at it it but especially for the artist. When a painting is very realistic and clear there are fewer people who sit themselves down next to the piece to ask “what is that the artist wants to say here? ”. With more abstract pieces one could discuss them for hours.(I am not however saying that it is not possible to do this with very realistic pieces).
From now on for me personally art is something which raises questions. It is true that the thing which raises more questions and is something polemical, something which shocks. And the pieces at the Pompidou Centre shock! There is for example a series of photographs of people who have wounded or are wounding their feet, which includes somebody who is cutting their foot with a blade, and somebody (perhaps the same person) walking upon ashes, and even instructions on how to cut feet! Another work is a video of a nude woman hulahooping with a ring of barbed wire. One also finds an enormous piece (it fills the wall) of genitals making love. For me these pieces really push the very idea of art. In my opinion a little too far!

The gallery also dramatically changed my ideas on the art of women in the section “elles”. Since spring 2009 this collection had a particular focus on female artists which thus proposes to tackle the question of women in art, to display female art and to examine the hypothesis of the history of female art. This particular collection of art is a great contrast to a lot of the popular galleries in the United States where the majority of the artists are white men. At the Pompidou Centre there is a very large poster on the wall with the following information: “Do women have to be naked to get into the Met. Museum. Less than 3% of the artists in the Modern Art sections are women but 83% of the nudes are female ”. This poster was part of the project “Public Viewing” by a group called Guerilla Girls in 2007 for a contemporary art fair in Shanghai to show that the problem of a lack of representation of female artists' work does not only exist in the United States but in the other countries as well. They also distributed posters in Greece which read “Dearest Art Collector, it has come to our attention that your collection, like most does not contain enough art by women. We know that you feel terrible about this and will rectify the situation immediately. All our love, Guerrilla Girls”. First of all, one can see collection as a symbol against male domination - in art but also in the daily life. It shows that the fight for the equality for women is far from over. It is true that many pieces expose male domination. “As usual” by Shadi Ghadirian for example is a series of three photographs of veils with household objects representing a face. However, it must be noted that the point of view of the collection is neither female, nor feminist but is rather aimed at paying homage to artists which includes plastic artists, designers, photographers, architects, video directors, writers and female performers.

Even after writing this blog entry I am still unable to fully respond to the question "what is art". However, what I must say is that it is something extremely diverse and is a fantastic way of fighting against inequality. And I hope that many galleries all over the world will follow the example of the Pompidou Centre.

La Rafle

2010-03-21T18:48:00.005Z

Roselyn Bolche’s la Raffle leaves you with an open mouth and a box of empty tissues. This moving drama depicts the history of a little boy during the Nazi occupation of Paris. It is more than a film. It is a retranscription on a film reel of an extremely sad part of our History.

The small child Joseph Weismann really existed - he was one of only the survivors.

Without going as far as showing the extermination camps, the film leaves a lasting impression of the horrors lived by the persecuted Jews.

The film is so real that you can almost imagine yourself in the same situation. I still felt immersed in the horrors when I left the cinema. When I heard a child call out to his dad “papa” my heart stopped for a second. “Those poor children,” I thought.

The cast of this film is particularly strong - with Jean Reno as doctor, and Gad Elmaleh as the father of the family.

The film gives an intimate view of the daily life of important figures during the Second World War – we see Hitler and his family on his “eagles nest”; Pétain and Laval dressed in pyjamas discussing the negotiations between the French police and the Nazis.

But even more profoundly, Bolche shows the life of a very close Jewish family which is sent initially to Vel d' Hiv, then to a concetration camp and ultimately to an extermination camp.

You really have the desire to take hold of the poor innocent small children in your arms. They are so unnaturally, despicably separated from their parents in horrors that no person should ever have to endure.

The acting of the children really touches the heart.

By the orchestration of the Vichy government, under the instructions of the Nazis, 13 152 Jews were captured in the morning of July 16, 1942. They were retained as prisoners in the Olympic stadium. One really appreciates this terrible number when the nurse (Melanie Laurent) looks around it in Vel d’Hiver -they are cut off from water, cut off from food, cut off from life, treated with the same tenderness as that which one would give to battery hens.

The sadness and disgust created by the film film are profound; particularly when one considers that no scene in film was exaggerated. All the events, even the most extreme really took place. The film is there not only as a testimony of historic events. It makes us think - it shows us that we must learn lessons from history in order to avoid its repetition.

2010-03-14T19:04:00.010Z

I was honoured to meet two inspiring poets at a talk they gave at my university in France. The two women have fascinating histories and equally moving poetry. I found Nazand Begikhani particularly compelling. She has a wonderful way with words, not just in her poetry but also when she is talking. You can really sense a passion for words, as well as a passion for fighting for women’s rights.

“I don't have an official identity... poetry is my identity, my truth... I exist entirely in language, in poetry,” she explained.

Nazand was born in Kurdistan, Iraq, in 1964 and has been living in exile since 1987.

“I escaped Saddam Hussain's genocidal war against civilian Kurds in the eighties. However, I was granted an economic refugee status, and not political, as if my case was economic, which is not the case."

She went first to Denmark before going to France, completing an MA and PhD in comparative literature at the Sorbonne.

The polyglot was refused French nationality.

“French authorities told me that I belonged to a political group with values which were not compatible with the values of the Republic of France. Which political group? I don’t belong to any political group. All my life I have been fighting for human rights.”

The poet fights for human rights, and in particular women’s rights, with a notable involvement against the fight against crimes of honour in Iraq.

“A crime of honour is when members of a family kill a woman to save the honour of the family. It’s related to women's sexuality.
"They find that a man’s honour is in the sexuality of the woman, of her conduct, the way she dresses, etcetera. When she breaches the rules, the honour of the family is stained and in order to ‘purify’ the family honour, the woman in question should be killed...

"This is happening everywhere and we must resist this. We must continue the fight.”

Nazand was asked by the Kurdish government to advise them on how to combat these crimes.

She suggested that they created a special commission to set up strategies against this form of violence/crime.

Her poem “Chanson de la fille assasinée » really captures the horror of this act.

My heart was particularly touched when she read the poem in Kurdish. It was haunting almost. It was more than reading out a poem, it was a performance. She appeared to put herself in the role of the speaker. The anguish was present in her facial expression as well as her voice.

The academic has had her fair share of pain but in all this adversity she appears to have found happiness in the land of poetry.

“I was asked by BBC Radio 4 to take participate in the “Start the Week” programme. It was on the topic of happiness. What is happiness? It’s a very vast subject. It was interesting because I was there with a scientist, a philosopher, a religious figure and a novelist.
For me, “Happiness is a ladder. It’s not biologic. It’s not natural. It’s not genetic. we have, as Dalai Lama says, train our mind on happiness."
“I found myself the happiest of all...And I have lost three brothers, my father and several members of my family to genocide."

The other poet, Bluma Finkelstein added, “You see happiness in little things.”

Bluma was born in Romania and immigrated to Israel in 1963.

“My family was paid to leave. It was a communist regime with a rupture between Christianity and Judaism.
At first she was not accepted at university so she started working as a midwife.

However, after a successful application she began to learn French and now writes poetry in English and Hebrew.

She works as a professor at Haifa University and in that town she has engaged in the cultural politics of the town and is a renowned peace militant.

“I have worked a lot for peace. One route towards peace is by poetry.
“Once we wrote poetry on posters in Arabic and Hebrew, translating the poems into both the languages on the same poster.
“We put them on all of the walls of the town. People stopped to look and them, and they read them.
“Another route is that of artists. For example we put paintings, half Arabic, half Jewish on the walls and roofs.”
“Israel is in constant need for support for peace. It is a country in permanent conflict.

The army in Israel is created by conscription. A large number of her students have already completed their stay in the army.

She said, “War is metal which falls from the sky. Or chemicals. The army is not a judge. It’s not a job because it is conscription."

It is clear that for both poets, poetry is not just words. It’s not just “a beautiful story”. It is their identity. It is an act of resistance for dying languages. Or a way of reawakening an ancient language.

For Bluma not only does she write poetry, but poetry writes her.
Even governments recognise its power.

She said, “Poetry is not uniquely a beautiful story.
“It’s also a language of engagement. It’s a lyric of resistance. In a dictatorship they first of all forbid and censor poets, and then journalists.”

IMAGES: Kerdmedia.com and D-R

Faith

2010-03-07T12:27:00.007Z

What is faith? A question asked by many, believers and non believers alike. There are several interpretations but most of the time it is seen as something quite abstract, something we can not directly touch with our hands. Something unconcrete.

Reading Matthew D. Gerwitz book "The Gift of Grief" I came across something very interesting. He explained the meaning of the word "amen". This word can be interpreted in more than one way. Some suggest that it means "let it be so", which is a perfectly acceptable translation. However, an alternative definition given by certain scholars, and by Gerwitz, is that it means "I believe that it is true, even though I struggle to believe that it is actually the truth".

If we are to take this interpretation of the word "amen" we can see that faith is not something completely blind. Faith allows for questions and doubts. Therefore it is not simply just a believe. Gerwitz gives a formula that faith = believe + doubt + action. The act of doubting is a healthy part of faith. It allows us to ask profound questions and thus develop a deeper relationship with God. Taking into account the formula again it must be noted that action is also required in faith. That action can for example come from asking questions. Therefore, faith can equally be something concrete.

We can observe the act of making faith concrete in the Bible - for example as outlined in Hebrews 11. The author of this passage begins by stating that "faith is being sure of what we hope for and certain of what we do not see" and continues to explain that it is by faith we understand that the universe was formed by God's command, in other words by something invisible. In this world various disciples with such faith made this concrete. "By faith Abel offered God a better sacrifice than Cain did (...) By faith Noah, when warned about things not yet seen, in holy fear built an ark to save his family."

So how can we concrete our faith by action? One way is by going to church, by praying and by singing. There are lots of things we preoccupy us in our lives. I was given the example of a father who has concentrated many years on the creation and improvement of his house. Sometimes he would not sleep for 48 hours because he was so enthusiastic about it. But imagine that his house burnt down? No doubt he would be devastated at the loss of his masterpiece, his pride and joy. However, if he was a religious man he could see his as an opportunity. He could see this grief as a gift because it would allow him to spend more time with his family and more time to be closer to God. Now I'm not saying that spending so much time on his house would be a bad thing, nor that he has neglected his family. And nor am I saying that this man should burn down his house. However, what I am suggesting is a change in attitude. This man could for example spend some time every day praying to God just before he engages in working on the house.

We must not forget that there is a "house" for us in the sky. Abraham for example was called to go to a place where he would later receive his inheritance. He obeyed God's orders and left his home even though he did not know where he was going. He then in faith made his home in the promised land like a stranger in a foreign country, living even in tents. For "he was looking forward to the city with foundations, whose architect and builder is God." Abraham took positive action to make his faith concrete because he knew that material things were not important because God's kingdom awaited him.

We cannot see God. He lives in unapproachable light, whom no one has seen or can see (1 Timothy 6:16). However, in faith we believe that he is there. And around 2000 years ago people were able to see God in the form of the son. And whilst we cannot see him in the physical world, he awaits us in his kingdom. And we can feel closer to him by concreting our faith by action.

Ask yourself what preoccupies you in this world. A treasure in heaven a treasure in heaven that will not be exhausted (Luke 12:33) but treasures in this world are ephemeral. In the words of Jesus "Where your treasure is, there your heart will be also (Luke 12:34)

Amen

Magpie

2010-02-28T07:56:00.009Z

>
By Suzanne Robinson

I hear your chatter haunting me
And as I weep your cackle seems to louden.
We are alike magpie.
You too mourn the loss of Joy.
The clouds darken over you,
Threatening rain and thunder
In your already darkening despair.
You ruffle your feathers,
Trying your wings for size,
Examining the life-tattered plumes.
Perhaps you fear to take flight.
In melancholy everything seems black and white.
But magpie I know your secret;
The multitude of colours reflected only in sunbeams,
Yet present even in storms.
Sorrow may feel empty,
But there is a sweetness in the sorrow of parting.
And you need not wait for brighter skies,
For though you may feel weak,
Your wings are ever stronger.
Take flight, o magpie,
Through the storm.

Photo: Waverly Wildlife Blog

Power

2010-02-11T11:11:00.006Z

I was blown away by the images released by ABC News showing images of 9/11 taken from a helicopter. They are absolutely incredible. They look like something taken out of a Hollywood action film. Sadly these horrifying scenes were all too real. The images, taken in a fraction of a second capture the moments which would change thousands, even millions of lives forever.

These events can reveal a lot about the world we live in. Firstly, the way in which the world works politically. States all over the world are constantly called into question and menaced by exterior and even interiors factors; the greatest of these being violence. The states attempt to keep the monopole of violence but are contested by exterior violence. In the case of 9/11, and more and more frequently throughout the world this is in the form of terrorism. And bush chose to fight fire with fire – not terrorism in turn but war. “The war on terrorism” he called it. A battle we are still fighting in battle grounds and also in our own states to prevent it from happening again.

The events also revealed the huge power of the media. Within minutes of the first plane hitting the south tower, images were being beamed all over the world – both professional films and photographs and amateur contributions. People quickly contacted friends and loved ones urging them to switch on the television. And nearly all of us remember where we were at this time. I was in a GCSE history class. We couldn’t believe what we were hearing. By the time we returned home to switch on the news the towers had already collapsed.

Friends and loved ones of the people working in the towers immediately turned to technology to track people down and throughout the world people turned to the internet and to find out exactly what was happening. Traffic to the major website was so huge that many servers collapsed. It was then that amateurs really shone. Websites were quickly created by non-professionals relaying the latest information and footage from video cameras and mobile phones were rapidly distributed.

It was the combined force of the mass media and the public which kept the world informed. The images released by ABC News show the horror of the attacks. They are shocking but in an almost impersonal way because we do not directly see the people affected. However, we know all too well that they were there in their thousands and this makes the images even more striking. And the nature of their release reveals once more the power of the media and in particular the freedom of information. The news company requested the images to be released using the US version of the Freedom of Information Act. To give a little background it was first introduced in law September 6, 1966 by President Lyndon B. Johnson and came into law the following year. It allows for the full or partial disclosure of previously unreleased information and documents which are under the control of the government. A similar law exists in the UK but this came into force much later, first appearing in 2000 and coming fully into force five years later.

Barak Obama is clearly fully aware of the US Act’s power having issued Executive Order 13526 at the end of last year which allows the government to classify certain types of information relevant to national security.

The UK Act has revealed countless “secrets”. Some of the most significant being proof of the UK supporting the Israeli nuclear weapons programme by selling Israel 20 tonnes of heavy water in 1958, 74 Metropolitan police officers having criminal records and a clandestine post-war British torture camp reminiscent of concentration camps existing in Germany.

We need the media to reveal such scandals and horrors. It is an extremely powerful tool and an arm in the fight for human rights. It is thanks to Freedom of Information Acts and both amateurs and professionals alike that we are able to learn about the world around us and hopefully avoid both repeating the mistakes of the past and making new errors.

Culture

2009-10-10T16:58:00.008+01:00

I'm already beginning to appreciate what a fantastic experience it is to go on a year abroad. It's not just about improving your ability to speak another language, there is far more to it than that. It really helps you to grow as a person. And for me personally it is making me a lot more cultured. For example, there are many opportunities to peruse art galleries in Paris and the surrounding area. Of course there is the world famous Louvre, of which I have so far only seen the outside. I've heard it takes at least two days to view everything and that you have to go at least three or four times to fully appreciate it. I have yet to visit it but I really look forward to that. Even the exterior is magnificent. First of all you have the exterior of the building intricately decorated with statues juxtaposed against the modern pyramids. This juxtaposition is paradoxically a beautiful complement to the area because it is symbolic of the nature of French culture, a mélange of the old and the new.

The family I live with also have a passion for photography and therefore I am also developing an eye and an appreciation for photographs too. Hopefully this will improve my photograph taking abilities since I have a tendency to take photographs of anything and everything! I do have some gems in my collection but I have to admit this is mainly just fluke!

I have also been to the cinema more times in the past month than I have been in an entire lifetime (no exaggeration). Highlights have included Cédric Kahn's "Les Regrets", Robert Guédiguian's "L'Armée du Crime" and Claude Miller
and Nathan Miller's "Je suis heureux que ma mère soit vivante". "Les Regrets" is a beautiful love story of a rekindled teenage passion which keeps you on the edge of your seat and brings tears to your eyes. It is beautifully written, well casted and the editing is fantastic. "L'Arméé du Crime" is a little harder to get through but if, like me, you enjoy war related films it is a gem. It tells the true story of a multi-cultural network of resistance fighters during the German occupation of France in World War Two. Your eyes will be glued to the screen. Finally "Je suis heureux que ma mère soit vivante" is a story based upon Emmanuel Carrère's novel. It is about two young boys who were taken away from their irresponsible mother who left the eldest boy to look after his baby brother. As he grows older Thomas, who was old enough to remember his mistreatment, becomes curious about the whereabouts of his mother and tracks her down changing the lives of Thomas and his mother forever.

I've also had the opportunity to watch various DVDs. A personal favourite is the 2002 Bollywood film "Devdas". This modern day Romeo and Juliet is based upon the famous Bengali novella of Sarat Chandra Chattopadhyay. The costumes are magnificent and I was in awe of the beautifully sad story which tugs at the heartstrings. Thoroughly recommended.

And finally I've taken up the paintbrush again and have noticed that my works so far seem to follow the theme of life.

My return and creation

2009-09-30T19:07:00.005+01:00

So first of all I must excuse myself for not updating this blog in months. I've had a really busy few months going on holiday and moving to France for a year abroad as part of my Journalism and French degree. It's all been rather hectic and it has been by no means a smooth ride. It's difficult to be away from the people I love and it has been a bit of a culture shock.

This year I am studying French literature, contemporary history in France (which involves looking at political history in the XIX century), translation, culture, history and analysis of media, a bit of linguistics and of course the French language!

I'm living close to Versailles which is fantastic because it is steeped in history. And of course it's just a stone's throw from Paris which is absolutely amazing. I'd recommend everyone to climb the tower of Sacre Coeur because the view is fantastic and the building itself is incredible.

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The following was written in Montparnasse cemetery.

My eyes have been opened to the world thanks to the teaching and words of the pastor of my church. On a deeper level they have been opened by the teachings and words of God.

I find no matter how many times you have read a certain section of the Bible there's always something new to be learnt. And I think it's important to share what I've learnt with others. I have visited the chapter of Genesis many times but I don't think I fully appreciated its importance, and more specifically the importance of the first two chapters.

What we have to bear in mind is that we can only understand a 'story' if we are familiar with the beginning, the middle and the end. It is thus only natural to start at the beginning of the Bible because it represents the beginning of everything, the debut of life itself. It is literally the first few chapters of mankind's existence.

I learnt many things from reviewing Genesis. First of all I began to appreciate the poetry of the first two chapters. It is evident that they were not written haphazardly. One can remark that the chapters are very structured. One observes, for example, that the 'story' is organised in sets. God created the sea and the sky and then populated those expanses with birds and marine life. He created the earth and then populated it with animals and trees (and of course man). For me personally, this leads me to believe that the days can be seen as metaphorical as opposed to seven sets of 24 hours.

What struck me next is God's bounty. He has been incredibly generous to us. Of course there is the earth and all that it is in it but there is also a more spiritual side to his bounty. He gave us His son so that we could have a relationship with God. Christ was with us in physical form but He is also with us always in the spiritual form. Here we can observe both the bounty of God and His grace.

He also gave us something equally special. He created us in His image. We are the only living creatures to be given this privilege. It means that we are able to share some of the aspects of God. For example, like God, we have the ability to think - in other words we have a rationality and indeed a morality. And we too are able to create: a work of art. a piece of music, a novel ...

What is also evident from Genesis is that God has also given us a task. And to illustrate this I will use a similar story as the pastor. A famous sculptor created three statues of slaves. The first statues were magnificent (despite the negativity of slavery). But the third was sadly unfinished. Imagine then that his children were asked to complete the task of their father still taking into account the style and of course the nature of their father who was a very famous sculptor. This is an immense task.

And the world we live in is of course a work of art. Imagine then that the sculptor was God. As His children he asked us continue maintaining his work of art whilst still bearing him in mind. It is our task to look after it. And sadly we have not done this whilst bearing him in mind. We have abuses and deformed his work of art. The statue would not resemble the original creations.

However, our failure doesn't mean that we cannot appreciate the beauty of what He created. We can see it in the countryside, the sky at night, the birds, the animals, we can see it in ourselves and in others. And we can see it in the works of art of mankind. As I write this I am sitting on a bench in a magnificent cemetery in Paris. I was so struck by its beauty and magnificence that I couldn't help but think of God and I just had to stop to collect my thoughts and indeed to write them down to share with the world.

Lack of freedom for Iranian press

2009-06-30T10:30:00.006+01:00

New figures from Reporters Sans Frontieres reveal that Iran has imprisoned more journalists than any other country. Iran ranks above China and Cuba. This is due to reporters being arrested following the unrest in Iran resulting from the elections. According to the press freedom campaiging body, the total of journalists and "cyber-dissidents" jailed in Iran is 33.

Reporters Sans Frontieres said: “The regime has been visibly shaken by its own population and does not want to let this perception endure. That is why the media have become a priority target.”

Foreign journalists have also been asked to leave the country. This includes BBC's reporter Jon Leyne because officials accused him of “supporting rioters”.

For me, regardless of whether or not the election was fair, this crackdown highlights a horrific breach of press freedom. The people of Iran, as well as the outside world, have every right to know what is going on in the country. In Britain we're lucky to have a largely unrestricted press which is not afraid, or indeed prevented, from speaking out against the government. Interestingly Article 24 of the Iran constitution safeguards press freedoms. This too is being violated.

On June 22 the entire staff of the newspaper Kalemeh Sabz, including around 20 journalists, were arrested. The paper is owned by opposition presidential candidate, Mir Hossein Moussavi. This was presumably to stop the spread of the opposition view. In Britain we are allowed to have a variety of views expressed via the media. Newspapers are partisan in nature but there are a variety of partisanships represented by different papers. Iran should be able to enjoy this too.

Britain has been accused of "conspiring“ against Iran and a selection of demonstrators are being shown on a loop on state-run TV confessing to having protested due to the influence of foreign media. All demonstrators use the same words at the opening of hourly nightly news bulletins:

“Bismillah, al-rahman al-rahim. I admit that I demonstrated under the influence of the BBC, the radio Voice of America and other foreign media”.

Perhaps they have been influenced by foreign media, but this is only because they have been shown a wider picture by a free press instead of just consuming news produced by a restricted press.

Champion fundraiser

2009-06-25T18:40:00.003+01:00

Today at the Post and Echo I learnt about an absolutely remarkable young woman. 26-year old Michelle Lewis has been raising money for charity since she was just eight year old. To date she has raised almost £2m for the Alder Hey Children's Hospital and various charities including Macmillan Cancer Support. By the age of 14 she had already raised £250,000 and at 19 she had raised £1m. Now it's remarkable for a teenager to raise so much money for charity. What makes it even more remarkable is that she has been battling with a muscle-wasting condition called arthrogryposis. The brave young woman spent the majority of the first two years of her life in hospital where doctors told her parents that she would never be able to walk. Ten years later the determined fund-raiser proved them wrong by taking he first steps after numerous operations.

At 19 she was very deservedly honoured with an MBE for her devotion to fund-raising. She is the youngest person since World War II to be given this honour. She has also received a Pride of Britain Award. Michelle also competed in the Paralympics and after strenuous training she did the London Marathon in which she battled with ferocious winds, heavy rain and hail. Her "Michelle & Friends" concerts featuring various celebrities have also raised lots of cash. Recently her line dancing event raised £20,000 for charity. This money was split to various charities including Claire House which provides care and support for children with life threatening conditions and their families. Her line dancing events alone have raised over £120,000 in the past ten years.

I admire the devoted fund-raiser so much. She is an inspiration to us all.

PICTURE: Pride of Britain Award website

My week at the Post and Echo and good news for cyclists

2009-06-24T21:22:00.004+01:00

Today is my third day on placement at the Liverpool Daily Post and Echo. It has been a really interesting week so far. The paper is far bigger than the paper I previously did a placement with. At the Haverhill Echo there were just two reporters, a photographer, a sub and an editor. Being daily papers the Post and Echo have a far bigger team. It it is set out with a central hub of editors with the reporters radiating out of that in different areas. Although there are two titles the teams for both papers are the same. Decisions are made as to which paper the stories are best suited for. Other titles are also produced such as the Wirral News.

The Post and Echo have a very interesting history. It all started nearly 150 years ago when a former Chief Constable of Liverpool asked a select committee of MPs to repeal the Stamp Act on newspapers. Michael James Whitty felt that newspapers were restricted because of the tax they were required to pay under the Act. He promised that he would bring out a daily paper with a cover price of just one penny if stamp duty was abolished for newspapers. And on June 11, 1855, the first issue of the Daily Post was published. It was just eight pages long and was produced at a small printing shop that was the home of the Liverpool Journal, a weekly newspaper that Whitty owned.

The Liverpool Echo was born in 1879. Its founder was Alexander Jeans, who had served as manager at the Post. The papers were both produced at the new premises in Victoria Street. Each day ten editions were printed with a cover price of just a ha'penny. And it stayed at this price until 1917 when it doubled in price to a penny.

Today The Echo has a total readership of more than 400,000. It is easily the best-selling newspaper on Merseyside and has the second largest circulation of any evening newspaper outside London. The Daily Post has a total readership of more that 200,000. It is the most popular daily newspaper in North Wales.

I've interviewed some very interesting people over the phone. I spoke to an art teacher who won the prestigious BP portrait award and an elderly gentleman who is fed up with a homeless guy who has been using a vestibule of some sheltered accommodation as a bed and a toilet on and off for the past three years. I have two more days with "news" and then a week with features. I then have a week with the Yorkshire Evening Post.

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At last there is some good news regarding bikes on trains. Transport secretary Lord Adonis has today launched a £5 million fund to provide 10 terminals with better cycle facilities for commuters. This will include more storage space and specialist stores. The inspiration for the scheme comes form Holland where bikes account for one third of trips to and from stations compared with just 2% in the UK. Adonis visited the Dutch city of Leiden which has 4,500 bike racks and there are plans to add another 1,500. Compare this with Charing Cross in London, which doesn't have any racks.

Trust and the power of communication

2009-06-19T16:21:00.011+01:00

I've been at home (Essex) for a few days or so. During that time I did not have access to the internet. So I instead spent time painting and I discovered that (much to my pleasant surprise) I could actually paint quite well. It's something I've always wanted to do be able to do but never thought I could. It's surprising what hidden talents we have. I wonder what yours are...

I enjoyed having a break from the internet but there were occasions when I was itching to blog. Fear not, however, I will enlighten you about the thoughts I had!

I have been following the news about protests in Iran very closely. The protests arising from the election of Mahmoud Ahmadinejad have revealed a lot about different forms of communication. First of all they have showed the power of words themselves, or in this particular case the power of silence. The silence of the protesters peacefully spoke a thousand words. The power of the internet has also been highlighted by the protests. The images on Iranian television stations were misleading and sought to minimise the impact of the protests by presenting a skewed view of events. Dissatisfied citizens thus turned to Western new organisations, such as the BBC. Some went to many lengths to show the world what was going on. This was citizen journalism at its best and most powerful. This just goes to show that social networking and citizen journalism is no longer separate from mainstream media. They have become wheels in the news machine.
PICTURE: Getty Images

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Something I have also been following is a short series on the BBC called Occupation. It followed the lives of three soldiers from the 2003 invasion of Basra to the present day. After their first stay in Iraq the three men are drawn back to the country. One for love, one for monetary gain and one to rebuild the war-torn country. I felt that the programme was a little confusing at first as I was unable to establish exactly what was going on and I felt that the script was lacking in some way. I quickly realised, however, that it was very cleverly written and directed. The programme immersed us into the people's lives. We felt as though we were there with them because the script felt very natural and the hand-held cameras were very effective in adding to this realistic feel.
PICTURE: BBC

Occupation really made me marvel at the capabilities of soldiers. I personally could never subject myself to soldiering. I would not be able to cope with the fear and traumatic events. I was saddened by the the mess Iraq is in. It was shocking to see a (depiction of a) country that is in a complete mess, a country where nobody can be trusted and loyalties mean nothing. For me whether or not the country has changed for the better or the worse after the invasion and the hanging of Saddam Hussein remains to be seen.

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For me the issue of trust also arose today because of public transport. The last time I went to St Pancras Station there were no ticket barriers. Today, however, I was confronted by them. I was already in a bad mood because of the lack of lifts in the underground which made lugging my HEAVY suitcase around exceedingly difficult (although luckily some really kind people did risk expensive osteopath bills to help me). What made matters worse is that the barrier designed to allow people with luggage, pushchairs etcetera was not available for use. So when I eventually was able to push my luggage through the normal barriers, narrowly avoiding getting stuck in them I walked, disgruntled, onto the train. Annoyingly I was again asked to display my ticket once the train was moving. How I would be able to get onto the train without said ticket is beyond me! All this seems very unnecessary and it feels like the country I live in is becoming less and less trusting. I can't wait to get to France where the public transport is many times better!

Suffering, God and me

2009-06-10T20:55:00.013+01:00

We also rejoice in our sufferings, because we know that suffering produces perseverance; perseverance, character; and character, hope. And hope does not disappoint us, because God has poured out his love into our hearts by the Holy Spirit, whom he has given us.

Romans 5:3-5

Back in March I remember sitting in a place called the Gallery in the Student Union of my university listening to Jo's explanation on why God allows suffering and thinking "This makes no sense. None of this makes any sense. Christianity itself doesn't make any sense." As far as I was concerned the religion was based entirely upon a text which had been made up by a group of people who thought it would be funny to see how many people they could convince of the existence of a divine being. "And they've done really well," I thought. "Years later a bunch of delusional people are going round believing this book by the letter and allowing it to control their lives. If the creators of the book could see them now, they'd find it hilarious!"

But nevertheless, despite such thoughts, I felt that I should still investigate things a little deeper. It was in my academic and journalistic nature to check out both sides of the argument "Is there a God?". Now there were a lot of reservations on my part. For a start I thought about the amount of wars which I felt were solely the result of religion - World War Two being just one example. And I thought what's the point of following a bunch of rules because chances are at the end of the day, at the end of life, it'll all be for nothing.

However, I found myself going to a course which would run for a series of weeks discussing the gospel according to Mark which revealed the fundamental part of Christianity - Christ Jesus. Christ Jesus I learnt was the guy who's example we were meant to follow because he was God in human form. He was the only sinless being ever to walk the earth and none of us were free from sin. And our very hearts are sinful and sin is much worse than we think. Later in the series I learnt that Jesus died for our sins so that we could have a relationship with God. By the end of the series I felt that whilst I wanted to believe that the Bible was true I didn't feel that the book itself was genuine.

I then started to go to a student church group in the mornings after having been invited by my coursemate Vic. When I joined we were looking at the idea "Don't waste your life" with topics including freedom, security and endurance. As the weeks progressed Christianity started to make more and more sense but I still wasn't entirely convinced.

Then something changed. I've gone through great trials recently. I shall not go through these in detail on here as they are quite personal but I feel that I suffered much due to my actions. I found myself turning to the Bible (with a little help of a book which a new friend of mine gave me which lists bible quotations according to key topics) and turning to God for help by praying. My existing security was crumbling and I felt as though I was losing everything. So I turned to a greater source of security. I turned to God. And then a matter of days after I helplessly, desperately called out to God for his help it felt as though my prayers had been answered.

A strange thing happened. Suddenly it all started to make sense. It all seemed to fit together. Everything felt as though it had all been planned, as though it was meant to happen this way. Suddenly God seemed so real. And I realised that God had wanted me to suffer and that suffering was good. He had taken my security away from me thus leaving me with the feeling that I was heading for nothing. He wanted me to put my trust in Him and I did.

Bikes on a train

2009-06-01T15:52:00.007+01:00

This weekend I went on a bike ride in the Peak District with my boyfriend and a friend of ours in the Peak District. Rather than ride all the way from and to Sheffield we got a train to Hope and on the way back we caught the train back from Bamforth. The observant amongst you will have noticed a bicycle symbol on trains and a special bike area to house bikes. Environmentalists, the government etc are constantly trying to encourage people to use greener transport options such as public transport, cycling and walking. An area on trains specifically for bikes is an excellent weapon in the fight to lower carbon emissions. However, I feel that the areas provided on trains are inadequate. Firstly,it is rather difficult to navigate a bike into these designated areas. Secondly there is insufficient room. On the way back from Sheffield there were a total of six of us with bikes. The ticket inspector said that whilst she had no problem with having this many on board, there are jobsworths around who would order that four of the bikes could not be on the train since they are only permitted to carry two. This is utterly preposterous, especially in the Peak District where large numbers of people are likely to be putting bikes on trains.

Europe seems to have the right idea for integrating bicycles with public transport as they welcome bikes on trains, buses and trams. Strasbourg for example is particularly bicycle friendly with many cycle specific areas and special covered areas for bikes (I think they are called veloparks). Britain is lagging behind and needs to buck up its idea. I would urge you all to go on train company website and on their customer comments section urge them to provide more room for bikes.

ASBOs - success or failure?

2009-05-10T17:47:00.002+01:00

Anti Social Behaviour Orders, or ASBOs for short, were created by the labour government in 1998. They were first used in April 1999. They were designed to tackle the rising problem of anti-social behaviour and can be given to children as young as ten.

Most people are lucky enough not to experience horrible crimes such as murder, rape and armed robbery. For many it is petty crimes that make their lives a misery; crimes such as smashed windows, graffiti daubed across walls, drunken behaviour and other anti-social acts.
ASBOs were meant to tackle such problems. After doing some research on them, I am sceptical.

A staggering 2012 ASBOs given to young yobs in West Yorkshire were breached between 2000 and 2006. To me this is a clear indication that first of all youths are not taking the orders seriously. This is reflected by a Youth Justice Board survey which found that they had become a ‘badge of honour’ amongst youths. Secondly, it shows that ASBOs do not get to the root of the problem.

I have heard a variety of different perspectives from councillors, professors’ and a member of the Children’s society regarding the root causes of anti-social behaviour.
My thoughts are that one of the main causes is a lack of understanding and interaction between generations. Adults have become scared and disapproving of youth today whilst youths have lost respect for their elders. There needs to be more interaction to bridge the generation gap such as community days and sports activities.

Boredom is also a prime cause of anti-social behaviour. The government is giving money into communities for the “Positive Activities for Young People” scheme but up until recently it varied from £19 to £38 per head across the country which seems inadequate. Communities need to get together in order to provide facilities for young people, such as youth clubs and sports clubs for example.

ASBOs can be successful if used in conjunction with other measures but I think they need a serious rethink.

Open justice for the media?

2009-04-28T14:30:00.002+01:00

This weekend I got back from my travels to Kent, Portugal and Bradford/Leeds in case you've been wondering where I've been since Easter Sunday. Portugal was especially fantastic as it was really warm and I thoroughly enjoyed kayak surfing. As I am unable to read Portuguese it was a little traumatic not getting my daily newspaper fix. Having been away I'm a little out of touch with what's going on in the world in general and the world of the media. Browsing the Guardian website, however, I came across an interesting article in the media section.
The law has changed to enabling journalists to access all levels of family courts. Family court hearings were previously conducted behind closed doors with no public access. By opening these doors to journalists there will be a greater scrutiny of the legal system.

Introducing this new scheme Jack Straw said, “It is critical that family courts make the right decisions and the public have confidence they are doing so. A key part of building trust in the system is that people understand how it works.”

This higher level of scrutiny is a step in the right direction but the media will still face restrictions. Under the new rules, the court can still refuse entry to the press and impose reporting restrictions. The media's role therefore will simply be to discuss how the system works. As Mr Justice McFarlane said, the reporting will not be about substance. In other words, there will be no human interest. The public will not, for example, hear of children wrongfully denied access to their parents following a divorce. Citizens want to hear more about family courts than just how this system works. They want to hear about failures and inadequacies in the system. The new law will not allow this to happen. Judges are likely to favour secrecy over public interest using poor excuses about wanting to protect the privacy and welfare of the families involved. There will be little change as far as the media is concerned.
PICTURE: BBC

Reconsidering my agnosticism II

2009-04-12T12:30:00.005+01:00

First of all, a Happy Easter to each and every one of you. Even if you are not religious I hope you are enjoying the opportunity to get together with your friends and family.

This morning I went to church with my boyfriend, Matt, and his family. This was probably the first time I've been in about eight or nine years. Last night Matt asked me if I wanted to go and I agreed because I'd already been thinking of attending and I really wanted to go. I thought it would be a good way of consolidating what I have learned in the few weeks or so that I have been reconsidering my agnosticism.

It is a church as I always imagine a church to look like - the pews, the altar, the sanctuary etc; the grand arches and the beautiful stain glass windows with light beaming through them. Children's paintings of Easter scenes aligned the walls along with flower arrangements. It was all very welcoming.

As the service continued I felt more and more overcome with emotion. I clasped my boyfriend's hand a little tighter. Slowly tears began to run down my face. I wasn't entirely sure what I was crying for but I felt a similar sensation when I was reading part of the gospel a couple of weeks ago.

Kneeling to receive Communion I was almost expecting to feel something. A sort of warmth perhaps. I didn't feel anything especially, but I didn't feel sad anymore. I no longer felt like crying.

When we returned to the house, Matt asked me if I was ok.
"Yeah, I'm fine," I said. "I don't know what came over me. I don't know what was making me cry."
And then suddenly it dawned on me.
"I was crying for Jesus," I said.

As a humble human being I can never imagine the suffering he endured for our sakes. And I thought how incredible it was that he took the rap for all our sins; how loving it was for God to do that for us despite us having committed so many sins and often forsaking Him. Then I had an image in my mind:

The curtain of the temple was torn in two from top to bottom. Mark 15:38

James from the Christian Union had explained the significance of this to me a couple of weeks ago. During the time in which the Bible was written a huge curtain which reached from the top to the bottom of the church separated the main part of the church to the part where God resides. Only the High Priests were allowed to go behind the curtain and they could only enter after being thoroughly cleansed and even then they would have to enter with a chord tied around their legs so that he could be dragged out incase of unatoned sins. The immensity of the curtain breaking in two therefore showed the immensity of God giving his only son for our sins. It represented God bridging the rift between himself and us sinful human beings. Through Jesus there is now no distance between God and humans. He had removed all obstacles.

Sex education vs advertising

2009-04-03T10:31:00.005+01:00

There have been proposals to show condom adverts before the 9pm watershed. This is presumably a bid to cut the level of teenage pregnancies in Britain, which are currently the highest in Europe. Every year over 8,000 under 16s get pregnant. If you include girls under the age of 18, the figures are well over 40,000. Ministers have given high priority to trying to halve this rate by 2012.

Allowing condom adverts to be shown earlier is a preventative measure. However, my issue is whether this will be effective. Have you seen the advert where an intoxicated girl appears to suck up her own vomit? The story is played in reverse starting from the sexual encounter and ending at the start of the night out. Basically she got drunk and got pregnant. It is very unpleasant and enough to make anyone to immediately reach for a sick bag. When I first saw this advert I assumed that it was a campaign to discourage people from excessive drinking. In fact it is an advert for condoms. "So," I thought. "According to this advert, it's perfectly fine for teens to get wasted and end up having sex, provided that they use a condom." I felt that it sent out the wrong message. However, the shock tactics would certainly make people pay attention. So in this sense it could be effective. But the problem is that there are mixed representations. The advert for Skyn condoms soon to be launching on MTV, for example, paints a far sexier picture and thus could encourage teens to engage in sexual activity and not necessarily using a condom.

There are also proposals to show adverts from pregnancy advisory committees on TV and radio. Presumably this is another government idea to cut the pregnancy rate. But this is no preventative measure. This is merely a way of dealing with teenagers who are already pregnant. And, for me, the government focus here is wrong. Yes teenagers who have found themselves pregnant do need advice, but surely it would be better to discourage them from getting pregnant in the first place. And condom adverts before the watershed are not the panacea. Better and more regular sex education, on the other hand will help the government meet its targets.
PICTURE: BBC

The first time I remember having sex education was in year five or six and at this it was simply a source of amusement. It wasn't until year 10 that I had the next installment. By this time a number of girls in the school had already got pregnant. This is unacceptable. The school did make some positive steps, however. I welcomed the fact that it provided a walk in advisory centre for confidential advice. But this didn't tackle the issue of teenage pregnancy head on.

Similarly, condom adverts will not tackle the issue head on. Even if they do encourage safe sex they will not educate people how to use condoms properly. Only sex education can do that.

It still needs to be borne in mind, however, that sex education is not the panacea either. Teens are deliberately getting pregnant in order to obtain flats. This is often the result of parental indifference or abuse. Sex education will not tackle such problems. Teens need to be made aware of counseling services available to them in their area. Pregnancy advisory service adverts are a step in the right direction in this respect but teens need advice before actually getting pregnant.

The big switch to Twitter

2009-04-02T18:16:00.009+01:00

The Guardian yesterday claimed that after 188 years of traditional printing with ink it was going to switch exclusively to electronic coverage using the social networking site Twitter. The idea was to turn all the news stories into "Tweets", which are brief messages of a maximum of 140 words. This move was to "harness the unprecedented newsgathering power of the service".

It was of course an April Fool's joke, but I feel there were serious undertones. Increasingly, blogs and websites such as Twitter are uncovering news stories which are not picked up by mainstream news organisations. Bloggers for example exposed Boris Johnson's bus plans. The mainstream news organisations' hegonomy as gatekeeper is thus under threat.

The joke article clearly shows that the Guardian recognises the impact that services such as Twitter, Facebook and citizen journalism are having on the newsgathering process. There is no doubt that the paper and other mainstream news organisations are already harnessing the "unprecedented newsgathering power" of non-traditional news outlets.

The democratisation of the internet via blogs, wikis, citizen journalism, etc has left some journalists quaking in their boots. Others see it as an opportunity. I feel that as long as mainstream news organisations continue to interact with their readers and harness their collective knowledge, the ink will continue to flow from printing presses.

Murray should express an apology

2009-03-19T15:57:00.012Z

The Press Complaints Commision has launched an investigation into the Sunday Express article criticising the survivors of the Dunblane tragedy for putting drunken photographs and blogs boasting of their drunken antics on social networking sites. The Sunday Express may have removed the offending article from their website. But luckily I have access to the NewsBank articles and I have to say I was extremely shocked when I read it. The dreadful article begins:

DUNBLANE survivors have " shamed " the memory of their dead peers with foul-mouthed boasts about sex , brawls and drink-fuelled antics as they reach adulthood.

A number of the youngsters , now 18 , have posted shocking blogs and photographs of themselves on the Internet , 13 years after being sheltered from public view in the aftermath of the atrocity.

You would expect from this that Paula Murray would behave in an exemplary manner on nights out and would certainly never boast about alcohol consumption on social networking sites. Her Facebook profile suggests otherwise.

She speaks of one boy "who was hit by a single bullet and watched in horror as his classmates died" who "makes rude gestures in pictures he posted on his Bebo site, and boasts of drunken nights out". Perhaps she'd rather that this boy and the others who witnessed the atrocity lead sheltered existences because they were too frightened to go out. They are lucky to be alive after having experienced things that human beings should never have to go through. They saw 16 children and one adult shot dead by Thomas Watt Hamilton who then turned the gun on himself. They will always have to live with this in their memories. I think it's a pleasure to learn that these young people have been able to move on with their lives and enjoy themselves. For me the really shameful thing is not the behaviour of the teenagers but the hypocrisy of Paula Murray.

Click here to read the article in full. The name and photos have been edited out.

Click here to sign a petition requesting a front page apology and disciplinary action.

Justice not seen to be done

2009-03-13T14:36:00.008Z

One rule for the rich and powerful and another for the poor. Lord Ahmed has been given a slapped wrist for texting whilst behind the wheel. He has been allowed to walk free from jail after serving just 16 days of a 12 week sentence.

When sentencing Lord Ahmed, Mr Justice Wilkie said that he had thought long and hard about giving him a suspended sentence. But he stressed that "it is with the greatest importance that people realise what a serious offence dangerous driving of this type is.” The message sent out by Judge Wilkie was undermined by the appeal court's ruling. The appeal court is undeniably sending out the wrong message by releasing Ahmed. This is a missed opportunity to remind drivers of the dangers of texting whilst driving and the responsibility they bear when behind the wheel. Drivers must be made aware of the possible consequences of dangerous driving; the consequences including being brought before a court, having an accident or death.
PICTURE: PA

Appeal Court Judge Lady Justice Hallett said, "We hope the message has got over loud and clear that texting at the wheel is dangerous". Unfortunately, Judge Hallet your hopes are unfounded. The danger is that motorists will now assume that they can get away with using their mobile phone whilst driving. One only needs to look at the RAC Foundation's statistics to realise the detrimental effect texting has on concentration whilst driving. Road safety organisations are right to be appalled at the judge's decision to suspend the 12-week sentence.

Public exposure

2009-03-11T17:27:00.003Z

Motorist boss Max Mosley may have the right to complain about the News of the World story revealing that he had indulged in sadomasochist orgies but it doesn’t mean that the press were wrong to expose his behaviour. The News of the World did libel him by wrongly suggesting that there were Nazi overtones. However, it was undeniably true that Mosley participated in these orgies. This is not the sort of behaviour a public figure should be partaking in.

It was of course a private practice of sado-masocist sex, but the press were right to expose him for this. It is their job to expose bad behaviour conducted publically AND privately and therefore they had every right to poke their noses into his private life and embarrass him.
PICTURE: Press Association

He is wrong to proclaim a general right of privacy. If a privacy law was introduced to the UK this would seriously undermine press freedom. Laws of privacy should not be put in place to protect public figures from embarrassment. They should be there to protect people from all walks of life from harassment and vindictive lies.

The watchmen

2009-03-08T19:30:00.006Z

With a little help from the Freedom of Information Act, the Guardian has revealed that police are keeping a databank of personal details of political campaigners. Such details are kept on record for seven years. Police are routinely collecting photographs, names and video footage of protesters even if those protesters have not been arrested or received any cautions.

Press too are being monitored at protests. Police may have told the National Union of Journalists that the press were not being targeted but the video on the Guardian website would suggest otherwise.

PICTURE: Marc Vallée/marcvallee.co.uk

I strongly believe that such collection of information is a violation of human rights. The police could be making far better use of their time by targeting knife and gun crime in city suburbs or maintaining a database of real criminals. People should be able to make basic protestations of beliefs without being hounded by surveillance. I also agree with Jeremy Dear's sentiments that this undermines media freedom. It's not the first time the police have tried to infringe upon media freedom.

A grey day for newspapers

2009-03-06T14:22:00.003Z

Newspaper circulation figures are in and it's not looking good. The Audit Bureau of Circulation's figures has recorded a sales decline for all quality daily national newspapers. The Independent was worst hit with an 18.41% year on year decline. The Financial Times recorded 6.09% year on year decline and theTelegraph recorded a 5.16% year on year decline.Next was the Guardian with a decline of 4.33%. The Times recorded the lower decline in circulation with a loss of just 0.86%.

Figures may also be a lot bleaker with newspapers being criticised for including bulk sales (through airlines etc) in their circulation figures.

Sales for some tabloid papers were also down. The Daily Mirror for example recorded a drop of 11%. The Express Newspapers' Daily Star, however recorded an increase in both month on month and year on year sales. The Daily Mirror recently increased it's cover price by 5p to 45p in January whilst the Star remains at the discounted price of 20p. Cover price is clearly very important to readers, especially in the current climate when people are cutting back on spending.
PICTURE: devon.gov.uk

Newspapers should slash their cover prices, particularly the Independent which has now has a cover price over £1. This should not, however, be at a cost to quality. This brave step could help insure the future of the newspaper industry provided that newspaper companies do not continue to cut-back on staff. Journalists are under more pressure than every before to find and write stories as fast as possible which inevitably leads to a loss in accuracy and quality. Stories which are clearly in the public interest can also be missed because of the lack of staff. This causes the public to turn to other media forms, such as blogs for example. If staff cutbacks had not have been made, the public may have been less keen to turn away from newspapers. The industry needs to regain trust with consumers and it will only do this by having a healthy number of staff producing good quality reports.

ITV.45?

2009-03-05T14:39:00.012Z

ITV is to slash 600 jobs and plans to make other "significant" savings too. After a loss of £2.7 billion last year it was inevitable that something had to go. In the current climate it was therefore hardly surprising that there will be cutbacks in the workforce. Their programme budget too will be reduced from £1 billion to £65 million.

ITV has suffered greatly from a drop in advertising revenue which Torin Douglas, the BBC's media correspondent, explained that the internet has been a factor. With the increasing growth of the internet companies are turning to the internet to do their advertising. In my opinion, this is due to a number of factors. Firstly internet advertising can be cheaper. It is also capable of reaching a wider audience not only in terms of different types and ages of people, but also geographically. There are also no time constraints in that advertisers are not restricted to a thirty second ad at a particular time of day for example.

Online advertising could help to secure the future of the three ad-funded terrestrial broadcasters. It is therefore surprising that ITV has also decided to sell Friend's Reunited.

A merger between ITV, Channel 4 and Five has been considered. Douglas points out that this would be "thinking the unthinkable" and that the government would need to scrap it's competition rules. Competition rules are not the only thing that would be affected however. The content and respective audiences for the three commercial channels are entirely different. A merger would almost certainly cause audience figures to drop, especially because of the different news values held by the channels. Maybe if the channels had stuck to doing what they did best instead of competing for having the highest number of digital channels they would not be in this financial mess in the first place.

Mobile phones - the root of all evil?

2009-03-04T20:55:00.015Z

Nowadays mobiles are a permanent extension to the arms of most folk. Many couldn't imagine being asked to switch theirs off for 40 days and 40 nights. But the archbishop of Modena asked people to do exactly that. He wanted young Catholics to give up text messaging, social networking and computer gaming for lent. It is hoped that this will help the youngsters rediscover the art of communication.

Persistent beeping on trains can be extremely irritant but sending and receiving text messages can pose great risks. Some people are so addicted to text messaging that they put other's lives at risk. Last year a survey revealed that 48% of drivers in the UK aged 18 to 24 admit to texting whilst driving. This avoidable distraction can cut reaction times up to 35%. It is more dangerous than driving at the legal drink-drive limit. Just a few seconds looking away from the road can, and does, lead to fatalities.

I was appalled when Lord Ahmed was sentenced to just 12 weeks imprisonment (of which he will serve only 6). Whilst it was stressed in the hearing that the sending and receiving of texts did not cause Gombar's death, a fatality was always a possibility as a result of dangerous driving in this manner. Far from being used as a scapegoat (as suggested by his solicitor outside the court), he got off lightly. Text messaging poses other dangers too. Not only can it distract drivers, it can also distract pedestrians. Taking attention away from a road for a quick glance at a mobile phone could easily lead to an accident.
PICTURE: dialaphone.com

Mobile phones have also been used as a form of bullying - cyberbullying as it is otherwise known. Social networking is also used by bullies to hound others. Going home from school is no longer an escape from anguish. Bullying can now be all day, every day. This worrying phenomenon is certainly not harnessing the art of communication.

Parents can monitor their children's location on a 24 hour basis thanks to mobile-phone tracking. This is yet another development in our invasive "Big Brother" society.

Mobile phones hold another evil too; they contain the mineral coltan, which is illegally mined in the war-torn Congo.

I hope the act of giving up mobiles, social networking and gaming will help teenagers to "cleanse themselves from the virtual world and get back into touch with themselves", to quote Monsignor Benito Cocchi. It is only by embracing traditional forms of communication that we can fully understand the world around us. Mobile phones are not the root of all evil but we must bear in mind the dangers and pitfalls which come with them.

Reconsidering my agnosticism

2009-03-03T20:06:00.000Z

When I was younger I used to go to church every Sunday with my mum. Every week I used to look forward to Sunday school. It was always good company and a fun way to learn. In those days my mum had a strong Christian faith. Nowadays her faith has dwindled a little, which is probably related to the death of my father. She questioned how there could be a God if He would allow something like that to happen.

My father was far from Christian. He rejected faith entirely and would often mock my mother for her faith. As I got older I too questioned whether it was feasible for there to be a god. As I pondered on it further it seemed completely impossible to me. The Bible as far as I was concerned was full of contradictions. As I dabbled into Paganism/Wicca it angered me that in places in the Bible pagans appeared to be discriminated against. I would have to read the Bible again in order to refute/prove this. However, the Bible of course does teach us to be tolerant towards others. We must of course bear in mind the time in which it was written, especially when considering the Old Testament.

I must say that I am probably not as tolerant towards other people as I could be and I have to say that as of late I have been very closed minded. And I too, at times have mocked people for their faiths. I get it from my father I suppose; I get a lot of things from my father, good things and bad things. However, recently I thought to myself that this needed to change. I needed to be more open minded. It was as though I was stepping outside myself and hearing myself mocking faith itself. I did not like what I was hearing. I did not want to be that person anymore. University has certainly transformed me into a better person but I feel that much still needs to change.

My coursemate invited me to come along to the Christian Union lunch today and I thought “Why not? I might as well go. I might learn something… and it’s about time I was a bit more open-minded.” A speaker gave a talk on whether science was killing God. Some people, scientists and non-scientists included, see science as disproving God. Science, they argue, is the only explanation for the reason why we exist. Other people argue that science points towards there being a god. God, they argue, is the explanation for the ordered and rational world.

As I sat there I couldn’t help questioning my own lack of faith. I didn’t feel like I was being indoctrinated. My mind was simply being opened. After the meeting my course mate’s friend spoke to a few of us in answer to a question along the lines of “If people deserve to suffer, how can it be justified for someone to deserve being raped?” The basic explanation was that the suffering people experience does not happen relative to the extent of their wrongdoing. People suffer as a consequence of their own wrongdoings but also because of other people’s wrongdoings. Suffering is the result of the disordered world which is the result of sin and rejecting God. Suddenly I felt really bad for all of the sins I had committed in the past – the lies I’d told, the times I’d treated people badly, my intolerance… the list goes on. I didn’t want to be a sinner anymore. So here I am now, reconsidering my agnosticism.

Whatever your faith, please leave your thoughts here and I would love to meet up with some of you sometime soon for coffee (or in my case some sort of non-caffeinated drink) to discuss faith.