Yet another manifestation of the world unifying in this case amongst Islamic business people and the users of their products. The main problem seems to be consistency and justice across different Islamic countries because of differing interpretations of Islamic law. They have gone into negotiations to "set up a global certification board"
It has occurred to me that no matter what the problem on the planet from the old lady down the road not getting her social care package deployed correctly to saving the decline of some British birds there has to be some consultation enshrined in an authority above the local ,regional or national. More and more folk seem to be coming around to that point of view as a necessity for life. I once joked with a Jewish friend of mine that money is the new religion but I never realised that religions themselves are having to be reshaped around the needs of money and business. Interesting!
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-20405292
Thursday, 6 December 2012
Wednesday, 5 December 2012
A response to a BBC news article about the bus service Arriva in Darlington behaving very wrong towards disabled people. It has been my experience that very few people will inconvenience themselves for a physically handicapped person.
"The firm (Arriva) said it adhered to Department for Transport guidelines which state that if other passengers are occupying wheelchair spaces, staff are not obliged to move them or make them move."
Doesn't it say an awful lot about attitudes that Arriva won't ask passengers to move but what is even worse passengers don't seem to move themselves when a physically handicapped person needs the space.
This reminds me of an incident that occurred with me in an Irish Session in a pub called The Maltings in York in the early 90s. Because my right wrist is fused, when I play my harmonica I don't push the slide in with my finger I have to sort of punch it with my whole arm so my elbow sticks out a bit. Some guy in the Irish session objected to the fact that I took up a little bit more space than other people and got quite nasty about it. Two things happened: I came very close to punching him but more interestingly I received absolutely no support whatsoever from the people around me most of which I knew quite well. We have a real problem in this country with people speaking out on behalf of others not through campaigns and petitions, which is safe and easy, but actually when an incident is occurring. We prefer to look the other way just as the Arriva bus drivers are doing. People think I am crazy when I draw these connections but believe you me they are connected!
The guy in the Irish session made it up with me eventually but are still feel that if there was a situation where my handicap got in the way of what he wanted to do he would give me no consideration whatsoever. Maybe that is how it really is in an animal sort of way: the weak old and crippled should be pushed aside so normals can have a more convenient life. But don't the normals become weak and crippled when they get old themselves. Short-term thinking? Be kind to people now because you may end up living in a society where they are not going to be very kind to you later. The trouble is we are already in that society!"
"The firm (Arriva) said it adhered to Department for Transport guidelines which state that if other passengers are occupying wheelchair spaces, staff are not obliged to move them or make them move."
Doesn't it say an awful lot about attitudes that Arriva won't ask passengers to move but what is even worse passengers don't seem to move themselves when a physically handicapped person needs the space.
This reminds me of an incident that occurred with me in an Irish Session in a pub called The Maltings in York in the early 90s. Because my right wrist is fused, when I play my harmonica I don't push the slide in with my finger I have to sort of punch it with my whole arm so my elbow sticks out a bit. Some guy in the Irish session objected to the fact that I took up a little bit more space than other people and got quite nasty about it. Two things happened: I came very close to punching him but more interestingly I received absolutely no support whatsoever from the people around me most of which I knew quite well. We have a real problem in this country with people speaking out on behalf of others not through campaigns and petitions, which is safe and easy, but actually when an incident is occurring. We prefer to look the other way just as the Arriva bus drivers are doing. People think I am crazy when I draw these connections but believe you me they are connected!
The guy in the Irish session made it up with me eventually but are still feel that if there was a situation where my handicap got in the way of what he wanted to do he would give me no consideration whatsoever. Maybe that is how it really is in an animal sort of way: the weak old and crippled should be pushed aside so normals can have a more convenient life. But don't the normals become weak and crippled when they get old themselves. Short-term thinking? Be kind to people now because you may end up living in a society where they are not going to be very kind to you later. The trouble is we are already in that society!"
Sunday, 2 December 2012
A response to a Facebook post:
" Christianity deviated from its principles very early according to a couple of books on the early Christian church I read, one written by a Christian. However, I believe that more good occurred than bad and after 300 years and the decline of the Roman Empire the Christian Faith started to shine mostly because of a big promotion by Constantine who may have not been a confirmed Christian but did want some form of unity and used the Christian Faith to get it. For me, that is the key to the great development of Christian civilisation warts and all, an effect we still feel to this day and a great effect. That bad versus good tension is there within the religion all the way through e.g. Christians developed African slavery around the 16th century and Christians in America and the UK got rid of it in the 19th. In other words the religion contains its own seeds of redemption as all religions do. On a personal note I am quite flawed myself and I see the same process at work of mistakes by commission or omission and redemption by getting it right. According to my wife not right enough sometimes!
I do not worry about fundamentalists today because they are legally and militarily fenced in by social democratic forces which I have complete and utter faith in even though as a family which is in a minority religion we have been got at mostly through the education system because of that minority status. It is the same for several people who I have come across in particular Jews and Jehovah's Witnesses and all of this in North Yorkshire and Darlington County Durham. Prejudice is alive and well but one of the best things that new Labour ever did in my view was the Human Rights Act 1998 because I felt personally protected by that act and still do: it stays the hand of some of the idiots and they have to look over their shoulder before they do what they do.
I do not believe in party politics but I do support a democratically elected government no matter how flawed and governments of all stripes do some pretty good things. The home education I did with my boys only came about because of the 1944 Butler Education Act and Butler was a Tory. There is a lot of bad in our system but a whole ton of good as well. It is a legitimate from you, me and virtually everybody I know that we should aim higher and get better justice for people on low incomes, the disabled and the old and I am sure even within this flawed system we are going to get that but like all struggles it has highs and lows and at the moment I think there is a low. But not too low it could be a lot worse and has been!"
" Christianity deviated from its principles very early according to a couple of books on the early Christian church I read, one written by a Christian. However, I believe that more good occurred than bad and after 300 years and the decline of the Roman Empire the Christian Faith started to shine mostly because of a big promotion by Constantine who may have not been a confirmed Christian but did want some form of unity and used the Christian Faith to get it. For me, that is the key to the great development of Christian civilisation warts and all, an effect we still feel to this day and a great effect. That bad versus good tension is there within the religion all the way through e.g. Christians developed African slavery around the 16th century and Christians in America and the UK got rid of it in the 19th. In other words the religion contains its own seeds of redemption as all religions do. On a personal note I am quite flawed myself and I see the same process at work of mistakes by commission or omission and redemption by getting it right. According to my wife not right enough sometimes!
I do not worry about fundamentalists today because they are legally and militarily fenced in by social democratic forces which I have complete and utter faith in even though as a family which is in a minority religion we have been got at mostly through the education system because of that minority status. It is the same for several people who I have come across in particular Jews and Jehovah's Witnesses and all of this in North Yorkshire and Darlington County Durham. Prejudice is alive and well but one of the best things that new Labour ever did in my view was the Human Rights Act 1998 because I felt personally protected by that act and still do: it stays the hand of some of the idiots and they have to look over their shoulder before they do what they do.
I do not believe in party politics but I do support a democratically elected government no matter how flawed and governments of all stripes do some pretty good things. The home education I did with my boys only came about because of the 1944 Butler Education Act and Butler was a Tory. There is a lot of bad in our system but a whole ton of good as well. It is a legitimate from you, me and virtually everybody I know that we should aim higher and get better justice for people on low incomes, the disabled and the old and I am sure even within this flawed system we are going to get that but like all struggles it has highs and lows and at the moment I think there is a low. But not too low it could be a lot worse and has been!"
Tuesday, 27 November 2012
I had a really nice weekend, starting out with doing a Bahai stall in the centre of Darlington on Saturday morning. It was really cold and the coldest I have been in a long while but as I have sometimes said, we Baha'i's accustom our children to hardship so it is best to lead from the front as a parent and I sat and stood by my stall and enjoyed the cold. A few people were interested and I had a nice little conversation with an old lady who said I was very "hardy"! I really like it when old people talk to me as if I'm just a kid because the age gap between them and me is that between a parent and a child.
Miles is really getting his tail up with this mathematics and did not want to come to Durham with us for a walk, he preferred to study, good lad, so it was just the three of us heading out into a very misty County Durham but as we approached Shincliffe the mist lifted into a very pleasant early winter haze. We walked alongside the River Wear hoping to see Goosander's and Little Grebes but they were not there. It was very quiet with few people about because of the cold but as we walked up to Durham Cathedral it looked like it was soaring out of the misty haze and we trekked into the comfortable Cloisters and had our biscuit break there under the watchful eye of a very tiny bat on the opposite wall. It is great fun noticing the bats every week. Amazing little animals!
As we came back down the A1 there was a ground mist a few metres high in several shallow valleys on either side of the motorway as well as in riverbeds and hollows. Very magical and I'm getting to like Durham County almost as much as I like North Yorkshire and Yorkshire in general. God's country.
I really like the fact that as a family we do things on a very regular basis and this allows us to notice changes of state for one time period to the next both with each other, with our friends and the many places that we visit. New is good but seeing the familiar in a new way for me is even better.
A very nice weekend and I have been doing some pretty extensive thinking about what I am to do with my life now because I do not have a full-time role as a househusband or home educator anymore. Get more serious about the music and kiss goodbye to family life as I know it? Get a job working with learning disabled people or as a maths teaching assistant and continue on with this great life that I have and helping people as well? Hard to say but I am going to have to make my moves soon and I have started doing this already. I am singing and playing better than I ever have but I've also noticed that because of all the science, mathematics, life sciences and history that I get into my brain feels really sharp and understanding is easier now than it ever has been. I wish I had all of this when I was a young lad and I am glad my two young lads have got all of this now.
God bless education and the educators like Klara and Bryan Whiley, Fiona Saunders-Priem, Mr Kipling, Mr Cotgrave, Mrs Johnson in Longfield School, Linda Griffiths Fiona's colleague from Dodmire and all those people who just get other people thinking because they are crazy enthusiastic nuts about whatever they want to study in a fairly rigourous way. I think I could have blessed myself there!
Miles is really getting his tail up with this mathematics and did not want to come to Durham with us for a walk, he preferred to study, good lad, so it was just the three of us heading out into a very misty County Durham but as we approached Shincliffe the mist lifted into a very pleasant early winter haze. We walked alongside the River Wear hoping to see Goosander's and Little Grebes but they were not there. It was very quiet with few people about because of the cold but as we walked up to Durham Cathedral it looked like it was soaring out of the misty haze and we trekked into the comfortable Cloisters and had our biscuit break there under the watchful eye of a very tiny bat on the opposite wall. It is great fun noticing the bats every week. Amazing little animals!
As we came back down the A1 there was a ground mist a few metres high in several shallow valleys on either side of the motorway as well as in riverbeds and hollows. Very magical and I'm getting to like Durham County almost as much as I like North Yorkshire and Yorkshire in general. God's country.
I really like the fact that as a family we do things on a very regular basis and this allows us to notice changes of state for one time period to the next both with each other, with our friends and the many places that we visit. New is good but seeing the familiar in a new way for me is even better.
A very nice weekend and I have been doing some pretty extensive thinking about what I am to do with my life now because I do not have a full-time role as a househusband or home educator anymore. Get more serious about the music and kiss goodbye to family life as I know it? Get a job working with learning disabled people or as a maths teaching assistant and continue on with this great life that I have and helping people as well? Hard to say but I am going to have to make my moves soon and I have started doing this already. I am singing and playing better than I ever have but I've also noticed that because of all the science, mathematics, life sciences and history that I get into my brain feels really sharp and understanding is easier now than it ever has been. I wish I had all of this when I was a young lad and I am glad my two young lads have got all of this now.
God bless education and the educators like Klara and Bryan Whiley, Fiona Saunders-Priem, Mr Kipling, Mr Cotgrave, Mrs Johnson in Longfield School, Linda Griffiths Fiona's colleague from Dodmire and all those people who just get other people thinking because they are crazy enthusiastic nuts about whatever they want to study in a fairly rigourous way. I think I could have blessed myself there!
Sunday, 25 November 2012
Just some impressions from a Facebook article objecting to disabled people using themselves and being used as inspirational figures.
"I must admit I have never heard of Scott Hamilton. It is unclear from the article whether he is just saying what he believes to be true which is fair enough in the same way that if I believe the moon is made of cheese is true. He has the right to see it and say it as he believes it.
Bad attitude is a problem with anybody me included! I have my moments with that one sometimes. I have had to take to task both my lads over the 20 years that I have known them with bad attitude and how it obstructs their progress towards the goals that they wish to achieve. I can honestly say as a father it is probably the main thing that has made a big difference in terms of them getting to go where they want to.
I cannot see how the author of this article can actually know what nondisabled people think about the images of disabled people doing things even when normals do indeed say pretty ridiculous things. How many times have I expressed something in words which does not express the feelings I meant to put over and doesn't express the idea either. I'm pretty grateful for the many forgiving people around me. I made quite a blunder last night on a Facebook comment with a York female friend Sybil Wood where I had simply got the wrong end of the stick. What conclusion is she to draw from that? That at that point in time I was a total idiot! She would be absolutely right.
It has occurred to me for a while Emma that some disabled people are just like normal's who are pretty so they use their prettiness to sell themselves or are muscular and use their muscles to sell themselves and so on. Some disabled people are using their disability to sell themselves. This is all part of some disabled people acting like normals have done and is to be welcomed as dumb and sickening as it can be at times in the same way that some of the television talent shows are pretty pathetic.
Absolutely anything which I have heard said about disabled people which somebody else could comment about in a negative or positive way I have actually heard the same for people with no disability and I think it is just part of our looking at each other culture and completely drawing the wrong conclusions mostly because I don't know how somebody else really thinks even when they tell me. I am more in tune with what is going on with this Capability Assessment business rather than the psychological impressions of this article. Yet again though this article is talking about "disabled people" and the author certainly does not speak for me at all. Who is she speaking for other than herself?
On a personal note my wife has chronic sinusitis and it is a type of disability and has cost her at least five years of work which she would have done had she been healthy. Am I one of the people that Stella Young is referring to when I say to Fiona as I often do "it's great you are trying to get out and about today Fiona even though I know you are quite ill." Making an effort whether a person is disabled or not in my view is always praiseworthy."
"I must admit I have never heard of Scott Hamilton. It is unclear from the article whether he is just saying what he believes to be true which is fair enough in the same way that if I believe the moon is made of cheese is true. He has the right to see it and say it as he believes it.
Bad attitude is a problem with anybody me included! I have my moments with that one sometimes. I have had to take to task both my lads over the 20 years that I have known them with bad attitude and how it obstructs their progress towards the goals that they wish to achieve. I can honestly say as a father it is probably the main thing that has made a big difference in terms of them getting to go where they want to.
I cannot see how the author of this article can actually know what nondisabled people think about the images of disabled people doing things even when normals do indeed say pretty ridiculous things. How many times have I expressed something in words which does not express the feelings I meant to put over and doesn't express the idea either. I'm pretty grateful for the many forgiving people around me. I made quite a blunder last night on a Facebook comment with a York female friend Sybil Wood where I had simply got the wrong end of the stick. What conclusion is she to draw from that? That at that point in time I was a total idiot! She would be absolutely right.
It has occurred to me for a while Emma that some disabled people are just like normal's who are pretty so they use their prettiness to sell themselves or are muscular and use their muscles to sell themselves and so on. Some disabled people are using their disability to sell themselves. This is all part of some disabled people acting like normals have done and is to be welcomed as dumb and sickening as it can be at times in the same way that some of the television talent shows are pretty pathetic.
Absolutely anything which I have heard said about disabled people which somebody else could comment about in a negative or positive way I have actually heard the same for people with no disability and I think it is just part of our looking at each other culture and completely drawing the wrong conclusions mostly because I don't know how somebody else really thinks even when they tell me. I am more in tune with what is going on with this Capability Assessment business rather than the psychological impressions of this article. Yet again though this article is talking about "disabled people" and the author certainly does not speak for me at all. Who is she speaking for other than herself?
On a personal note my wife has chronic sinusitis and it is a type of disability and has cost her at least five years of work which she would have done had she been healthy. Am I one of the people that Stella Young is referring to when I say to Fiona as I often do "it's great you are trying to get out and about today Fiona even though I know you are quite ill." Making an effort whether a person is disabled or not in my view is always praiseworthy."
Saturday, 24 November 2012
A response to a Facebook article from a disabled person criticising people who find disabled people inspiring.
Read the article but didn't agree with much of it . Her own view is fine but speaking about "disabled people" . She doesn't speak for me : I do! A man crawling around the supermarket because of a legs disability just trying to keep going is exceptional and should be admired for keeping going . I admired him in the same way I admire those soldiers I've seen struggling over the moors carrying a lot of weigth and following instructions, keeping it together , when they are totally knackered . Same thing in my mind .
In my own case , just a gammy hand I can't use much, playing the harmonica , chromatic , with a button , by essentialy punching it with my knuckles , instead of pressing it with a finger like everyone else is also exceptional but I don't get admired for that when I do get patted on the head , I get it for great harmonica playing and music.
There is a correct sense in my view by the normals I encounter that I do everything to stop my handicap limiting me and that is one way that they respect me . I think this could be because a lot of people I know now are 55 + and have woken up to the fact that various conditions you get with age can make you a disabled person. The fact that I've successfully lived with it since age 6 and am getting on with life pretty well I think just gets them thinking " Well Paul manages and has a decent life so it can't be that bad " And you know it isn't !
What normals I've known get wrong is that they correctly admire me and others for getting on with it because they think they wouldn't cope under my disabling condition . Well they're wrong they would and do. How do I know this ? Easy : since I've been a kid I've seen people get old and get disabling condtions and they get on with it and make the best of life .
Paralympic bunch didn't inspire me one bit can't really watch what they do in the same way I don't watch synchronised swimming . But Mo Farrel did . Awsome . Its a real test of character to win those disance events and I identify completely with that sense of keeping going because that is all I have really : persistence : by and large I never give up!
All I've just written is from my experience and doesn't speak for anyone else . Being disabled and I've come across others who think the same, I don't want anyone speaking for me . Particularly another disabled person!
Read the article but didn't agree with much of it . Her own view is fine but speaking about "disabled people" . She doesn't speak for me : I do! A man crawling around the supermarket because of a legs disability just trying to keep going is exceptional and should be admired for keeping going . I admired him in the same way I admire those soldiers I've seen struggling over the moors carrying a lot of weigth and following instructions, keeping it together , when they are totally knackered . Same thing in my mind .
In my own case , just a gammy hand I can't use much, playing the harmonica , chromatic , with a button , by essentialy punching it with my knuckles , instead of pressing it with a finger like everyone else is also exceptional but I don't get admired for that when I do get patted on the head , I get it for great harmonica playing and music.
There is a correct sense in my view by the normals I encounter that I do everything to stop my handicap limiting me and that is one way that they respect me . I think this could be because a lot of people I know now are 55 + and have woken up to the fact that various conditions you get with age can make you a disabled person. The fact that I've successfully lived with it since age 6 and am getting on with life pretty well I think just gets them thinking " Well Paul manages and has a decent life so it can't be that bad " And you know it isn't !
What normals I've known get wrong is that they correctly admire me and others for getting on with it because they think they wouldn't cope under my disabling condition . Well they're wrong they would and do. How do I know this ? Easy : since I've been a kid I've seen people get old and get disabling condtions and they get on with it and make the best of life .
Paralympic bunch didn't inspire me one bit can't really watch what they do in the same way I don't watch synchronised swimming . But Mo Farrel did . Awsome . Its a real test of character to win those disance events and I identify completely with that sense of keeping going because that is all I have really : persistence : by and large I never give up!
All I've just written is from my experience and doesn't speak for anyone else . Being disabled and I've come across others who think the same, I don't want anyone speaking for me . Particularly another disabled person!
Friday, 23 November 2012
A Facebook ad to Win Her Affection? "A few tips to win a woman's affection and get her hooked on you". Ummm after 24 years of marriage I think I need to read this just in case. My good boy moves so far today are:
I've prepared a Persian Rice which is 45 min away from perfection and then served with peas and fresh sausages.
I did a 10 mile walk around York this morning and came back all fit and frisky which is the way the lass likes me.
Kept the zany humour down so it nearly exhausted Fiona but didn't actually tire her completely out.
When I forgot to help her with the shopping as she brought it in I grovelled so sincerely that even I believed it, sincerity is so important to a great and long-lasting relationship .
Convinced Fiona there will be a 50 mile wide hole in the plague of frogs and floods weather that we will be getting tomorrow where she can bask in the glorious sunshine when we go out for a walk .
What the hell else do I need to know about winning her affection? Anyway stuff it, I think I'll be persuaded today by the "Lasting gift for wildlife" with the good old RSPB and forego the attempts to be a better man. Remember: save the birds first and your marriage later!
I've prepared a Persian Rice which is 45 min away from perfection and then served with peas and fresh sausages.
I did a 10 mile walk around York this morning and came back all fit and frisky which is the way the lass likes me.
Kept the zany humour down so it nearly exhausted Fiona but didn't actually tire her completely out.
When I forgot to help her with the shopping as she brought it in I grovelled so sincerely that even I believed it, sincerity is so important to a great and long-lasting relationship .
Convinced Fiona there will be a 50 mile wide hole in the plague of frogs and floods weather that we will be getting tomorrow where she can bask in the glorious sunshine when we go out for a walk .
What the hell else do I need to know about winning her affection? Anyway stuff it, I think I'll be persuaded today by the "Lasting gift for wildlife" with the good old RSPB and forego the attempts to be a better man. Remember: save the birds first and your marriage later!
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
