I did good

As we begin the descent into winter many of our feathered friends, who pop in of a morning for a quick snack and douche in the bird bath, are leaving, for warmer climes.
It was always a scene to enjoy, each type or family of bird species performing  a roll in (forgive me) the pecking order !! 


The most common and amongst the smallest,  is the House Sparrow. A cheeky little guy, always the first in the pool (see bird bath) there were sometimes six or seven of them frolicking in the water fluffing out the feathers,and shaking the water off before diving under again. They are like small children seemingly oblivious of whose watching. The Song Thrush and the Blackbird, 


hopping around on the grass or hanging onto the seed feed basket, hanging in the tree, their beauty is in their song,particularly the Blackbird, with those strong penetrating notes, in perfect pitch, vibrating through the early morning air to remind us all of the wonder of nature.

More devious callers are the Starlings and the bully boy of them all, the Magpie. They would strut about, warning the others off and generally make a nuisance of themselves. Alert and confident, the cat is all they had to worry about. 

Now we are left with the cheeky, loveable Robin. No fear, he hops right up to one, as if to say, we are in this together mate you look after me and I will bring a smile of recognition to your face every morning. 







The pond and a few sluggish goldfish, (the water is getting colder) are all we have. The water lilly is dying off slowly waiting until next Springs rebirth and the frogs, where do the frogs go in Winter,(answers on a post card please).
The yearly cycle of the frog is a marvel in its self. Springs warmth brings them back, from, I know not where but as of clockwork they are there in the pond.
The sexual life of these creatures is rigorous to say the least, no holds barred they seek a mate. Sometimes the poor old female has a bevy of male frogs attached to her, each hanging on for dear life, sometimes to the exclusion of the females life as she seems to have the life smothered out of her in the primeval need to procreate.
You might think I am mad (Marie said I was) but in my concern for one foggy maiden who was enveloped in the grasp of five, overzealous male frogs she was turning translucent as they squeezed the life out of her.
I picked up the slimy ball of interlocked arms and legs and began to unfasten the grip of each until she was free. I'm not sure if it counts for much in the "Women against rape movement" but in froggy terms,  I did good !!!              

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A small price to pay for being civilised.

 I have been watching the Liberal Parties Conference. The speakers were addressing the needs of people with disability. I was reminded as I watched how valuable the input of people are who see the issues of disability as an opportunity to educate us and improve the lot of the disabled and not solely an issue for the people who are disabled. 

Watching and listening to these able bodied Liberals one is reminded how different we all are and how our own narrow world lacks understanding.I have myself thought, over the years that we seemed to, go on and on, about the subject. We were encouraged to believe that, with "money and the will", we could eradicated the obstacles to the disabled to move around and offered equality with the rest of society.
I held an instinctive belief that to be dis-"abled" meant they weren't fully "able",  they were not the same, and couldn't attain the ideal of "equality".

I remember being amazed at the regulations that required new buildings, of two stories and above, to have a lift facility so that any disabled person would not be prejudiced from applying for a job with any company in that building. Multiple floor buildings already have lifts, ground floor buildings were not a problem so the issue was, medium sized  buildings where, in the past it had been presumed a flight of stairs was

satisfactory. 

It must be remembered that the installation of a lift is expensive,perhaps the most expensive part of the building and to demand that all buildings in future must have one was, in my view a bridge too far. My own opinion was that there would always be things and places where the disabled could not find access and therefore should accept this limitation as a fact of life.

Listening to the people on the Liberal Democrat platform, who make it their business to push out the boundaries on our moribund attitudes. I knew that I would still "question" the basic premise.

Of course one only has to remember the magnificent achievements at the Para Olympic Games, the absolute astonishment at how fast, how high, how resolute they all are.
They certainly put my meagre achievements to shame.

Disability compensation, welfare compensation, sickness benefit are all the result of our concern to assist the less well off, the disadvantaged. Of course this has led to an inability to see the wood for the trees. and we have spawned a compensation industry which creams off 10% of our GDP !

 Perhaps this is a small price to pay for being civilised ?

Cultural difference

I was thinking this morning about the comment I made in a recent blog regarding minority rights.

Society is complex and according to our norms it should be inclusive. It should include all measure of man and women. It should at least "understand" the  the views held by people living within the society even if one doesn't agree with them. A sign of a healthy civilised society is the way we deal with the differences between us.
The differences that lie between us inside the national boundary has become greatly magnified over the last 50 years as the people have grasped the ease of travel and the globalisation of industry and capital has meant that skills are readily transferable around the world. The differences then are not skill or industry based differences but cultural.
Each minority group in one country belongs to a majority group in another and until the second and third generation have sufficiently distanced themselves from their ethnic root the norms of the old majority culture remain strong.

How do we evaluate another man's culture when set against our own especially if there are major differences. How do we, and should we, make allowances for a way of thinking that is alien to our own.
Remember of course the wide and multinational differences in our own society, within our own ethnic stock. They, in themselves reflect our willingness to allow people the right to be different.

The Islamist, Shari Law brings into sharp focus the difficulty we now experience in our generosity of purpose, to allow people to be different.
Shari law appears to us as, "in extremity", cruel even barbaric in its sentencing. Chopping off a hand, having been caught stealing. Stoning a women to death for adultery, these are the ones that catch the headlines.
    
It was not too long ago that we in this country hung murders. Go back a little further and we have "draw and quartering" to add to the list of acts that those in authority could use as a deterrent to the law breaker.  The use of a deterrent was deemed justified since the law represented the view of society at that time.
There is no doubt that deterrents work, not all the time but they do work. I am sure the numbers of adulterers and those willing to steal are greatly effected by the barbaric end result if caught.Of course here come the nub of the problem, no one setting out to break the law expects to be caught. When they are and the State wheels out the apparatus of deterrent it has to use it, otherwise the purpose of the deterrent is nullified.

In this country we have whittled away our notion of deterrent to a minimum. The contract we now have with the populous, both criminal and non criminal,  is  education and, through education  a reliance on society at large not to commit crime and the person who has committed the crime of seeing the error of their ways of not committing crime again ! Its a long shot and I think the criminal community have won the day.
Notice I use the word community since they the criminal are a community and like the other communities they have rights and must be respected.

Where do we go from here.  Well statistics tell us that the "moderation" of the current ethnic view in this country will diminish as "we" the Anglo Saxon element become the minority in about 2050. Then the majority may, if they wish bring in more punitive laws and sentences which it is assumed the then majority approve of. Of course something else might happen. The new majority might, overtime, decide that the old, shall we call it, primitive way of conducting society was wrong and the way forward was to absorb new ways of thinking about ones fellow man within a wider society.

The key is the hold that religion will have, in 2050, over our society at large ? 
 

Killing the goose

Watching the tele and seeing the frenzy of the police in Spain reminded me of my reference the other week in a blog about Mrs Thatcher and her ideological contempt of much of the working class.

The ferocity from the police, came not from a need to "use" excessive force but of a desire to inflict a message on the minds of the protesters. We represent the authority of the state and therefore the  government of the state and we will not lend ourselves to any "democratic right" you may think you have to protest.
 
The right to protest arises of course from the swinging cuts in pay and services that the Government has inflicted on the ordinary people. Up to a 30% reduction in pay. Much of this retribution is for the profligacy of the people who were encouraged to spend, and spend by the very people who are now wielding the financial stick. The contrast is stark with the brunt of the hardship being weighted on the poor whilst the rich and the influential escape practically unscathed.It is a recipe for the total breakdown, over the next months and years of the social fabric of this part of Europe.


Mrs Merkel and the Germans have an obsession with stringency as the only way to balance the books. Any businessman will tell you, that to become secure you must develop your markets through presentation and efficiency which normally means spending money to activate the potential market. Shutting up shop is a sure way to fail. The only way to get out of this financial mess is to trade your way out of it. Easier said than done but there are areas of consumerism in newly emerging markets and it is to these new kids on the block that we must turn our attention. The old world is dying, its had its day as a vibrant, expanding, consuming group. With a negative birth rate and an ageing population, the time is rapidly approaching when the patient will become moribund.

The Germans have done very well out of the creation of the European Community A ready market for the plethora of goods they produce and a strangle hold over the financial infrastructure.     
Are they ready to kill the golden goose ?
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A special status

I've received a coolish response from some of the more politically correct amongst you regarding my piece on the Muslim rioting.

There seems to have developed a mind set, (particularly amongst youngish people), that to imply criticism of a section of the worlds society, is rash and unhelpful.   This mindset  I believe to be the result of years of advocating, to the the impressionable, an imprecise view of the world and the people who inhabit it.

We are all born equal (what a lot of tosh). 
We should all respect and avoid criticism of others, no matter what they do or what their values are, since "minority" rights have preference over majority rights for the reason that the "weaker", (why is that implicit in a minority?) must at all costs be protected.

This has led,amongst other things, to the,"all must be winners" syndrome in our schools and an "over protectiveness" of our children in all avenues of life.

It is hard to distinguish the difference between the politically correct lobby and the, "peace at all costs" reminiscent of Chamberlains appeasement leading up to World War 2.  It was a curtailment of the obvious to deny Germany had anything other than military aims in Europe.  There was a  willingness in a certain type of person to shy away from reality at any cost, particularly if it impinged on the "ideology" that  encased it.

Religions are in effect, faith base ideologies. 
The good that religions "do" is seen within their respective communities and their efforts outside their respective community. The Salvation Army comes to mind but there are many others. 
The congregation that sits or kneels in worship are galvanised by their leaders to do good works and to view others within the sect, with love and compassion.
Unfortunately this act of reciprocity is often played out within the particular faith and, although there are important benefits to society at large, because the benefit given to the individual, the individual now views "others" in a "wider context", outside the obvious religious one.
 
It would be churlish to underestimate the humanitarian, humanising factor of faith based religion.  But what binds the followers to the cause is outside the revelation that Darwinism brought to our understanding of species.  Even more troubling is the confusion the quantum world brings with its "chaos" theories when the religion is based purely on "faith".
  
And what is faith ?     I can have faith in my ability to walk to the shop, I have faith in many of the systems that have evolved in society to make our work and play easier. I have faith in things that I understand and are "of this world" so to speak.

The faith that troubles me is the faith in a "supreme being" that created Adam and Eve as the first humans on earth. From this flows the chronology of the Flood, Noah's Ark and so much more. Much of this special status seems to have arisen as a need to create an identity for the Israelites. The historical time scale and the archaeology are against virtually all the Bible has to say about the creation.

The Quran, passed from God to Mohammed, describes the roll played by Adam (the first prophet) and others in the biblical story. It therefore has as its base the same question --able characters which make up the Old Testament and, in its self must therefore be flawed.Having a "Faith" in God, based on the Old Testament and the Quran seems to be an act of "faith" which is unsustainable by reference to scientific fact. 

Are we to indulge these religions with a special status ?

Christmas on the tele'

The evenings draw in,the day shortens and the heating is switched on whilst, in the Southern Hemisphere, the reverse is happening.

Having friends and family who live on the other side of the world it all becomes relevant. Like an animal hibernating we are settling down for the winter long haul,we might not store our nuts and settle down to sleep it through but I suppose there are some similarity's. We don't do our daily shopping when it gets cold by walking to the shop for the incidental item, enjoying the exercise. The heating in the house does induce our willingness to drop off in front of the telly or head for bed much earlier so perhaps we should take to eating nuts whilst we also wait for Spring and natures regenerative warmth.
As I write in this environment, the mail drops on your electronic doorstep in a totally different environment,

 bright open sky's, the beach, and the irritating mosquito replace the rain and the ever thickening jackets that identify our landscape. Would I put up with the Mrs Mossie to be free of Mr Drizzle ? A good question ?
As you are freeing yourselves of the cold weather, November / December beckons, how the time flies.  Christmas, the sound of carols in our shops the choice of gifts, the sway of what we can afford and what we actually cough up is on us again.   Its Party Time !!

How we change in our passage through life.

When in ones teens Christmas was a time to loose ones inhabitation and let your hair down.  
Parties were pretty wild, followed by a long walk home, (as we ignored the bus timetable), and brought plenty of time to consider the evenings lost opportunities !!
In the 20s I was too busy, usually on my own, poking my nose into new scenes and new ways, to celebrate the festival.

The 30s brought a major change. Responsibility, heaps of it with the arrival of 2 "little people" and the influence they had on everything. Christmas was a time of excitement, "their" excitement, which was infectious. The buying of presents, the hiding of presents, the wrapping and the late night creeping down to the Christmas tree to pile them up as Santa's little helper !!          

The 40s/50s brought a tailing off of ones influence over Christmas and sadly there seemed nothing to put in its place. The parties had become stale as we met the same people who were there last year. All spoken for, no excitement to find out who that is in the corner, only the inevitable remark to point out, "you've had enough" and "its time to go home".

The 60s /70s are now a time to avoid the parties altogether. To sidestep the issue, stay at home and watch the tely'  
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Secular values

As an Atheist I am really getting quite fed up with all the religious upheaval and the special pleading by the Muslim religious group.
In what is a secular society we seem to bend over backwards to maintain affable relations with certain groups who have a mind set a million miles from the bulk of the inhabitants of this country.
We have to apparently accept and even pretend to understand the weird observance of Religious figures who lived hundreds of years ago and whose followers are currently reaping havoc across the world because of a silly video produced in America. Enough is enough we simply don't believe in the relevance of your faith to the modern world and whilst we, unlike you, are willing to accept your right to believe in the Prophet, we don't, and demand that you stop behaving in this way.
If you feel aggrieved then go and live in the country,countries at the source of the religion and leave us alone and in peace to get on with our secular way of life which, incidentally includes accepting "criticism" of much of what we stand for but allows others to hold and speak those views without our turning out on the street, rioting.

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