My body belongs to me, and is not the source of anyone’s honour
Fuck Your Morals
Free Amina
A 19-year-old Tunisian female activist has been detained in a psychiatric hospital after posting topless pictures of herself on Femen-Tunisia activist website.
Very reminiscent of Brazilian writer Paulo Coelho being detained in a psychiatric hospital by his family because he wished to be a writer. [see Veronika Decides to Die]
Only identified as Amina, there are now calls for her to be stoned to death.
When are Muslim fundamentalists going to wake up to the fact women have bodies, and it is for them to decided how to use their own bodies? They are not objects to be used, to then be covered up when not in use.
More than 90,000 people have signed a petition calling for those who have threatened Amina’s life to be prosecuted.
An open letter calling for an International Day to Defend Amina has been signed by many feminist and atheist activists, including Richard Dawkins.
18 pubs a week are closing. It is not tax, it is not a ban on smoking that is killing ours pubs, it is greedy pubcos who are screwing pub landlords and forcing them out of business, then selling off the site for redevelopment.
The Tumbledown Dick, a c 1720s coaching inn, is one of many pubs facing destruction, destruction by greed.
Guns are not toys, they are lethal weapons, their primary purpose to kill. When handling guns, gun discipline is vital.
Hard to credit then, that at hotel, so-called entertainers or animators at the hotel, go around after breakfast to the guests around the pool, rifle in hand, asking if they would like a bit of fun.
They are then lead not to a well run firing range but up to a terrace, to do a bit of shooting surrounded by other guests on their sunbeds.
Guns are not toys. When used, should be in a restricted area, gun discipline and respect should be instilled before anyone fires a single shot.
For where it was taking place, the person about to fire, only had to be distracted, turn around, and those on the sunbeds would be in the line of fire.
The pellets were left lying around, no attempt was made to clean up afterwards. Fortunately not steel, else would have got embedded in bare feet. But unfortunately lead. Birds pick up. The birds die, or are eaten, the lead finds its way into the soil and into ground water. Lead is a neurotoxin.
When the safety aspects are pointed out, and and are totally disregarded, indeed an arrogant contempt is shown for safety, then those responsible are not simply negligent, they are criminally negligent, and that includes the hotel management who were aware and did nothing to order a halt or discipline the staff involved.
The irony was there was a relatively safe area that could have been used that would have put others at less risk.
But with all the concern regarding gun crime, should this have been happening at all?
Maybe they should ponder what the bodies of the children looked like gunned down in the Newton massacre, their bodies torn to shreds from the rounds from an assault rifle.
This crass stupidity takes place three times a week.
An excellent video on the Guardian website explaining how zombie pubco Punch is destroying pubs.
Punch is a zombie company saddled with debts that it has no hope of paying off.
Punch went on a massive pub buying spree, using borrowed money, money that it can no longer repay. It can barely meet the interest payments. It does so by squeezing pub landlords, jacking up the rent, over charging for beer and other drinks. When all else fails, and the pub landlord is driven out of business, losing everything, the pub is put up for sale for redevelopment.
As a result, we are losing 18 pubs a week. One such pub is The Tumbledown Dick a c 1720s coaching inn under threat of demolition for a Drive-Thru McDonald’s.
Local councils are required by national planning to have in place a pub protection policy, but few have. A model pub protection policy is that introduced by Cambridge.
Whilst we may feel sorry for the staff who have lost their jobs or will lose their jobs, we should not mourn the loss of Jessops, HMV or Blockbuster. All three were rubbish retailers who will not be missed.
My experience of Jessops was they knew nothing of cameras. They would feed a customer any bullshit to flog a camera.
My experience of HMV, loud, moronic, distorted music blasting out. It was as though they deliberately wished to drive people out of the shop. You did not walk in and think, I wonder what that is, it sounds interesting, I might like to buy it. I would walk in, turn on my heels and walk out. Staff lacking any knowledge of music, very poor choice. In recent years they have completely lost their way, very little music, boxed sets of rubbish TV programmes, iPads.
I would differentiate HMV shops from HMV record label. The record label has been destroyed by greed, turning music into a commodity (which is all the HMV shops stock) and criminalising those who love music. This is true of all the big record labels. If you treat potential customers as criminals, then you deserve to fail. And who needs record labels?
HMV still trading are refusing to honour gift vouchers. Staff should do the decent thing, ignore management edicts and honour these gift vouchers. After all nothing to lose, you are losing your jobs and not getting paid. Some staff are now occupying HMV stores due to the failure to pay their wages.
My experience of Blockbusters, badly scratched DVDs that were unplayable, very poor choice of films, multiple copies of the same Hollywood rubbish. Small selection of foreign films was better. Unbelievably rude staff who seemed to be Asda rejects.
London Camera Exchange know their stuff, do not try to sell you anything, and you do not feel you are dealing with a chain.
For DVDs, libraries offer a far better choice, as does Ben’s Records.
These retailers are no loss. They made every High Street look the same
Boston has recently been griping at the dire state of its High Street. But why should anyone visit when every High Street looks the same, Clone Town, same shops.
It is corrupt and incompetent planners in bed with greedy developers who have made all our High Streets look the same. Councillors now wringing their hands and shedding crocodile tears are the same councillors who gave planning consent and backing for unwanted retail development that crushed independent businesses. Our High Streets are now paying the ultimate price of Clone Town, now they are all the same boarded-up shops.
Aldershot is the classic example of a town destroyed by a local council with hypocritical two-faced councillors shedding crocodile tears over the dire state of the town centre. The same council is now in bed with McDonald’s trying to destroy The Tumbledown Dick, an old coaching inn in Farnborough.
Loss of these rubbish retail chains provides a space for independent retailers to move in and offer a better service.
Lincoln is unusual in that it has a high number of independent coffee shops. But this owes no thanks to the City Council. When Stokes tried to create a downstairs coffee bar in their lovely old building on the High Bridge in Lincoln, they faced a two year battle. Sincil Street, the only remaining heritage outside the Central Market, is facing destruction It is an area of small, local businesses.
Contrast with North Laine in Brighton, lots of quirky independent businesses very popular.
Local businesses recycle money within a local economy, chains drain money out of the local economy. If you are worried about the dire state of the High Street, the last thing you want is national retail chains draining money out of a collapsing local economy.
The next chain to fail will be Waterstone’s.
A petition has been launched by two independent bookshops blaming Amazon for failing High Street. They are wrong. It was the chains that killed our independent shops and turned our towns into Clone Towns.
It is Waterstone’s that has killed our independent bookshops. When they do deals on books offering for half price or less, it is predatory pricing designed to destroy independent bookshops. We have lost a quarter in a period of five years. Waterstone’s displays books based on what the publisher will pay, not on merit. I have yet to find a Waterstone’s that has Neverseconds on display or staff that know of the book, even though it has had masses of publicity.
Yes, Amazon dodges tax, but then so does Starbucks. Address the tax dodging, but do not muddy the waters by conflating with other issues.
There is something seriously wrong with our economy when it is dependent upon pointless consumer spending in the High Street. This dates from the 1950s when it was seen we were producing far more than we needed. People had to be conned into buying what they did not need. We have also seen a massive expansion of retail space. Neither was sustainable. The planet cannot sustain, neither could the High Street at a time of austerity and triple dip recession. What we are seeing is necessary readjustment, from a system that was not sustainable, where people shop locally, value independent retailers, value their local heritage.
We should see the loss of HMV, Jessops, Blockbuster, and hopefully Waterstone’s, as an opportunity to rejuvenate our High Streets. Places where once again it is a joy to be.
Why are we oppressed by a dysfunctional community of haters and blamers. The meaning of the poem is talking about society and how I understand why things like that incident happened. So it’s not like I’m agreeing with it, but that’s how the school made it seem. — Courtni Webb
The only thing that stops a bad guy with a gun is a good guy with a gun. — Wayne LaPierre, NRA
California high school student Courtni Webb suspended and facing possible expulsion for writing a poem about the massacre of the innocents.
Courtni Webb, a California teenager who expressed her feelings about the Newtown school massacre in a poem, has found herself suspended and facing possible expulsion. “I understand the killings in Connecticut. I know why he pulled the trigger,” wrote Courtni Webb in her poem. “Misery loves company. If I can’t be loved no one can,” she wrote. She told NBC News that she wrote the poem to express her belief that people act violently when they feel helpless. “I didn’t say that I agree with it, I said I simply understand it,” she said of the killings. “I feel like I’ve really been made to almost look like a monster by my school and I don’t appreciate that at all.”
A short extract from the poem on the massacre of the innocents:
They wanna hold me back
I run but still they still attack
My innocence, I won’t get back
I used to smile
They took my kindness for weakness
The silence the world will never get
I understand the killing in Conecticut
I know why he pulled the trigger
The government is a shame
Society never wants to take the blame
Society puts these thoughts in our head
Misery loves company
If I can’t be loved no one can
One week on from the massacre of the innocents, we had the NRA say it was business as usual, their solution to violence in a screwed up society was to pour in more guns.
Over Christmas we had psychos with their semi-automatic assault rifles posing in front of the Christmas tree and posting their pictures on social networking sites.
There is often posited a causal link between violent films and video games and violent assaults, including gun crimes. At least one violent video game is linked to a promotion of assault weapons.
Following the massacre of the innocents, sales of the Bushmaster assault rifle have shot through the roof, the weapon used by the killer.
Arm the good guys against the bad guys (and increase the sale of weapons) is the clarion call of the NRA.
The first victim of the Newtown killer was his mother. She was a psycho with her own private arsenal. It was her weapons the killer used for her killing and massacre of the innocents.
NRA has been lobbying to prevent a UN Treaty on control of small arms.
There is no US Federal Law on gun trafficking. Drug barons and traffickers cross the border into USA to pick up weapons. A classic two way trade, drugs flow one way, guns and money the other.
But OMG, one teenager writes a poem about the massacre of the innocents, and she is suspended from school. She had not even published it anywhere, it was not posted on social networking sites, it was found in her notebook and she is suspended from school.
Backers of Courtni Webb have launched a petition calling for her immediate reinstatement.
Sick society, ok to glorify guns, not ok to write poetry.
Thanks to everyone who in 2012 thought this blog worth visiting, who left kind comments. 2012 saw 114,243 visits.
Never let it be said one person cannot achieve a lot. This is what Scottish schoolgirl Martha Payne achieved in 2012: she wrote a food blog NeverSeconds about her school meals, raised money for a school kitchen in Malawi, co-authored with her father David a book NeverSeconds, collected numerous awards, as the year ended her blog passed over nine million hits. What are you going to achieve in 2013?
A Freedom of Information served on Argyll and Bute Council would be quite revealing.
There needs to be an in-depth independent investigation of Argyll and Bute Council, heads should roll.
It must be their idea of a sick joke, on the front of their website: Realising our potential together.
Martha and her family had high media profile, powerful backers, Martha was prepared to stand firm against the bully-boys and liars at Argyll and Bute Council. Pause and reflect how others less able to defend themselves are treated by this dishonest and rotten council.
NeverSeconds, co-authored by Martha and David Payne, provides a detailed account of how they were treated by Argyll and Bute Council. Thanks to the generosity of Cargo Publishing, it is currently available for download from Amazon at 99p. Each copy downloaded, 25 meals for schoolchildren in Africa, via Mary’s Meals.
Rising fast up those ole' Amazon charts is NeverSeconds. Jump of 12,000 places in one day. 99p for another 2 hours. amazon.co.uk/dp/B00A76F1FG/…— Cargo Publishing (@cargopublishing) December 30, 2012
You may wish to tell Argyll and Bute Council what you think of their appalling behavaviour, why they think it is ok to behave in this manner, pose a few questions …
You may also wish to contact Roddy McCuish, leader of Argyll and Bute Council, and ask him was it OK the behaviour of his council officials, blatantly lying, bullying a nine-year-old schoolgirl, smearing a decent family …
Flashmob produced by Onidea for the campaign “Som Sabadell” (We are Sabadell). More than 140 people from the Vallès Symphony Orchestra, Choral Lieder, Amics de l’Opera and Choral Belles Arts, performed the Beethoven 9th Symphony, to the surprise of the audience.
Vídeo Flashmob produït per Onidea, per a la campanya “Som Sabadell” del Banc Sabadell. Més de 140 persones integrades per l’Orquestra Simfònica del Vallès, Cors Lieder, Amics de l’Òpera i la Coral Belles Arts, van interpretar la 9 ª Simfonia de Beethoven, davant la sorpresa del públic assistent.
Vídeo Flashmob producido por Onidea, para la campaña “Som Sabadell” del Banc Sabadell. Más de 140 personas integradas por la Orquestra Simfònica del Vallès, Coros Lieder, Amics de l’Òpera y la Coral Belles Arts, interpretaron la 9ª Sinfonía de Beethoven, ante la sorpresa del público asistente.
corrupt Indian police brutally attack peaceful protesters
Today the Land of Mahatma Gandhi protested at Jantar Mantar in a Gandhian way – Peace and Non violence. — Dr Pooja Tripathi
We think of countries like Saudi Arabia, Pakistan, Afghanistan being bad for women.
Delhi is the gang rape capital of the world.
23 December 2012, a 23-year old woman was brutally raped on a bus by six men, beaten with iron bars, then thrown off the bus. The bus driver let it happen. He drove round and round to let it happen. Today she died. The six men have now been charged with murder.
One is even more shocking than the gang rape, if anything could be more shocking, the woman’s naked body lay on the street for an hour, no one cared, people passed by.
Gang rapes, dowry murders, honour killings, witch lynchings, sexual violence in the home, all part of everyday life in India.
For days men and women have taken to the streets, not only to protest rape, but also the failure of corrupt police, the failure of corrupt politicians.
The response of the state, the response of the police, to brutally beat the protesters with batons, tear gas and water cannon.
Those corrupt police officers who beat peaceful protesters are a disgrace to the uniform they wear. They should be prosecuted for assault and kicked out of the police force.
Could it be many corrupt politicians are silent because they have criminal records for rape?
Could it be police attack protesters because they cover up the rapes, if not active participants?
The first female chief police officer chief Damayanti Sen, the IPS officer who punctured Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee’s claims and cracked the Park Street rape case was persecuted by the state government for acting for a rape victim.
70% people involved in rape cases are from the police.
The response of the corrupt politicians, many of who are rapists, is that girls should be married off early, forced marriage, so that they can be raped in the privacy of their own homes behind closed doors.
In Delhi, rape capital of the world, a woman is raped every 14 hours. 3406 rapes have taken place in one of the states in 1 year (Madhya Pradesh) and more than 600 in the national capital alone.
