Zen afternoon

Had a Zen time in the park as it’s been a chaotic and stressful week and still is to a certain extent (there is one thing I wish was over and the wait is an agonising struggle) and now the other ‘alf has taken a job in Bristol (he just finished a year’s contract) as it’s permanent. So he’s going to Bristol during the week and coming back to London at the weekend, while the jobs I have been applying for have been in London. Everything is, as they say, up in the air.

But I don’t doubt countless other people are in a similar predicament, taking employment where they can and travelling around. Don’t know if I will be moving as the job front is precarious.

At least the trip to the park staring at the contemplative heron always calms the soul. Uncertain times

Thoughts on Craig Murray

When it comes to feminism many so-called progressives (??) and Left-wingers lose their faculties and unbelievably attack anything that comes across as feminist. Instead of having a cool-headed, honest and open debate it becomes whirlwind of personalised nasty hideous stereotypical bile thrown in the direction of feminists. I won’t repeat the names I have been called  regarding Sheridan, DSK and Assange and that’s what it was, names. My favourites had to be  ”CIA stooge” and “unbalanced feminist”. Yes, we feminists are mad, bad and dangerous to know. According to the latest diatribe by Craig Murray I am some “stupid idiot” who “dances immediately to the right’s tune.”

Another insult I can cheerfully add to the already bulging lexicon of misogyny.

What is our crime? What terrible things have we evil women with our spells and other witchery have unleashed on these men… or should that be poster chaps of the Left? Mainly this, when it comes to one of these poster chaps accused of exploitation, verbal attacks, abuse or violence against women there seems to be a undeniable denigration of these women.

Because, you know, these men can do no wrong in the eyes of some. And certainly in the case of Assange, feminists were arguing that he should face his accusers in court. And the extradition hearing wasn’t about disputing the accusers allegations it was more about putting consent under the microscope. Assange has a case to answer. Murray brings in Peter Hain but the thing with him was that he was acquitted by a court. That’s all. Yet we have been accused of various crimes against men ‘cos apparently we all man haters. Funny that, ‘cos what about men who are supportive of feminism, are they self-haters?

Women who have the audacity to accuse some powerful/progressive/Left-wing “class fighter” (delete where applicable) of a terrible injustice get dragged through the mire, denigrated, torn to shreds by the media, anonymity stripped and oh, the favourite…. blame the victim as they usually lie, don’t they?!

It’s not about getting to the truth or looking at the evidence it’s about rendering the woman powerless and destroying her credibility.

And that’s what Craig Murray fails to understand as he’s clouded by his own chauvinism and misogyny to think clearly about this without throwing personalised and apolitical insults at women who dare question the way rape victims are treated and when the accused happens to be someone who is worshipped  as some great progressive dude. And these progressives can do no wrong, can they?!

Vicious ugly-souled misogynist

He’s a piece of work Craig Murray now accusing Zoe Williams of being a “vicious man-hater on the world to pontificate on the DSK case”…

Does anyone on the Left consider Craig Murray worthy of respect?

According to Murray: The Sheridan case, the DSK case and the Assange case have all brought to the fore the true ugliness of sex negative feminism and man hatred, and the extent to which they made inroads into our culture and society just as insidious as the right wing propaganda of the Murdochs. They have also shown how those right wing forces can so easily hijack stupid blinkered man haters to the right wing agenda.

Another nasty little angry rant from a ugly-souled misogynist.

See here  as well.

Official: claimants are being demonised!

Anne Begg, Chair of the Work and Pensions Committee has written to Employment Minister Chris Grayling to express ‘serious concern’ about media misrepresentation of benefit statistics.

By what I assume was a coincidence, the Department chose to release statistics on new employment and support allowance claims yesterday. The coverage of the statistics in some newspapers, notably the Daily Mail and the Daily Express, was a particularly egregious example of the way they can be misused. The headline in today’s Daily Mail was ‘The shirking classes: just 1 in 14 incapacity benefit claimants is unfit to work.

Furthermore

I am sure that you are therefore as shocked as I am by this most recent misrepresentation of DWP statistics on benefit claimants. It is clear that your efforts to persuade the press to act responsibly when discussing incapacity benefit have not yet been successful.

It is also important that the Department’s press releases always take care to emphasise the distinction between new ESA claims and the reassessment of existing incapacity benefit claimants, which may not have been the case on this occasion.

I trust that you will be contacting newspaper editors again to urge them to ensure that the reports they carry about ESA claims are factually correct and that they avoid pejorative terms such as ‘shirkers’ and ‘scroungers’ which are irresponsible and inaccurate. As we said, ‘portraying the reassessment of incapacity benefit claimants as some sort of scheme to ‘weed out benefit cheats’ shows a fundamental misunderstanding of the Government’s objectives.’ It is clearly important that the Government takes every possible step to counter this ongoing negative portrayal.

During this month, a report was published, ‘The role of incapacity benefit reassessment in helping claimants into employment’, had this to say about Atos

There have been failings in the service Atos Healthcare has provided, which has often fallen short of what claimants can rightly expect. This has contributed significantly to the mistrust which many claimants feel about the whole process. We accept that considerable efforts have been made on the part of both Atos Healthcare and DWP to improve the quality of assessments, but the Department needs to do more to ensure that Atos treats claimants properly and that it produces accurate assessments.

Also the report stated that fear and anxiety amongst vulnerable people is being amplified due to their mistrust of private companies like Atos. They also criticised the work capability assessment (WCA), using examples of claimants having their benefit stopped as a sanction due to non-attendance at a WCA appointment when the non-attendance arose because of administrative errors on the part of Atos or Jobcentre Plus, and stating that most of the submissions it received were from claimants who were dissatisfied. vulnerability and fear increased. ConDems figures on ESA are bogus. Surprised? Me neither. Combined with the right-wing press fanning the flames of hate towards claimants with the screeching headlines of “scroungers” “work-shy”……

A good example of the viciousness and callousness of Atos was illustrated by this article:

Larry Newman attended a work capability assessment in March 2010, when a degenerative lung condition made it impossible for him to go on working in the wood veneer showroom where he had spent much of his career. His weight had dropped from 10 to seven stone, and he had trouble breathing and walking.

The Atos staff member who carried out the medical test awarded him zero points. To qualify for employment and support allowance, the new sickness benefit, he needed to score 15 points, and in July he received a letter from jobcentre officials stating that he was not eligible for the benefit (worth around £95 a week) and would be fit to return to work within three months.

He was devastated by the decision, and dismayed to note a number of inaccuracies in the report that accompanied the letter. He decided to appeal against the decision, but before three months was up he died from his lung problems.

Chris Grayling may argue that the WCA were “initially flawed but stressed that significant changes have been introduced”. But these tests should be scrapped as they bully claimants with their head-f*ck assessments and interviews. Where people are treated with no respect nor understanding yet believe they can determine whether someone is fit for work based on very little “evidence”. As the statistics how many claimants have been successful with their appeals if they have been knocked back though the right-wing press don’t announce that it is just so bloody easy to vilify and demonise claimants. Hey, it simple to blame the powerless than the powerful.

In a nutshell it is all about  profits, the needs of the individual are not at the forefront neither is training good quality staff. In the language of the market and the corporate sector, why spend time on these people when profits are to be made? These tests are not based on medical judgement but on political and ideological judgement. The attacks on the poor are simply class war.

The art of job applications

I have been applying for jobs, explaining how I fulfil the various requirements by showing examples of knowledge, skills and experience. Blah… Blah… Blah …… Oh my blah… Blah… showing my initiative. Blah… blah… customer focused … Yada…Yada.. …organise own workload…They are the constant bane of my life at the moment.

And so on….

Have you noticed that job applications have got longer, littered with words that don’t always make sense (it would be nice to see a person spec. written in a clear, meaningful and concise manner and the questions have got more bloody tedious. So because I am fed-up with applying for sodding jobs here’s my application form written in how I really feel.

Awareness of the importance of customer care

Customers care. I don’t really care. They can either like it or lump it.

Ability to organise and prioritise own workload and adhere to deadlines

The main deadline is 5pm when I have to go home and watch Neighbours on Channel 5, this is definitely a priority and one which I must, on all accounts, adhere to.

Ability to follow processes in accordance with rules or other procedures

I do have the ability to follow procedures but sometimes don’t want to. I find the best thing to do is pretend nobody told me what the procedure was.

Ability to work on own initiative and as part of a team

It is also worth pointing out that because of this important deadline i.e. Neighbours being on at 5pm on C5, I usually show my initiative when arguing about this to my boss. I prefer to work in the basement with my computer and only resurface when I need direct sunlight. I do like working in a team as I can people what they are doing wrong and how they should do it the way I tells them. Some people are not good working in a team. They get upset when I tell them they are not doing their jobs very well.

Adaptability

I bought this thing in the travel luggage shop where you can put it in a foreign socket and put an English plug in the other side.

Other requirements

I like a large glass of red wine at lunch time.

I do need to surf the internet in the afternoon.

I do need to hang up the phone up in the morning.

I think if I got the job I would be promoted quickly….

 

 

Fascism and hate

The sheer horror and murderous carnage in Norway wreaked by a fascist is beyond comprehension and words. But the media showed themselves as usual jumping to conclusions by blaming al Qaeda. Yet it was someone who was connected to far-right organisations including the EDL, Timothy McVeigh of Oslo. The far right in Scandinavia has been organising for years and on Friday we saw the fruition of hate and violence. While global concentration has been on Islamists the far-right has been off the radar, no real notice has been taken of their rise. Whether Breivik was a “lone gunman” only time will tell but he has been sharing his hate filled views on various far-right forums. But thing is for sure we cannot underestimate the threat of fascism, growth is connected with economic downturns along with state racism fanning the flames of hate.

The thing I have also noticed (and made me kinda angry) is the comparison between fascism and socialism, two extreme totalitarian ideologies, according to some (saw somewhere the comparison between far-right politics and feminism!!!) this shows understanding nor analysis of either. Fascism is based on an ideology of violence and racism. To put this into some context; do the wealthy feel under threat if a Trotskyist group is organising in their area? No! If a fascist group is organising in an area does violence and even murder increase towards Black people? Yes!

Solidarity to the people of Norway.

See as well Gary Younge’s 2007 article which is still important in understanding the events in Norway.

Rotten news weekend

I dunno, it’s a bleak miserable soulless weekend. It’s sad about Amy Winehouse on top of the carnage in Norway wreaked by  a fascist scumbag. Also what is happening in the Horn of Africa. There shouldn’t be a hierarchy of death because no one is less important or more important to mourn. It’s all so horribly tragic and senseless.

Splatcha!!

There have been various reactions to Jonnie Marbles and the pie. Frankly it has all been over-the-top. Billy Bragg aint happy about it. Oh dear. And neither are others because they see it as an own goal and with the media pitying Rupert Murdoch as he continued, valiantly, minus his jacket. Oh please….

This is a reply I left on one of the more sensible reactions to comrade Marbles (with some minor tweeks)

Gawd sake!!

Why are people enraged by the so-called stupidity of Jonnie Marbles?! I think Tim’s post says it all. What Jonnie M. did was to liven up the proceedings as Smithers and Burns had been coached by their legal team (“I have no knowledge of that” spoke Junior who was in charge of the company…. It either makes him a fool or a liar).

Murdoch seemed to nod off which actually inspired me to the same as many on that Select Committee are ‘ickle mice who don’t want to dig too deep (possible exception of Tom Watson). And trust me I nod off during Piegate! It seems it was all bated breath, people sitting on the edge of their seats waiting for the …. well, waiting for some massive bit of information that incriminates the establishment. But it was an anti-climax because nothing of massive importance came out and indeed would come out. So comrade Marbles did us all a favour and improved the sterile atmosphere of the Committee by adding some slap-stick Laurel & Hardy-esque humour to the proceedings, highlighting the farce and fakeness of the day. Though I will say Mrs Murdoch is quick on the reflexes and knows how to slap (she was quicker than Junior). This surely exposes a taster on how vicious and violent the establishment gets when all you do is attempt to chuck a pie in the face. Along with being criminalised and staring at a prison sentence. Hacking versus a pie in the face. Criminal behaviour versus pie in the face. Not paying your tax versus pie in the face. Seems a pie in the face is worth an offence under section five of the Public Order Act. He has been bailed to appear at City of Westminster magistrates court on July 29th.

And yesterday the NHS is on the road to privatisation. Now that’s scary as it’s vile an act by a corrupt coalition desperate for class warfare.

PS: the fact that the LP have suspended comrade Marbles also shows a knee-jerk reaction (“jerk” being the operative word when considering LP’s actions over the incident). He should be re-instated. Pie throwing gets you suspended while war crimes doesn’t.

World of flying herons

Apologies for not posting much lately life is getting in the way. Hopefully within the next couple of weeks things will calm down. So in the meantime to make myself feel better and to calm my ragged nerves I visited the park to stalk some wildfowl and birds.

The coots were charging after any duck/goose/moorhen who came within a certain radius of their nest, fisty-cuffs would ensue through webbed feet and beaks at a ready, coots taking bits of twigs to their nests (a couple of months ago there was a stand-off between an adult heron and a coot over a piece of branch… the coot turned its back and within seconds heron grabbed it and flew off) and of course the herons were wading through the lake on the look out for some fish while another heron sat perched on one of the (in)famous Victorian dinos at Crystal Palace Park.

They both flew off together along with the unmistakable squawk. One of the adolescent herons landed in one of the nest, then another heron flew over to the nest, more squawks…bits of twigs being exchanged. Not sure if adolescent heron is minding the nest while the adults are away….

Heron visiting some dino relatives...

The death of the gutter press??!!

If some technological wizardry could invent a gadget that could eavesdrop on the whole world I would imagine News International would possibly be cock-a-hoop especially if it could catch various keywords like “sex”, “drugs” and “rock ‘n roll” then it would be all systems go. Well, there’s always GCHQ to hack….I suppose.

It is fascinating at the moment regarding News International as there’s never a dull moment. More information is regurgitated about the scurrilous activities such as the latest person to be hacked, whether NI is leaking the news, politicians with their reactions and so on. Could this all lead to the collapse of the Murdoch empire? The twists and turns every day the exposure of deep corruption. Who woulda predicted that the NotW would be gone two weeks ago? Can News International survive? Is Murdoch one step ahead predicting his next move? But one thing is for certain, the shifting fortunes of the empire won’t be disappearing from the front pages soon. And it seems that it’s not just the NotW who was up to no good in NI.

When I was a kid my mum would give me money to buy the Sun and the Mirror. Sunday was The Sunday People, The Sunday Mirror and NotW. I think it was a fight to see who got to read the NotW first. Anyway, I was brought up on a diet of bite size scandal and sleaze. While the Mirror offered a more industrial and trade union angle.Though the Sun was undeniably sexist, racist and homophobic and it aint changed with time. When I was a teenager I asked the man who ran the newsagent whether he stocked the Guardian. The look he gave me was a mixture of surprise and bemusement. His reply went something like, “Does your mother know you are asking for that kind of newspaper!”… Rather an astonishing reply, I felt, it was like I had asked him whether they stocked a top shelf title that I couldn’t see. Maybe some believe the Guardian is dirty kind of read and should only be done in secret, who knows!

I weaned myself off the addiction to scandal as kinda wanted to know more about the world, not just about who was screwing who, casual discrimination, gut churning patriotism and whipped up jingoism (memories of the Malvinas war), Page 3 ….phwoar…whatta a scorcher in the supa-soaraway Sun….. I started to loathe the politics of the Sun especially more so during the strike at Wapping.

And now NotW has gone. Disappeared down the shameful gutter of sleaze. Au revoir! I bought the last ever edition and it was full of hyperbole and hogwash. Articles crowing about wot the Screws had done; crooks, paedos and drug dealers… they investigated. Heroes and villains… the Screws were able to hunt down and claim victory. Of course (and Rebekah Brooks emphasised) there was the hideous “naming and shaming” which was nothing to celebrate but more for the collective journos at the NotW to hang their head in deep shame. They whipped up a hysterical and frenzied reaction none more so than in Paulsgrove where judge, jury and executioner was the order of the day, aided and abetted by the NotW. It’s not something to celebrate it’s something to be embarrassed about. But this is NI where populist right-wing policies are argued in bite sized chunks, tough on crime, tough on immigration, tough on benefit “scroungers, all about the short, sharp, shock but also about shapely stunner Sue from Sheffield with her size 36DD frontal assets. Well, it is all about light relief, innit! Phwoar whatta bunch of saucy, spunky sizzlers!

I found it rather difficult to feel any sorrow for the demise of the NotW, journos in the last edition were still pumping lies and more damn offensive lies. To be a journo for one of these papers which sensationally scream about the poor screwing the state you have to leave your politics outside the front door of Wapping. Not one of Murdoch’s papers ever came out against war in Iraq or Afghanistan instead they trumpeted the need for war and showed no interest in the thousands upon thousands who have died in these imperialist blood baths of war.

To be a journo for NI you make a political choice. And now the unemployed hacks (if they haven’t found other work or been paid off etc. etc.) can now survive on the taxpayer’s buck, know what a luxurious life it is to be on the dole. Perish the thought of unemployed journos scrounging off the state!!

How all this will end is anybody’s guess but it is becoming apparent that it goes beyond the NotW and includes other papers in the NI stable. But hopefully this may bring about radical change to the undemocratic nature of the press, a warning shot across the bows of both the tabloids and broadsheets: clean up your act…or else!