Culture & Cultures

Culture - 

the arts and other manifestations of human intellectual achievement collectively.

Cultures -

the ideas, customs, and social behaviour of a particular people or society.

I enjoy the arts - music, literature, paintings & crafts, drama. I love opera & reading & going to exhibitions. So I suppose I am cultured, but have never thought of myself in that way before. I just know these things give me immense enjoyment & develop my thinking. They broaden my horzons & make me realise how varied, creative & talented people are.

When my husband & I retired we travelled a lot to most continents & some very far flung places. My views on holidays & travel have changed now we are in a climate emergency, but I think we did it in a way that actually benefitted local communities rather than big tour companies. I gained a lot from seeing that there are different ways of living & thinking. We were lucky in that we got to interact with local people & listen to their beliefs & opinions. I learned that our way of living, our culture, is not the only one or even the best one.

Human beings are very diverse in every way, but most countries have some sort of code of belief & behaviour that recognises the sanctity of human life & allows for great individual divergence. For some that comes through religion, for others it is a simple moral code. 

For a minority they have no such guiding principle. I am truly glad that Assad has been overthrown. It is such a shame that the world stood by knowing what he was doing & did nothing to stop him. I hope that the Syrian people can rebuild the country that I visited 24 years ago. It was a country that was very tolerant of all religions. A country of history, wonderful buildings & fascinating landscapes. Assad & his father are responsible for destroying much of that. I hope that we will remember what went before, rather than the last years under criminal tyrants & their followers.

 

Ummayad mosque Damascus

Ummayad mosque Alleppo before & after

The destruction of buildings & culture is awful, but the destruction of human lives is simply dreadful. Yet again we failed. We should have done more. 

Memories

I'm a bit ambivalent about the value of memories.I'm not sure that their impact on what we do or say is entirely beneficial. Even more importantly how they can make us feel is not necessarily good. 

I've never been very good at remembering things that have happened. Friends & family can remember times we shared far better than I can. I have very few memories of my childhood & they are not very clear. I can remember a place in the countryside I could walk to & really enjoy being in very well, even how I got there. I can remember a time in primary school when I was very upset, but not why or what happened afterwards. I can remember playing in the street with other children. I can remember a huge argument about me going to the Ideal Home exhibition with a friend. I can remember practicing the piano in a very cold front room. My childhood is little random vignettes. Even having hypnotherapy didn't help me recall more.

For some reason I don't understand my mind seems to have erased a lot. It isn't a new thing, I've always had a problem with it. 

I can remember far more of my life as an adult, but even then there are lots of events that other people remember & I don't. Mostly what sticks in my mind is polarised, either very pleasurable experiences & places I've been, or the complete opposite. I can remember emotions & feelings. I can remember faces.

My feeling is that it is important to know what has gone before in our lives, but dwelling in the past isn't helpful. It's gone & can't be changed. Everyones memories will be a melange of good & bad. Few of us will sail through life on a rosy cloud. I think that we should try to live in the moment & really value where we are now, what we are doing & who we are with. Life passes by so quickly, it's easy to become a slave to routine & not take chances that are offered.  

I know people who hold grudges, who misguidedly think that everything was better in the past, who hold onto sadness & anger. Lives filled with those sort of memories are not happy. We all need joy in our lives & we need to actively try to create good new memories. 

Now is what is important & what we do with it. 

Memory

Here I sit at my PC losing my mind & minding my loss. As I think I have mentioned before, there is plenty of data in my brain, it's retrieval that's the problem. 

I have just realised that I completely forgot to do my volunteer stint at the community centre last week. Normally it would be on the wipe clean weekly calendar on my fridge, in the paper calendar on my desk & in the calendar on my smart phone. Alexa would then remind me becase she is synched to my phone, as is my computer calendar. None of that happened, so I blithely went on with my day - in the wrong place.

The good side of that is no one needs to worry about me repeating gossip, I won't remember it. I may well not remember that I have told you something though & repeat it. (Please do tell me if I do). I may also completely forget that you have asked me to do something, so you may wait a long time to see it done. 

I am a compulsive note maker in my smartphone - but it isn't infallible because I may forget to look at Notes. Even more likely I won't remember what the cryptic note means!

In common with a lot of my friends I can set off to do something & be distracted & completely forget what it was I was going to do. I can almost feel a thought drifting out of my head. It's no good trying to remember what it was, but it might creep up on me if I ignore it.

All of this can be a bit frustrating, but there is nothing more I can do to counteract the loss of short term memory. I have known several people who had Alzheimers or vascular dementia & I'm reasonably sure I haven't got that, thank goodness. I'm just a bit unreliable. But I know I am & actually it really doesn't worry me much. I don't feel any compulsion to be perfectly reliable & organised anymore.

I think that along with so many physical & mental changes that take place in old age you have to go with the flow. Acceptance is a blessing. 

Just so long as you don't give up or bang on about it!

Christmas Waste

My book club had a clothes swap last night. Great fun & a really good way to recycle unloved clothes, especially when it's the Christmas season & we all need a nice outfit for Christmas day. Fast fashion comes into it's own at this time of year. I know people who buy a new outfit for Christmas every year. Often the clothes will only be worn a handful of times. Nothing I will be wearing is less than a few years old & some items have been in my wardrobe over a decade. I love them & I'm comfortable wearing them.

Christmas must be the worst period for food waste. Sprouts & Christmas pudding are probably the most "marmite" foods we eat at Christmas. I love both, but lots of people don't & a great deal ends up in the green food waste bin. I tried making sprout soup one year, but it wasn't a success. How many people actually use all the left over bits of turkey to make a fricassee for example? Even less people I imagine use the turkey bones to make a wonderful soup. The art of cooking from scratch & not wasting good food has been replaced by the big 5 supermarkets Christmas food.

Then there are the Christmas cards. I stopped sending them years ago & send email greetings & give the money saved on the cards & stamps to charity. I see little point in sending cards to people I can actually wish Happy Christmas to in person. The waste of paper, whatever the source including trees, or even if it's recycled paper, really isn't acceptable to me. My time is valuable, so I send the cards electronically in batches to different groups. Writing individual cards by hand just isn't a good use of my time. If I get cards I do cut up appropriate ones to make gift tags, but I still think it's a waste of finite resources.

Wrapping paper is even worse. I am rubbish at wrapping gifts & doing it causes me repetetive strain pain. I try to take wrapping paper off carefully to re use it, but actually it rarely works. When you see the over loaded recycling bins after Christmas it gives you a small idea of how much waste there is.

The decorations & Christmas tree take quite a lot of effort & money. Goodness knows how many real trees are chopped down every year & growing them must take up land that could be used for food production or re-foresting with deciduous trees. It has become fashionable to change your christmas tree decorations on a regular basis according to the current fashion. I'm pleased to say that my daughter has all my tree decorations & some were her grandmothers. I gave her my artificial tree too. The sales, often starting before Christmas are full of reduced christmas decorations , wreaths & lights. 

Finally, the presents. Many will end up in landfill, charity shops or the "present drawer". I have come to the conclusion that really presents are only appropriate for children. I'm not a scrooge or a grump, but the time spent trying to think of & find presents people will actually want or need is often wasted. I do really enjoy seeing someone open a present that it's obvious they are delighted with, but that isn't easy to achieve. Much of the time people feign pleasure & to be honest what is wonderful about socks, ties, jumpers, nightwear or slippers. Surely we all buy those for ourselves?

https://www.asustainablelife.co.uk/12-not-so-fun-festive-facts/

It's a mad repetetive cycle. We consume & consume & in doing so waste so much. It's completely unsustainable. What are we thinking?

Obviously we aren't!

 

Having a Voice

Old people, especially women, often say that they feel they are invisible. They can feel like unwanted outsiders in society, and may withdraw into isolation, in reality it's possible that we oldies collude in that. It's a form of ageism.

According to research by the Mather Institute the UK had the most negative ageist attitude, followed by a cluster of India, Bangladesh, Canada, the US, and Kenya. The most positive were Sri Lanka, followed by Ghana and Tanzania. "They found that ageism was not related to the proportion of older adults in the population or speed of ageing population growth. However, greater long-term orientation and greater masculine cultural dimensions were associated with greater ageism". "Ageism may be greater in these societies because they favour strength and competition, characteristics that are generally not associated with older adults". Conversely countries influenced by Buddhism, Taoism and Confucianism, such as Japan, China, Korea and Vietnam all value wisdom imparted by elders and treat them with a high degree of respect.

Fridays debate in the UK Parliament gave a voice to politicians on the issue of assisted dying. For once, it was a debate worth listening to. As a free vote there was no party affiliation & cross bench "yah booing". People actually listened to the points being well made. The voices on both sides were heard. I wish that happened all the time. 

We all have a voice, whatever our age, position in society, education & condition. The trouble is some voices are louder than others, some out shout more moderate voices. Some people even feel that their opinion is actually more important than others because of their intellect, education or status. These things may be important, but I think that experience matters more. 

We need to listen to people who know first hand what a situation is like. That is why we do need to listen to the voices of the elderly. They have years of experience of a huge variety of situations. They see repeating patterns & cycles & learn from them. 

On the other hand, we oldies really shouldn't "bang on" about our lives repetetively & boringly. We shouldn't be trapped in the past, it really wasn't necessarily that brilliant. We should be selective & just pass on the real nuggets of experience that might help in our current very complex world. 

We need to earn respect. It isn't a right.

 

A time to Die

I don't sit around wondering if I'm going to wake up tomorrow. I do know that my body is a complex system of interlinked parts that has been working more or less efficiently for nearly 80 years. Therefore, I know intellectually it is wearing out. My sell by date is approaching. That is logical & entirely acceptable.

In the meantime I am going to enjoy the life I have. I'm going to do the things that give me pleasure. I'm going to decline to do the things that don't. I'm also going to spend as little time as I can with people who are negative & self absorbed because they drain the joy out of life. I want to enjoy being with people I actually like. If you know you have a finite time remaining, then why waste it?

I do however spend a little time thinking about the "how" of dying. There have been people in my life who have had a "good" death. There are also those who haven't. I don't have a problem with dying, but I am a little concerned about the "how". I've lived alone for 15 years & am happy with that. But I really don't fancy being incapacitated & unable to look after myself. I would not want to have a fall or heart attack on my own without being able to summon help. The idea of lying in my house slowly dying or in pain until someone realised they hadn't seen me in a while isn't appealing. It is a reality however because there are quite often days when I don't speak to anyone.

I know I'm a bit of a control freak. So I have a house I designed to be future proof for my old age. I wear a personal alarm linked to the phone. I have quite a wide circle of friends. I have an on line presence to keep in touch with people I don't see.

There is a time to die for all of us. It can come at any age, any time, or place. We often have little or no warning. In reality we are dying from the moment we are born. All of that is acceptable & part of the natural order. 

The big change in my lifetime is that we are living longer & as a consequence there seems to be far more dis-ease. More people seem to have chronic conditions that involve pain, fatigue & disability. Much of that is probably bearable. The situation I cannot accept is that a proportion of people will have a very poor experience of death, involving great pain & disability, which are not properly controlled. There is a lack of good hospice care & what there is is dependent on donations.

I understand the complex issues around assisted dying, but I really hope that I will live long enough to have the choice if I get to that stage. I do not want to suffer. I want to have some agency over my death.

We are watching people dying in their hundreds of thousands around the world in places like Palestine, Yemen & Sudan & we are doing little or nothing to help. If we can tolerate that, surely we can make a conscious decision to help people who really want to die for very good reasons & have safeguards for those who shouldn't be helped. Or are our  lives more important than theirs?

Making a Difference - Individual Agency

I had a conversation with a friend the other day about holidays & travelling. He didn't feel that what he does makes any difference to the climate emergency issue & wants to visit as many places as possible while he can. We are good friends, and although we agree on a lot of things, we do disagree on some major issues. Fortunately we can argue our corner without getting annoyed.

It did make me think though.

I do believe that when individuals mobilise to make change happen we can be really powerful. I used to live near Newbury & supported the demonstrators at Greenham Common & Aldermaston. (I didn't camp out though). I have marched on issues I believed needed to change & would do so again if I had the physical capapbility. I lobby a lot & support charities financially. I try to tread lightly in our world & not aid & abet it's destruction. 

"We are like raindrops, but together we turn into the sea". Iranian protester.

Public opinion is very powerful for both good and ill. I don't accept that an individual can continue doing things that they know are harmful because they are just one person & many others are doing the same. That way just stops beneficial change from happening. To my mind, if what you are doing is both harmful & unnecessary, you are simply being selfish. I can understand that it is very hard to change ingrained habits & practices. But once you have evidence that you should stop, then you should.

The difficulty is knowing what to believe, what is evidence based. Greenwashing is rampant about Climate Change, backed by huge resources of money & power. We live in a post truth world where knowing what to believe about a lot of issues is very difficult. Everyone has a responsibility to be confident in sources of information & not to believe any crackpot or conspiracy theory. 

But at the end of the day the survival of our world & all it's inhabitanats is dependent on every individual playing an informed & engaged part. Everyone acting together can make a difference. No one can opt out. Do you really believe that something magical will happen to put everything right? I stopped believing in fairies & Father Christmas decades ago.

If we don't all use our individual agency to change it really might be the end of not just the day, but much worse.

Inherited Wealth & Inheritance Tax

I've probably mentioned before I don't believe in inherited wealth. So many reasons, but mainly - an accident of birth shouldn't be able to determine that you have wealth, position or influence that you haven't earned in any way whatsoever. I also think that wealth you have been given, but not worked for, means less than wealth you have created yourself through your own endeavours. I don't believe that wealth should be concentrated in a very small percentage of the population. We humans need to be altruistic & share what we have. We can and should be prepared to even out wealth distribution fairly. That doesn't mean I believe in giving hand outs to people who aren't prepared to make any effort to support themselves. But we can & should support people who are struggling to have the basics in life. It also doesn't mean that I am not prepared to help my family or friends if they get into financial difficulty.

I actually think that the excesses of many of the extremely wealthy are obscene in light of the fact that people are starving, dying of curable disease, don't have clean water & sanitation, are displaced & don't have homes.....I don't know how they justify it. 

I actually don't mind paying taxes, including inheritance tax. I would be willing to pay more if it would improve life & support people who needed help. I do, however, object to our outdated & complex tax system, which very few people, including tax officers understand.

A report by IFS researchers, funded by the Nuffield Foundation, argued that the parts of the UK tax system that dictate how different forms of income are taxed are not fit for purpose. "There is no pain-free way to fix the current tax system: any meaningful reform will create losers as well as winners. But keeping the status quo is also a choice – one that unfairly penalises ordinary employees and investors, and creates inefficiency and administrative costs that make us all poorer.” "This report highlight(s) the unfairness, inefficiency and complexity inherent in the current approach to taxing different forms of income, specifically the different treatment of employment and labour income compared to business ownership and capital incomes. This penalises employees and distorts investment decisions, to the detriment of social well-being". 

The tax Competitive Index has repeatedly selected Estonia as having the best tax code in the OECD.  "Estonia’s transparent and simple tax system attracts investments with no corporate income tax, no capital tax, no property transfer taxes". The UK is 26th in the 2022 list.

Surely we can do better than this? The UK government uses the tax system  to achieve social and political goals rather than simply using tax systems for what they are good at – raising revenue for government spending.

I've been fortunate to become far more financially secure than my parents were. Partly due to both my husband & I having secure professional jobs with good pensions & partly due to circumstances in the property market. If people with disposable wealth simply hold on to it all & pass it on to their children we perpetuate unfairness & inequality. 

Not all are born equal, but all should have equal opportunities.

Leadership

I think I know what leadership is - an ability to influence or guide people, teams, organisations or even countries. It involves understanding people's motivations and using them to achieve a shared goal. Leaders have to recognise skills, talents & experience in others & enable them to use them. Leaders have to have a vision of what they want to achieve & set the direction to reach it. They need to be adaptable, because circumstances change & scupper any well laid plans. Importantly they need to inspire trust & commitment to the goals. That involves actions as well as words or position held.

If I'm correct, then I have to consider whether those criteria fit current & future leaders of countries & important corporations. The people who actually have power to improve or adversely affect our lives. I imagine you know where I'm heading. 

If we consider political leaders then I have to say the picture is bleak. I am completely baffled why anyone would think that Trump fits the description of good leadership, especially of a country as wealthy & influential as the USA. Oddly he does influence people & he understands the motives of the masses. He certainly knows what he wants to achieve, but I would argue it isn't in the best interests of anyone but himself. I certainly can't see how he inspires trust. 

I could go on. Assad, Putin, Kim Jong-il, Mohammed bin Salman, Xi Jinping...There are a lot of very powerful men who do not rule in the best interests of their populations. So we have to consider how they gained such power, because gaining power does involve making people believe that you have the qualities of leadership. They are able to persuade a substantial number of people that it is in their best interests to put them in charge as leaders. So they must have leadership qualities. 

It's simply that they are the wrong types of leadership qualities. They use unethical methods to gain & keep positions of wealth, power & influence. 

The same can be said for the leaders of big multinational corporations. The UK & USA are littered with inquiries into big organisations who have lied & used their positions for gain. The Post Office Horizon inquiry, the Sackler OxyContin fraud are 2 examples. 

So my conclusion is that leadership qualities can be used for good or ill. There must be a huge number of people who use their leadership skills to good effect, to move organisations forward & help people. Unfortunately they are not necessarily the ones we hear about or who get recognition. We hear about the bad ones. 

Even worse, there are obviously bad ones we don't hear about because they haven't been caught yet. The difficulty is that we really don't have effective monitoring & sanctions. The failures of the UN & COP convention on climate change organisations are testament to that.

We really do need to put things right.

Are Humans Parasites?

I'm reading a book by a Norwegian author that suggests humans are parasites engaged in collective suicide. At first it seemed a bit drastic, but it intrigued me. I did A Level biology so I know what a parasite is - a living organism that lives on or inside another organism, (the Host), & harms it. The analogy is that our World is the Host & we are destroying it. 

Well, actually I can't argue with that. We are polluting our world in all manner of ways. Man made Climate change is proof of that, as are dying species, oceans & rivers. We are destroying the forests & ecosystems that are a vital part of the whole of our complex world. We are grabbing natural resources that are finite & in doing so we destroy the places where we find them.

The difference between humans & other parasites is that we are sentient beings. We know what we are doing. We are presented with the evidence every day, both in our own lives & through the scientific evidence & news media. That is why this is collective suicide. 

So I accept the premise. The question is why we continue to do something which any intelligent person must see has the real probability that it will ultimately cause our own destruction?

I think that most of us are cocooned, (protected from pain or an unpleasant situation), in a mindset that we can't reverse this. That we individually cannot exert any control. That anything one person does will not even have the effect of a butterfly wing. We are selfish. We want to carry on doing all the things that we have become accustomed to doing. Someone else will sort this out in the fullness of time. Technology will be the solution.

We are deluded.

Each & every one of us has to make a personal effort to stop doing the things that make us parasites. We all have to stand up to the powerful, wealthy, vested interests that are now controlling our politics & international companies. 

If you don't believe me look at what is happening in America now that Trump has been elected. The people in charge of Trumps America include;-

• Matt Gaetz as Attorney General, who is under investigation ny the ethics committee & is very right wing.
• Robert F Kennedy as Health & Human Services Secretary, promoter of baseless conspiracy theories about vaccines and other public health staples, such as water fluoridation.

There is a whole list in the Guardian https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2024/nov/14/trump-cabinet-administration-maga-extremism  America has power, money & influence. It doesn't look as if it will go in the right direction when Trump actually becomes president for the second time. Obviously the lesson of the first presidency has not been learnt. 

Or perhaps it has. Maybe the Parasites are winning & we are actually participating in our own collective suicide. If we are, hopefully the Host, (the World), will recover without us.
 

Choice & Democracy

The recent American election made me wonder just how democratic Western democracy is. Are we really saying that Trump & Biden were the best candidates for America to chose from? Or even Trump & Harris? If we are I think we should all be deeply worried, because similar patterns can be seen in other, so called, democracies, including the UK. 

Running for election in the USA is all about money. Both Trump & Harris raised hundreds of millions of dollars for their campaigns. If you can afford it, and there are no limits on spending, you can stand. It used to be funded by public money, but now private money is much more widespread. Candidates who are backed by the likes of Elon Musk with assets of $304 billion literally buy the election. Candidates who relied on public money had to agree to spending limits. Private donors give candidates far more freedom.

I don't believe private donors are driven by altruism or the good of the nation. Having spent shedloads of money private donors expect a return on that investment. They are business people. It's the art of the deal. They want jobs for the boys & political power or they want a quid pro quo in terms of future legislation. One way or another they want control. In simple terms it's blackmail or bribery.

Instead of being concerned about voting errors or fiddles, which are largely eradicated in the west, we do have a transparent & fair system of voting with proper oversight, we should be much more concerned about money. We can argue about the different methods of voting - first past the post or proportional representation. Personally I would get rid of F P T P. 

But we should all be far more concerned about the undermining of democracy through the current imbalance in funding for parties & candidates. What we need is a level playing field where there are limits on spending for everyone involved in the process. I do think that private money should be removed from the process because it isn't like giving to charity. The donors are paying for something they want. It's transactional.

Time will tell with every new government elected to office whether they do what is in the long term best interests of the country & even international affairs. But by then it's too late. Cronies will have  important, decision making roles in government. International companies will have their way to new contracts eased. Wealthy individuals will become even more wealthy & powerful. Leaders will inevitably be compromised & justify it in some way. 

I know we live in a world dominated by consumerism. But buying elections really should be the last straw. Voters should unite & stop it. 

expenses potentially reaching $1 billion.

Read more at:
https://economictimes.indiatimes.com/news/international/world-news/us-elections-2024-how-much-does-it-cost-to-elect-a-president-of-the-united-states/articleshow/112824555.cms?utm_source=contentofinterest&utm_medium=text&utm_campaign=cppst

expenses potentially reaching $1 billion.

Read more at:
https://economictimes.indiatimes.com/news/international/world-news/us-elections-2024-how-much-does-it-cost-to-elect-a-president-of-the-united-states/articleshow/112824555.cms?utm_source=contentofinterest&utm_medium=text&utm_campaign=cppst

NHS - How Much Does it Cost? -

My husband always thought that we don't really value the NHS because we don't directly pay anything for what we get. It's free at the point of need. I don't think that is sustainable any longer. 

So I'm digging to find out what the cost of the simple basics are. It isn't easy. The Kings Fund is helpful. https://www.kingsfund.org.uk/insight-and-analysis/data-and-charts/key-facts-figures-nhs

Full Blood test - Couldn't find NHS cost. Private (Spire Healthcare) approx £160. Includes the practice charge for taking the sample and a laboratory fee for processing the specimen. £109 (Nuffield Healthcare).

Urine Test - Couldn't  find NHS cost. Private (Spire) includes a consultant fee £150 - £230

RSV Vaccination - Ive just had this free on the NHS. Privately it costs £180 - £200 (Pharmadoctor)

Flu Vaccination - Boots £21.95. Rowlands £17.99.

GP Appointment - A 2022/23 study estimated that a 10-minute face-to-face GP consultation costs around £56.

Prescription -  NHS estimates that the average prescription costs around £28. 

Outpatient Appointment -  NHS is around £120 

Inpatient Cost -  General ward: £351 per bed day. Isolation ward: £586 per day. ICU: £1,621.16 per day.

What we need to do, in the face of the ever rising costs of NHS care, is have a real conversation about how we can make the NHS viable, without the huge cost to the taxpayer while retaining the general principles that we all love. We need to think about a hierarchy of need. Obviously A&E and serious medical conditions need to remain free at point of need. But why shouldn't we either be prepared to pay something towards the day to day smaller costs or be prepared to take out insurance to cover those?

According to the Irish nurse who did my RSV vaccination, health insurance is not uncommon in Ireland. I think that may be the Republic, not Northern Ireland. https://www.movehub.com/uk/moving-abroad/ireland/healthcare-for-expats/#four

If we accept that neither the UK nor the NHS is the same as it was in 1948, we surely have to accept that we need to find a new model for the 21st Century. Rather than ever increasing taxes shouldn't we be prepared to either pay a bit towards some things or have basic, relatively inexpensive, insurance for some things?

I certainly think that if we make lifestyle choices that increase the risk of needing healthcare, like taking part in some sports, we should be responsible for having an insurance policy. I also think that now the NHS sends out text reminders for appointments there is no excuse for simply not turning up or cancelling. There should be a hefty fine. Having everything, always, free just doesn't seem viable.

Leaders Facing Justice.

As far as I can see from research there have been judicial cases against leaders of 15 different countries between 2000 - 2020. (9 of them in Africa). Between 2020 - 2024 I have found 11 more. My list may well not be exhaustive. My point is that this is not isolated behaviour. It is becoming more & more prevalent. The increase starts to become much more evident in 1993 with the Jugoslavian war tribunals. It is becoming learned behaviour by unscrupulous & greedy leaders. They know that they can get away with it. 

2000 -2020 - East Timor, Sierra Leone, Italy, Cambodia, Peru, Congo, Sudan, Libya, Kenya, Tunisia, Egypt, Guatemala, Chad, Ivory Coast, Kosovo.

2020 - 2024 - Croatia, Argentina, France, Israel, Italy, Malaysia, South Africa, South Korea, Pakistan, Russia, USA.

To my mind this pattern, which seems to be endemic, matters because of what is now happening in Ukraine, Gaza & the West Bank & possibly even more crucial, the American presidential elections. Putin, Netenyahu & Trump, if he is elected, are not leaders intelligent & caring people want to be in charge of wealthy & powerful countries. 

The problem is that although there is International law & there are International courts, bringing transgressors to justice isn't easy. For a start you have to be able to get the leaders into an International courtroom. They aren't going to volunteer, so they have to be extradited if there is regime change, or they have to be forcibly brought to court. They can be tried in absentia, but not sure that really puts them off. 

Then there is the difficulty posed by gathering a verifiable evidential trail & credible witnesses prepared to risk testifying. In addition, the Prosecutors & Judges face intimidation & worse from supporters of the criminals. It takes courage to go against incredibly powerful & usually wealthy men, (mostly). Not only the people trying to enforce the law themselves are at risk, but also their families. Not sure I would put my head above the parapet. 

It's a quagmire. Law is important, but it does have to be enforceable & have consequences for the perpetrator. Especially when it involves death, destruction, genocide, starvation, crimes against human rights & humanity & complete corruption.

The really startling thing is that there are so many men, (usually), prepared to behave in this inhumane way to retain power & accumulate obscene levels of wealth.

We need to find a solution that works.

 

Putins Palace

I really didn't think I could be shocked anymore by the excesses of dictators. But I've been following the story of Alexei Navalny for quite a long time. He did a documentary on Putins Palace amongst other investigations & posts. This link is not Navalny's, but it is very detailed.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dQbCOYnp_fA

There are several "security" services operating in Russia. The SBP is the presidential security service. The FSO is the federal protection service. Intelligence services are the GRU, FSB & SVR. Putin is known to be paranoid, probably with good reason - If I were a Russian I'd probably think I would be doing the world a favour if I helped bring him down. The measures he takes to avoid anyone having the chance to get to him are amazing. He has had a lot of time to refine the techniques he uses to remain safe & in power.

https://www.quora.com/How-secure-is-Vladimir-Putin-in-his-position

As of 2023, Russia's economy is forecast to be among the largest in the world by nominal GDP, with a value of approximately USD 1.9 trillion. Russia remains a significant economic power with a strong resource base and a diversified economy. However, the ongoing war in Ukraine and Western sanctions will weigh on GDP growth ahead - Focus Economics - Russia's Economy.

According to NDTV World Putin is said to be worth $200 billion. What is it with these corrupt leaders? Just how much money does any one person need? It simply isn't possible to spend it in a lifetime, no matter how many palaces, yachts & aeroplanes you've got.

My conclusion is that it's the "Little Man / Napoleon" Syndrome. A psychological pattern in which people, often men, feel inadequate due to their height and may overcompensate with aggressive or domineering behaviors. It's thought to derive from anxiety & feelings of inadequacy & inferiority. Causes include being bullied or teased about physical appearance, leading to insecurity. Some people respond by constantly attempting to prove themselves, leading to hostility & aggression.

Life for average Russians is not wonderful. 

https://www.oecdbetterlifeindex.org/countries/russian-federation/

I imagine that living in a dictatorship, with huge variations in wealth, power & influence must be very hard indeed. Not having any access to truth, only propaganda - defined by Lenin as the "reasoned use of historical and scientific arguments to indoctrinate the educated and enlightened", must make you feel very powerless to change anything. 

So those brave people who do stand up to people like Putin deserve our help. Not just words, but action too. 

 

AMOC - The Climate Change Impending Disaster you've never heard about.

Actually you do know what AMOC is - it's the Gulf Stream. But you probably don't know just how important it is. You almost certainly don't know what would happen if it stopped working properly. Therefore, if you are quite a bit younger than me, you aren't aware just how it's failure may well affect you. I'll hopefully be long gone.

 

It's a "conveyor belt bringing nutrients, oxygen and heat north from tropical waters, while moving colder water south — a balancing act that keeps the Northern Hemisphere warm". It has switched off in the past & the scientific concensus is that it is dangerously close to doing so again with massive consequences. Climate Change is causing it to slow now. 

This week a report was published saying "the risk of collapse has been "greatly underestimated" and will have "devastating and irreversible impacts" for the world". There are 2 possibilities;-

• Dansgaard-Oeschger events, leading to a sudden warming over Greenland, 10 to 15 degrees Celsius [18 to 27 F] within a decade

• Heinrich events, big ice discharges into the northern Atlantic 

The science is beyond my pay grade, but it is real & there has been a concern for over 50 years. I can remember it in the 60's.

The effects would be far reaching. " Ireland, Scotland, Scandinavia, Iceland, would likely get several degrees colder and also drier. Southern Europe would still be warm and Northern Europe would be cool. These temperature differences drive extreme weather events, bringing a lot more variability and storms. The sea level would also rise by up to half a meter [1.6 feet] in the northern Atlantic in addition to the global average rise that is happening anyway".

Ocean carbon dioxide uptake would be affected. "If the overturning circulation stops, that CO2 will stay near the surface and quickly equilibrate with the atmosphere. That would make [C02 concentrations] rise faster in the atmosphere".

"An oxygen-depleted ocean it would disrupt the entire web of life in the northern Atlantic, and that would disrupt fisheries".

"In the Southern Hemisphere, greenhouse warming would get worse".

https://www.livescience.com/planet-earth/rivers-oceans/we-dont-really-consider-it-low-probability-anymore-collapse-of-key-atlantic-current-could-have-catastrophic-impacts-says-oceanographer-stefan-rahmstorf

We have messed with our planet heedlessly for decades. Ever since we stopped being nomadic & settled. But the huge unsustainable rape of resources that I have seen in my lifetime has been exponential. 

We humans are literally destroying our habitat & everything in it. 

We really do need to wake up & understand what our children & grandchildren are facing if we don't take serious action.
 

Offsetting & Greenwashing - A Modern Fairy Tale

Offsetting Source "How Bad are Bananas" - Prof Mike Berners Lee 

"Can carbon be offset? - it is a nonsense - cheap offset options (are) fatally flawed - we can't just use them to counterbalance our emissions. The only genuine offset is removal of CO2 or other greenhouse gases, taking them out of the atmosphere & storing them permanently. There is no substitute for cutting our carbon footprint". 

"We should not fall for the idea that we can offset our footprint, as is often offered by airlines, often at absurdly low cost. The test for a legitimate offset is that it must actually remove carbon".

We need to have a realistic conversation about what "necessary flights" are.

Greenwashing Sources - https://www.un.org/en/climatechange/science/climate-issues/greenwashing  Shout Out U K - SOUK 

"Claims are often based on questionable plans, including emissions offsetting and “insetting” – rather than actual emission cuts. As such, the transparency and integrity of such claims remain critically low and risk creating a failure to deliver urgent climate action".

"Greenwashing is a marketing tactic where a company makes misleading claims about its environmental impact or the environmental friendliness of its products. The goal is to convince consumers that a company is more environmentally conscious than it actually is". 

"In 2020, a suit of consumer protection agencies gathered to carry out the survey that would turn to evidence of the wrongdoings of large UK businesses undertaking greenwashing practices. Hence, the study discovered that four in 10 international companies made deceptive statements. Greenwashing promotes false solutions to the climate crisis that distract from and delay concrete and credible action".

10 worst greenwashing companies Source - Earth.org;-

Volkswagen

BP

Exxon Mobil

Nestle

Coca Cola

Starbicks

Ikea

Plastic Bottle Water Companies

Major Banks

Fast Fashion Brands 

 

We have all the evidence we need, but we desperately need more action. But it isn't enough to say our politicians are not doing enough. They aren't. But neither are we on an individual level. Every single one of us needs to look at our lives & assess what we are doing, regularly, to stop the escalating & devastating effects of climate change. 

We will only solve this if we are all really well informed & are prepared to change our unsustainable habits.  

News! - Speculation, Repetition & Interruption

I listen to BBC Radio 4 & World Service news & also watch TV news. It seems to me that insidiously, in order to provide content, interviewers often ask speculative questions, or even questions that they know the interviewee will not answer. For example, what will happen now that Yahya Sinwar has been killed in the Gaza / Palestine conflict. Similarly, politicians & pundits are asked to guess what will happen to tax in the budget.

I find this very frustrating & needlessly time filling. I want news programmes to tell me what has actually happened, where, & how it has affected people & the environment. If there is certainty about what will happen as a result, that's fine too. I want that news to be accurate & verified as far as possible. It may well be useful to ask someone with real experience or expertise to comment, that isn't what I'm talking about. If an interviewee can contribute evidenced information which suppliments the facts, then I'm all for it. 

What I really find objectionable is unsubstantiated waffle which is little more than guesswork. 

I've lived long enough to feel fairly confident that this is a relatively new phenomenon. The world was not filled with people who make a living from giving their opinion on everything & anything. It goes along with the whole PR, special advisors, influencers, celebrity, ethos we have now. I really don't feel that we benefit from any of it. 

News is very important. The public do need to be informed about what is happening in the world because we are all affected in some way by what happens almost anywhere. I also do think that we need to hear other points of view than our own. We do need to be challeneged & possibly be able to change our minds if appropriate, based on factual knowledge we may not have known.

While I'm having a rant I also find repetition really annoying. The presenter will outline a story & then bring in an often on the spot correspondent. Fine. But what I don't need, in a minimal timeframe, is a repetition of exactly the same outline of the story by both. Surely the job of the correspondent is to add detail to the bare bones of the introduction?

Finally I really hate the interview techniques of some presenters. The interruptions, the talking over in order for the interviewer to make a point. Surely if you ask a question you should have the courtesy to actually listen to the answer? I realise that the media think that we have the attention span of a gnat & each section of news is very time limited. I also realise that politicians are trained not to answer the question but to put across their party points of the day. But this can all be very counter productive to the listener. 

I'm coming to the conclusion that listening to the news is less & less the best way to be informed. Longer, in depth interviews can be much better, depending on the interviewer. 

No wonder so many people are reading the news on their phones & computers. 

  

  

Evidence & the Gaza War

RUSI - the Royal United Services Institute has done an interesting piece about the IDF's use of AI for military targeting & says it's "more about speed than accuracy". RUSI "outlines broadly how targeting cycles operate, including the critical points where technology could limit or expand civilian deaths". It's a long read & you may not want to read it all. But the conclusion is that the IDF use it's systems  " not to refine targeting, but to expand & expedite it's target cycle...which constitutes a systematic devaluation of Palestinian lives, which could be reasonably considered collective punishment."

https://www.rusi.org/explore-our-research/publications/commentary/israel-defense-forces-use-ai-gaza-case-misplaced-purpose

I have followed the creation of the state of Israel since I was in my teens & read "Exodus" by Leon Uris, published in 1958. No one should minimise the history of Jews around the world. They have suffered more than most. Notably at the hands of the Nazis. The creation of a Jewish state after the Holocaust seems necessary & inevitable. 

I do have a huge issue with the way that the Israeli very right wing government & the IDF have conducted the war against the Palestinians. I have tried to find evidence supporting the claims of the IDF that Hamas uses Palestinians as human shields & justification for bombing hospitals, schools & refugee camps. I am struggling to find any. In addition they have killed aid workers & journalists. 

"Oxfam and Human Rights Watch have observed or documented that the Israeli authorities have carried out indiscriminate and disproportionate attacks in violation of international humanitarian law following the Hamas-led October 7 attacks in Israel, imposed collective punishments on the civilian population, deprived the civilian population of objects indispensable to its survival, and used starvation of civilians as a weapon of war. These are all grave violations of the Fourth Geneva Convention and customary international humanitarian law. The vast majority of Gaza’s population has also been forced to flee their homes, many as a result of Israeli actions that amount to war crimes". 

Amnesty International says the IDF are creating a "buffer zone” along the eastern perimeter of the occupied Gaza Strip (which) should be investigated as the war crimes of wanton destruction and of collective punishment." This is 16% of the entire occupied Gaza Strip. Also "Israeli military has unlawfully destroyed agricultural land and civilian buildings, razing entire neighbourhoods, including homes, schools and mosques". 

There is so much evidence to support the conclusion that what the Israeli government & IDF is doing, not to mention what they are tolerating settlers doing to Palestinians in the West Bank, you would imagine that they would would be committed to providing plentiful evidence to support the claims they make about Hamas & Hezbollah (in Lebanon).  But although I understand that what is effectively a guerrilla war is very difficult to win - Afghanistan is a prime example, I haven't seen the Israeli information machine provide very much evidence at all to justify it's actions.

In the absence of evidence I have to conclude that they are behaving illegally, the death & destruction is completely unacceptable & the USA & UK need to stop supporting this onesided war. There also does need to be a legal holding to account.

One of the worst things about this war is that although the IDF do not allow any journalists into Gaza, which to my mind speaks volumes for the fact that they can not justify it, there is plentiful verified evidence from brave journalists & NGO's, plus from Palestinians themselves, which we see daily on our TV's.

We all know what is happening.

 

We don't need no education....

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7iITFrcNLcA  Pink Floyd "The Wall" 1979. The year I became the head of a primary school at 34.

I had been trained in the 60's. I espoused, Montessori, Piaget, Steiner. I believer in child centred education & learning by doing, not by rote. Since then the world has changed immensely. So have I.

I still believe the child should be the centre of what is taught. They should have a really broad based education & learn by experiencing. No one learns to drive a car from a book or how to play football from a video. But we have AI. We have sophisticated technology. We have interactive whiteboards & computers. The rate of change is exponential.

Even more importantly than that the world is simply not the same place it was in the 70's. We have mass consumerism, but many of the old industies & jobs have gone. We have limited natural resources & need to find different ways of doing things. Family structure & parenting has changed out of all recognition. Populations are more mobile. In many ways we are more fortunate, but we have also lost reliability & structure. The needs of individuals & society are worlds away from the 70's.

But although education has changed I really don't think it has been given the time to really think about the needs of modern children, the state, the world & the system. What's more, I think we desperately need to do that or our children won't be prepared for an uncertain & changing world.

Education is both individual & societal. Both need to benefit. If we don't equip our children with the skills to be happy, balanced & productive individuals at whatever level, our society will not flourish. Most educational change is imposed from the top. From politicians. The world & it's wife thinks that they know what education should be because they went to school. But by definition their education is out of date. 

We need people with real experience & expertise to look at educational trends around the world & select the really good tested methods. We also need an open public discussion about what we as a society want education to be. We are in the 21st century, but education isn't. It's all about testing, examinations, administration & box ticking, putting huge pressure on the teaching force who are leaving in droves. No one wants to be a head now. 

A good education depends on good teachers who are well trained, creative & dedicated. It's a caring profession. It runs on goodwill. That has been eroded away by bureaucracy & overwork. 

But the most important thing is that our children need to enjoy school & feel that it is relevant to their lives now & in the future. I seriously doubt that it is.

Hope

Hope is not the same as wishing. I can wish I might win a million, but it's unlikely, a) because I don't gamble & b) because the odds are stacked against it.

I can hope. My hopes are fairly simple - good health & lives for my family & friends, a good death eventually for me, to do more good than harm in my life. 

But what hope do so many people in the world now have? If you follow the news you don't need me to enumerate the many devastating & utterly pointless conflicts, or the malnutritian & famine, or the crimes against women, the lack of basic human rights, sanitation & water.....That doesn't even include the people suffering from depression & mental illness.

"Individuals with very low levels of well-being—and in despair in particular—suffer not only poor outcomes on the health, longevity, and productivity fronts, but they also typically avoid civil society, live in loneliness and isolation, and are vulnerable to misinformation, conspiracy theories, and radicalization".

"A growing body of evidence suggests that the single most consequential component of subjective well-being is hope. It is critical to future outcomes for individuals and society. People usually think of hope as an emotion rather than something that can be measured and linked to behavioral, economic, and political outcomes. Economists who study hope define it slightly differently. Hope is not simply the belief or feeling that one’s circumstances will get better, that is optimism. Rather, hope is optimism combined with the belief that one has the agency to make things better".

https://www.brookings.edu/about-us/

My question is, if the world does not take action to make our countries more equal & evenly balanced, if we don't share land, wealth & resources, what will happen? My guess is that we will create a "monster" race. A race so disenchanted with the unfairness & inequality of many societies that they will be prepared to do anything to right the wrongs.

The difficulty I have is that I think the evidence for this is already there for everyone to see. All forms of extremism, religious of otherwise, are already clearly visible. The extreme right & extremely religious aren't able to listen. Populism is rampant. Self interest & power is all that matters to many. 

I would like you to think what you individually can do to force change. We have to hope that we have power to influence politicians because they are the only ones who can take effective action. At the moment I don't see much evidence of that.

 

Gifts & Politics

Christmas is on the horizon. My heart sinks every year. What to buy? Where to buy it? Will it be a good present or go straight to the present drawer or charity shop? It would help if I enjoyed shopping, but I just don't have the energy or inclination now.

MP's can accept gifts, it's not illegal so long as they follow the "Rules" & declare them. The Register of Financial Interests says the total value of gifts that Sir Keir Starmer has accepted since October 2023, (i.e. before becoming PM), is £74,905.80 - 11 football match tickets valued at thousands of pounds, as well as more than £24,000 in work clothes and accessories.There is also accommodation valued at £20,437.28 plus loans & gifts of clothing for his wife.

I can well understand that if "ordinary people" become very senior politicians there will be costs that their salaries don't meet. Sir Keir's net worth is said to be around £7.7 million, however, & it could rise to between £10m and £15m. That to me is wealthy. I would have thought he could afford his own clothes & specs. If HRH Katherine can patronise some hight street shops I would have thought Sir Keir & his wife could too.

I can also understand that actually having the time to go shopping must be extremely difficult. But then I imagine they have personal shoppers for that.

Then there is the football matches & events. I imagine that socialising at this level means that there would be a huge number of offers of free tickets. After all it does your event no end of good if the PM attends. There is a "quid pro quo". But is it a good image when real fans & supporters have to fork out vast amounts of money they probably can ill afford to follow their clubs? Given the Taylor Swift ticket fiasco, again are the optics of accepting those good?

The path is littered with elephant traps for politicians. In a way I don't want them to be spending their time worrying about minutiae like this. I would rather they ran the country effectively. But they do have well paid advisors & civil servants. I would expect them to be speaking truth to power about the advisibility of accepting gifts. 

I would also expect people who are at the top of government to have the common sense to understand that if it wouldn't look good in the headlines of the Daily Mirror or Daily Mail they probably shouldn't do it. Especially not when they are telling us on a daily basis that things will only get worse for all of us.

How Are You?

This has become such a meaningless, empty, phrase. I listen to Radio 4 a lot & am really fed up with interviewees saying that alongside "thank you for having me". Firstly, if you aren't really interested in the reponse to "How are you" then why are you asking? Secondly presumably the interviewee has been chosen because they have some expertise or experience to bring to a question & is possibly being paid for sharing it. The type of programmes I listen to aren't social occasions. I hope that all parties are polite, but phrases like this are grating & completely unnecessary. 

I do try not to rant too often on this Blog, but this is really p...... me off.

It's true on a personal level too. When someone says "How are you" generally the response is "I'm fine thanks, how are you". It tells the questioner nothing & they usually let it go, because it is generally accepted as just a convention. People rarely expect a genuine answer. 

However sometimes when you respond, the person you are speaking to then goes into lengthy detail about how they, or sometimes a member of their family, is. This has happened to me several times recently. While I'm happy to say that I'm possibly not having a good day, I really don't want to go into detail with most people, however genuine their enquiry. Similarly, unless it's a close friend or family, I really don't need to know the finer points of their medical condition or latest visit to the hospital. I especially don't want that level of detail about their relation, who I don't know.

It's all about appropriateness & balance. It is important to interact with people socially in a real & friendly way. We should be interested in eachother. But some people simply don't seem to have a filter. They don't seem to be able to judge what is & is not appropriate, genuine & interesting to someone else rather than "unloading". 

It isn't simply about saying the words. It's about listening & being able to pick up clues from facial expressions, body language, tone of voice, context clues, etc that tell you whether the conversation is appropriate to the person & the situation.

Maybe we are losing the ability to do that because we are communicating via our mobiles & computers too much. Real social interaction needs be face to face. Even touch is important. You can't do that over a phone, computer or radio. 

 

Complication, Confusion & Trust

I think we all benefit from simple messages. 

Personally I don't find maths easy, but I do understand visual graphs & charts. I like simple explanations of things, for example Prof Spieglehalter is my icon of easy to understand. Similarly I'm a fan of "More or Less". What I really dislike is the modern technique of political interviewing, as exemplified by some of the presenters of the "Today" & "PM" radio 4 programmes. To be fair, it must get really irritating when politicians simply don't answer the question, but trot out the response they have been programmed to put across, which may or may not have any relevance to the question. Interruptions & speaking across eachother is extremely annoying to the listener.

Our world & it's problems are very complicated. If I consider the Climate Emergency, the current ongoing wars, food security, wealth distribution.... none of them are simple. It is almost impossible to give a black & white synopsis of the information we have. I doubt that one person can grasp the total picture & certainly no one could put forward an easy solution that would work. We need teams of expertise to reach consensus in decision making. So I have no issues with advisors, so long as they are qualified to advise.

So people like me, who are interested in what is happening to our world & what the solutions & outcomes might be, can become confused by the warring voices. Not least because there are "bad actors" who quite deliberately muddy the waters. Who do we believe? Who do we trust? 

It isn't simply a question of trust. Our individual lives are busy & complicated. Just dealing with the everyday can be time consuming & difficult. How many of us have the time to verify what we are being told? Why should we have to? But we no longer trust governments & politicians. We don't trust the press & the media. We don't trust the Police. Unbelievably, many do seem to trust Influencers & Social media despite the evidence to the contrary.

I don't expect those with power in charge of government or multinational companies to always get it right. They should be allowed to make mistakes & change their minds, that is human. 

But I do expect them to be open, truthful & take responsibility to put the mistakes right. That seems to be really difficult for them to do because they overridingly want to protect their power, position & wealth. 

What is the answer? The only one I can think of is oversight bodies that actually do their job properly, with the power to hold anyone to account & operate sanctions if appropriate. But seeminly the bodies that we have are unable or unwilling to actually do their job. Hence all the "Special Enquiries".

Our society is in a mess & so is our planet. But we do have the intelligence to put it right. The public just need to get their act together to force change.

A Visit to A&E

I have just spent most of the weekend in the A&E of my local hospital. It isn't the first time, unfortunately I am someone who gets far more than their money's worth from the NHS. I never cease to be grateful for the care & skill of medics. How they cope with the sheer volume & variety of patients & the working conditions continually amazes me. Morale & care seems surprisingly high considering what they have to put up with, so I would never criticise the people who actually work in the NHS.

I do think the system needs a serious overhaul though & have blogged about it before. If they were to follow patients journeys through the system I think they might see opportunities for improvement.

I don't need to bore you with the detail of the circumstances that sent me there, but I will tell you the progress through it. 

14.30 - medical incident -> phoned 111-> initial speedy triage (efficient) -> 2nd triage, same questions but much longer & very inefficient. Took about 45 minutes. Both my daughter & I found it very difficult to understand the person asking questions -> doctor eventually rang hours later -> told to go to out of hours appointment at 19.00 -> a wonderful, competent, GP who sent me to A&E with a printed copy of the notes she took of all the neurological tests she did -> A&E 20.15 receptist + nurse then waiting room -> 9 hours in various waiting areas in a chair! Eventually triaged, same questions, ECG, Bloods, Blood pressure. Doctor eventually, same questions & tests as previously & a CT scan. No one was very interested in the very good notes the out of hours GP had given me. Everyone wanted to go through the same tests & questions themselves & didn't seem to know what the outcome of the previous persons questions & tests were. Long gaps between every interaction with no information -> eventually discharged at about 05.15 next morning. 

I was utterly exhausted having had no sleep & in quite a bit of pain because sitting in really uncomfortable chairs triggers some of my normal health conditions. 

I can completely understand why everyone a patient sees has to ask name, DOB & address. They need to know they are treating the right person. 

What I simply don't understand is why so much time is apparently wasted answering exactly the same health & incident related questions & doing exactly the same neurological tests. Why don't medics have ipads to enter the information as they go & share it with everyone treating that patient? In fact, does a single patient really need to be seen by so many people?

Triage means the preliminary assessment of patients or casualties in order to determine the urgency of their need for treatment and the nature of treatment required.

If my condition had been more serious than it turned out to be I would possibly have been dead after the time that elapsed.

When I got home at about 06.00 next morning, after waiting for a taxi, I went to bed. The hospital apparently tried to phone me around 9.30 to call me back for another CT + angiogram. My phone was turned off, but fortunately I woke up at about 11.00 & my daughter got through in time to collect me & take me back.

I'm fine now. But at 79 with several chronic conditions that experience was very trying. 

I completely understand from far too much experience, as far as a patient can, the difficulties the NHS operates under, (apologies for the pun). I just think that one of the great failings of the system is effective communication & sharing of information. In this age of modern technology it is really not acceptable to be wasting so much time in repetition. The use of ipads might be expensive initially but they could also be linked to the whole NHS computer system & from that every surgery & hospital could access a patient history in real time.

There must be other ways technology could be used to make the system better for medics & patients. 

 

Life Goes On....

How resiliant are you? 

Life doesn't tend to be a "bed of roses". There are so many idioms about this - "a dogs life", "as you sow so shall you reap", "calm before the storm", "come rain or shine", "get a life", "a taste of your own medicine"... We all need to be able to deal with the good & bad days, the kindness & cruelty of life & other people. 

Some people have to cope with far more though. Some people are tested to the limits of endurance. The bandwidth of adversity is extremely wide. From unkind, cruel or bigoted speech to physical harm & even murder & genocide. Until we have to face adversity we really don't know how well we will cope. I imagine most of us hope that we will deal with whatever happens well, with consideration for others & care for ourselves.

Life really does go on. We cling to existance in the most adverse of circumstances. The great driver is to continue to live. 

In todays unstable world I really wish that there was more understanding, empathy & human kindness & a lot less judgement, self absorbtion & protectionism. When we are faced with "bad actors", (people or organizations responsible for actions that are harmful, illegal, or morally wrong), I wish we all had more moral courage to speak out & take action against them. It seems to me that we increasingly manage to compartmentalise what we see & know. We tell ourselves that our actions won't make a difference, that it's someone elses responsibility, that we will make matters worse...So nothing is done & the "bad actors" win by default.

This is true at a micro & macro level. If someone says or does something that I think is untrue, offensive  or harmful & I do nothing, I am jointly responsible in allowing that to continue. If we as a nation see what is happening at a macro level internationally & do nothing, we are perpetuating evil & discrimination.

The really sad thing is that it is a repeating pattern. We even ignore the lessons of  recent history. We repeatedly say "this must never be allowed to happen again" when we are forced, by evidence, to face up to the consequences of our inaction. Other people are seriously harmed.

There have been so many Public Enquiries in the UK - Covid, The Post Office, Contaminated Blood....Wikipedia has a huge list. There have also been political documentaries like the BBC "Corridors of Power - Should America Police the World"  https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m0020xmq  looking into what happened in Iraq, Bosnia, Rwanda, Kosovo, Darfur, Libya, Syria - Repeated failure to act, over & over again.

We are now doing it again. Unbelievably Syria has continued since 2011. The first Sudanese war lasted from 1955 -1972. The current one has continued for 17 months. What is happening in Ukraine seems likely to go on for as long as Putin is in power. The situation in Gaza & the West Bank has rumbled on for decades, but currently is by far the worst. 

For millions of people life doesn't go on & we just watch on our TV's & smart phones.

I Wonder Why?

The older I get the more perplexed I become. I have always been fascinated by how much the behaviour of people varies. Not only the behaviour of peoples from different cultures & countries, or even within the UK, but specifically in England. We appear to be becoming more & more polarised. Ever more extreme. 

For example why do people mindlessly believe what they are told by social media, "influencers", the press, the TV even? Why do they not use the amazing tools we have to verify information before they react? 

Why do people react aggressively or violently to situations & information without digging deeper to find out not only the truth, but also the underlying causes of whatever has happened?

Why are women targeted by men the world over & treated really badly, abused & even killed?

Why are so many children abused & not cared for properly?

Why is there such a wide discrepency in both opportunity & wealth in all countries?

Why do we think that it is acceptable for a very small percentage of individuals to have more wealth than actual countries? In fact why do those individuals think that squandering their money on mega yachts & several palatial houses is acceptable when there are people who don't have clean water or anywhere to live?

Maybe that is the answer to all my questions. We have allowed our world to become extremely unfair. We have allowed the people who have the wealth & the power that goes with it, to have control over more or less everything from business to politics to economics. We have allowed the richest 1% to own almost half of the world's wealth, while the poorest half of the world own just 0.75%. They literally rule the world & the poorest struggle just to survive. 

Don't even start me on the dictators & truly evil leaders, who squirrel away billions of their countries wealth, while watching the mass of people struggle to live. The Pandora Papers published in 2021 exposed use of "offshore havens" by the wealthy.

If we are to survive & prosper, that prosperity has to be shared more evenhandedly. We need to grow economies to generate income to lift people out of poverty & develop sustainable infrastructure. Everyone needs to contribute to that according to their ability to pay. We do need to have entrepreneurs with vision, but it is not acceptable that if successful they are allowed to amass vast amounts of wealth & then pass it on to their offspring. That just perpetuates privilege.

Not everyone is equal. Humans vary a lot. But everyone should have the Maslow basics & everyone should have equal opportunity to live & succeed.

https://wir2022.wid.world/chapter-4/

https://wir2022.wid.world/www-site/uploads/2021/10/ANIM_F4.3a.mp4  

 

Normal?

We all think we are "normal", but what is normal? How do we define it? Is it behavior that conforms to the most common behavior in the society we live in? In which case how do we reconcile the very different, cultural, accepted behaviours worldwide? Is it the most common behavior for  an individual, whether or not it conforms to society norms? Statistically 'normal' means not significantly deviating from the average. I can only compare myself to my friends, family & aquaintances. My social group, like most people's, is relatively homogenious. So how do I know that represents normality? It is only normal for my group & even within that group there is a wide range of behaviours & beliefs.

We learn what normality is initially from our parents. Like it or not, our parents teach us by conditioning, habituation & imprinting. Our version of what is "normal" depends on who parented us & their social strata. It is "learned behaviour". Teachers follow on from parents & there is an argument that education is also indoctrination.

One definition of normal human behavior is any behavior, including speech, that does not bring harm to  individuals or people. "First do no harm" is probably a good mantra for anyone, not just medics. 

When I compare the world today to the world of my childhood, teens & early adulthood there is some similarity, but not much. My world today is much better in many ways, certainly more financially secure & technologically sophisticated. The world I remember was simpler & more relaxed. I have had to adjust to a new "normal".

The thing is, has that adjustment meant that I accept things that would have been anathema to the younger me? In some ways yes, I'm less judgmental & emotionally volatile. But my moral compass is the same. I'm just far better informed & understand the complexities better. I have the web at my fingertips & can research & verify information.

The most worrying thing is that "normal" seems to mean something so different today that I just can't come to terms with it. Wars, mindless violence, corruption, failed states, poverty, famine, waste, polution, unsustainable lifestyles ..., all of this & more has become normal.

We are in danger of accepting all of this. If we don't resist this new "normal" our society will collapse, because it isn't normal. It's all very abnormal.