I walked to Uppermill in the drizzle this morning - damp but not particularly cold. Jokers tell us we have 12 seasons in Manchester:
Winter
fool’s Spring
Second Winter
Spring of Deception
Third Winter
Actual Spring
The Pollening
Summer
Hell
False Autumn
Second Summer
Actual Autumn —- THIS IS WHERE WE ARE NOW!
Leonard Cohen sang about the Tower of Song. The best singer/songwriters are poets and deserve their place up there in that tower. What about poets? Their words are themselves a kind of music. Are they welcome in the Tower of Song? If so, the tower should have a couple of new residents: Tony Harrison and Brian Patten who have both just died. The latter was one of the Liverpool Poets who taught us that poetry doesn’t have to follow set rules and can be about almost anything - bits of beauty everywhere!
Here’s an interesting bit of terminology: pregnancy-related crime! It’s in a report from the USA:
“In the first two years after the US supreme court overturned Roe v Wade, prosecutors in 16 states charged more than 400 people with pregnancy-related crimes, new research released on Tuesday found.”
In the absence of an actual national database of arrests and prosecutions, the report tells us, the numbers could well be higher. This isn’t solely about abortion, apparently. Drug use / abuse comes into it. In one case, after a woman gave birth the hospital tested her umbilical card for drugs. The tests came back positive for marijuana (the woman had a medical marijuana card - a state-issued identification card that shows a doctor has recommended the use of marijuana) and she was arrested … for felony child neglect … neglect before the child was born. Of course, I don’t know any details of the woman’s history of drug use or childcare - maybe her story is more complicated - but it all smacks of the state being rather too intrusive.
It’s also part of what I hear referred to as the ‘fetal personhood movement’, which seeks to give embryos and fetuses the same rights as a child who has already been born. Thus laws intended to protect children can be used against pregnant women. And somehow terms like ‘personhood’ and ‘pregnancy-related crime’ make it all sound legal and impersonal. And more than a little dystopian!
I have ranted on more than one occasion about dog-owners who like to decorate trees and bushes with little bags of dog poo! ‘Entitled dog owners’, as columnist Arwa Mahdawi refers to them, “expecting some sort of poop fairy to magically clean up after them”. Here’s a possible solution from Italy:
“Starting next year, the northern Italian city of Bolzano will charge tourists with dogs in tow a small daily tax of €1.50 (£1.30). Local owners are also being asked to cough up an annual tax of €100 (£87) a dog to help cover the cost of street-cleaning. Bolzano, by the way, has form when it comes to keeping pet owners on a tight leash. Last year it made DNA tests for dogs compulsory so that any abandoned excrement could be tested, and its owner then tracked down and fined.”
It’s an idea! However, it might be necessary to go back to having a dog licence in order to enforce such a requirement. And there are already enough people getting hot under the collar at the prospect of ID cards being (re-)introduced to the UK, let alone reintroducing dog licences!
While on the subject of dogs, I read yesterday about outdoor swimming pools and lidos allowing dog owners to bring their dogs for a swim and splash-about in said pools. My first reaction when I saw the headline was one of horror but it turns out the plan was to do so on the last day of such places being open before closing down for the end of summer. After that the pools would be drained and cleaned. So my feeling of revulsion at swimming in a pool where dogs had been bathing was unjustified.
My apologies, dog-owners! I recognise that you love your pets but I don’t want to share seats on buses or restaurants with them and I certainly don’t want to swim with them!
Life goes on. Stay safe and well, everyone!
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