If Christmas is about anything I think it should be love - Loving kindness - Generosity of spirit - Caring & Empathy for others.
I've had conversations with friends and aquaintances over the years & this year too, & virtually all said similar things. Christmas has got out of hand, no one needs or wants all the "stuff", it's too commercialised, it's too expensive in time & money - we eat & drink too much - it goes on too long.....
Some friends try to rein in the shopping fest & present giving. They agree among themselves that they will escape from the tyranny of expectation - only have one lucky dip present for adults - see who can buy the funniest / best present for £10 or under - only give (one present) to children.
I've tried to inform / agree with friends & family that we won't buy presents for eachother & gave the money to charity. But now I am on my own I get invited to in law's Christmas day lunch, (and am grateful that they include me). So what do you do? Everyone is exchanging gifts, it would be miserable & churlish not to participate. I haven't sent Christmas cards for several years. I send an egreeting & add another charity to my list of direct debits.
It just seems bizarre & frankly unacceptable to me to be participating in all this excess having just watched an Open University series of programmes called "Why Poverty". The human mind has the capacity to put the blinkers on & only see what it wants to see. We all know, only too clearly, that a huge proportion of the world doesn't have the basics of life - health, adequate food, clean water & shelter - Including many in the so called "developed world". So how do we justify to ourselves the unjustifiable? We tell ourselves that we individually can't change things. We have no power.
But if everyone made a small change in their Christmas, collectively it would make a difference - Think acorns & oak trees. If it became a public movement everyone would benefit. I doubt if we would really miss some of the trappings of Christmas. Adults could still keep the magic alive for children. How can we continue to celebrate a Christian festival like we do - nothing could be further from the teachings of all the religions than the consumer frenzy we call Christmas now.
If we love our fellow human beings surely this is intolerable?
Monday 31 December 2012
Thursday 20 December 2012
A Gun is not just for Christmas
I do despair. How can America expect to be taken seriously as the world's peacekeeper when they are completely addicted to guns. Not just any guns, like handguns and rifles, which they could possibly argue were for self protection or hunting. Although I do wonder just how many urban Americans hunt on a regular basis. I also seriously wonder what the stats for the real risk of being attacked in your home are, and whether a gun is more likely to be turned on the householder or family.
The thing I don't get at all is that they own so many automatic & semi-automatic weapons. These are for killing people - end of! It seems to me that there must be something completely deranged about the psyche of people who think that this can ever be justified.
According to the Huffington Post America is top of the rankings for the developed world for gun ownership. Between 270 - 300 million guns are owned in America - 1 for each citizen. 70 - 80 million Americans & 40 - 45% of households have guns, so they must have more than one each - Why? How many times can you shoot someone or something?
80% of gun deaths are in America. America has the truly shocking statistic that 87% of children killed by guns in all the wealthiest nations are American. The recent tragic & horrific events at a school in Newtown are only following an all too familiar pattern.
It's all so horribly predictable I can only conclude that these gun toting Americans have lost all sense of reason. But.....hang on. The firearms industry in America was worth $30 Billion in 2011. 96% of the industry political coffers went to the Republicans. The politicians have been bought - they are simply a commodity in the land of the free & free enterprise.
How free are you if you are afraid of being shot? How free are children to play at home & school. Are the Americans going to live in fortress homes, schools, places of work? Are they going to go to baseball games "tooled up" in case a mass killer targets it? A society can't live like this.
I've travelled a lot in the Middle East & even went to a market in Yemen where automatic weapons were being sold from the back of pickups & virtually every man had one. I always thought that I wouldn't want to be in a situation where I needed to be rescued by a volatile Arab with a gun. Not now. I'd actually be more afraid of gun carrying Americans.
The thing I don't get at all is that they own so many automatic & semi-automatic weapons. These are for killing people - end of! It seems to me that there must be something completely deranged about the psyche of people who think that this can ever be justified.
According to the Huffington Post America is top of the rankings for the developed world for gun ownership. Between 270 - 300 million guns are owned in America - 1 for each citizen. 70 - 80 million Americans & 40 - 45% of households have guns, so they must have more than one each - Why? How many times can you shoot someone or something?
80% of gun deaths are in America. America has the truly shocking statistic that 87% of children killed by guns in all the wealthiest nations are American. The recent tragic & horrific events at a school in Newtown are only following an all too familiar pattern.
It's all so horribly predictable I can only conclude that these gun toting Americans have lost all sense of reason. But.....hang on. The firearms industry in America was worth $30 Billion in 2011. 96% of the industry political coffers went to the Republicans. The politicians have been bought - they are simply a commodity in the land of the free & free enterprise.
How free are you if you are afraid of being shot? How free are children to play at home & school. Are the Americans going to live in fortress homes, schools, places of work? Are they going to go to baseball games "tooled up" in case a mass killer targets it? A society can't live like this.
I've travelled a lot in the Middle East & even went to a market in Yemen where automatic weapons were being sold from the back of pickups & virtually every man had one. I always thought that I wouldn't want to be in a situation where I needed to be rescued by a volatile Arab with a gun. Not now. I'd actually be more afraid of gun carrying Americans.
Thursday 13 December 2012
Suit World
In the spirit of keeping my world manageable & tidy I do regularly have a clear out. So all my professional working clothes have now gone. (It took quite a while because they were expensive & had lots of wear left in them & I don't waste money.) I don't lead the sort of life now that requires me to wear a suit. Nowadays it's usually trousers & a top. The world rarely gets the opportunity to see my legs even.
When I wore suits & high heels I felt confident in my abilities to do my job & cope with most situations I faced. I wore jewellery, perfume & full makeup every time I went out. It's odd - at a time of my life when time was at a premium & I rushed from one thing to another, I found the time to do that. It was a part of the "me" I presented to the world. Now I rarely bother with makeup & my perfume will probably outlast me.
It's over 20 years since I got early retirement & I'm now in my late 60's. Then I was at my peak professionally & personally. The changes have been many but I find myself reflecting on the whole concept of "image".
When I was in my late teens & early twenties I believed passionately in issues. One belief was that what mattered was who & what you were, rather than what you wore or posessed. The most important thing about a person was their "moral compass" & their willingness to "stand up and be counted".
I still hold to those beliefs, but I now realise that what you wear & how you look does matter. We are all "judged" on the impression we present to the world. The judgements the world makes may very well not be right, but by then it's too late. So wonderful people can become part of the inconspicuous background & absolute pillocks can command respect because of what they wear & who they are.
Image has become a god of the 21st century. We are "sold" people. Politicians & "celebrities" are "marketed" by a PR machine. Even the language used is censored & presented.
Oh for real characters, people who don't give a toss about public approbation, but who have confidence in their point of view, even if it isn't "mainstream". People who are prepared to be unpopular because their views run counter to the accepted doctrine. People who are prepared to let the "gloss" slip and be themselves.
Superficiality rules! Wealth & power sells newspapers. Suit World is ascendant. I wish the ordinary folk everywhere would realise their power to really change this decadent world & make their voices heard. The divide between "Suit World" & ordinary people is a chasm & a void. Nature abhors a vacuum - we can already see the results of this around the world.
When I wore suits & high heels I felt confident in my abilities to do my job & cope with most situations I faced. I wore jewellery, perfume & full makeup every time I went out. It's odd - at a time of my life when time was at a premium & I rushed from one thing to another, I found the time to do that. It was a part of the "me" I presented to the world. Now I rarely bother with makeup & my perfume will probably outlast me.
It's over 20 years since I got early retirement & I'm now in my late 60's. Then I was at my peak professionally & personally. The changes have been many but I find myself reflecting on the whole concept of "image".
When I was in my late teens & early twenties I believed passionately in issues. One belief was that what mattered was who & what you were, rather than what you wore or posessed. The most important thing about a person was their "moral compass" & their willingness to "stand up and be counted".
I still hold to those beliefs, but I now realise that what you wear & how you look does matter. We are all "judged" on the impression we present to the world. The judgements the world makes may very well not be right, but by then it's too late. So wonderful people can become part of the inconspicuous background & absolute pillocks can command respect because of what they wear & who they are.
Image has become a god of the 21st century. We are "sold" people. Politicians & "celebrities" are "marketed" by a PR machine. Even the language used is censored & presented.
Oh for real characters, people who don't give a toss about public approbation, but who have confidence in their point of view, even if it isn't "mainstream". People who are prepared to be unpopular because their views run counter to the accepted doctrine. People who are prepared to let the "gloss" slip and be themselves.
Superficiality rules! Wealth & power sells newspapers. Suit World is ascendant. I wish the ordinary folk everywhere would realise their power to really change this decadent world & make their voices heard. The divide between "Suit World" & ordinary people is a chasm & a void. Nature abhors a vacuum - we can already see the results of this around the world.
Sunday 9 December 2012
Tax Doesn't Have to be Taxing.
It's a lie - in my experience it does. For the first time in my very average life I've had to pay an accountant & do self assessment. I contacted HMRC & said I thought I may owe them some money since my husband died. I did - a lot - Well a lot in my terms. I'm not sorry I did it, I'd rather pay my share & I am better off than many. I believe in the distribution of wealth & helping the less well off.
So I'm really p..... off to find that huge corporations who operate in the UK & make big profits here have paid little or no tax. My email is Google. I buy quite a lot from Amazon. Its personal. If I know what my tax responsibilities are I'm dammed sure they do too with all their corporate lawyers & accountants. Its a question of fairness, yet again. There is no morality in the rich avoiding their tax responsibilities when the less well off have no choice. Most of us do PAYE and any savings we have are taxed at source.
However, the whole system of tax in the UK is not fit for purpose. The system is so complex even the people who work for HMRC don't neccesarily understand all the intricacies. I am really tired of the lame excuse that gets trotted out that clever professionals can always find loopholes in the system. Why? Why can't the system be simplified? Why can't it be reasonably proof agains immoral avoidance manipulation?
I'm glad the companies have been named and shamed. I hope more come under the same scrutiny. But when they are exposed lets not accept a "generous" donation from them. It doesn't put things right. Lets firstly sort the whole system out & secondly clobber them for all the years they have avoided tax. Enough is enough.
So I'm really p..... off to find that huge corporations who operate in the UK & make big profits here have paid little or no tax. My email is Google. I buy quite a lot from Amazon. Its personal. If I know what my tax responsibilities are I'm dammed sure they do too with all their corporate lawyers & accountants. Its a question of fairness, yet again. There is no morality in the rich avoiding their tax responsibilities when the less well off have no choice. Most of us do PAYE and any savings we have are taxed at source.
However, the whole system of tax in the UK is not fit for purpose. The system is so complex even the people who work for HMRC don't neccesarily understand all the intricacies. I am really tired of the lame excuse that gets trotted out that clever professionals can always find loopholes in the system. Why? Why can't the system be simplified? Why can't it be reasonably proof agains immoral avoidance manipulation?
I'm glad the companies have been named and shamed. I hope more come under the same scrutiny. But when they are exposed lets not accept a "generous" donation from them. It doesn't put things right. Lets firstly sort the whole system out & secondly clobber them for all the years they have avoided tax. Enough is enough.
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