Vicariousness & Lifestyle TV

"Experience through the activities of other people, rather than by doing something yourself".

I am always intrigued by the universal popularity of cookery, gardening & wildlife programmes on TV.  

Wikipedia has an astonishing list of British TV cookery programmes. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Category:British_cooking_television_shows  Yet many people are so time poor & financially poor that sales of ultra processed food has grown exponentially. Alongside that the cost of good fresh food is now unaffordable for many. Use of food banks in the UK has rocketed, even among the working poor. https://www.trusselltrust.org/news-and-blog/latest-stats/

There are an equally astonishing number of gardeners who have TV programmes. https://www.hortweek.com/top-50-tv-garden-presenters/retail/article/1697051  Gardening is a quintessentially British leisure activity. Allotments have their origins in the late Anglo Saxon early medieval period. Yet just under one in ten (8%) of people said they did not have access to any form of garden or other listed outdoor spaces according to a study. https://www.gov.uk/government/statistics/the-people-and-nature-survey-for-england-data-and-publications-from-adults-survey-year-1-april-2020-march-2021-official-statistics/the-people-and-nature-survey-for-england-data-and-publications-from-adults-survey-year-1-april-2020-march-2021-official-statistics-main-finding

We probably produce some of the best wildlife TV programmes in the world. Sir David Attenborough alone has been in a massive 100+ documentaries (and counting!) His first documentary aired way back in 1954 and was called Zoo Quest. He has single handedly shown us both the wonder of the world we live in with it's other inhabitants & warned us, in the simplest terms, about the damage we have done & the consequences of that. Yet many watch the amazing photography simply as entertainment & don't relate what they are seeing to their own actions.

We aspire to be good cooks, to have wonderful green spaces, to see the world in all it's glory. We get vicarious enjoyment watching films and TV showing us good food, beautiful gardens & our wonderful, unique world. What we don't do is translate lifestyle TV into the necessary change. Attenborough's "Wild Isles" episode 6 was not broadcast by the BBC  https://www.theguardian.com/media/2023/mar/10/david-attenborough-bbc-wild-isles-episode-rightwing-backlash-fears  Are we being censored? You can watch here https://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/p0fd45w7/wild-isles-saving-our-wild-isles

We need to eat good food, exercise & get out into the fresh air regularly. We need to connect with the natural world. We need to live in balance with nature, our environment & other people. We need to be doers not passive watchers. We have plenty of information, we just need to do something about what we know.

 

 

 

Foreign Policy Dilemmas

How do governments make difficult decisions about foreign policy? How do they decide that interventionism is the correct course of action? The United Nations (26 June 1945) unequivocally expresses the principle of sovereign equality for its members. The right of a state to govern its own domestic affairs without external interference is regarded by critics of regime change as the foundation of a peaceful world order.

https://www.cfr.org/blog/five-foreign-policy-stories-watch-2023

http://encyclopedia.uia.org/en/problem/142289 

It seems to me that one of the prime movers for a political decision to intervene is self interest. Acess to valuable resources like fossil fuels has driven intervention in the Middle East for example. In the case of the Ukraine war there is perceived threat to wider international security. Sometimes a desire for regime change is an underlying, often denied, reason. All possibly justifiable, but definitely self interest.

Surely the prime mover should be protection of life? Humanitarian interventions seem to be most justifiable. Yet often they don't seem to be as strong a trigger as self interest. It all depends on Politics.

Politics is the process for making official government decisions. It usually comprises the governmental legal and economic system and the social and cultural system. Politics supposedly reflects the values of the society. The question is, whether those values are fully shared by populations. The world is polarised between democracies & totalitarian regimes, with authoritarian regimes in the middle.

To intervene or not to intervene, that is the question. History shows that to commit massive financial & human resources to a destructive war is a recipe for disaster. Look at the two world wars. Look at Afghanistan, Libya, Syria, Iraq.  Hardly resounding successes. The costs were enormous.

Personally I don't think we have any choice but to support Ukraine. Given Putins meglaomania, if he were to be allowed to win this war it would radically & negatively affect the whole of Europe. In addition, unprovoked aggression into sovereign territory should be challenged. Then there are the thousands of alleged war crimes & crimes against humanity committed by Russia & the many arrest warrants issued by the International Criminal Court.

Ukraine is not a member of either the ICC or NATO. They are not a member of the ICC because they have not ratified the Rome Statute. They are not members of NATO because one of the three main criteria for entry into NATO is a nation must demonstrate a commitment to democracy, individual liberty and support for the rule of law. While Ukrainian leaders say they have met that threshold, some American and European officials argue otherwise. I imagine that if & when Ukraine has any sort of real victory in this war, membership will follow.

Given that the UN motto is "Peace, Dignity and Equality on a Healthy Planet" I'm not at all convinced of their effectiveness. The Veto power of  China, the United States, France, the United Kingdom & Russia effectively stymies decision making. Russia is by far the biggest user of the veto. There are many instances of UN failures & corruption. 

https://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/m0018ljw/sign/the-whistleblowers-inside-the-un

All in all humanity seems to have got itself into a complete morass as far as effective Foreign policy decision making goes.The dilemmas are complex. Politicians can be hidebound by their own & their nations self interest. Altruistic & humanistic thinking seems to get lost in the process. Short term expediency wins. 

The losers are the populations seen as collateral damage.

 

Marking your Territory

I had a GSD called Mable that I loved for over 12 years. Walking a dog is all about waiting for them to sniff everything & then pee on top of another animals scent marker. Animals are territorial, as are human animals.

We regard our homes, our village, town or city & our country as our territory. We mark our territory by borders, actual or unseen. There is an area around our body which is inviolate & we don't like other people "invading our space" by getting too close for comfort.

I get that. It's psychologically inherent.

It's also all in our minds. We don't actually own the land, we are custodians of it. We take nothing with us when we die. Our country is an accident of birth, some are lucky, some are not.

We create mini fortresses with hedges, fences, railings & walls marking our territory. It's defensive, protecting your property & space. Castles are a prime example. But there was a point when they were built, battles were being fought on a regular basis.

People belong to groups, to tribes. You can recognise members of your tribe by what they wear, by their speech, by their interests, their education, their religion, where they come from...innumerable clues. We feel comfortable with people who are like us & often uncomfortable with people who are different. 

Arguments arise over difference. People dislike & hate eachother, it is learned behaviour. Tribes fight eachother over territory & influence in a power struggle. Russia wants to dominate Ukraine. People are maimed & die. The pattern is age old & repeating. We do not learn the lessons of tolerance, justice & equality. We are not kind to other human beings. We discriminate against whole groups.

There is a worldwide problem because of displacement of people due to war, famine, discrimination, climate events & economic adversity. What do the tribes who are fortunate do? Do they welcome & give aid to the people who have so much adversity to deal with. Yes, many do thank goodness. But so many don't. Whole countries will not allow refugees in, mostly in Eastern Europe. Some countries take far more than their fair share. The Uk doesn't even feature on that list.

https://www.nrc.no/shorthand/fr/a-few-countries-take-responsibility-for-most-of-the-worlds-refugees/index.html

The statistics are appalling. Why aren't we generous & kind to fellow human beings? Where is our humanity? Where has our moral compass gone? 

  

 

Having a Purpose

I'm never going to change the world, much as I would like to. My voice will only be heard when joined with others in support of or against issues. I am lucky that I can also support financially & through volunteering. I hope significant change will come, but I probably won't see it. I do think it is important not to simply passively watch on the sidelines though. We all need to engage & have purpose.

In the same way I probably won't be around to see the garden I am creating fully grown. Trees, shrubs & plants take time to establish. Some will flourish, some will not & will have to be replaced with better choices. This, probably my final home, has given me purpose for 3 years now. It hasn't been easy, but it has been interesting & I have learned a lot from the process. My garden will supposedly take another 3 years to reach a reasonable condition. Trees take a lifetime.

Although I don't have the energy or physical capacity that I once had I am quite computer literate. I doubt that I would have been able to plan & manage a big building project & create a reasonably sized garden from scratch if I hadn't been able to research & order the hundreds of things necessary online. My computer is my lifeline & my life is on it - literally.

We all age & have to adjust to ageing. It really isn't easy. I have come to realise that it is really important to maintain social interactions & interest in other people & things. The body may start to fail, but if you are lucky enough to still be compos mentis you do need stimulation & purpose. We all need to be engaged in life & having a purpose is integral to that.

The difficulty is finding something that does give you purpose. Hitherto I haven't found that difficult. But I have known quite a few people in my life who have found retirement, ageing & the loss of a loved one incredibly hard to deal with. It isn't necessarily only a problem for the elderly. I can also remember young people who suffered from depression, isolation, rootlessness & lack of purpose. It can be like a disease & is very difficult to cope with on your own.

In some ways I dislike the current obsession with "mental health". That doesn't mean I don't think it is hugely important. I would simply like far more focus on providing effective & timely professional help for people suffering from mental ill health. I don't find the emotional outpouring of very personal & private issues from people in the public eye moves us forward very much. I'm not sure it actually helps them either. 

We live in an age of opportunities unknown in my youth. It is also currently a very unstable world with many serious problems. Apathy will not rescue humanity from war, famine, pestilence & climate change. There isn't going to be a second coming of a messiah to rescue us. We all need to be engaged in sorting out the world we have created. 

We all need a sense of purpose.

Convenience v Inconvenience

Now I live alone I eat more convenience food. I used to love to cook everything from fresh ingredients but I don't seem to have the energy, inclination or time now. I go through the self service checkouts in supermarkets, being too impatient to queue behind people with massive trolley's full to overflowing. I drive to the leisure centre to swim. Partly to save time, but also because walking there & back carrying my kit takes more energy than I have. Also because going by bus takes more time because our service has become more infrequent & unreliable. That also means that I drive to the big supermarket because carrying my monthly big shop is completely beyond me.

The problem is that choices in favour of convenience have a huge impact when everyone chooses the same thing, for the same reasons. 

Convenience foods are highly processed & use additives to prolong shelf life & improve "look". They contain too much salt, fat & sugar & have contributed to health issues like obesity. They use huge amounts of packaging, including plastics, which do not biodegrade & cause pollution & landfill issues. Dependence on meat, soya & palm oil in convenience foods has had a direct impact on deforestation.

The first self service shop in the UK was the Co Op in London in 1948. Customers picked their own shopping directly from shelves rather than being served by a shopkeeper. Self service checkouts were first introduced in Georgia USA in 1986. In the UK self service tills were first introduced by Tesco in 2003. I thought that this led to job losses, but apparently not. Research in 2023 says that most people who are replaced by self-checkout are offered a similar position instead. There are disadvantages, I seem to constantly have issues with the ones in my local M&S which need human interaction by staff. The most annoying thing I find is the repeated multiple voice recordings accompanying the process.

The issue of car versus public transport is very complex. The basic issue is that of time. Public transport stops to let people on & off. Traffic congestion, manpower issues & strikes cause public transport to be unreliable & even unavailable. In the UK our public transport is not integrated in the way that it is in Germany for example. 

The thing is we need to change, sooner rather than later, because of climate change & the impact of our behaviour on the planet & it's ecosystems. I am currently reading a book called "How Bad Are Bananas" by Mike Berners - Lee. He is an academic at Lancaster university & everything is scientifically researched. It is excellent. Very clear & simple language giving the carbon footprint of everything. It is also shocking, because it makes very clear that if we are to meet our targets, everyone in the developed world needs to make substantial changes in our lifestyles. 

The world is likely to breach 1.5 degrees C by 2027 according to the latest research https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2023/may/17/global-heating-climate-crisis-record-temperatures-wmo-research 

It is no longer a matter of our convenience or inconvenience. It is literally a matter of survival of the world as we know it.