Monument

EDM 1104

Sat, 02 Mar 2013 13:41:20 GMT

Much as I'm sure the NHS needs prayer at the moment, Miliband's EDM does not call upon MPs to pray for the NHS. But the EDM is worth supporting nevertheless; go and look at it and ask your MP to support it.

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letter to MP

Tue, 05 Feb 2013 06:30:30 GMT

Dear Philip Hammond,

I am writing to ask you to support the forthcoming bill for same-sex marriage, both as your constituent to ask for your vote in the Commons, and to show that not all Christians oppose equal marriage.

Some people have been encouraging me to write and ask you to vote against this bill. But I believe this is a matter of simple justice-- fair treatment for a large group of people who are spread throughout our society. Marriage is important, yes: it is so important that allowing it to some and not others is unfair.

I remain, etc.

Thomas Thurman
Chertsey

Edits: You can write to your MP here. You might also be interested in cjwatson's letter to his MP.

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First world problems are problems

Wed, 19 Dec 2012 13:36:40 GMT

There's a Ralph McTell song called Streets of London where the chorus goes:

So how can you tell me you're lonely,
And say for you that the sun don't shine?
Let me take you by the hand and lead you through the streets of London
I'll show you something to make you change your mind.

Read that again carefully. You may think you're sad, but there are people living on the streets of London who are worse off than you are, so you're actually mistaken about being sad.

I'm not in any way trying to minimise the terrible problem of homelessness. Go to Shelter now and give them some money, OK? But the trouble with the song's argument is that it's bollocks.

Firstly: trying to police another person's feelings is a fool's game. Everyone who's suffered from depression has had some patronising bastard come up to them and tell them that everything would be all right if they just got a sense of perspective. Don't be that person. The last thing we need is Ralph McTell singing about it to warmed-over Pachelbel.

Secondly: suppose the song's argument was valid: you can't be sad, because there are people on the streets who have it worse than you do. Well, is there a human situation worse than living on the streets of London? Maybe being tortured in Libya is worse? Well then, we should be able to go round all the homeless people in London telling them all that they're not allowed to be unhappy because they're not being tortured in Libya. Eventually you find the person who's having a worse time than everyone else in the world, and you tell them that they're allowed to be sad, and nobody else is. This isn't the Depression Olympics.

You often see this argument in the guise of "first world problems". Sometimes, yes, people do have to get a sense of perspective. But often this is just a derailing technique. Criticism of almost anything can be belittled this way. And you know what? Maslow's hierarchy is a hierarchy. It has more than one level in it.

OK, end of rant.

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In a supermarket

Sat, 17 Nov 2012 14:28:05 GMT

In the supermarket, I passed an old lady in discussion with a young security guard.

Old lady: And they rearrange the shelves all the time.
Guard: They do it on purpose. To see if you're awake.
Old lady: Well, I can never find anything.
Me: You know, it's to the supermarket's advantage to have you wandering around looking at the shelves.
Old lady: Well, it doesn't work with me. I just say (lowers voice) sod it, I'm leaving, I'll do without.
Me: And the world needs more people like you.
Guard: Yeah, everyone buys too much stuff, more than they need. And then they throw it away instead of giving it to the homeless.

I left them discussing practical socialism.

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A week of picking on trans people

Wed, 22 Feb 2012 12:25:28 GMT

It's hardly unusual for trans people to be picked on by the rest of society, but this week has been egregious.

Firstly, there was the news story of the five-year-old child who was born male but wants to be a girl. Several national newspapers saw fit to publish not only this child's name but also the name of her school, some of them on the front page.

Secondly, the bookmaker Paddy Power ran a campaign which invited people at a racing meet to judge whether women were transgendered or cisgendered (the bookmaker asked people to "spot the stallions from the mares").

Thirdly, after a transsexual man reportedly recently gave birth in the UK, the Sun set up a hotline for its readers to tell its reporters where he lives. Caroline Lucas, Green MP for Brighton, is to be commended for tabling an early day motion in the Commons condemning this behaviour.

And fourthly, the charity Plan UK decided to make a bus shelter advert that was visible only to female observers. This worked by using facial analysis software, and was apparently 90% accurate. It seems that nobody thought of the dangers inherent in having a machine declare a person's observed gender to the rest of the bus queue. (If the machine had a 10% false positive rate, can you imagine what a gift it would be to a bully waiting for the school bus?) Sarah Brown gave this device the wonderful name "Out-o-tron". Plan UK are not apologising and have permanently lost my support.

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