Happy Mothers’ Day! There it is! Another ... Day!
When I was a child it was called Mothering Sunday, or at least that was the case where I was brought up. You went to Sunday School in the morning and you went home with a card for your mum. Card shops, which in any case didn’t exist in their current huge card-emporia form, didn’t sell special cards. And in primary school you didn’t make a special card to take home. So teachers didn’t have to worry about the possibility of children who for one reason or another didn’t live with mum. I don’t think it occurred to our Sunday School that such a thing might be possible.
Neither was so much fuss made about it that childless women felt the need to avoid any mention of it. Here is a link to an article about older mums and those who opt to be childless, or often nowadays don’t opt but find it happening anyway.
When I was a child, back when I brought my Mothering Sunday card home from Sunday School (Good grief! She must have received four identical cards before the older two of us moved on to other things!) we were given an explanation for Mothering Sunday. Girls who were in service, maids and cooks and cleaners for the gentry, had that one Sunday free - free to go home and visit their mothers. So on their day off they cleaned and cooked and generally helped out at home instead of in the “big house”. If that is true, then Mothers’s Day is not quite the celebration of motherhood that it has become today.
As far as I know Frida Kahlo, subject of yesterday’s post, had no children. It is unlikely, I suppose, that after childhood polio and her horrible accident in her late teens that she was actually able to have children. But the Barbie Doll people have made her part of their “Inspiring women” series of dolls. Here is a link to a picture of the doll, which you can acquire for $29.99.
However the doll has become the subject of a dispute. Frida Kahlo’s great niece claims the the toymaker Mattel does not have the rights to use the artist’s image. She doesn’t want money or any sort of compensation but she wants them to redesign the doll. Apparently it doesn’t reflect Kahlo’s heavy, nearly conjoined eyebrows, and its costume doesn’t accurately portray the elaborate Tehuana-style dresses the artist wore.
But the Mattel company said in a statement that it worked with the Panama-based Frida Kahlo Corp, “which owns all the rights”.
“The Frida Kahlo Corporation actively participated in the process of designing the doll, Mattel has its permission and a legal contract that grants it the rights to make a doll of the great Frida Kahlo,” the company’s statement said.
Oh, dear! A bit of a legal wrangle going on!
It’s rather ironic that Frida Kahlo, a communist, should be portrayed by a company from the consumer society! So it goes.
Now, just recently I came across a series of books for children, each one based on the lives strong women - suffragettes, adventurers, artists. One of these was Frida Kahlo. I wonder if her great niece has seen these and if she approves of the image of her great aunt!
Sunday, 11 March 2018
Saturday, 10 March 2018
Replenishing!
I have just been to our local Tesco to replenish stocks.
I walked there, to the undoubted delight of my Fitbit which will be able to congratulate me on the humber of steps I have taken (14,042 so far today) and the distance I have covered (10.9 kilometres). It sends me messages telling me I am an over-achiever - so many steps over my daily target most days. Then it invites me to set myself a higher target. I think about it, briefly and not very seriously, because if I were to do that it might have to start to admonish me for not meeting my daily target. So I just stay with the status quo.
David Sidaris, who occasionally does very wryly funny talks on the radio about his life experiences, once described his experience with a Fitbit. He began modestly with a target 10,000 steps a day. Quickly he upgraded his target to 20,000 and easily made the grade. He walked around his village, picking up litter as he went, simultaneously meeting a different, more ecological, target. He moved through 30,000, 40,000 and rambled further and further afield. The higher his target, the more obsessive he became about it. He had to meet his target and, no doubt, receive the Fitbit badges saying what an achiever he was. It was taking up more and more of his day. There was little time left to do anything else. His partner was complaining; this was worse than if David were having an affair.
He had got up to a target of 60,000 daily steps, possibly more, and had not found a way out of his dilemma, when his Fitbit broke. He did not replace it!
Such are the perils of letting an amusing little gadget tell you what to do!
It was a pleasant walk to the supermarket. The weather was mild, almost springlike. I followed the bus route for part of the way, planning to hop on one if it came along, None did so I went off road and followed the towpaths and bridle paths the rest of the way.
The supermarket shelves were strangely bare. Empty spaces with the notice “temporarily out of stock” abounded on the fruit and vegetable shelves. Even the fish counter was sadly depleted and I am usually quite impressed.
What was going on?
I know that there has been deep snow around here and for at least one day the Co-op store in the village closed because it simply ran out of stuff to sell and the shop assistants who lived outside the village could not get in. And I am aware that there is still snow lying in places: big, dirty mounds at the side of some roads, pushed into drifts there by snow ploughs when the weather was really bad, and cleaner mounds in the fields, blown into drifts against the stone walls. All very picturesque! But the roads have been clear for days, or so I am told.
So why have Tesco’s supply lorries not restocked the shelves?
Did they not realise I was due back and would be food-shopping today? It’s not good enough!
While I scanned the vegetable shelves to see just what was available, one of the shop assistants, also scanning the shelves, turned to me, pointed to the parsnips, of which there were perhaps a dozen scrawny specimens remaining and asked me if they were turnips. I put her wise. So she asked me if the store had any turnips. What did a turnip look like, she wanted to know. No, I told her, there were no turnips on the shelves. I described a turnip. She looked puzzled. Then I spotted one of the things I was looking for, a pre-packed ‘stew veg’ pack containing an onion, some carrots and parsnips, a swede, but no turnip. I introduced her to the swede, which has a vague similarity to a turnip, although you could never really confuse the two. “oh”, she said, “and we definitely have no turnips?” Once more I had to disappoint her! As we separated she thanked me for my help.
Minutes later - not even long enough in time for me to have moved far with my trolley - I overheard another customer asking another assistant whether they had any packs of “stew veg”. The young man gave her a blank stare. She explained what she was looking for. He still looked blank. So I held up my purchase and said that this was probably what she was looking for. The customer’s eyes lit up (Saturday shoppers in a depleted store are easy to please) until I revealed that I had taken the last off the shelf (shoppers are also easily disappointed). Still looking blank, the young man told her they only had what was on the shelves, confirming my belief that replenishments have been slow to arrive!
But what is it with the young shop assistants who cannot recognise vegetables? Did nobody ever read them children’s story books about enormous turnips?
I should perhaps apply for a job in customer service!
It had started raining, just like Galicia, when I came out of the supermarket. Consequently I caught the bus back!
I walked there, to the undoubted delight of my Fitbit which will be able to congratulate me on the humber of steps I have taken (14,042 so far today) and the distance I have covered (10.9 kilometres). It sends me messages telling me I am an over-achiever - so many steps over my daily target most days. Then it invites me to set myself a higher target. I think about it, briefly and not very seriously, because if I were to do that it might have to start to admonish me for not meeting my daily target. So I just stay with the status quo.
David Sidaris, who occasionally does very wryly funny talks on the radio about his life experiences, once described his experience with a Fitbit. He began modestly with a target 10,000 steps a day. Quickly he upgraded his target to 20,000 and easily made the grade. He walked around his village, picking up litter as he went, simultaneously meeting a different, more ecological, target. He moved through 30,000, 40,000 and rambled further and further afield. The higher his target, the more obsessive he became about it. He had to meet his target and, no doubt, receive the Fitbit badges saying what an achiever he was. It was taking up more and more of his day. There was little time left to do anything else. His partner was complaining; this was worse than if David were having an affair.
He had got up to a target of 60,000 daily steps, possibly more, and had not found a way out of his dilemma, when his Fitbit broke. He did not replace it!
Such are the perils of letting an amusing little gadget tell you what to do!
It was a pleasant walk to the supermarket. The weather was mild, almost springlike. I followed the bus route for part of the way, planning to hop on one if it came along, None did so I went off road and followed the towpaths and bridle paths the rest of the way.
The supermarket shelves were strangely bare. Empty spaces with the notice “temporarily out of stock” abounded on the fruit and vegetable shelves. Even the fish counter was sadly depleted and I am usually quite impressed.
What was going on?
I know that there has been deep snow around here and for at least one day the Co-op store in the village closed because it simply ran out of stuff to sell and the shop assistants who lived outside the village could not get in. And I am aware that there is still snow lying in places: big, dirty mounds at the side of some roads, pushed into drifts there by snow ploughs when the weather was really bad, and cleaner mounds in the fields, blown into drifts against the stone walls. All very picturesque! But the roads have been clear for days, or so I am told.
So why have Tesco’s supply lorries not restocked the shelves?
Did they not realise I was due back and would be food-shopping today? It’s not good enough!
While I scanned the vegetable shelves to see just what was available, one of the shop assistants, also scanning the shelves, turned to me, pointed to the parsnips, of which there were perhaps a dozen scrawny specimens remaining and asked me if they were turnips. I put her wise. So she asked me if the store had any turnips. What did a turnip look like, she wanted to know. No, I told her, there were no turnips on the shelves. I described a turnip. She looked puzzled. Then I spotted one of the things I was looking for, a pre-packed ‘stew veg’ pack containing an onion, some carrots and parsnips, a swede, but no turnip. I introduced her to the swede, which has a vague similarity to a turnip, although you could never really confuse the two. “oh”, she said, “and we definitely have no turnips?” Once more I had to disappoint her! As we separated she thanked me for my help.
Minutes later - not even long enough in time for me to have moved far with my trolley - I overheard another customer asking another assistant whether they had any packs of “stew veg”. The young man gave her a blank stare. She explained what she was looking for. He still looked blank. So I held up my purchase and said that this was probably what she was looking for. The customer’s eyes lit up (Saturday shoppers in a depleted store are easy to please) until I revealed that I had taken the last off the shelf (shoppers are also easily disappointed). Still looking blank, the young man told her they only had what was on the shelves, confirming my belief that replenishments have been slow to arrive!
But what is it with the young shop assistants who cannot recognise vegetables? Did nobody ever read them children’s story books about enormous turnips?
I should perhaps apply for a job in customer service!
It had started raining, just like Galicia, when I came out of the supermarket. Consequently I caught the bus back!
Friday, 9 March 2018
Women having their day. And hugging!
Yesterday was International Women’s Day. There were demonstrations in Vigo centre. lots of women with flags.
Almost every day is international something or other day.
The V & A in London is holding an exhibition of the belongings of Frida Kahlo, often held up as an example of a successful woman artist. Which of course she was, with her own style and exhibitions of her work all over the place. And yet I always have a sneaky suspicion of her not being quite so famous as her husband (later not her husband and then her husband again) Diego Rivera.
Her belongings - clothes, jewellery, makeup and her prosthetic leg - were sealed up in her house, the Blue House, for more than fifty years. This is the first time they are being seen outside of Mexico. After Frida Kahlo died in 1954, aged 47, Rivera locked up her belongings in a room and said it should not be opened until after his death. That in itself says something about his control over her. A sign of the times, I suppose.
In the event, it was not opened until 2004.
The thing is that Frida Kahlo herself was a work of art. She was injured in a near fatal bus crash and suffered great pain throughout her life. But she covered it all with her own distinctive style of dressing. Even her prosthetic leg was clad in a red leather boot. You have to admire the little woman. Many would just have given up!
Frida Kahlo: Making Herself Up will be at the V&A from 16 June to 4 November. I must try to get there! I wonder if TheresaMay will go. After all, she has the bracelet!
Here’s something else. I read yesterday about doctors in the UK being warned not to hug patients, even when trying to comfort them as they give them bad news, because it may lead to legal action later!!!
I find it really strange. If you walk around the streets and see young people meeting, they hug each other far more than previous generations ever did. Girls in particular squeal their greetings and hug each other as if they had not met for years. But boys are not immune to this social contact thing. I can remember my brother being averse to hugging or kissing anyone, even family, for years after someone told him that only sissies kiss people. It all changed when he discovered girls but he was never a great hugger within the family. But now they all make physical contact on greeting.
So on the one hand we have young people hugging all over the show and on the other doctors being warned not to offer physical comfort to patients. And then there are the teachers, who are advised not to hug their pupils. Keep everyone at professional arm’s length! But now the mental health professionals are blaming many of the mental health problems of the modern age on precisely that lack of physical contact. Here’s an article about it.
We have a big loneliness problem: half a million older people in the UK, I read, go at least five days a week without meeting or touching a soul. And it’s not just in the UK. A Spanish friend of mine spoke to me recently about the number of elderly people in Vigo who live alone and rarely see anyone. Centres are being set up in some countries for people to go and be hugged.
Ours is a strange world!
“We seem to have been creating a touch-averse world,” said one expert. “It’s time to recover the social power of touch.”
I think I’ll just keep on hugging family and friends!
Almost every day is international something or other day.
The V & A in London is holding an exhibition of the belongings of Frida Kahlo, often held up as an example of a successful woman artist. Which of course she was, with her own style and exhibitions of her work all over the place. And yet I always have a sneaky suspicion of her not being quite so famous as her husband (later not her husband and then her husband again) Diego Rivera.
Her belongings - clothes, jewellery, makeup and her prosthetic leg - were sealed up in her house, the Blue House, for more than fifty years. This is the first time they are being seen outside of Mexico. After Frida Kahlo died in 1954, aged 47, Rivera locked up her belongings in a room and said it should not be opened until after his death. That in itself says something about his control over her. A sign of the times, I suppose.
In the event, it was not opened until 2004.
The thing is that Frida Kahlo herself was a work of art. She was injured in a near fatal bus crash and suffered great pain throughout her life. But she covered it all with her own distinctive style of dressing. Even her prosthetic leg was clad in a red leather boot. You have to admire the little woman. Many would just have given up!
Frida Kahlo: Making Herself Up will be at the V&A from 16 June to 4 November. I must try to get there! I wonder if TheresaMay will go. After all, she has the bracelet!
Here’s something else. I read yesterday about doctors in the UK being warned not to hug patients, even when trying to comfort them as they give them bad news, because it may lead to legal action later!!!
I find it really strange. If you walk around the streets and see young people meeting, they hug each other far more than previous generations ever did. Girls in particular squeal their greetings and hug each other as if they had not met for years. But boys are not immune to this social contact thing. I can remember my brother being averse to hugging or kissing anyone, even family, for years after someone told him that only sissies kiss people. It all changed when he discovered girls but he was never a great hugger within the family. But now they all make physical contact on greeting.
So on the one hand we have young people hugging all over the show and on the other doctors being warned not to offer physical comfort to patients. And then there are the teachers, who are advised not to hug their pupils. Keep everyone at professional arm’s length! But now the mental health professionals are blaming many of the mental health problems of the modern age on precisely that lack of physical contact. Here’s an article about it.
We have a big loneliness problem: half a million older people in the UK, I read, go at least five days a week without meeting or touching a soul. And it’s not just in the UK. A Spanish friend of mine spoke to me recently about the number of elderly people in Vigo who live alone and rarely see anyone. Centres are being set up in some countries for people to go and be hugged.
Ours is a strange world!
“We seem to have been creating a touch-averse world,” said one expert. “It’s time to recover the social power of touch.”
I think I’ll just keep on hugging family and friends!
Thursday, 8 March 2018
Fines and justice!
Yesterday we went down into town to meet a friend and have some chipirones encebollados - baby squid served up with really tender onions - for lunch. We met in the bar La Porchaba, where they served such copious free tapas that when we moved on to the restaurant we opted to miss out the starter and go straight on to the main course.
How do bars and cafes make a profit when they give free food in such quantities? Three drinks and lots of food for less than the price of one glass of wine in the UK!
In the restaurant, the Rosalía Castro, near the port, the chipirones were slow to arrive but the wait was well worth it. Absolutely perfect!
Later Phil went of a haircut, something he does almost every time we visit Vigo. He is greeted like an old friend by the rather aged barber and they swop opinions about this and that.he says he gets a better cut than he does at home in the UK.
While he was getting trimmed, I took a look at the paper. I discovered that a cyclist in Orense was recently fined €200 for having a flashing light on his bike. It seems that the Reglamento General de Vehículos states that bikes should have a fixed lamp front and back and reflectors on pedals and wheels. Well, none of the cyclists I see around here seem to have heard of that rule. Flashing LED lights are pretty standard bikes in the UK but here in Vigo no lights is the more common thing. I suspect that the police were doing a little revenue generating!
Incidentally, out and about yesterday and today I saw at least ten cars go through red lights. This morning a van stopped at a red light so that I could cross, with the little green man giving me permission. And then he set off and made his right turn, totally disregarding the light. The cars behind him obeyed the traffic lights. He was a white van driver, however, and they appear to have a different highway code to all other road users.
In my newspaper reading I came across an item about the Galician feminist writer Emilia Pardo Bazán. More specifically it was about her summer residence, lasTorres de Meirás. Here is a link to a youtube visit to the pazo.
After her death in 1921 and after the assassination of her son Jaime in 1936, the house was left to her daughter and to the widow of Jaime. They decided to donate the residence to the Jesuits, who in 1938, together with the right wing authorities of La Coruña, gave the llace to Franco as a summer residence. After that nobody from Pardo Bazán’s family was allowed in. A little unfair, all things considered!
In 2008 the pazo was declared a “bien de interés cultural”, a sort of National Trust property, despite the protestations of Franco’s heirs. In 2011, the doors opened to the public for the first time. And iw you can visit it on Fridays. However, the Franco heirs still use it in summer and try to prevent visits. They were fined in September lastvyear for failing to allow visits. Justice of sorts!
And finally, proving that every cloud has a silver lining, here I hope is a link to a newspaper report on Roman remains in Cádiz uncovered by the recent Storm Emma. Bits of an aqueduct and a roman road.
That sort of thing doesn’t often happen in Greater Manchester!
How do bars and cafes make a profit when they give free food in such quantities? Three drinks and lots of food for less than the price of one glass of wine in the UK!
In the restaurant, the Rosalía Castro, near the port, the chipirones were slow to arrive but the wait was well worth it. Absolutely perfect!
Later Phil went of a haircut, something he does almost every time we visit Vigo. He is greeted like an old friend by the rather aged barber and they swop opinions about this and that.he says he gets a better cut than he does at home in the UK.
While he was getting trimmed, I took a look at the paper. I discovered that a cyclist in Orense was recently fined €200 for having a flashing light on his bike. It seems that the Reglamento General de Vehículos states that bikes should have a fixed lamp front and back and reflectors on pedals and wheels. Well, none of the cyclists I see around here seem to have heard of that rule. Flashing LED lights are pretty standard bikes in the UK but here in Vigo no lights is the more common thing. I suspect that the police were doing a little revenue generating!
Incidentally, out and about yesterday and today I saw at least ten cars go through red lights. This morning a van stopped at a red light so that I could cross, with the little green man giving me permission. And then he set off and made his right turn, totally disregarding the light. The cars behind him obeyed the traffic lights. He was a white van driver, however, and they appear to have a different highway code to all other road users.
In my newspaper reading I came across an item about the Galician feminist writer Emilia Pardo Bazán. More specifically it was about her summer residence, lasTorres de Meirás. Here is a link to a youtube visit to the pazo.
After her death in 1921 and after the assassination of her son Jaime in 1936, the house was left to her daughter and to the widow of Jaime. They decided to donate the residence to the Jesuits, who in 1938, together with the right wing authorities of La Coruña, gave the llace to Franco as a summer residence. After that nobody from Pardo Bazán’s family was allowed in. A little unfair, all things considered!
In 2008 the pazo was declared a “bien de interés cultural”, a sort of National Trust property, despite the protestations of Franco’s heirs. In 2011, the doors opened to the public for the first time. And iw you can visit it on Fridays. However, the Franco heirs still use it in summer and try to prevent visits. They were fined in September lastvyear for failing to allow visits. Justice of sorts!
And finally, proving that every cloud has a silver lining, here I hope is a link to a newspaper report on Roman remains in Cádiz uncovered by the recent Storm Emma. Bits of an aqueduct and a roman road.
That sort of thing doesn’t often happen in Greater Manchester!
Wednesday, 7 March 2018
Bits of nonsense everywhere!
I have been collecting bits of silliness, some more serious than others.
* Circulating the official press release with sleep experts and local media.
* Distributing sleep patient literature such as booklets, leaflets and newsletters.
* Finding other ideas at worldsleepday.org.
* Spreading the word on social media about #WorldSleepDay.
I wonder if it is possible to organise something to stop the rain and wind from battering the window, like the other night, and waking me up!
My Fitbit gives me an analysis of how well I have slept each night. I take it with a pinch of salt and wonder if it is tricked by times I just remain still and quiet without actually sleeping! I know that sleep is important and all that but really some organisations take themselves far too seriously. Here’s a sample:
“World Sleep Day is designed to raise awareness of sleep as a human privilege that is often compromised by the habits of modern life. Sleep impacts nearly every aspect of mental and physical health. Research suggests:
* Sound sleep is one of the three pillars of good health along with a balanced diet and regular exercise.
* There are close to 100 disorders of sleep, but most are modifiable and manageable with the help of sleep specialists.
* Effects of insufficient sleep favor outcomes such as increased appetite and enhanced sensitivity to food stimuli.
* Next day effects of poor quality sleep include a negative impact on our attention span, memory recall and learning.
* Studies suggest that sleep quality rather than quantity has a greater impact on quality of life and daytime functioning.
* Short sleep duration appears independently associated with weight gain, particularly in young age groups.
* Longer term effects of reduced sleep duration are being studied, but poor-quality sleep or sleep deprivation has been associated with significant health problems, such as obesity, diabetes, weakened immune systems and even some cancers.”
However, we end up with so many World This That and The Other Days that it’s hard to have an ordinary life!
Here’s something else, a bit of serious madness.
- A couple in Brittany, France, have been banned from calling their baby daughter Liam. Laws about names used to be much more strict in France, with a list of “permitted names”, and a veto on giving a child a ridiculous name which could cause adversely affect the child. Things have eased up but even so the authorities still step in to prevent names which might lead to gender confusion. Previously, names such as Manhattan, Nutella, Strawberry and Deamon have all been banned in France. (Why anyone might call their child Nutella is beyond me. But then, so is the reasoning behind giving a girl a boy’s name, or vice versa, unless like the Beckhams you are ignorant of the fact, for instance, that Cruz is a common girl’s name is Spain but you like it anyway and so you give it to your boy child!)
- By contrast, a family in Alabama, USA, have Saylor, Wales and Bridge. In the photo I saw they looked like boys but, well, you never know. Their mother is Courtney, a name you never heard when I was a girl. They were in the news for Courtney’s giving birth to sextuplets. It didn’t say what their names were but they were all swaddled in colours of the rainbow so they might well be Red, Orange, Yellow, Green, Blue and Indigo - Violet being far too normal a name! Yellow and Indigo/Violet were adorned with little coronets of flowers in the photo shoot, so I assume they are girls.
- Coming up soon, March 16th, is World Sleep Day. “Intended to be a celebration of sleep and a call to action on important issues related to sleep, including medicine, education, social aspects and driving. It is held, apparently, every year on the Friday before the Spring Vernal Equinox.Who knew?
- Here are some suggested ways participate in World Sleep Day:
* Circulating the official press release with sleep experts and local media.
* Distributing sleep patient literature such as booklets, leaflets and newsletters.
* Finding other ideas at worldsleepday.org.
* Spreading the word on social media about #WorldSleepDay.
I wonder if it is possible to organise something to stop the rain and wind from battering the window, like the other night, and waking me up!
My Fitbit gives me an analysis of how well I have slept each night. I take it with a pinch of salt and wonder if it is tricked by times I just remain still and quiet without actually sleeping! I know that sleep is important and all that but really some organisations take themselves far too seriously. Here’s a sample:
“World Sleep Day is designed to raise awareness of sleep as a human privilege that is often compromised by the habits of modern life. Sleep impacts nearly every aspect of mental and physical health. Research suggests:
* Sound sleep is one of the three pillars of good health along with a balanced diet and regular exercise.
* There are close to 100 disorders of sleep, but most are modifiable and manageable with the help of sleep specialists.
* Effects of insufficient sleep favor outcomes such as increased appetite and enhanced sensitivity to food stimuli.
* Next day effects of poor quality sleep include a negative impact on our attention span, memory recall and learning.
* Studies suggest that sleep quality rather than quantity has a greater impact on quality of life and daytime functioning.
* Short sleep duration appears independently associated with weight gain, particularly in young age groups.
* Longer term effects of reduced sleep duration are being studied, but poor-quality sleep or sleep deprivation has been associated with significant health problems, such as obesity, diabetes, weakened immune systems and even some cancers.”
However, we end up with so many World This That and The Other Days that it’s hard to have an ordinary life!
Here’s something else, a bit of serious madness.
- The Vatican has just set up a new exorcism training course, following an alleged increase in demonic possession. It seems that half a million cases are reported in Italy yearly, according to a Sicilian priest, Benigno Palilla. He doesn’t sound very benign to me! Visiting fortune-tellers and Tarot-readers “open the door to the devil and to possession”, he says. This is the 21st century, isn’t it. I suppose people can believe what they will but exorcism practices can be dangerous and harmful, especially to children.
Tuesday, 6 March 2018
Fairness!
Further to my comments yesterday about the man who invited the First Nations people of Canada to live rent free on “his” land, here is something I found yesterday about a ceremony in Brazil
“It was a modest ceremony for such a significant victory: it is not every day that the descendants of enslaved people are given the title to their land. But there was no doubt of its importance at a time when the protection of Brazil’s traditional rural communities is threatened by a conservative government in league with powerful agribusiness interests.
This weekend, Simão Jatene, the governor of Pará state, signed a document giving land titles for more than 220,000 hectares of Amazon forest to an isolated community populated by descendants of enslaved people who escaped centuries ago. The 500 inhabitants of Cachoeira Porteira have spent 23 years trying to get legal rights to their territory.
“It has a very important meaning for us,” said Valterlane Souza, 34, who was born and raised in the community. “
There you go! Justice for all! Well, for some.
Here’s another justice related matter. As an occasional cyclist, I am often dismayed at the way some two-wheel users behave. It’s not just the riding on the pavement, often at speed, that annoys me, it’s often their attitude when they are actually on the road itself.
Now, I am aware that many four-wheel road users are blind to cyclists and, even if they do see them, regard them as some kind of lesser species, inferior beings who really should not be allowed on the road. But often cyclists do themselves no favours. Some of them disregard traffic lights, apparently thinking that red lights really apply only to car drivers and that they, the cyclists, can do a nifty turn rather than stop and wait. (Mind you, here in Galicia, there are car drivers who seem to have the same philosophy, especially at pedestrian crossings controlled by lights! But that is a different matter.)
And now it seems that in the UK they are considering bringing in new laws regarding cyclists. Well, one new law in particular. They want to introduce the offence of causing death by dangerous cycling. A woman died, last year I think, after being knocked over by a cyclist. Motorists who cause death by dangerous driving face 14 years in prison and the proponents of this new law think that death by dangerous cycling should carry the same penalty.
Labour MP Ian Austin, the former head of the all-party parliamentary cycling group, suggested the government should focus on reducing deaths caused by drivers and said: “Ministers are wrong if they think this will make our roads safer.”
But it seems to me that as more and more frequently we come across people cycling at speed along pathways and pavements, then surely there has to be some legislation. Austin, however, said: “Each death is a tragedy but what I and others have been calling for is a proper review of road safety and how the law is enforced when people are killed or injured because many more pedestrians and cyclists have been killed by people driving cars. They are a much greater danger to pedestrians and should be the focus of government resources.”
We shall see!
In other areas of cycling, things are going on as well. The question of whether or Bradley Wiggins asthma treatment counts as a performance enhancing drug has come up again. A report has been released suggesting that his winning the Tour de France in 2012 was by foul means, not fair. Team Sky so badly wanted to win that they abused the anti-doping system to allow Wiggins, and possibly support riders, to take powerful corticosteroids to prepare them for the Tour de France.
Oh dear, there must be a fine line between deliberately doping and using legitimate medication, knowing that it might actually enhance performance. I suppose it becomes an ethical thing as well. Do you knowingly take that particular medication or not?
BradleyWiggins himself said: “I find it so sad that accusations can be made, where people can be accused of things they have never done which are then regarded as facts. I strongly refute the claim that any drug was used without medical need.I hope to have my say in the next few days and put to my side across.”
And, of course, he is right about the accusations problem. Mud tends to stick.
I am quite glad to be only an occasional cyclist.
“It was a modest ceremony for such a significant victory: it is not every day that the descendants of enslaved people are given the title to their land. But there was no doubt of its importance at a time when the protection of Brazil’s traditional rural communities is threatened by a conservative government in league with powerful agribusiness interests.
This weekend, Simão Jatene, the governor of Pará state, signed a document giving land titles for more than 220,000 hectares of Amazon forest to an isolated community populated by descendants of enslaved people who escaped centuries ago. The 500 inhabitants of Cachoeira Porteira have spent 23 years trying to get legal rights to their territory.
“It has a very important meaning for us,” said Valterlane Souza, 34, who was born and raised in the community. “
There you go! Justice for all! Well, for some.
Here’s another justice related matter. As an occasional cyclist, I am often dismayed at the way some two-wheel users behave. It’s not just the riding on the pavement, often at speed, that annoys me, it’s often their attitude when they are actually on the road itself.
Now, I am aware that many four-wheel road users are blind to cyclists and, even if they do see them, regard them as some kind of lesser species, inferior beings who really should not be allowed on the road. But often cyclists do themselves no favours. Some of them disregard traffic lights, apparently thinking that red lights really apply only to car drivers and that they, the cyclists, can do a nifty turn rather than stop and wait. (Mind you, here in Galicia, there are car drivers who seem to have the same philosophy, especially at pedestrian crossings controlled by lights! But that is a different matter.)
And now it seems that in the UK they are considering bringing in new laws regarding cyclists. Well, one new law in particular. They want to introduce the offence of causing death by dangerous cycling. A woman died, last year I think, after being knocked over by a cyclist. Motorists who cause death by dangerous driving face 14 years in prison and the proponents of this new law think that death by dangerous cycling should carry the same penalty.
Labour MP Ian Austin, the former head of the all-party parliamentary cycling group, suggested the government should focus on reducing deaths caused by drivers and said: “Ministers are wrong if they think this will make our roads safer.”
But it seems to me that as more and more frequently we come across people cycling at speed along pathways and pavements, then surely there has to be some legislation. Austin, however, said: “Each death is a tragedy but what I and others have been calling for is a proper review of road safety and how the law is enforced when people are killed or injured because many more pedestrians and cyclists have been killed by people driving cars. They are a much greater danger to pedestrians and should be the focus of government resources.”
We shall see!
In other areas of cycling, things are going on as well. The question of whether or Bradley Wiggins asthma treatment counts as a performance enhancing drug has come up again. A report has been released suggesting that his winning the Tour de France in 2012 was by foul means, not fair. Team Sky so badly wanted to win that they abused the anti-doping system to allow Wiggins, and possibly support riders, to take powerful corticosteroids to prepare them for the Tour de France.
Oh dear, there must be a fine line between deliberately doping and using legitimate medication, knowing that it might actually enhance performance. I suppose it becomes an ethical thing as well. Do you knowingly take that particular medication or not?
BradleyWiggins himself said: “I find it so sad that accusations can be made, where people can be accused of things they have never done which are then regarded as facts. I strongly refute the claim that any drug was used without medical need.I hope to have my say in the next few days and put to my side across.”
And, of course, he is right about the accusations problem. Mud tends to stick.
I am quite glad to be only an occasional cyclist.
Monday, 5 March 2018
A bit of a rant!
It’s a modern thing to look back at stuff from the past and apologise for it. I read about a man in Canada who owns rather a big stretch of land and now states (admits?) that this land was originally stolen from native North American Indians. Except of course that now you aren’t supposed to call them that; they are the First Nations. And so he has advertised his willingness to invite people of the First Nations to go and live rent-free on his land. Note, however, that it is still “his land”; there is no talk of actually giving it back. If I was a member of the First Nations I might be just a little peeved.
How far back can you take restitution of this kind?
I recently read “Barkskins” by Annie Proulx. It tells the story not just of the stealing of land from the First Nations but also the exploitation of forests in the North American continent and in the wider world. She covers attempts to maintain the traditional way of life of some of the First Nations’ people - a pretty hopeless attempt as the wider world impinges and, besides, a large proportion of those trying to live that life are no longer truly First Nations people but a mixture, thanks to the arrival of Europeans.
She also looks at the attempt of some of the exploiters of the woodlands to regenerate the forests, planting afresh wherever they have cut down. But again, the wider world impinges and the financially most successful are the ones who do not replant. Almost inevitable they push the ecologically sound out of the picture.
It’s taken a long time for us to realise that the planet’s resources are finite and we still don’t really know how to put it right It’s greed and the profit motive that keep getting in the way. And they pop up in areas like education and health where surely, in the 21st century we should have realised they have no place.
I read an article about a baby born premeaturely and weighing only 2 pounds. This was in the United States. Here is a short extract from what the parents of that baby had to say:
“The financial cost of caring for a child with an illness or disability ruins families; with the Republican war on healthcare that’s only getting worse. If we had had a lifetime cap on Layla’s insurance coverage, for example, she would have blown through it in her first weeks of life. It’s not uncommon for families of preemies to be left bankrupt, depending on a healthcare system that says it protects the most vulnerable while making it impossible for you to care for your child while still paying the bills.
That’s why we need a healthcare system that adequately protects families and children from the complex and tragic hurdles life puts in our way. We need family leave policies that make special considerations for parents of ill children. And most of all, we need to recognize that none of this can be a one-size-fits-all solution.”
The baby in question, Layla, survived and thrived. At six or seven years old she had caught up with her peers and was doing well, a bright and happy little girl but her parents had frequent rushes to the hospital when she was tiny.
This is why in the UK we need to fight for our NHS and not think of selling it, or bits of it, off to the profit-greedy!
Rant over!
How far back can you take restitution of this kind?
I recently read “Barkskins” by Annie Proulx. It tells the story not just of the stealing of land from the First Nations but also the exploitation of forests in the North American continent and in the wider world. She covers attempts to maintain the traditional way of life of some of the First Nations’ people - a pretty hopeless attempt as the wider world impinges and, besides, a large proportion of those trying to live that life are no longer truly First Nations people but a mixture, thanks to the arrival of Europeans.
She also looks at the attempt of some of the exploiters of the woodlands to regenerate the forests, planting afresh wherever they have cut down. But again, the wider world impinges and the financially most successful are the ones who do not replant. Almost inevitable they push the ecologically sound out of the picture.
It’s taken a long time for us to realise that the planet’s resources are finite and we still don’t really know how to put it right It’s greed and the profit motive that keep getting in the way. And they pop up in areas like education and health where surely, in the 21st century we should have realised they have no place.
I read an article about a baby born premeaturely and weighing only 2 pounds. This was in the United States. Here is a short extract from what the parents of that baby had to say:
“The financial cost of caring for a child with an illness or disability ruins families; with the Republican war on healthcare that’s only getting worse. If we had had a lifetime cap on Layla’s insurance coverage, for example, she would have blown through it in her first weeks of life. It’s not uncommon for families of preemies to be left bankrupt, depending on a healthcare system that says it protects the most vulnerable while making it impossible for you to care for your child while still paying the bills.
That’s why we need a healthcare system that adequately protects families and children from the complex and tragic hurdles life puts in our way. We need family leave policies that make special considerations for parents of ill children. And most of all, we need to recognize that none of this can be a one-size-fits-all solution.”
The baby in question, Layla, survived and thrived. At six or seven years old she had caught up with her peers and was doing well, a bright and happy little girl but her parents had frequent rushes to the hospital when she was tiny.
This is why in the UK we need to fight for our NHS and not think of selling it, or bits of it, off to the profit-greedy!
Rant over!
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