Saturday, November 27, 2010

REPLY AWL

The book choice in the October issue of Readers Digest is Charlie: the life of a homechild. We often hear about the home children, but we are never given many details. I didn't know they actually had inspectors who came around to the farms; I thought they just assigned a child to a family and left things alone.

There is an excerpt from Douglas Coupland's new book, Player One, in the October 11 issue of Maclean's. I wonder if, in ten years, we will all become like Rachel: humanoids with no personality or ability to understand things like humour or irony.

The October 25 issue of Maclean's has an article about the gender gap between males and females. Young women interviewed for the article view men in their twenties as lazy and think twenty-something men don't have their priorities straight. Maybe this is partially due to the fact that they know there're no jobs out there and the fact men know women will get promoted ahead of them because they are women.

The November 1 issue of Maclean's has an article about people in London being told to shovel their own snow this winter. Some Londoners are up in arms about it. They say, "What about the elderly or inferm who can't shovel their own snow?" or "It's our right to have the government shovel our snow for us." Uh, can't you shovel the snow for your neighbour's who are physically unable? It's your right to have the government shovel your snow? You've got to be kidding me. I have decided the entire population of the UK is collectively insane.

Wednesday, November 3, 2010

EQUALITY AND THE IRRADICATION OF INEQUALITY

Following is something from someone else's blog. My comments are in parenthesis.

ClentonFarquharson  

Do we stand together on
Equality

In 21st century United Kingdom, “
inequality”
remains a great evil to be eradicated on our long journey to the wonderful world where, at last, all have real equality.

Up to 600,000 public sector jobs are under threat. Around 65% of public sector workers are women and will bear the brunt of these job losses. Women pensioners
already suffer more poverty than men and public sector job losses and attacks on public sector pensions are likely to widen this gap even further. Women
are far more likely to pay the cost of cuts in benefits and tax credits. A staggering 72% of these cuts are paid for by women and 38% from men – according
to figures from the House of Commons library, commissioned by Labour MP Yvette Cooper.

(That's the thing about working for the government: it's a cushy job with good pay and security ... until you become a liability.)

The scale of this war on low paid women may even land the government in legal hot water. The Fawcett Society is taking the government to court arguing that
ministers are legally obliged to consider the impact of its budget measures on equality.

(War on low paid women? The British government is cutting these jobs because it's in debt up to its eyeballs, not because it hates poor women. I guess if people are going to be landing in hot water, the Faucet Society is the organization you want to have on hand. Ministers are obliged to consider the impact of the cuts on equality? That's political correctness for you: utterly bankrupt the country just so women and minorities can keep their jobs. Just because you're penniless doesn't mean you shouldn't quit paying them.)

The ConDems are clinging on to the bizarre idea that they are ‘progressive’, but as reports like this demonstrate, they are anything but. The clock is being
turned back to the days before a welfare state and women are expected to pay the bulk of the cost.

(It's always interesting when people talk about being "progressive." Progressing towards what exactly?)

The ConDem coalition says it may cut government departmental spending by between 25% and 40%. Both Cameron and Clegg claim these are fair cuts; ‘we’re all
in this together’ is their mantra. In fact, the financial times reports that the poorest 20% in society rely on public services for over 60% of their incomes,
but the richest 20% are barely affected, being 5 times less dependent on public spending for their incomes.

(Don't worry. By the time your government over there in merry old England gets through, almost everybody will be equally poor. It'll be like Russia before the supposed death of communism. Junk shops will sell things like old locker tags and used fish hooks. You'll go into a restaurant. They'll have two things on the menu and you'll only be able to get a small amount of one of them with your ration card/chip in your hand or forehead.)

Do we really believe in
equality
? Or do we like the rhetoric of being a country that says we do, yet in action we don’t?

Does it matter?

Why should we care?