Turner, Tories & Our Island

In the recent Commons vote, it was decided that gender shouldn't dictate who you can or cannot marry. (Almost. But I'll get back to that.) The vote was carried 400 to 175. 136 of those that opposed the Marriage (Same Sex Couples) Bill were Tories; that's approximately half of the party. The Island's MP Andrew Turner was one of those that voted in opposition.

Given his voting record, I suspect his reason for opposition is more down to a personal prejudice rather than the wishes of his constituency. An article published in On The Wight by a man I know and respect, Johnathan Dodd, addresses the situation very well; however, I personally want to tackle our MP's stated reasons for this opposition, as given here in his comment the morning after the debate and vote:

“Last night’s debate was largely conducted in a measured and respectful way – the House of Commons is often at its best when it is most thoughtful. I was particularly struck by something said by Sir Tony Baldry during the debate :

“I am confident that we are all created in the image of God, whether we be straight, gay, bisexual, or transsexual. We are all equally worthy in God’s sight and equally loved by God. I am also sure that we are and should be equally welcome at God’s table. But equalness does not always equate with being the same.”

“I fully endorse those sentiments and I hope many others can do so. This is an emotive and divisive issue with feelings running high on all sides – but I hope that debate on the Island and elsewhere can be conducted with respect for other people’s points of view. Both sides claim a majority who support them – they cannot both be right!”

“I remain concerned about the lack of a democratic mandate for this proposal – not a single MP in the House of Commons was elected on a promise to bring this measure in. “Gay Marriage would bring about a fundamental change to our society – on that I hope all sides can agree. The debate yesterday was subject to a parliamentary device called a programme motion – which greatly restricts the time it can be debated. This Bill will now move through its various stages then move to the House of Lords where debate cannot be cut short in such a way and the details of the Bill and its ramifications and can be more thoroughly debated.”

 Equalness dos not always equate with being the same. What an interesting sentiment. For one thing it smacks very much of the common quote from Animal Farm. "All animals are equal - some animals are more equal than others." Ironically another MP in opposition to the bill stated that the bill itself was Orwellian, though failed to explain precisely how. But more worrying is that the sentiment in and of itself carries echoes of Separate But Equal - the US political doctrine that led to racial segregation.

It is worthy of mention that Andrew Turner did not make mention of "democratic mandate" when the NHS was cut to ribbons. It wasn't something he has brought up about any of the military conflicts we've been involved with, or with the bailing out of banks, or with the upcoming interest in remaining in the EU. It's only ever seemed to matter now that it is on this, as he puts it, highly emotive topic. A topic that, it bears mention, will have no bearing or relevance on his life whatsoever.

It is also worthy of mention that Andrew Turner's complaint of the programme motion was absent when - despite myself and a number of Island residents writing, calling and communicating with him to indicate our opposition - the Digital Economy Act was forced through with a tiny debate in the darkest hour of night.

It has been a long time since Andrew Turner has actually represented our interests in anything aside from an apparent interest in ferry prices. This most recent debacle has proven that not only is he not a suitable representative for the Isle of Wight, but he's more interested in his own personal bias and prejudice than any communication he received from his constituents.

I may not agree with anyone wanting to vote Conservative in the next election. But for your own sake - get someone to run that has some credibility. I may not want this Island to be Tory-controlled, but this man needs to go.

Three Out Of Four Ain't Bad

You may recall (but probably won't) that I wrote a blog back in September about the four "persecution" cases that went to the European Court of Human Rights. It turns out that judgement has now been passed.

British Airways christian employee Nadia Eweida wins case

The headline is the BBC's, not my own. Personally? I would make a bigger deal about the three cases that were lost.

It's sad enough that the individuals in question thought that their human rights were being violated, while two of them were violating other people's human rights and another one was disobeying the strict rules of a hospital environment. And of course, me being me, I have something to say on each of these.

The first two cases - as I mentioned in my previous blog - are basically bigotry wrapped in a religious "don't persecute me" ribbon. However, when entering the European Court of Human Rights, one must remember that the first article of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights is:

All human beings are born free and equal in dignity and rights. They are endowed with reason and conscience and should act towards one another in a spirit of brotherhood.

Denying people services they are legally entitled to because you disagree with their sexuality isn't a spirit of brotherhood.  It's the opposite. Ironicaly, if you had treated people with that same spirit of brotherhood as called for by the Universal Declaration, then you wouldn't have been sacked, and you wouldn't have been claiming that your Human Rights were violated. It's almost like a big karmic circle, isn't it?

Then we have the case about the nurse. The rules are there for a reason - that reason should be obvious - you accept those rules when you take on a position as a nurse. And I will be blunt: if you feel your need to express your faith in a visible way is more important than the rules that regulate your behaviour and standards in a hospital, you really need to not be working in a hospital.

But well done Nadia Eweida. Your insistence that needing to visually identify yourself as a Christian as an article of faith has won through, and now you can do it to your heart's content. Those who fly British Airways will be delighted to see that you are a Christian, I am sure.

I doubt you would be fighting so hard to willingly display your cross during the Lebanese Civil War, that my father fled Beirut to get away from. Wherein militants would stop buses, and pull everyone off the bus that was either a Christian (if they were Hezbollah) or a Muslim (if they were the Christian Phalangist militia), and that was the last you ever heard of them. I daresay you wouldn't declare your faith quite so loudly then. The wider world has undoubtedly heard of Hezbollah; if you arent sure who the Phalangists are, you might want to read up about the massacre at Sabra and Shatila.

But hey, what do I know about persecution?

Awkward Truths

I'd like to preface this to say that neither am I an expert, nor an economist. I have as much financial expertise as the man running our economy.

As the economy is currently in such dire straits, and the ever-increasing price of fuel and bureaucracy makes owning a car a very expensive proposition in a time of austerity, one would think that we'd be encouraged to use public transport more. It is, unfortunately, a nice thought and nothing more, as Rail communters are hit by a 4.2% average fair rise. The amount the rail fares have been hiked by makes a mockery of how much anyone's pay has increased, if it has increaed at all - many public service workers will have no pay increase this year, as they had none last year, and will be capped at 1% for two more years afterwards. This is somewhat disgraceful in and of itself, given that inflation is currently figured to be 2.7% alone.

Which might go some way to explain why UK album sales suffered an 11.2% drop overall - though digital sales increased by 14.8%, actual physical sales decreased by 20%. Another potential explanation is that HMV's record section is rapidly shrinking, and is now about the same size (and offers about the same selection) as your average Tesco Extra. If you halve, quarter or even remove in some cases the niche areas of your CD selection, you can expect those niche buyers to go elsewhere for just about everything: if I find somewhere else to buy Lamb Of God, damn sure I'll buy Gorillaz there too.

But back to the trains. So, using a car has become more expensive, and will continue to do so. Trains are now more expensive likewise. Pay rates are effectively being cut across the board, if people can even keep their jobs. All of this austerity, all of this punishment, for sake of reducing a deficit that has actually become greater.

If only someone had told the government that austerity won't work.

Oh wait. We all did. (Go ahead and google "Austerity Won't Work" and look at how far back those articles date.)

If the next election yields a Tory government, I will be sorely pressed to not actually lose my mind.

Wheaton's Law

Some pointless rambling, if you will.

What if people obeyed Wheaton's Law - which is, put simply, Don't Be A Dick?

What if every codice of laws included it as the first entry and it was just as binding a piece of law as anything else?

If people genuinely looked at their actions, each action they took, and thought - am I being a dick when I do this? To an individual, a group, the human race in general? How different would things be?

If we accept that we shouldn't disadvantage others just to advance ourselves, especially when we already have such an advantage over those being disadvantaged - would the world be a better place?

Are we even capable of being the people we'd have to be, for it to work?

The vast majority of humanity aren't dicks the vast majority of the time. It bears mention. It's just those few times and those few people. Because it seems that the dickery happens when we need it least.

I suppose the only way we can get around it is to punish dickery when it occurs, reward non-dickery, and hope that the lessons are learned.

But do me a favour? Just as an experiment? Tomorrow - go out of your way to not be a dick. Assess what you do before you do it, see if it is being a dick to anyone - either directly or indirectly.

Let's just see if it won't make our world a little bit better.

We're sorely in need of it.

Where Do I Begin?

There is so much wrong in the world, right now, that it takes a lot for one particularly wrong thing to eclipse everything else.

Since my last blog post there's been ongoing campaigns of extermination in Syria and Gaza, unrest and violence in Egypt, moves both forward and back in US state politics, further moves backward in the UK government's responsibilities to its people, weekly trips to my doctor, and a whole host of other things that have added to the Human Race's collective karmic burden and overall stress level.

And that's the extraordinary stuff. We then have the ordinary - people starving to death and dying of preventable and treatable illnesses. The stuff we don't dwell on every day because we're simply not wired sufficiently to cope with it. Stuff that is often thrown in our faces the moment we feel bad about something, anything, else - as if hurting about something means that we immediately don't care about something else.

The attack on a Chinese school in Henan province, for example; 22 children injure, some of them seriously. Something that was eclipsed in the media, but immediately held up as an example of ethnocentric reporting - unfairly in my opinion.

All of you reading this know what I'm leading up to I'm sure.

At the core of all of the passionate arguments, the angry tirades and the reasoned debates that follow - about gun control, about psychiatric evaluation, about metal detectors and safety, about motives and responsibility and all the things that could have been done - there is the inescapable fact that a young man murdered seven adults and twenty children, before killing himself.

The same dance happens around every shooting, especially every school shooting - the nature of the beast results in high emotion, understandably. Everyone wants a solution, a way to stop it happening, and they want it to be implemented quickly, and they all have their own theory on why it happened and how it could have been prevented, and agreement and concensus is harder to get hold of than a flash application on an iPhone.

I of course have my own theories, my own opinions. I'm not sure about sharing them. While a lot of people have an interest in specific crimes - serial killers is a popular one - I have always had a rather grim interest and fascination over school shootings; of course I take no pleasure from it, but trying to understand why, trying to get to the root of it is a constant drive for me. I'm sure that probably sounds rather insensitive, and it's not meant that way, at all - no more so than a World War 2 enthusiast is insensitive to the 60 million or so casualties of that war.

There are simply the inescapable facts, and they must be taken for what they are, and conjecture recognised for what it is. And the people of Newtown Connecticut deserve our sympathies and our condolences for what must be the most difficult time most of them have ever had to face.

And now I wonder, with a certain amount of dread, whether or not the Westboro Baptist Church will actually dare show their faces in that town. At first I dreaded the NRA - but thus far they have been somewhat silent, a modicum of grace I wish they would show more often. But Phelps and his crowd are an entirely different kettle of fish; and how they haven't been declared a hate group, I will never know.

I have nothing witty to round this off with, so I'm just going to stop typing.

Nights Closing In

I've never got on with winter.

The cold bothers me. It's not just "not liking" the cold; it's a pain thing. My teeth are very sensitive, sensitive enough that when the air's cold enough, they hurt when I inhale through my mouth. Most of my joints react to the cold by becoming little clusters of pain, too; thank you, arthritis.

Likewise, the dark gets to me. I type this at not long after five in the evening, and already it's dark outside. I talk about being a night owl, and I am, but that doesn't mean that more night is better. Going to work in the dark in the morning and returning in the dark in the evening is awful - though as of right now I'm still sick as a dog, so that's one displeasure I am spared.

At this point, one might expect an anti-Christmas rant.

There isn't one.

I could go on at length about its faults and flaws but in all honesty - I just haven't "felt it" for years. It's been a case of putting up a bit of a front of enjoyment, and hoping that it would lead to me actually having some fun. Truth be told, at times, it's kind of worked; but I can't help but wonder if that was just being around people I care about anyway, regardless of season.

So rather than direct any venom at the holiday, I'd like to apologise to my friends that are still up to their eyeballs in christmas spirit. I just don't have it in me. I tried - lord help me, I tried - but shy of a miracle, this time of year is going to be (to me) just the same as any other, but more expensive, and with better excuses for hangouts and parties.

I try not to get in the way of other people having a good time. Just because I don't want to doesn't mean other people shouldn't. But if I seem withdrawn this season - it might not just be the sickness (which in itself is a pretty big reason why I'm in such a crappy mood). So please accept my apologies, and be understanding if I'm not so involved as one might want or expect.

I'm not crazy, I'm just a little unwell.

Leaders Of The Free World

The first thing that greeted me on Twitter this morning wasn't riotous celebration of the victory of Barack Obama; it was a series of retweets of individuals disgruntled that Mitt Romney had apparently won the popular vote, but lost the electoral vote. And thus in their eyes, deserved to win the election anyway.

1) As best I can tell, Obama has over 50% of the total popular vote, meaning that aforementioned complainants are getting their information from a source that may require questioning.

2) George W. Bush in 2000 won the electoral vote but lost the popular vote. He drove us into financial ruin and two wars. The man trying to clean up the mess left behind doesn't have time to get the world into that much trouble, so I don't think you have any right to feel butthurt.

I personally am amazed that nearly half of the country would vote for Mitt Romney. I believe that many of them weren't voting FOR anyone, they were voting AGAINST Obama - which is nice in theory but shows a total blindness of the kind of man that would be replacing him:

"I don't think my current babysitter is good at his job, thus I shall leave my baby on the doorstep and hope the wolves take care of her."

Because, America, you dodged a bullet. You're recovering - you're recovering faster than we are, and regardless of my Prime Minister's claims, it's not because our tactics are the same. (Yes, Cameron trying to ride Obama's coat tails. Opportunistic like a vulture.) And your recovery is through the guidance of a statesman, a man who has known what it is to be poor, a man that's inherited a house of cards that is falling over.

Sure, maybe your recovery isnt fast enough. But precious few of you are in the bracket that Mitt Romney wanted to help. Because you work for a living. Leave the millionaire CEOs to business - leave the presidency to leaders.

That's even ignoring the kind of person Mister Magical Underwear Millionaire is. The kind of person that shouldn't be in charge of a first world country in the modern era. Even if his policies and competencies were first rate, I couldn't accept his bigotry, his sexism, his classism - and unfortunately these things inform his policies. I'll let you do your own research into how.

In summation: America, enough of you made the right choice. And I am glad you'll never get to know what Romney's America would have looked like. The very idea chills me to the bone.

Maybe in four years the Republican party will be able to find a candidate that doesn't sicken me so - and I hope so. Because then there can be a debate, an election, a real choice.

Though if I have one complaint? ...I'd love to have seen the third party candidates do better.