Comment & Share

I'm quite intrigued by the number of people who read my Blog - The many different countries in the world in which my readers are based. I'm not sure how readers find my Blog, but I assume that the fact that I post on Facebook & Twitter is the main portal. 

Initially the Blog was only really read by friends & maybe family. I still have my stalwart followers, many who have been with me for years, but there are a surprising number of others. 

In the years I've been Blogging my purpose has changed. Initially it was simply personal a way of dealing with the traumatic events of 2009 in my life. I missed having my husband to discuss issues with & just talk to. Now I think I am a commentator on life - the things that annoy me, the things I value, philosophy, politics...anything that lights a spark of interest. Anything that inspires me to research & find out more.

So, the reason for this Post is that although friends do post a comment very occasionally & email me or actually tell me what they think, I would really like to know what other readers think of my Posts. I'm happy to have any comment or feedback - I would just be very interested in the opinions of anyone who reads Senile Sealion.

 

If you think what I say is interesting or useful, then do also please feel free to Share any Post.

Choice - America Decides

The USA has voted & Joe Biden as president elect. Americans have individually made a choice. 

65 million, almost half of voters who voted, voted by post.

100 million Americans voted early, either in-person or by mail, before polling stations opened on November 3.

It was the highest ever turnout, with over 155 million Americans casting a vote - 66.9% of the population 

Biden's margin of victory is more than 4 million votes & rising.

Biden is on track to win 42 counties that were won by Trump four years ago.

Biden has 290 college votes - Trump has 214

Biden has 75,198,127 votes (51.5%) - Trump has 70,804,457 votes (48.5%)

58% of white male voters voted for Trump. 1 in 3 Hispanic men voted for Trump.

Trumps vote was highest in counties where use of a facemask is lowest.

The Democrats still have a majority in the House 214 to 196 but it's close. They need 218 to win.

The Senate is even closer 48 to 48 needing 51 to win & 4 seats left to call.

It's all just fascinating. But the bottom line is that I am personally relieved not to have Trump in a position of power for 4 more years. However the completely split society voting reveals is really troubling. More so because we in the UK have so often followed on from what happens in the USA.

We too are a divided nation. We are polarised by Brexit & we are beginning to be split by Covid. We are divided geographically North & South. The divisions of rich & poor are clear.

We don't know how the divisions will play out in America. I was shocked to see premises being boarded up in preparation for rioting over the election. Civil unrest is just under the surface in America but also possibly in the UK.

Americans have to choose how they go forward from this point. But so do we. I hope we don't mirror the American way.

Doubt

To be uncertain about, consider questionable or unlikely. Lack of confidence - Distrust. Inclination not to believe or accept. A state of affairs giving rise to uncertainty, hesitation, or suspense which often interferes with decision making. 

Great! I know what it is. But it's a feeling I wasn't familiar with before. I am in many contexts nowadays. I thought I knew what is important, what is true, how I should behave, who to believe, who to trust. Almost all of those things have been tossed aside in so many areas of life today. 

I doubt that God exists, I doubt that politicians have my interests & the interests of the world I live in at heart. I doubt that many of my fellow humans care about anything other than self interest. I doubt that the very hard choices confronting us will be made in time to save the world as we know it. I doubt that my Grandsons will benefit from a life as secure as mine has been. I doubt that poverty, famine, inequality, injustice, war & pestilence will cease for millions of people. I doubt that the rich will suddely see that they have an  obligation to spread their wealth more equally & be truly philanthropic. I doubt that we will see the light & stop raping the planet of it's finite resources. I doubt that the unsustainability of the constant mantra of growth & consumerism will cease. I doubt that multinational companies will see the light & work to benefit anyone other than their shareholders & senior managers.

I doubt so many things. I also doubt my ability to solve any of this.

But I don't doubt that I should do my very best to do something. I should not just sit back & say the problems are too big. I alone can't make any difference.

I don't doubt that one voice & one action can become many voices & many actions. A voice in the wilderness can become a multitude fighting for what is right. Many hands make light work. 

We humans are clever, resourceful, beings. We have technology on our side. We can change our destructive patterns of behaviour.

But there really isn't much time.

Being Alive

There is a big difference between being alive & simply living. It's basically about quality of life. What makes your life worth living? What makes you happy? What gives your life meaning & purpose? Are you happy with just being here, breathing, not dead?

Well I'm not. We face another lockdown on Thursday. A month of basically staying at home for most of the time. People like me who live alone & were shielding can still see friends or family in our "support bubble" thank goodness. But we face hours & days of solitude - again. We are thrown back on our own resources - having already spent 3 months in our homes & done most of the things that occupied the time & distracted us from the reality of Covid.

I am perfectly capable of doing my own risk assessment for both my own & other people's continued health & well being. I am not convinced that we are on the correct course of action to deal with Covid. That conclusion is based on trying very hard to compare the UK trajectory to other more successful countries. 

https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2020/oct/10/continual-local-lockdowns-answer-covid-control

https://www.thelancet.com/journals/lancet/article/PIIS0140-6736(20)32007-9/fulltext#seccestitle10

 

We are not learning from countries that have previously had Covid type epidemics. Countries which were far better prepared than we were. Countries which had invested time, effort & money to heed the warnings, years ago, that this pandemic was coming. Our government is stuck in an expensive rut which is killing people & possibly destroying our economy. 

Unless we get a prime minister & cabinet that is prepared to really listen to people who do know what they are talking about, accept that the present strategy is never going to work & change course, we are doomed for years to repeat this cycle. People like Prof Devi Sridhar, chair of global public health at the University of Edinburgh.

I want to live, not to just exist in a vacuum of housework, paperwork, communicating via my computer, reading, watching TV, eating & sleeping. I would actually be prepared to risk getting Covid if necessary. I accept the fact that it might kill me. Dying is a natural part of living. The important thing is the quality of the living. I don't want to simply watch life going on through my window like I watch the TV.

I am unlikely to get Covid if I am extremely careful. Therefore, if I follow the rules, I am unlikely to pass it on to anyone else. Therefore I will not be a burden on the NHS. I am a responsible adult. I should be able to live my life in relative freedom whilst respecting the rights of others in my community.

 

Similarity & Difference

Human beings have evolved to be hugely different - in appearance, attitudes, intelligence, culture & every possible variable. I imagine that is good for natural selection. Some have to survive, some have to fall by the wayside. Life & Death - the two inevitable sides of the coin. 

I can accept difference. I don't expect everyone to be like me or behave like me. I quite enjoy debating differences in belief, attitudes or culture with people. I don't even mind if those debates are heated. We are entitled to our own opinions & should hold them dear.

Interestingly the husband I chose was very different to me in many ways. A lot of my friends also hold very different views & beliefs to mine. However underlying that difference there is always a basic similarity in norms of behaviour. We don't resort to physical violence when disagreeing. We respect the other person & their views. We are still able to love or like the person regardless of differences of opinion.

So I find it intolerable living in the world as it is today. I cannot tolerate the rape of our planet through greed, consumerism & need for power & financial gain. I cannot tolerate politicians like Trump & Boris who are never sated with power & who are prepared to lie & cheat to keep it, regardless of the destruction they leave behind them. I cannot tolerate the selfish attitudes of so many ordinary people who think it is OK to pursue what they see as their right to treat others badly - the verbal & physical abuse, the nuisance, the taking what they want without any right to it.

We are living in a time of huge change in so many ways. All of the norms I grew up with have either gone or been undermined. In many ways the world is a better place, I can see that. But in many ways we are on a path to destruction. Destruction of people, places & the world as we knew it.

This is the time to make choices & the choices we make will determine not only our future as a human race, but also the future of the world as we know it. Each and every one of us has a responsibility to ourselves, future generations, the world we live in & every living thing. We can't avoid this. It may already be too late. 

Our planet is a huge & complex system. We have not cared for it enough. We have been selfish & thoughtless of the consequences of our actions. Now we have to face up to what we have done & try to put it right.

We have to come together despite our differences. 

Population & Sustainability

In so many ways we are walking blindfold into the future. Blindfold, not because there isn't evidence a plenty to understand the stark reality of the Hydra we have created. Blindfold, because we are simply ignoring it & continuing with our destructive patterns of behaviour.

https://ourworldindata.org/future-population-growth

https://populationmatters.org/the-facts/the-numbers

                                                            

We have to consider what solutions to employ to avoid this compeletely unsupportable & unbalanced growth in population. We don't have the resources to support this number of people. How many worlds will we need to meet the needs of future populations?

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/magazine-33133712

 

I don't need to be a scientist to know that none of this works. Even if we devise ever more brilliant methods of farming, of producing energy, of having enough land & materials to house everyone, using less water....It simply doesn't compute. There will just be too many people for our finite resources.

Yes, we may find another life supporting planet. We might be able to live on a self sufficient space station. Do we want that?  

The world is reaching "peak child". But the world population is also ageing. There will come a time when there aren't enough young people in work to keep the infrastructure & financial systems working in some parts of the world. In the second-half of the century the number of births is expected to slowly fall and the number of deaths to rise, so the global population growth rate will continue to fall in countries like the UK. This is when the world population will stop increasing in the future. But it won't be the same everywhere. Developing nations will still have huge populations who, not unreasonably, want the lifestyle & advantages we have.

This, truly, is the elephant in the room. The elephant of populations.

Responsibility & Liability - Access to Justice

I was the plaintiff in a trial in the Crown Court on Monday. It related to the accidental injury I suffered three & a half years ago. I walked into a metal bicycle rack overhanging more than half of the pavement at head height. I lay on the pavement, unconcious, for an hour before I was found. I was concussed & still can't remember anything about the day until late evening in hospital. I also fell badly & injured my shoulder & arm - Rotator cuff damage.

I thought the whole thing was black & white. The car shouldn't have been parked with the bike rack causing an obvious danger to pedestrians. It was negligent & an accident was forseeable. 

Well no - Although I won it was a hollow victory. The defendant wasn't present & gave no statement. I wanted her to hear the impact the accident had on me & take responsibility for what she had done. 

The disclosure bundles, 2 massive ring files of 1,004 A4 pages, took days to go through, make notes on, highlight & label. I was lucky, I had hard copy. Everyone else had to use the electronic version. The case was heard via computer link, not actually in Court. I have to say that panicked me when I heard. It wasn't as bad as I imagined, but there was no opportunity to pass notes or speak to my barrister during the hearing.

I felt I was on trial.The Insurers stance had been very aggressive, accusing me of dishonesty, (which the defence barrister frequently said he wasn't doing, which I found quite patronising), exaggerating the injuries, negligence & nuisance. Also the Insurers denied that the bike rack actually caused the injuries. They actually hired private investigators, who found nothing.

The Insurers refused mediation or the offer of early settlement. When I was a magistrate we were advised that if this happened in trials we should take a view on the possible waste of Court time. The stance of the Insurers caused additional unnecessary stress to me, but the barrister was very clever & didn't give me any openings. He asked closed questions, so I couldn't elaborate on anything or put it into context. I just had to say "yes" to most of his questions.

My case was unusual because I have several chronic conditions which cause pain & fatigue. This resulted in it being difficult to prove that the concussion & rotator cuff injuries lasted a really long time. 18 months in the case of the shoulder & arm injury. That made a difference to the damages which were awarded. The very expensive independent Consultant I had to hire to write a medical report carried little or no weight because he didn't see me untill I after had recovered from the injuries. The defence & Judge thought that his report was largely my recollection of what happened. Plus there were several factual inaccuracies despite the fact that I had had to ask for him to correct the original one.

The Judge said there was "no issue about the bike rack - it was socially unacceptable, a hazard, below the duty of care, an accident was foreseeable, no H&S precautions were taken - therefore it was negligent". Then she said that I had equal duty of care to see & avoid it. Accidents happen because, for whatever reason, people don't see hazards. So this doesn't seem logical to me. No one deliberately walks into a metal hazard.

Then she said that it was clear that the injuries were caused by the bike rack, but only allowed that they lasted for 6 months not 18, despite the medical evidence to the contrary.

 

The case has cost me quite a lot of money despite the fact that my solicitor & barrister acted for me with a Conditional Fee Arrangement & I had legal insurance with Saga, which I hope will pay up.  I am truly grateful for all the time & effort my legal team put into this. I probably won't get all my costs back. But at least I did win & don't have to pay the thousands of pounds for the defence legal team. My relatively small compensation was halved because the judge said I was equally responsible for the accident. At the end of the day I hope not to be out of pocket.

I brought this case for 2 reasons. I don't think the defendant behaved well in causing an accident & afterwards & I wanted her to face up to her carelessness & lack of empathy. 

 

But also I am really fed up with the many hazards pedestrians have to cope with when walking the streets of Oxford & probably most cities, towns & villages in the UK. We are lowest in the pecking order of users of pavements & highways. I perennially walk looking down because of uneven footpaths, especially lowered kerbs in front of driveways, broken paving, obstacles on the pavement, etc etc. I do make huge efforts to be aware of what is around me for my own safety - overhanging trees & shrubs, wheelie bins, vehicles parked on the pavement, street furniture..... But hardly any of the hazards are metal, at head height, in the middle of the pavement & completely unexpected.

So that is why I feel justice wasn't done in my case. I can't accept that I was equally as negligent as the vehicle owner who parked so thoughtlessly & inappropriately. 

I could afford to take the risk financially & because I'm retired I was able to give a considerable amount of time over several years. Most people couldn't do that. 

So I don't feel that our adversarial & very expensive Justice system gives everyone an equal access to real justice.