You huddled masses

For all you tired, poor and huddled masses yearning to breathe free after a long, hard, long (did I say long?) American presidential campaign - I bring you BRITISH POLITICS.

Yes, believe it or not there is politics out there and it's just as crazy - let's just look at a few developments this week.

1. London Top CoP gets the sack.

Mayor of London, Boris Johnson (whom I supported) schemed and machinated to get the "top cop" Ian Blair ousted from his position as Commissioner of the Metropolitan Police.

Labour Take: Ian Blair was a really cool guy and bad, bad Boris was sneaky and mean to him and hurt his feelings and fired him and we're all really pissed off because he was such a good guy.

As a recap, Ian Blair was the guy who was at the top when Jean Charles de Menezes was shot at Stockwell tube station. At first, I defended the Met, 'cause we knew for a fact there were a bunch of crazies running around trying to kill us, some had succeeded (7/7) and some were not so good at the mixing of the chemicals (21/7). And then an innocentBrazilian was shot (22/7). Alright it was a crazy time, mistakes happen. Inexcusable mistakes, but a mistake. The Met were prosecuted under Health and Safety law, and got a wee slap on the wrist. Ian Blair challenged that laughable prosecution when he should have just sucked it up.

Ian Blair was also the guy who said the media overreacted to the death of two little girls murdered by a sexual predator in Soham 'cause they weren't black. I'm not saying that crime against black people isn't reported in the same way, I don't know, but how the hell were the parents of Holly Wells and Jessica Chapman supposed to feel about that?

Ian Blair is the guy who is under investigation for handing some kind of lucrative contract to a pal.

Same guy whose whole department seems to be alleging racial discrimination and harassment against him. I don't know if there's truth to it, but you don't generally find charges like that in a place that's well managed.

Labour is spinning and spinning against Boris on this one, saying he didn't follow the rules. (It's not entirely at his discretion to remove the Met Commissioner). But seems to me like he did. Boris, as chair of the Metropolitan Police Authority, has the ability to call for a vote of no confidence. Then between the MPA and the Home Secretary (a Labour politician) they can remove him. The Mayor was about to call for a vote of no confidence and Ian Blair resigned before that could happen. Not so sneaky, sounds to me.

My take: Good riddance to bad rubbish. Though he did help bring back neighbourhood policing, which was good thing. He didn't seem to me he had the confidence of his force anymore or many Londoners. Buh-bye.

2. Gordon Brown is still a loser

Yes, people still don't like Gordon Brown. He's re-shuffled his cabinet. I won't bore American readers with the names of the comings-in and the goings-out. But there were two things of note:

2a The return of Peter Mandelson. I don't expect folks in America to know who he is, but he's a kind of shadowy master of the dark spin and an architect of the New Labour Project. Think Karl Rove of the Left. He helped Tony Blair win and win and the Tone rewarded him with Cabinet positions, which he had to resign twice because of corruptiony stuff (like no interest loans and so on). When he had to go the second time, he got some kind of sinecure in European Government which is a real opportunity to root around in the trough.

Well, he's baaaack. He and Gordo never got along it's not unfair to say they were politcal enemies in the constant power struggle between Blair and Brown, but I guess Brown felt he needed Mandy's sneaky charms. He's now got a position in Cabinet - as Business Minister. A real shocker. I guess keep your friends close and your enemies closer is the theme of this gov reshuffle.

2b A whole brand new ministry!!!! One of things that has never ceased to amaze me is the constant merging, coagulating, separating and invention of whole ministries and government departments. It's kinda my job to keep up with these things and it absolutely makes my head spin. For example, the department that I most often deal with has gone from:

DXYZ to DWZY to OXZP and then DCXG while several of its functions have been shipped off to the DLRR and then DERZ and DSKN. WTF? (Note: these aren't real departmental acronyms, but it matters not.)

Apparently the brand new Department of Energy and Climate Change is sucking the energy out of BERR and taking the heat out of DEFRA.

Until now, the Department for Business, Enterprise and Regulatory Reform (Berr) had responsibility for the nation's energy strategy and ensuring the lights did not go out, while the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (Defra) had the task of trying to curb the rise of greenhouse gases and ensuring energy was used more efficiently.

What I want to know is this: Precisely what is the carbon footprint of setting up a brand new government department?

Black identity and gardening

When I lived on Highland Avenue in Knoxville in a house that's no longer there, I had a garden out the front. I dug up a whole patch of grass and had an abundant patch of flowers. It was bursting. I overstuffed it with gaudy flowers and contrasting colors and hit it hard with the Miracle Grow. I tended it lovingly and planted it up with discounted stuff I got at the garden center where I worked. I watered it with a great long hose and water that I borrowed from the fire station next door.

I often carried a little portable Sony Radio with me to listen to Prarie Home Companion or All Things Considered while I worked. But public radio isn't all talk, and I like chatter while I work. Sometimes my neighbor came over and talked to me while I gardened. He was from some Caribbean island, I can't remember which one now. I can't remember his name either.

He talked a bunch of shit, but I didn't really care. He'd stand and watch me while I worked and talk about black identity politics and a lot of anti-white racism and a smattering of Marxist theory. But hey, it was chatter.

"Your ancestors were pigs," he told me.
"It's pronounced Picts," I said.

He gained new respect for me when I told him I had some Asian blood from my Finnish ancestors. A one-drop theory of sorts. Had we only been able to the DNA testing we have now, I might have been able to tell him I have a little black blood, too, which I do. I'm sure he would have warmed further with that.

One time I mentioned Alice Walker, an author I like. He went livid. Apparently, she's a traitor to the black cause. This all flashed back to me because BBC Radio 4 is featuring The Color Purple as its radio drama this week.

I'm not sure why he was so anti-Alice. But I suspect that it was because of that book she wrote about female genital mutilation. (Possessing the Secret of Joy). He seemed to take that as an affront to the global African experience. He said she knew nothing of the African experience and that I shouldn't read her books. Fair enough, Walker hadn't grown up in Africa (the protagonist had), but you know she's a novelist. Those people make stuff up.

Apparently, in his view, this destroyed her credibility on all counts of relating the black experience, or any apparently.

I told him he was talking shit. "What do you know about being black?" he said.
"What do you know about growing up female in the South?" I said.

Why I'm not blogging so much these days

Buddy hates The Vol Abroad. He knows when I'm attempting to post to Vol Abroad. Even in a deep sleep, he wakes and screams just when I'm hitting my stride on a great post about British politics.

Last day

Up! , originally uploaded by London looks.

Looks like we managed to get to the playground on the last nice day. Today it's gone all cold and a bit damp. We may not get out of our woolens again until May or June. If then.

Twitter

I'm twittering under my real name as of a few hours ago. It'll be a lot of work stuff. Won't be much baby, Vols, politics or gardening.

Just so you know...

enraged

I think I've had about two hours of sleep. Not in a row. My eyeballs hurt. I'm not a happy camper.

Houston Nutt for President

Oh, my Vols. Ergghhh. Blechhh. Harrumph. Well, I will say this. They didn't totally fold after a series of mistakes that would have crumpled many. But that game was winnable - I'm feeling despondent about this season.

On the upside, Florida lost. Yay, Ole Miss! Not something I would normally say, but there you go.

And that wasn't the only action from Ole Miss last night. The Presidential debates held at the University of Mississippi that Americans saw on Friday was aired here last night at 11pm. So, as I was listening to final dregs of the Auburn- Tennessee game with a headphone in my ear and hanging on with dwindling hope - I was half listening to McCain and Obama grumble and stumble through American foreign policy and the financial crisis.

I'm afraid it re-confirmed by my belief that they're both crap candidates, but that McCain is worser.

I fell asleep pretty shortly after the moderator cajoled the candidates to talk to each other for the fifth time which succeeded only in causing McCain to not know where to look and therefore look as shifty as he probably is.

Obama may not have said much, but kudos to him for not rolling his eyes and saying "What in the hell are you talking about?" to some of McCain's sillier stupidisms and lame, lame attempts at humor.

The monkey and the cat

The monkey and the cat, originally uploaded by London looks.

Today I had to go to Birmingham for work. I hadn't been in ages. I left the event I was speaking at early, skipping the final plenary after I did my last gig.

It was understood that I needed to get back to my very young son. But really, I wanted to make sure I had time to go to the Birmingham Museum, which was located tantalisingly near the event, so I could see this painting before I headed back to London.

I don't know why, but this is one of my favorite paintings. It's really rubbish, though. Apparently, it's taken from a French fable in which a monkey wants some roasting chestnuts and manages to convince the cat to singe his paws getting the chestnuts from the burning embers.

I asked one of the attendants if I could take a picture. He told me that normally you're supposed to have special permission, but if I was only taking one picture that was ok.

At the National Gallery, here in London, you can get any print in the whole museum printed out for you specially while you wait - in a number of superb quality expensive sizes. So if you have weird tastes in art, you don't have to just be satisfied with the usual posters of Van Goghs and Monets. The National Gallery was the first museum in the world to have this on offer.

I really like the Spanish painter Zurburan and his creepy religious pictures. I remember seeing his St. Margaret and thinking "I'd really like to have a copy of this, but this will never be in the poster bin in the gift shop. Wouldn't it be awesome if they had a printer that could just do whatever you want?" And when we went to the gift shop they did have it! How cool is that? I have St Margaret framed above the kitchen table.

It kinda reminds me of the time I wanted a wine rack and I had to go to the dump to get rid of some stuff and thought - wouldn't it be great if somebody was throwing away a wine rack and we got it. And sure enough, the guy next to us was throwing away a wine rack and I made my husband ask him for it and we use to this day to store wine and two liter bottles of lemonade.

I'd pay stupid prices to get a good quality print of the Monkey and the Cat.

Speckled

Speckled, originally uploaded by London looks.

Toad lily flowers are pretty small, but amazing. This one was at the botanical gardens at Wisley.

I tried to grow one once, but because of my tendency to overplant it got crowded out and disappeared.

Sexism and racism on political t-shirts

In a previous post, I pointed to a particularly disgusting anti-Palin ad which has appeared on several "progressive" blogs.

A regular reader pointed out some nasty racist slogans - you can see them here at Think Progress. And you'll also find out that the Internet vendor who was selling them has removed them. I'm not excusing them at all, they're vile. They should be taken down through social and commercial pressure. But I have a feeling they're not all that pervasive.

There is an Obama racism museum online with ten examples of racist material and include all the material in the original comment, but interestingly the most violent, vile and offensive item (in my view) is also misogynistic and was created by someone who claimed to be an Obama supporter.

It's my hypothesis that racism is largely deemed unacceptable in "polite society", but sexism is frequently overlooked or tacitly encouraged. So, I thought I'd undertake a little empirical research. I decided to look at the pervasiveness of sexism and racism on one of the more popular customized t-shirt sites - CafePress. This site relies on user generated content printed on CafePress supplied t-shirts, bumper stickers, mugs, bags...and so on. Here are the shocking results - sexism directed toward political candidates is A-OK and widespread; racism is not.

My assumptions and study design are below the main findings.

Total offense count:
Racism: 1
Faith bias: 9
Gender bias: 43 - maybe 44
Age/disability bias: 3

Honorable mention - perhaps one slogan with sexual preference bias.

The offense counts of the designs which came up as I searched against each politician's name. Interestingly, for both Clinton and Palin all of the offensive designs were directed at them (with one exception). For male candidates, offensive designs were often directed at others.

Barack Obama
Offense count:
Racism: 1
Faith bias: 0
Gender bias: 1 - maybe 2
Age/disability bias: 0

A surprisingly offense-light zone. Only one possible racist association - Barack Obama's head photoshopped onto a gangsta-rappa type with the slogan "Barack's gonna knock you out." I wasn't clear if this was pro or anti Obama, but I felt it played to negative racial stereotypes.

Bro's before ho's (sic) was the slogan with a clear gender bias.

There was also a t-shirt that said "Barack with your cock out". I'm pretty sure it's pro-Obama. It think it means the person is an enthusiastic supporter. I count this as the only maybe on the Gender Bias category.





John McCain

Offense count:
Racism: 0
Faith bias: 6
Gender bias: 5
Age/disability bias: 1

Half of the offensive material was linking Obama to radical Islam - mostly making a play on words between Obama and Osama (typical example)

There were a couple of references too Sarah Palin's sexual attractiveness and Hillary Clinton's lack of same. More under their own entries.

There was one instance of a visual pun that was a reference to John McCain's age and possible infirmity John Mc(and a picture of a cane).




Joe Biden

Offense count:
Racism: 0
Faith bias: 3
Gender bias: 0
Age/disability bias: 2

I flipped through pages and pages before I found anything particularly offensive here. There were a couple of instances of designs showing Joe Biden in a wheelchair urging him to stand up (a reference to a gaffe he made inviting a political ally in a wheelchair to stand).

Two references to McCain's fitness - "It's 3pm and John McCain is napping."
Three links to Osama Bin Laden, two of them rather tortured visual puns linking Obama and Osama and Biden and Bin Laden.




Sarah Palin

Offense count:
Racism: 0
Faith bias: 0
Gender bias: 10
Age/disability bias: 0

Almost all of the offensive material here was about Sarah Palin's fuckability, reducing her to a "hot" object of desire - often with a gun (examples here and here). There were several references to wanting to be Sarah Palin's intern.

I didn't count designs that included the slogan "Drill, baby, drill." or any images of a pitbull with lipstick, or "Hero and Hottie" - though I probably should have included instances of the latter. I tended to limit it to the most graphic images or descriptions.

There were two instances of "VP Palin - I'd drill that".

I'm not entirely sure, but I think a lot of this offensive material was ostensibly pro-Palin.



Hillary Clinton

Offense count:
Racism: 0
Faith bias: 0
Gender bias: 28
Age/disability bias: 0

If the gender bias about Sarah Palin was about her attractiveness, most of the references to Hillary Clinton were the opposite. The predominant messages were that she's ugly, undesirable and a bitch. Like Lewinsky '08, vote for the woman who's willing to do the job or Even Bill doesn't want her.

There were many instances of "Life's a bitch, so don't vote for one" or similar. Similarly, I counted several instances of "Just Vote for the Bitch," which I counted and "Bitches get things done," which I didn't. It's a fine line to draw, but that's where I drew it.

There was one pro-Hillary slogan which was sexist toward men (and women) - which I did count - Chicks before Dicks. Probably a counter to Bros before Hos.



Study design
I searched under five names Barack Obama, John McCain, Hillary Clinton, Joe Biden, and Sarah Palin to look for any type of negative "ism" in designs available on the site. Most of the designs were available on a variety of items, but some were only t-shirts or only bumper stickers. I didn't count these differently. For each politician, I looked at 15 pages of possible designs - with 30 designs appearing per page - a total of 450 designs each. I counted similar or practically identical designs as separate instances if they had a different design identification number.

I found negative gender, age, and religious bias - but only possibly one instance of negative race bias. I judged negative bias as distasteful or offensive use of racial, faith, age or disability, or sexist stereotypes used to attack (and in some cases putatively support) a particular candidate. Negative bias is based entirely my judgement - a serious flaw in this little study, but I tried to be as objective as possible.

I also found lots of positive gender and race bias - i.e. it's a good thing to vote for Barack Obama because he's black (a small number of these) or vote for Hillary Clinton or Sarah Palin because they are women (lots of these). I didn't count those. I also didn't count instances where the political slogans were an obvious twist on negative sterotypes (e.g. the slogan that said Some Guy/Palin '08).

I also found a number of "vaguely sexist" references - such as Obama Girl or Chicks for Obama or McCain Girl. I didn't count these. Similarly, there were usages of the urban slang "homeboy", but these appeared to be without racial bias and were I felt supported both the Republicans (McCain is my homeboy, Sarah is my home girl) and Obama is my homeboy. These weren't counted.

UPDATE: For a bonus round including political headlines, check out Tennessee Guerilla Women.
Sarah Palin Sexism Watch
16 Sexist Sarah Palin T shirts that will probably piss you off.

Parts is parts

Wow. Is this the kind of political discourse we want? Not cool.

Egalia reports the use of this ad on "progressive blogs" at Tennessee Guerilla Women.

I've said it before and I'll say it again. There is much about Sarah Palin's position that I disagree with. So much so that I will not be voting for McCain-Palin. But I respect that she is an accomplished and talented politician just as I acknowledge the many formidable male politicians with whom I strongly disagree.

And it makes me sick that she's attacked in this way, because this isn't really about her, it's only vaguely about her politics - this is about her gender. This is saying that any woman is fair game for sexist attacks. As we've seen. This is the kind of nasty politics that aims to keep women from positions of power from the White House to the school board.

This is so distasteful that I'd have suspected that it was a Republican plant if I hadn't lived through the primary season.

Gordon Brown is going down

Gordon Brown, the British Prime Minister, is enjoying personal approval ratings that would make George Bush snicker with comparative glee. I'd bet a higher percentage of the UK population has the clap than think Gordo is doing a good job.

In British political life, you don't wait every four years to have a convention. No, they have one every year. I guess that's the benefit of having a small country. All the big parties do it. And the leader of the party has to give a big speech, and one of those leaders will be the Prime Minister.

And you know what, they don't broadcast the speeches prime time. Mostly because the speeches aren't given in prime time. They happen in the day. Sure, you can catch it on tv, but it interrupts a cookery show or some show where you go through your house and sell off your valuable goods to finance a trip the Gran Canaria or some such. And frankly, most people are at work while these are going on.

Like me. I was at work when Gordon Brown gave his big headline speech today. This was the speech that was supposed to save his political career. This was make or break time. Pundits were saying that he needed to have "an Obama moment" to turn around his political fate.

On tv tonight, many of those pundits were reporting that he'd done it. Or at least, that he'd given a great speech. The speech of his life, blah, blah, blah. And then they'd interview some Labour party goon, some former press under-secretary in the Blair government, or some Broonite loyalist and they said "Wow, what a great speech. He showed what a leader he was." Blah, blah, blah.

Several channels flipped through and all we could hear were people talking about how great his speech was and offering insight. But no clips of the speech. "Show us some of the damn speech," said the Vol-in-Law. We wanted to bask in Gordon's brilliance, too.

Finally, the ViL had sense enough to turn to the Parliament channel. It's a little like I remember C-SPAN, except they rarely seem to show sub-committee meetings live. In fact, they always seem to have happened months in the past. Not sure what that's about. But they were showing Gordon Brown's speech just as we flipped to it. In fact, I think we caught most of it.

Obama moment, my arse. Barack Obama is an incredibly gifted public speaker. Even when he's talking shite it sounds pretty good. Gordon Brown, not so much. Not even close. Not even in the same solar system. Not even when Gordon Brown is talking sense.

But Gordon Brown wasn't talking sense. He made some sneering jabs at the Conservative Party. I'm not sure this is the time to do this. He made some sneering jabs at the "novices" who want to take over from him. He said some really lame stuff about the economy and how the Tories would end all regulation of the financial markets. Gordon Brown wanted to make us believe that he's the right man to handle the economic chaos, but instead he sounded like the pompous bloke at the pub who tries to make himself look smarter by distorting other people's points. And he did it not very well.

No wonder they couldn't show any clips of the speech. It would have showed just how full of it the political reporters are.

The Vols and breakin' the law

Well, what a disappointment that was. After the Tennessee Volunteers performance against UAB last week, I can't say I expected a different outcome. But for the Vols to actually do rather well in the game against Florida and yet fail to close (as they say in sales speak) again and again was a painful experience in proximity only counts in horseshoes and hand grenades (and maybe that lawn game boules.)

As I explained to the Vol-in-Law during the first half if you looked at all the statistics, except for the scoring stastics, the Vols actually did more than Florida.

"Except for the score?" questioned the Vol-in-Law. "No one looks at that."

Thanks for your support, hon.

-0-

We had to dress Buddy in some UT pyjamas that were way, way too small. Being a wiry fellow, I was able to close most of the buttons, but the long sleeved, full length pants only came to the elbow and the knee. I was going to take a picture to show you, but he managed to have a poo-splosion in the morning before I could get the camera out. Ooooh, it was a bad one. I think it was perhaps a dirty protest at Fulmer's special teams strategy.

-0-

Ouch: you know things are bad when someone asks for the coach's head on a platter on their baby shower wish list.

-0-

I listened to the game again. Video was free to air on CBS Internet tv as it was their SEC game of the week, but when I did all the signing up and clicking and so forth I got a disappointing message "Content not available for viewing outside the US." Now, what's the point of that? I mean it's the Internet. It was, I believe, actually shown on CBS. If I lived in the US, I could have watched it on tv.

I know that techie hackers and so on use mirroring or spoofing sites to make it appear they're accessing content from someplace they physically are not. Does anyone know how you do that? I mean should Tennessee actually feature in a game of the week again anytime soon, how would I go about that? Answers on a post card, please.

Buddy encounters a squirrel, and two new toys

At Richmond Park last Sunday, Buddy had an encounter with the beggar squirrels that inhabit the restaurant area. They've learned to lose a little fear in exchange for tasty treats. Buddy was enchanted with the quarter-tame critters.



My photos came out not so good, most of them. I need to improve on the whole action shot thing. But I pulled them together with a little lame video clip and voila 84 seconds of something not quite so bad.

I used two new things (new to me) to do this.

1. Picasa 3. I'm a big fan of Picasa photo editing software. It's not the best, but it's quick and easy to use - there's no faster cropping I've found and everything feels pretty intuitive. This latest version has a few new tricks, like retouching and lets you pull a movie together (as above) pretty quickly. It's still kinda crashy though and even though it seemed like I could upload directly to YouTube, I couldn't get that to work and had to upload from the YouTube interface.

2. YouTube now has soundtrack! You can "swap audio" from a list of tunes. I don't know if it's copyright free or what the deal is, but presumably that's YouTube's lookout. I added the soundtrack you can hear above. The list isn't huge and I couldn't quite time transitions as I might have liked. But hey, it removes the frisson of fear that some record company's solicitor might pop a demand for £1500 for violating their intellectual property rights.

Update: oops, I failed to mention the most important thing about Picasa - it's free.
Further update: my old pal is back online and blogging and says it's talk like a pirate day which is NOT an invitation for me to talk about copyright violations and internet piracy - which is what I did, totally unintentionally.

black eyed

black eyed , originally uploaded by London looks.

From the borders at the Inner Temple gardens, which hosted an RHS flower show last week.

I've been working within walking distance of this place for years, and I had no idea it was there.

There gardens were lovely, mixed borders, mainly - but some beautiful shade borders and lovely old trees, too.

The event itself was pretty fantastic - kinda like a very, very small version of the Chelsea flower show. There was a champagne bar (which I passed on) and an all female steel band. Because nothing says traditional English gardening like steel drums.

Sharia in the UK

According to a Times article yesterday:

ISLAMIC law has been officially adopted in Britain, with sharia courts given powers to rule on Muslim civil cases.

The government has quietly sanctioned the powers for sharia judges to rule on cases ranging from divorce and financial disputes to those involving domestic violence.

Rulings issued by a network of five sharia courts are enforceable with the full power of the judicial system, through the county courts or High Court.

Previously, the rulings of sharia courts in Britain could not be enforced, and depended on voluntary compliance among Muslims.

It has now emerged that sharia courts with these powers have been set up in London, Birmingham, Bradford and Manchester with the network’s headquarters in Nuneaton, Warwickshire. Two more courts are being planned for Glasgow and Edinburgh.

On the one hand, I'm all for alternative dispute resolution - I guess. On the other hand, this really creeps me out. As a woman, I have to say, sharia pretty much sucks for us.

The courts have been established through rules on arbitration, so it's basically binding arbitration, but all parties must agree to it before entering the court. Then the ruling becomes enforceable. This keeps people from venue shopping and dragging things out indefinitely. If you go to a sharia court over a contested will, the male sibling will receive twice as much as the female sibling. I know that and so would any Muslim litigant. I wouldn't go to a sharia court to settle an inheritance dispute (sorry Vol Bro), but I do know a Muslim woman who probably would have and all she wanted was what sharia "entitled" her to when her brother wanted to take a lot more than his already larger share. In most senses, I really don't have a problem with this.

But these courts are deciding all kinds of matters including charges of domestic violence. Ummm, yeah - the victim and the perpetrator are on equal footing there, aren't they? It turns out that in the domestic violence cases the men have been ordered to undergo anger management courses. How enlightened. And the women have dropped the charges. Fancy that.

They invented gun-powder AND pasta, ya know

Grim after grim economic reports on the tv, and the Vol-in-Law reckons that the decline of Western hegemony will happen after not this, but some very similar economic fuckus-upus.

After yet another gloomy forecast on the news at dinner, he declared:

"I, for one, welcome our new Chinese Overlords."

Political commentary

Following a request for more political blogging, so what follows is my stream-of-conciousness blatherings on the Presidential election.

Blecchhhh..... that's how I feel about this whole election cycle. Just blecchhhh....

You see, as I've said all along, I'd rather eat a razor blade than vote for McCain - go ahead put razor blade in the search box - you'll see McCain next to it almost every time (well, half the time - there's also one post about Halloween candy and razor blades and one in which I reproduce in its entirety and without license the Ballad of William Bloat)

And I've been a lifelong Democratic voter and some time member of the Democratic party. I'm currently a member, that's why I get all those emails from Obama asking me for $5 (or more). But I'm just not feeling the love this time. Still, I find it hard to blog against the Democratic nominee. Even though I want to. So I'm kinda just avoiding the subject.

For the first time in my life, I'm seriously thinking about just not voting. I haven't requested my ballot yet. I probably will - just so I can frame it, un-marked. It is an historic election after all. And you people who do vote - what kind of souvenir will you have. Heck, in most states with electronic voting you won't even get a paper receipt.

I just can't understand how both parties could have produced such crap candidates. But, then again, in 2004 both parties produced crap candidates.

I've decided that the best outcome is for a meteor to land on the Presidential debates. A meteor would be good. Although there'd no doubt be some conspiracy theories to follow, a meteor wouldn't be anybody's fault and we'd get to have a do-over.

I had thought I might vote for Cynthia McKinney, even though she's running on a Green Party ticket. The Vol-in-Law told me "You can't vote Green, that'll just encourage them." But I find her positions on 9/11 pretty repugnant, and a deal breaker for me.

Is John Jay Hooker on the Tennessee ballot for President this time? If he is, he's got my vote.

On the radio

I wasn't able to listen to the UT-UCLA game. It being a Monday night - or really early, early, early Tuesday morning here on a week day. I tired enough as it is - and at work, you know they like me to work.

But on Saturday, I was able to tune in to the Vols on Internet radio.

And I guess like any Tennessee fan, I wasn't really thinking about that game. I was thinking about the next game. Will this be enough against Florida? Ehhhh....unlikely.

University of Alabama Birmingham was there to be our punching bag, but instead we just slapped 'em around a little. Sure a win's good, it's better than a mark in the L column.

I never thought the Vols would lose, but I was unsure about one thing. The new Internet listening service.

Last year, there was radio broadcast from UTSports.com -owned by the University, but this year it's on another site - the All Access College Sports Broadband Channel. Probably something to do with the gajillion dollar communications deal UT signed this year. The site is not great. Sure it looks slick, but it's hard to navigate, it has weird disappearing menus and you can't just click on a game to listen, you have to tick a teeny-tiny unintuitive box to add it to your "play list". My playlist? Whatever, I just want to listen to the game. Worst of all, occasionally I'd get a voiceover saying "The event you have selected is not yet broadcast, please check your playlist..." or some such rubbish. And I'd have to go and reload the game - listening to the mandatory ad before I could return to game coverage.

There also doesn't appear to be any way to turn off the game tracker, which means that even though I can listen to old games which is very useful when the games are on too late for me, there doesn't appear to be any way to avoid the score. I like to listen to the games as if live. A big old final score kinda ruins it for me. I've complained about this directly.

Finally, I'd like to grumble about the Vol Network feed itself. The way it works is advertising is sold by the Vol Network - that's fine. I actually kinda like hearing those ads. In East Tennessee, problems with termites? Lookie, lookie, lookie her comes Cookie - Cooks pest control. And go to Food City for that limited edition Tennessee ice cream that Mayfield Dairy makes. Show your Volunteer spirit by recyling! And so on...

But when it cuts to the slots that local affiliates have sold...there's no sound. There's just an eery, ominous silence that brings a panic to my chest and makes me think that the broadcast has cut out. I'd actually rather listen to some ads - maybe some international company like Gillette or Coke or the International Herald Tribune could buy across all Internet broadcast NCAA sports - I guess the legalities would be too difficult. Or maybe it could be non-stop repeating choruses of Rocky Top or warnings about parking restrictions at UT or snippets from Chemistry 101 lectures or anything - really anything.

Anyway, rant over - Go Vols, next week I suspect I'll have more to complain about than 30 seconds of dead air.

Soft landings at the Temple of Doom

Buddy is a climber. The swings are so last month now. He's not interested in playing on something unless it's likely to cause his parental attendant a spell of nerves.



Today at the playground, I watched a mother compare her little fellow with Buddy. She said "He's an adventurous one." I replied "He sure is." She asked me how old he was and when I said fifteen months she said "He's the Indiana Jones of the baby world."

Critter tv

So Buddy is finally noticing the television, which is great, because I always planned to use the mesmerising effect of the tube as a key part of my parenting strategy. He's not so hot keen on the cartoons just yet, he likes to watch mammals and occasionally fish.

In my search for some critter tv, I was hunting through the documentary area of the satellite menu. Insects? No. Bears, yes. Animals cops in Detroit? Sometimes. He likes it so long as there's an underfed Rottweiler or a mangy pit bull or some scraggly kittens, but his attention wanes as soon as a Michigan animal welfare officer comes on the screen. And when his attention wanes, he starts banging the brass curtain pull against the window or shoving the remote down the radiator or pulling books off the bookshelf.

Crocodiles. No, apparently reptiles aren't that interesting either. But I had to stop and watch the Crocodile Hunter guy for a moment. Steve Irwin and his chirpy Australianness and his love of animals that I wouldn't touch with a stick. He was picking up snakey looking lizard things in a burnt out landscape, it must have been filmed during Australia's long drought and bush fires and he was trying to rescue the things. He was a clearly distressed by their plight.

"And you know what really tears my heart out?" he said to the camera.
"A sting ray?" I replied to the tv.

McCain's speech

Since I didn't give up any sleep to listen to the Vol's season opener, there's no way in hidey-ho that I'm going to stay up to watch John McCain's speech tonight. So, I thought I'd dig up what I wrote about him almost two years ago when he gave a speech to the British Conservative Party Conference in 2006.


John McCain, if I ever thought he was a presidential contender - after what I saw, I certainly don't think so now. He looked old and frail and rheumy and said things like "you'll see more of the future than I will." The Vol-in-Law [and I] discussed this and could only come to the conclusion that McCain must now know that he will never be President.


How times change.

Taking personal responsibility

Whose fault is it that the Vols lost last night? Was it an incoherent offensive strategy? Was it Foster's fumble or Lincoln's missed kicks? The opposing QB's growing confidence throughout the game. No. I have to accept personal responsibility.

Last year, following astute observation followed by scientific-like experiments, we discovered that if Buddy was wearing orange, preferably UT licensed gear, the Vols would do well. If, following, a spill, a spit up, or poo-splosion, Buddy had to have the orange removed - the Vols would falter. Several times we scrambled to find new orange to place on the sleeping child, and the Vols rallied. (This apparently only worked in regular season games, not in the SEC Championship game).

What was Buddy wearing last night? Navy blue.

To the entire Vol Nation, I offer my profound apologies.

Trouble is, as an infant he had a ton of UT stuff. Now, he has but one sweatshirt and it's getting kinda snug. The critter keeps growing. At least there's two weeks (almost) between now and the next game. Time to rescue the season. We know what must be done.


Looking forward to a victorious season

Sleep or the Vols?

Eegads - an 8pm kickoff? On a Monday? That it means it starts at 1am here. I'm sleep deprived already. I have two really important meetings tomorrow. To top it all off, at the beginning of each season there's the whole new challenge of trying to find out exactly where I can listen to live or archived games or maybe even watch.

And I've got to admit, I haven't quite figured it out yet. Why do they got to change it every year? Last year it was the easiest and simplest yet - I even had a saved link where I could listen to the games without ever seeing the score if they were on too late. This year, I'm all confused.

I'm moaning. I know. Tonight, it has to be sleep - whatever little I may be able to procure.

Go Vols

Nothing personal

In the UK, there's a system whereby you can get tax relief on your income spent on childcare. It's actually worth a fair bit of money, which is good because child care here is incredibly expensive. But like everything New Labour does, the process is complicated. I have to "surrender" my income to some third party private sector company and fill out forms and blah, blah, blah.

Since I'm top rate tax payer, it makes sense for me to surrender the maximum amount I'm allowed under current regulations. I was trying to sort it out today and the person in the customer service centre told me that if the allowance was raised in the next budget, I would automatically have an increased amount taken from my paycheck (which is a good thing).

I said "They probably won't raise it, Gordon Brown* hates me."
Call centre woman: "It's not you, Gordon Brown hates everyone."

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*Gordon Brown - current UK Prime Minister formerly Chancellor of the Exchequer (financial supremo). He's not supposed to be in charge of the Budget and Government finances anymore, but everyone knows the current chancellor Alistair Darling is Gordon's muppet.

Ways of making you talk

I can now say that I think sleep deprivation is torture. I can attest that I would talk. But it would just be incoherent, grumpy blathering.

Buddy slept better as a newborn.


Update: on the upside, this may mean I get to listen live to Tennessee's first football game. Though I'm not sure if that's wise on a workday.

What a VP pick

I was amazed that John McCain picked Sarah Palin as his running mate. What a crafty old fox. Despite the fact that I probably disagree with her on many issues, what I'm reading about her so far impresses me.

What impresses me most is how she took on her own state GOP to expose corruption and incompetence in Republican ranks. I love good governance. Her biggest scandals in her Governorship appear to be related to trying to get her brother-in-law fired. He was a State Trooper who threatened to kill her father and drank beer in the patrol car. Not such great qualities in a law officer. And she tried to keep a state run dairy open at a loss. Why are politicians such suckers for the farmers?

She's clearly a tough woman and a go-getter. We probably wouldn't have been friends in high school (if we'd been contemporaries), but she's the kind of person I'd be proud to serve with on a local committee. She'd get things done. But then she'd talk about teaching Creationism in science class or restricting access to safe and legal abortions - and I kinda have to draw the line there.

Her pro-gun stance is hardly surprising for someone from Alaska. I think they need their guns up there. They have some big and dangerous varmints in those parts, I hear.

Drilling in the Alaskan Wildlife Reserve? She's for it. I couldn't give a stuff. Really. I don't care.

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Sarah Palin, not somebody I'd vote for, but frankly I think this is the good old kick in the teeth that the DNC deserves. Too much sexist bullshit this election cycle. Let the Republicans show they can rise above it. (If they can.)

I think it's great there's a woman in the VP slot. We do represent over half the voting electorate, so it seems only reasonable that we should have a fourth of the top slots on offer. Oh - and that would be two women total in over 200 years of major party campaigning.

Now we'll see how fair and balanced the media are. Will Sarah Palin have to suffer the same treatment as Hillary Clinton? On the left there will be the accusations that she's a sellout for women (the same slurs Margaret Thatcher endured). I've never bought into that. Just because someone doesn't fit your ideal of what a woman leader should be like doesn't mean she isn't a polticiian who isn't true to herself and her ideals. You don't like her ideals, don't vote for her. But don't say she's less of woman.

On the Right there'll be questions about whether she should be running for office while she has small children. Blechhh. I've already heard those comments (all from men that I saw) dripping into Fox News feedback. I'm sure her husband is a capable man and can look after things.

Just leave the cat alone

Occasionally people land on my site from the search "How do I induce a cat's labor?"

Don't. Just don't.

The email I didn't get

I've been watching the Democratic convention from afar, hearing the summary coverage the morning after on the BBC. I've heard a lot about some bitterness and I've heard a lot about Hillary Clinton didn't go far enough in her speech* to outline the fine qualities of Barack Obama. Oh please....what does she have to do? She gave a pretty solid endorsement, I'd say - but I guess it's never enough. She didn't jump high enough in her cheerleading?

I'm still a member of the Democratic Party, so I still get the emails. After Michelle Obama's speech I got an enthusiastic email from Barack Obama saying how great it was. I got another this morning after his speech asking for money.

But I didn't get an email thanking Hillary for her speech or thanking Bill for his rousing endorsement. Dumb. Dumb. Dumb. It's little things like that which could make a big difference for disaffected Democratic voters like me. I almost emailed back suggesting that he do so. I've been waiting for those small gestures of genuine appreciation and understanding of Hillary Clinton supporters, but if I'd been holding my breath I'd be blue by now.

It particularly rankled after I'd had an email a little while ago from Howard Dean about how we must all fight back against the smears in The Obama Nation book by that kook Jerome Corsi. I never got an email about the sexism and misogyny surrounding Hillary Clinton's campaign. Yes, I know that it was during the primary - but a little balanced email about keeping the fight clean....I don't know.

All along, I've been wanting something, anything to persuade me to vote for Barack Obama. I have never not voted for the Democratic nominee in a presidential election since I turned 18. (Well, I did miss one - but I meant to vote. It's not easy to vote from overseas.) After all, I think McCain is a dangerous entity. I think he's unstable and I think he will be bad for America.

But I just feel that Barack Obama has never asked for my vote. (McCain has - but he won't get it.) And each time I've expressed reservations about Obama on this blog, I've been met with critcisms of Hillary Clinton from enthusiastic Obama supporters. (Hey y'all, remember that old adage about honey and vinegar.) I've never bought into the call for amorphous change. What change? I just want good governance, a steady hand, sound economic policies and a serious attempt to deal with the healthcare mess. What I don't want is to be insulted or belittled or taken for granted, and I don't want that for my candidate I supported either. And I surely don't want a candidate from the so-called Left who says that too many people work for the insurance industries to attempt a major overhaul of the healthcare system. What kind of change is that? A lot of people worked for the kerosene lamp industry, too - but we still made the switch to light bulbs.

This convention hasn't changed my mind, I'm sad to say. I'm trying to summon the enthusiasm to request my absentee ballot so I can vote down ticket - or maybe hoping (with baited breath) that Barack Obama will do something to make me want to vote for him.


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Didn't y'all just love Senator Clinton's orange suit though? If I hadn't already admired her policies, her fight, and her leadership abilities I'd probably have voted for her just for the orange pantsuit. (I know in national politics - for women - they can't often wear the same thing twice and I think people will remember the orange suit - so Hillary - can I have it? And if I can't have it, could you give it Pat Head Summitt for her joint appearances with Bruce Pearl?)

No sandwich for you

I love holidays, I do. If you got a feasting, dancing, singing, wear-a-silly-hat and jump up and down like a fool holiday, I'm all for it. As long as it's free and it doesn't clash with work, I might even join in.

But scourging and fasting just aren't my bag. I'm not big into ashes or penance either. Sorry. I understand it's importance, but I'm not in the game of collecting suffer tokens. Thanks, anyway.

And so, we're now almost into the season of Ramadan. You want to fast. Fine. Go ahead. But I'm not planning to do anything special for Ramadan. (I'll happily eat any Eid food, though.) I'm not planning to make much in the way of special considerations for those who do want to fast during daylight hours. I'll still eat lunch at my desk, but I won't offer you any special treats. Deal?

But at Tower Hamlets, everybody has to observe:

Muslim council leaders have sparked outrage after trying to ban all councillors eating in meetings until sunset during the holy month of Ramadan.

Politicians have hit out after the move to impose hardline Islamic rules on non-Muslim colleagues throughout September.

The bombshell has been dropped by Labour chiefs of the notoriously loony Tower Hamlets Council in east London.

The storm was sparked by an email sent to all councillors this week highlighting arrangements for Town Hall committee meetings next month, which marks the Muslim fasting period of Ramadan.

Oh, dear.

These are evening meetings and many of these councillors have jobs and are coming straight from their places of employment and they won't get out until very late. No tea, no sandwich for them. And it's rare that you'll go to a meeting in the UK where at least biscuits aren't on offer (unless I've arranged the meeting, I rarely order biscuits). But I guess that's out, too.

Some councillors (the ones in political opposition) are outraged and say this appears to be favouring one religion over another. I'd tend to agree.

Mamma Mia!

So, this being the traditional week of not doing any work in this country, I'm taking the week off. But instead of packing a million baby things and heading for a cold and windy and overcast beach after many hours of traffic jams, we decided to have a stay-cation. Yeah, I know.

Best thing about the staycation thing is that I can put Buddy in his daycare for a couple of days this week and just have the day free. He went today and he'll go on Friday.

So the Vol-in-Law and I went to see a movie. There isn't usually much I want to see - even when I was child free I probably went once a year or so. But I'd kinda been wanting to see Mamma Mia! for a while. Like for a long while - 'cause it's been on in the West End here for ages. The thing about popular shows is that they hardly ever have those steeply discounted tickets that I like so much - and I'm just too cheap to pay full price.

But the movie was a lot cheaper, and I'm guessing not nearly as good. For one thing, the cast in the movie can't sing and they can't really dance either. Anyone who knows anything about music (and I'm counting everyone who's ever watched one of those "informative" "factual" shows about pop music) knows that ABBA songs are hard. They are difficult to sing; they're pretty complex. I know this because I like to sing along and on ABBA songs, it's hard to do that without ending up screeching a little. Which is what the cast of Mamma Mia! the movie did.

That being said, the movie was actually pretty enjoyable. Their varying degrees of crapness made me feel like I could live my life to ABBA songs. I bet the sing-a-long version (they have one showing at my local cinema, but it's in the evening) is an absolute blast. Get a couple of beers, go with some friends, and sing a long to ABBA. Fabba.

British cuisine in an easy open packet

It amuses me when those American new to these shores are somehow amazed by the vast array of different flavoured crisps (potato chips) in this country. Beyond the fairly normal cheese and onion, salt and vinegar, and even the slightly poncey cracked black pepper and sea salt, there's a wide selection of the unusually flavoured snack food items. Roast Chicken, Worcester sauce (yes, we know it was Worcestershire Sauce), Tomato and Basil, Thai Sweet Chilli, Chinese Five Spice, caramelised onion and mature cheddar, duck and orange - to name but a few. And there are other snack stuffs, too, like the potato based(?) extruded product Hula Hoops - which has a very popular ketchup and bacon flavor. (I'm guessing that's nasty.)

That's not counting the limited edition crisps that Walkers - the market leader - come out with occasionally such as Scampi and lemon, brie and cranberry, lamb and mint, Port and Stilton. Those were all apparently part of a Christmas promotion. Mmmm - nothing says Yuletide fun like the family gathering around a glimmering, oddly flavoured packet of crisps.

Walkers current promotion is called "Do us a flavour" - a contest where you can come up with your own wacky flaves, send them in (along with a picture of your inspiration) and you and five other semi-finalists can see your bizarre creations on the shelves.

We currently have a visitor in our house who is probably more into the junk food than we are and our rather tame suggestions included:

Me: Sweet and sour chicken
Visitor: Been done
Vol-in-Law: Szechuan chicken
Visitor: Been done.

And the conversation died there.

But I've been racking my brain. There is a flavour I'd like to see produced, but I'm going to hold my fire and actually enter it. Realistically, it's probably too tame. But pulling from the array of classic British dishes there might be some potential. How about...

• Jellied eel
• Jugged hare (hare meat is served in a sauce of its blood mixed with port)
• Squab pie
• Brawn (when the first step in the recipe is "cut the cheeks and ears off the pig's head", the rest of the instructions for jellied pigs head isn't worth reading)
• Bath chaps (pig cheeks in bread crumbs - I guess that's what you do on the 2nd day after you've eat the brawn)
• Laver bread (mmm....seaweed and oats)
• Bedfordshire Clanger (scrag end of mutton with kidneys and fruit - does scrag end mean what I think it means?)

Think I have a winner there? Yummy, yummy - this potato chip tastes of scrag. It tastes of scrag and I like it.

(I'm going to kick myself if I see these on the shelves.)

Overheard at the playground

You know that sensation of a couple year's past - Overheard in New York and the various copycat sites from other cities? Pretty funny. They should have an "overheard on the playground" blog. (Who's they? I don't know - the ubiquitous Internet "they", I guess.)

Despite being all out in public, there are actually some pretty unguarded, intimate, revealing exchanges out on the playground.

Yesterday an adorable little girl with an adorable outfit complete with adorable little sunhat was in the swing next to Buddy. Mom was pushing. Grandma was doting.

Mom: I'm going to sit down now.
Grandma: And Grandma will push, because Mummy isn't very good at pushing.

what change?

What was that about how if Obama picked Hillary Clinton it would be a repudiation of all that he stood for - you know HOPE, CHANGE, a different style of leadership, not the same old Washington insider?

Joe Biden?

Same old. Same old.

Wasn't he the same guy who helped skewer Anita Hill?

Way to respect to the women, Obama.

Gold vs. Lead

Prime Minister Gordon Brown has made a surprise stop-over in Afghanistan on his way to China to see out the closing of the Olympics and accept the torch (or the giant public spending bill or whatever it is) for London's 2012 Olympics.

I guess he wanted to rouse the troops - so here's what he said:

"This week we are celebrating the Olympics where we have had great success. People have been winning medals in areas where we have been breaking ground. But this week also I believe that our Olympic athletes and everybody else in our country will remember that you have showed exactly the same courage, professionalism and dedication. "

Yep.

I'm not dismissing the efforts of Olympic athletes. I know they have what I don't - and that's not just the talent bit, the inherited athletic ability - they have a drive and determination that I'm lacking.

But courage? Sorry, did I miss the Olympic event called Taliban Fire Fight? Was IED Dodge just too early in the morning to broadcast?

You see them on the streets of Paris and London

I had to go back to the hospital to get the old breast cyst thing checked out - a routine follow up sort of thing. I had packed a mystery novel and a sudoku book and I was looking forward to a relaxing wait. But they saw me right away, almost right away. I did one work email and then they called me through. It was forty minutes from leaving my door to getting back to my door. (I do live across the street from the hospital).

But before I actually got to see the doctor, they led me to a cubicle and asked me to change into one of their hospital dressing gowns. I hate that. I'm a pretty quick undresser, so I don't much see the point of donning one of those of things. They're ugly and they don't do much for modesty. And there isn't much choice. There's the blue diamondy pattern or the blue diamondy pattern. Though this time there was a striking graphic print in shades of yellow.



Oh, and look what it says...



Hospital use only.

Does that really need to be said?

The medals table

The Vol-in-Law, who does not watch much sports, was watching the Olympics this morning. "We've won another medal," he reported.

The British are, apparently, delighted with their medals haul. "We've been doing well," he says. "Now how will we match this performance in 2012?" he wonders.

We. We. We. We.

It occurs to me that he includes me in this we. Like I'm thrilled that Britain's doing well.

Nope. I have to tell him, that though it's true I support the England football team - I don't give a stuff about the Team GB - the ridiculous name for the British Olympic athletes.

It's USA all the way for me, baby. Every medal scored by any other country is just one less medal than we deserve.

Things which neighbour children should be bannned from having

1. Recorders
2. Hammond organ sounding synthesizer keyboards

That is all...for now.

I know I am the wrong type of white person

I've been reading that Stuff White People Like off and on for a while. What white person hasn't? Over time, it's become painfully clear that I am the wrong type of white person. I like some of the things that white people like, but not all of them. Not enough of them. As if my failure to feel the Obama love wasn't enough, this post on unpaid internships lays it out starkly.

White people view the internship as their foot into the door to such high-profile low-paying career fields as journalism, film, politics, art, non-profits, and anything associated with a museum. Any white person who takes an internship outside of these industries is either the wrong type of white person or a law student. There are no exceptions.

No exceptions.

I had an internship. With an oil company. And it was with Exxon. And it was just a year or two after the Valdez incident. And it wasn't unpaid (oh no, far from it).

At the Olympic village

I've been wondering if there's a clash between the running, swimming, jumping athletes and the Olympians who participate in sports where you could, conceivably, drink a beer while you're waiting for your turn. You know, like air rifle.

Are the air rifle athletes in the Olympic village saying things like "Pass me another doughnut," or "Hey, if you're going to the store, pick me up some Marlboros."

While the running guys and gals are all "my tendons are killing..." or "I'm cramping from lactic acid build-up," are the shooting ones saying "My trigger finger sure is itchy."

dream time

Last night I dreamed I crashed a wedding. And although I was dressed appropriately (a flowy floral chiffon thingy), I found it difficult to grab a pew. They were all weird two and a half seaters. I sat with one guy just for a moment, though I promised to move when his friends showed up. But he ended up being the one moving.

And then guess who sat next to me?

Peter Falk. Yeah, Columbo. And he was even wearing his wrinkled rain coat. Wow!

I was so excited. I told him what a huge fan I was. And then I told him, that sometimes the only way I could go to sleep was to put on a Columbo...then I'd be out like a light.

Even in my dream that didn't go down well.

London's last defense

I once dragged my husband across northern France to see a dam, which it turns out was actually in another part of France. Ooops. We eventually saw it, right where it was supposed to be.

And being raised among the dams of the Tennessee Valley, I can't miss a good dam. But for all these years, I've never been to the Thames Barrier, London's flood defense. I had meant to go for my birthday this year, but a bout of food poisoning from one of soft serve ice cream machines put paid to that.

But finally, finally we went out there taking with us a visitor from Belfast, who probably couldn't give a stuff about dams. It took us a couple of hours to get there after having been stuck in a traffic snarl in Catford - and which only let up just at the point where we got to the giant cat, so we didn't even get a great look at that.


The delights of Catford*















But once we got there, did it live up to hours, weeks, months, years of anticipation?

Well, it's just a tidal barrier. I mean, how good could it be?

But yes, I'm glad I went. The light was good, so I got a couple of good pictures. There was a playground, so Buddy could let off a little steam. Alongside the barrier are giant berms (actually bunds, we were told)and in the play area - they built a giant slide the whole height of the bund. Buddy was fascinated, but sensibly decided not to go down.



We even paid the £2 it costs to go to the visitor centre - to see a film about the construction of the barrier and to watch a little working model of the barrier. I was asked mid-filming if it was for personal use. Ummm, yeah. I guess. I would upload, just out of some kind of lame maverick notion, just to thumb my nose at the Environment Agency - but it's so bad and that's 23 seconds of your life you'll never get back.






Raise the barrier! London's at flood risk

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* Photo credit: Catford Kitty on Flickr by ljcybergal

Buddy walking

Buddy walking
Originally uploaded by London looks

Buddy's finally walking. He's been taking steps for a day or so, but just wouldn't let me video him.

The whining and crying in the background is not Buddy. It's some other little boy who is a month younger than Buddy and also not a walker at 13 months. His mother was frog marching him around the playground saying things like "I know you don't want to, but you've got to learn." She'd probably just received the parenting email that said on average kids learn to walk at 13 months and felt he was already slipping behind.

Go on and play the video, it's only 12 seconds long.

I need to clean my lens.

Punditry

I know a guy who appeared on some BBC political show in London the morning after Bush won the last election. He was the American Republican on the panel. The guy who was all "I think it's a good thing Bush won."

But he wasn't a pundit. And I happen to know for a fact that he'd had some kind of major falling out with the Republicans in London, and knowing him I can guess it was pretty much a big bust up which resulted in him and them not being on speaking terms. (I know this because I'm no longer on speaking terms with this person for a different bust up.) But all the real Republicans were all off partying somewhere or sleeping off their hangovers or calculating short positions in the stock market or something, and he was the only guy the BBC could find on a Friday morning in November.

How they stumbled upon him, I'm not sure. But he had a big email list and he'd supplied Americans for the audiences of other political shows (I went to one myself) and maybe he was on some kind of shared tv researcher list.

Anyway, it's a mystery to me how anyone gets one of these pundit gigs. I mean, I have an opinion. I clean up pretty good. I have a fair bit of public speaking experience. I'm not without wit and some charm, but I've never been a pundit on British tv. (The Vol-in-Law has been a pundit on British web tv. Is that close?)

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It was early Sunday afternoon and we were watching the news channels prattle on about South Ossetia and here comes this guy defending the Georgian position. And he was drunk and sweaty. And he was in chavvy sports wear. One of those ridiculous Ralph Lauren shirts with the giant polo logo like this - only bigger, I swear.










Photo credit: Hello, my name is douchebag by T'shane on flickr.

I've met more sober, more cogent Georgians* in London bars.

And you know what this guy said? Well, shit. He said a bunch of drunk shit. Democracy. Autonomy. Blah, blah, blah. A lot like the Rowley Birkin character from the Fast Show.



I know they have to come up with guests on short notice and can you name one famous Georgian living in the UK? But really. War in the Caucasus, the sleeping Bear wakes up angry, the return of the cold war and that's the best the BBC can do?

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*And I mean Georgians by the Black Sea Georgia, not Georgians from down I-75. I've met some of those in London bars, too but they were pretty drunk and blathering on stupid stuff about Dawgs.

Mad princes and weird science

Prince Charles thinks that GM crops are going to destroy everything. Apparently.

In an interview with The Telegraph he....

... expressed the fear that food would run out because of the damage being wreaked on the earth's soil by scientists' research.

He accused firms of conducting a "gigantic experiment I think with nature and the whole of humanity which has gone seriously wrong".

"Why else are we facing all these challenges, climate change and everything?".

Yes, indeed, why else?

I mean I'm not a scientist or anything (well, not a practicing scientist) but I'm pretty sure that there's not a gigantic experiment with the whole of humanity and all the earth that's causing climate change and reducing everything to some kind of radiating rubble.

But, if it's somehow escaped my notice and it's true, I'm betting Dick Cheney's behind it.

Beer fest

Last Friday we attended the Campaign for Real Ale's beer festival at Earl's Court convention centre. This is really something I should have done while I still had some tolerance for alcohol.



I'd spoken at a conference at Earl's Court before, but in one of the halls in the upper areas. I'd never been on the main floor, but let me tell you it was huge. And instead of being bedecked in conventiony carpet and grey corporate dividers with booths and banners it was just concrete flooring, dim lighting and rack after rack after rack after rack of kegs of beer.

The idea is that you rent a glass and you just go up and get a pint or a half or a third of your brew of choice. It's a bit of lottery, though - the beers are labelled with their quaint and curious names and their alcohol by volume (ABV) and their price. That's it. No stars for quality (who would believe it anyway?) or recommendations from previous drinkers (now that would be a good idea).

The Vol-in-Law started us off with a banana beer, and it was pretty darn disgusting. Though I admit, it did taste of banana - peel.

Subsequent selections proved hardly more successful. And I was a bit wary of drinking too much since we did have to pick up the critter from day care later on. I know I'm a light weight these days but I wanted each and every beer randomly selected to taste great. And they didn't. Although a few selections were passable, notably a pale ale from Northern Ireland.

The attendees were overwhelmingly male and yet there was shockingly little eye candy for the female gaze. There were however lots of novelty hats (giant sombreros, plush union jack top hats, etc) and t-shirts with "witty" slogans - you know the type "I don't have a drinking problem, I drink, I get drunk, I fall down - no problem." And so on... I only saw one that caused me to snicker...Front: A man has to believe in something. Back: I believe I'll have another beer.

Strangely we fell prey to this and bought into this and purchased Buddy a black t-shirt with the imperial measurement symbol and the words "half pint" for way too much money.

All in all, I'm glad we went merely because it satisfied my curiosity. I've been meaning to go for years and just never got around to it. I won't be going back.

Ninja warrior

Even babies who don't care much for tv will sit quietly to watch Japanese game shows.

Darwin vs God?

Last night I watched a little of Richard Dawkin's latest documentary, three hours of praise to Darwin over three weeks. All in celebration of the 150th anniversary of the publication of Origin of Species. I don't know why I turned it on. Richard Dawkins is a jerk. He winds me up.

I should state right now that I couldn't be more solidly in the evolutionary camp. I have a degree in Geology. Even before the smoking gun evidence of genome mapping, I was convinced by the overwhelming (though admittedly gappy) evidence of the fossil and geological record.

But Dawkins's diatribe is almost exclusively devoted to debunking religion with biology. He goozes enthusiasm about the wonder of the natural world - all without God. OK Richard, we get it - you don't believe in God, but I'm just wondering - if God isn't worth consideration why do you talk about Him so much?

Dawkins fails to recognize that maybe religion has some value - some evolutionary value - to human existence. We are not like the lions or the ant or the snails. We humans are more complicated critters than that, we build complex social organisations. We build civilizations. We construct cities and tribes and groups and clubs and - yes, religious hierarchies - all in a bid to hold off the savagery of nature and our own characters in order to help us survive and allow our genes to carry on. We have not evolved beyond this.

He tries to take on religious belief head on. In last night's program, he harangues a group of teenagers - some clearly from a variety of religious traditions. He takes them on a fossil hunt at the beach and shoves the DNA evidence down their throats in a quick few hours of (what seems to be) him lecturing about the silliness of relying on religious texts and their parents' teachings and them staring gormlessly back. Dude, that's not the way to support critical thinking.

He skirts around the dangerous trend of subverting proof and rationality to avoid causing anyone religious offense. Some Brits mock the credulity of the American public and the open battle between Science and Creationism. But in this country, Science and free speech are being gnawed away quietly by the trump card of not wanting to offend anyone's spiritual sensibilities. It appears that in many UK schools Creationism is taught alongside science.

And while Protestantism and Enlightenment have rubbed along fine for much of the time particularly when they keep to their own spheres, there's a new threat to scientific discourse. Islam. I don't know if Dawkins will discuss that in the remaining two hours of his programme on Darwin (and frankly, I don't know if it's relevant), but I'll give him some credit for at least raising the issue elsewhere. In a recent Daily Mail article:

Most devout Muslims are creationists - so when you go to schools, there are a large number of children of Islamic parents who trot out what they have been taught. Teachers are bending over backwards to respect home prejudices that children have been brought up with. The Government could do more but it doesn't want to because it is fanatical about multiculturalism and the need to respect the different traditions from which these children come.

He added: 'It seems as though teachers are terribly frightened of being thought racist. It's almost impossible to say anything against Islam in this country because if you do you are accused of being racist or Islamophobic.'

I don't "blame Islam" for this, but I think Islamic religious sensibilities are reinforcing the trend to abandon science and pursue a "cuddly world" where belief is never challenged. I don't think religious belief should be subjected to same kind of rigour that scientific theories must face - as that is the model for how science thrives and progresses. But at the same time, we need a framework for nuanced discussion about religion and the ability to challenge pernicious beliefs, for example the status of women or indeed the perceived fallacy of scientific truths - like evolution. Richard Dawkins doesn't have a clue how to do this.

They're everywhere, I tell you

On my way out of the Underground this evening, I was confronted by a most distressing sight. Four youths dressed in crimson tracksuits with ALABAMA emblazoned in a graceful arc across the back. Amazing. In a residential backwater of London. Also disturbing. There goes the neighbourhood...

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On closer inspection, I noticed that the color wasn't quite the Alabama regulation red, and the kids didn't look like Alabama fans. Knock-off Alabama outfits clearly. Still, why Alabama? That can't be right. Kids these days....

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I looked again and the letter resolved themselves into their proper configuration. ALBANIA. Four youngsters in tracksuits that read Albania. That actually makes much more sense.

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Still, did I tell y'all I went to the cemetery open day near my house? (Yes, I know my life isn't as jet-set as it used to be). I met a man who worked for a custom coffin company. And do you know, he went to Alabama? We talked a little SEC trash and he tried to sell us a casket.

Rage on campus

I'm a little bit late to the party, but toward the end of July the Centre for Social Cohesion published a report looking at the views of both Muslim and non-Muslim students at Universities in Britain.

Like a spate of previous survey results, the findings should be shocking but sadly they just seem to fall into a long pattern of radicalised views of Muslims in the West. (See executive summary here) To be sure, most Muslim students don't want to stone all the gays, or overthrow Democratic traditions or kill in the name of Islam, or believe that women are inherently inferior, but a significant disturbing minority do. And apparently, that number (mostly) rises when survey respondents were active members of Islamic societies on campus. Actually, active members of clubs or societies were more likely to feel that Islam and Democracy were compatible, which can be interpreted in more than one way.

Kids will be kids. Young adults seem more likely to hold extreme views on a number of things from the unalloyed good of the "free market" to environmentalism to Islamism. Pragmatism and moderation and nuance can often increase with age and experience.

In a Times online article, it's reported that the full report (which caused my browser to fall over when I tried to download it) focuses on Queen Mary university, located in East London.

The researchers highlighted Queen Mary college, part of London University, as a campus where radical views were widely held. Last December, a speaker named Abu Mujahid encouraged Muslim students to condemn gays because “Allah hates” homosexuality. In November, Azzam Tamimi, a British-based supporter of Hamas, described Israel as the most “inhumane project in the modern history of humanity”.

James Brandon, deputy director at CSC , said: “Our researchers found a ghettoised mentality among Muslim students at Queen Mary. Also, we found the segregation between Muslim men and women at events more visible at Queen Mary.”

A spokesman for Queen Mary said the university was aware the preachers had visited but did not know the contents of their speeches. “Clearly, we in no way associate ourselves with these views. However, also integral to the spirit of university life is free speech and debate and on occasion speakers will make statements that are deemed offensive.

I used to be a fairly regular visitor to this campus and their views surprise me not at all. Over the course of time when I did visit, the tone of the local community changed. It became an increasingly hostile place. During the build up to the Iraq War, as an American, I no longer felt safe there. I don't know for certain, but I think the University is fooling itself by throwing up its hands and saying "Well, sometimes speakers say offensive things." I don't think the University would allow the student arm of the British National Party (should it exist) to host events on campus and spew hatred of this or that group. I don't think that the University would allow a group that segregated its black and white attendees (blacks in the back) to rent its halls and rooms. And the same standards should apply to Muslim groups.

In many ways, I think Universities abet the most vocal and most radicalised. In one "diversity" leaflet I've seen from another London based universities, it states in bland and matter-of-fact language that Muslim women are under obligation to cover their hair. Not all Muslims scholars agree with this and certainly not all Muslim women agree with this. This would be a little like saying "Christians must not eat meat on Friday" or "married Jewish women must cover their hair." To be sure, some do believe such a thing, but by no means all. And blanket statements like that inculcate a belief that Muslim women who do not wear the hijab are not "real Muslims" and their views on Islam is not really worth listening to.

Instead of denying these findings, as the National Union of Students seem wont to do....

Wes Streeting, president of the National Union of Students, condemned the study. “This disgusting report is a reflection of the biases and prejudices of a right-wing think tank – not the views of Muslim students across Britain,” he said. “Only 632 Muslim students were asked vague and misleading questions, and their answers were wilfully misinterpreted.”

...Universities should take these findings as a warning and proactively seek to promote a civil discourse on campus and perhaps also help their students understand statistics and a valid sample size.

the playground and the hospital incinerator

the playground and the hospital incinerator, originally uploaded by London looks.

the hospital incinerator that looms over the playground was looking especially nice today in the evening light

It's in the blood

Following the tragic shootings at the Tennessee Valley Unitarian Universalist Church many folk have posited reasons and rationales for the motives of a madman. (Talk radio, lack of mental health services, and so on...)

John Dolan, writing at Alternet, suggests that it's something in the blood. That maybe it's something about being the descendant of those brave pioneers, the Ulster settlers.

maybe, just maybe, heartland Americans aren't such wonderful people at all. What you see in these posts is the oldest, deepest and meanest strain in American culture: the Ulster America founded by violent sectarians who moved westward again and again, from Scotland to Northern Ireland and then to the southern United States, then again westward into the American continent, to find a place where they could hone their hair-trigger intolerance without fear of interference from warmer, more humorous people.

Reading that, some part of me wants to slash his fuckin' tires.

And while I can recognise some kernel of truth in his statement and even take some pride as being part of a culture that's the oldest, deepest and meanest, he destroys his own argument by implying that the Scots-Irish are somehow not warm or not humorous. Not funny? How can he say that? Has he not seen the Jeff Foxworthy "You know you're a redneck if..." sketch?

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On a serious note, I've rarely met warmer, more side-splittingly funny people than those steeped in the Ulster tradition in America. Tennesseans, and in particular those Tennessee boys who keep their humor powder dry, coming out with those corking, cutting one-liners are absolutely without par in the funny stakes. The gals are hilarious, too - though men you may not know this - sometimes they're only at their best outside mixed company.


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On a more serious note, what a bunch of racist hooey. Sadly, it's we humans who are savages.

I never found that the Unitarian Universalist approach appealed much to me, but their statements of purpose seem to me to be a noble attempt to overcome that savage side of human nature (from Wikipedia):

"We, the member congregations of the Unitarian Universalist Association, covenant to affirm and promote

• The inherent worth and dignity of every person;
• Justice, equity and compassion in human relations;
• Acceptance of one another and encouragement to spiritual growth in our congregations;
• A free and responsible search for truth and meaning;
• The right of conscience and the use of the democratic process within our congregations and in society at large;
• The goal of world community with peace, liberty and justice for all;
• Respect for the interdependent web of all existence of which we are a part."

And I've no doubt that UUs in general, and the Knoxville congregants in particular (many of whom must be also Scots-Irish to some greater or lesser extent) would completely reject Dolan's flippant, easy aspersions.

No linky?

I'm name checked on Harry's Place (big British blog with a nice line in countering radical Islam from the Left), but no linky.

Cue a rare usage (first?) of emoticons on my blog.

:-) ... :-(

Update: :-)

Your kid has problems

Over at Seed Dispersal Mechanisms (no, it's not an agricultural blog, it's an agricultural metaphor), Furrow asks whether it's better to be the parent of the playground aggressor or the playground victim?

I don't know. Buddy has a nice line in car jacking during his weekly playgroup. He was in the habit of crawling up to the toddle cars and hanging onto the door of an occupied vehicle. He only wanted to play, but it was often distressing to the kiddie driver, sometimes to the point of tears (wusses) .


Bad cop?

He's either grown out of it, or I've largely managed to break him of his early criminal bent. At any rate, the unwritten code of conduct at playgroup is pretty fierce. You better make your kid share, or else.

But that's fairly mild compared to what I saw recently at the playground.

A boy, maybe four, pushed a small girl (I'd guess 2 and a half) down the stair side of the slide. The attending dad couldn't see what happened, but he asked and I answered, truthfully, that the boy had pushed her down. (Is that tattling?) Mum-of-boy was mortified. She made him apologise and he was dragged off. I thought for good. But apparently it was just a chat and maybe some time out because he re-emerged and made a bee-line for Buddy.

I was pretty wary and stuck close. Extra close. His mother stuck close, too. She seemed pleased by his interest in Buddy and explained to me that he had a 4 month old brother at home. He tried to stop Buddy from playing with the heavy playground gate. And while that could have been interpreted as concern - Buddy does like to bang the gate open and shut in a potentially finger-smashing way - I didn't think it was. When his mother told him to stop, he drew his foot back and kicked Buddy in the leg. Hard.

Now Buddy's a tough old nut, and he didn't cry. But he was certainly perplexed. I knew his leg hurt, but I could tell his feelings were hurt, too. He couldn't understand why that boy had done that. Truth be told, neither could I.

Before I could remonstrate, the mother ran off. I mean she ran. She told her little delinquent that they were going home right then - but she actually left him behind. He followed, though, screaming and tantrum-ing.

I wanted to yell after her "Hey, where's the apology to my kid?" or "Hey, you better keep a close eye on that boy with your four-month-old, your kid has problems." But I didn't. She was too far away.

So, maybe - unless you're in deep denial - it's better to be the mom of the playground victim.


Is that bad kid still here?