And Now For Something Completely Differentish

I might change tack a bit this week. There have been a few too many posts devoted to dissecting the stupid / untrue / objectionable stuff (AKA all of it) written in the Daily Mail and Express, it gets a bit depressing sometimes focusing on all the negative shite and stupidity that gets written there. Apparently this week they are griping about how the Germans are stealing our time, and gingerbread men are being banned in case they offend Muslims, and how the armchair generals would have had the old couple kidnapped by Somali pirates - rescued singlehandedly in time for tea and biscuits, as it is easy to do so when you're - oh ... not actually fucking there at the time it all kicked off!

I did mention when Northernbloke kicked off in February, that there would be reviews and similar kinds of stuff alongside the Mail bashing, but I feel this bit is neglected somewhat. I won't say it is because of any circumstances out of my control, more a case of I just forgot, or more likely I was just too lazy to be arsed writing the bloody things in the first place. But as I've been catching up on 4oD on youtube (that explains a dearth of posts) I have a few things I'd like to put up in response to the documentaries I've watched. It's like a break from having to root around the Internet to debunk a Littlejohn story about how a traffic warden bazookad a puppy with a RPG for walking over a double yellow line, the kind of stuff even Smiffy of the Bash Street Kids could instantly detect as 24 carat bullshit. So hopefully the line up should be:

1. Review of Martin Durkins "Britain's Trillion Pound Horror Story"

2. Response to a youtube video about the morality of the Prime Directive on Star Trek. (hopefully not as geeky as it sounds.)

3. Review of Ben Steins "Expelled"

And the to do list involves:

1. Reviews of really bad Star Trek episodes.

2. (Possible) Review of Niall Fergusons "War of the World.", not entirely given this the green light.

How exciting.

Do Some Conservatives Secretly Admire the Chinese Dictatorship?

I ask this question because there are several conservative commentators who have what could be best described as an "ambiguous" attitude to the communist regime in China. They are always keen to emphasise that a democratic China is little more than an idealists pipe dream, that other nations highlighting the shortcomings of their governments human rights record is a futile venture, and that the Communist party just refuse to listen to any criticism (well they do have a lot to lose.). So the shortfall is don't bother -China will never be free, ever. Peter Hitchens has proclaimed loftily, presumably asking all 1.3 billion of them; that "China will never be free and has no intention of being so" Andrew Alexander has these similar sentiments also. But it is this article by Jeremy Warner, the Telegraphs deputy editor that exemplifies this kind of thing to a tee, and it also highlights another aspect to this kind of thing which gives us the ambiguity in some conservative pundits attitude to this regime.

"Why is it that the BBC, in its reporting of David Cameron’s visit to China, keeps banging on about the supposed dilemma faced by the Prime Minister over whether to raise human rights abuse, and in particular the plight of Liu Xiaobo, a prominent Chinese dissident unable to collect his Nobel peace prize because he’s serving an 11 year sentence in a Chinese jail?

There’s no dilemma here at all – except in the vague terms already referred to by Mr Cameron, this is not an issue which needs to be explored at all on a visit which is meant to be wholly about trade. Only the BBC, would, in oblivious disregard for the national interest, keep on trying to make something out of it."

Yes on technical terms it is not a visit to do with promoting democratic reform. But Cameron is a head of state of a major developed nation that supposedly prides itself on liberal democracy. Will the PM comment on this high profile dissident, and the contentious issue of China's human rights record, a country the UK wants to do trade with? It may not be directly relevant, but that doesn't make it a valid question.

He sticks in a bit of that horrible cultural relativism about the "suitability of liberal democracy" on non Westerners that all but says "they don't do democracy, their brains are wired up different"

"but to attempt to judge China by contemporary Western standards is neither helpful nor justified."

"China has always put ideas of the collective good above those of individual liberty, and is therefore from an entirely different cultural tradition to that of Thomas Paine, the French revolutionaries, and the rights of man. Attempts to impose Western models and ideals on the Chinese political class are therefore not just futile, they are are culturally insulting."

Jeremy I take my hat off to you. Defending the conduct despots seldom gets more imaginative than that.

"Neither the US nor the British government would take kindly to being told by the Chinese how to manage their internal, or even external, affairs; "

No I don't suppose they would. I don't think the leaders of Apartheid South Africa did, or the leaders of the USSR did. I'm sure pretty much any government doesn't appreciate criticism no matter how justified. That doesn't mean that logically you shouldn't criticise anyway. I'm not naive enough to believe that the Chinese will just give everyone the vote if we ask them nicely, and that external criticism would only be really effective if there is the right internal mechanisms to elicit change as well. But external criticism has its uses.

The remainder of the article changes tack somewhat, and this is where the ambiguity to the regime is most evident. Is the authoritarianism and disdain for individual holistic human rights (especially minority rights) at the expense of a monolithic hegemonic society, on some level appealing to some of these commentators? That these chauvinistic powers can dispense with the more "ninnyish" and self critical aspects of a liberal democracy? Does this explain:

"You don’t need to go far back in Western history to find similarly intolerant attitudes to political opposition, and as for the human rights agenda, well that’s a very recent addition indeed. The human rights industry really only started to gain traction from the 1970s onwards. Only in very recent years have human rights activists managed to subvert the law to this overarching end. Looking at a system which now demands that candles are provided for pagans practicing their dark arts at Her Majesty’s pleasure, and other such nonsenses, you can understand why the Chinese want none of it."

He actually begins to turn up the tempo even more in this bizarre passage:

"I’m not seriously arguing against western libertarianism, but some might think, looking at the country’s relative lack of crime, that the Chinese system has much to commend it. The most important thing to understand about modern China, one eminent expert once told me, is that all actions of policy, justice and administration are wholly focused on just one goal – maintaining the Communist Party elite in power.

This gives the system a strange kind of democratic accountability

Yeah it's strange in being undemocratically democratic. I wonder which way Liu Xiaobo cast his vote???

"As long as the CP keeps delivering, it will continue to command popular support and is therefore safe. Officials know that the moment they fail, their end will by nasty, brutish and short. For the moment, there is little if any appetite in China for Tiananmen Square type protest. The Chinese are too busy trying to get rich to worry about human rights."

Sentiments which can only be expressed in that way that only writers making excuses for a police state a few thousand miles away from the comfort of their office in the free world, can manage.

Melanie Phillips Knows Even Less About Unemployment than the MMR Vaccine.

The Mail is in its element with the Tory plans to send the long term unemployed onto "community work". That'll teach the scrounging bastards, stop them spending zillions of pounds on cider and plasma telly's, and watching Jeremy Kyle all day, and so on. Christ, they even began one article with the adjective "feckless unemployed". Now I'm not naive - I know not everything is ticketyboo with welfare payments, and it is a difficult balance to achieve. But what really gets on my steaming wick about the rhetoric around this story is the implication that everyone who is unemployed is A) better off that way, and too lazy to look for work and B) chose to unemployed. I cannot stress how unfair these assumptions are. I've had a tough year employment wise, and I can assure you that in my experience A and B are completely opposite to what I have experienced, and I doubt I am alone in that regard. I got so fucking wound up about this labeling of those who were out of work as a bunch of idle layabouts, by people who had been fortunate enough never to have experienced the cold winds of unemployment -that I actually was moved to write a letter to the local paper in response to some prat who had written in mouthing off about something he knew nothing about. (I made headline letter too) Such is the fog of ignorance around this much maligned group. So with trepidation I have been keeping up with the commentary on the issue, and lo and behold Melenie Phillips was only too willing to spout complete bollocks to the target audience, and; my God it's a masterpiece.... of shite.

"There is a rough rule of thumb that if the wrong kind of people are ­opposed to what you are doing, then you must be on the right track."

No Mel, that's just blinkered thinking.

"So what is he doing to provoke such fury? Why, making the outrageous ­proposal that instead of ­sitting at home on benefits doing nothing, people who are out of work should actually give something back to society in return."

What? Are all people doing that? Is looking for jobs, filling in application forms etc.. doing nothing. What about people who worked and paid N.I, but were made redundant, and will pay it when they get a new job. That is sort of "giving something back". Not everyone unemployed and on benefits is automatically a lazy scrounger, why can't people fucking see that?

"According to advance reports, IDS will be requiring the unemployed to ­undertake community service projects such as gardening, clearing litter and other menial tasks."

Couldn't this threaten some of the people who already do this for a paid living? Why pay someone a good wage, if you can pay people peanuts to do it for them. It could actually put more people out of work. At least they could give gardening advice to their new "co-workers".

"Following the example of U.S.-style ‘workfare’, they will do such jobs for 30 hours per week for four weeks at a rate of £1 per hour, under the threat of being stripped of their Jobseekers’ Allowance for three months if they fall short."

The plan for this scheme is that Job Centre advisers will "assign" long term jobseekers to these placements on their own discretion if they feel it would "benefit" them. A worry I have about this scheme is that the job seeker is under compulsory obligation to attend a specific location and time, no ifs and no buts. What if they can't fit childminding around them? What if their kid is ill one day? What if it is driving distance and they have no car, or can't afford the fuel for the journey, or the bus fare? Are they to lose three months of JSA for even a minor transgression? Let me repeat that, there may be people who have no access to a source of allowance for 90 days!

"Shock horror! Such is the outrage on the Left, you’d think IDS was proposing to send little children up the chimneys."

Oh boo hoo, some people think differently to Mel on a controversial plan. The monsters

So far so bad. But this being a Mad Mel article, the stupidity and mindfuck swiftly gets turned up to eleven. Check this utter brain melt out:

"They [the leftys] whine, for example, that the unemployed can’t be expected to find work, as there are no jobs to be found. At the very same time, they splutter that having to do such community work will give the ­unemployed no time to look for work.

They don't literally mean there are NO jobs at all! Anywhere! There are few jobs to go round relative to the levels of unemployed, that's why people are struggling to find something. As for her second point, if the work corresponds with the opening hours of the job centre, anyone without access to their own computer (which means a lot of unemployed people who tend to be skinter than the whole) will find it difficult to look for something.

"Well, which is it? If there aren’t any jobs, what’s the point of looking for them?"

You know Mel, credit where credits due. I thought you were just a slightly barmy right winger, but I now realise you are in fact the worlds greatest satirical genius. I mean no one could intentionally be this moronic and not just secretly taking the piss, undermining the values you claim to espouse.

"IDS is, indeed, the one person against whom that particular smear of ‘heartlessness’ cannot be made to stick. The patent decency of the man is plain for all to see. He is motivated by the ­highest possible concerns to rescue the poor"

That's her opinion I suppose. IDS' "compassion" always strikes me a bit like the heavy handed patrician attitude to the poor in Victorian times, a compassion that can disappear if you don't accept it on their terms. Not helpful.

Mel now starts changing tack, pulling out straw men to show how it's the left who actually hate poor people.

"under the guise of ­‘compassion’, the Left traps people in ­permanent poverty through treating them as less than human."

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"For what drives ‘progressives’ absolutely wild is the moral concern at the heart of the IDS project — to encourage the poor to take some responsibility for themselves and for others. But it is an article of faith on the Left that the poor are helpless tools of circumstance; and so it is outrageous to expect them to behave as anything other than victims, who accordingly can only ever take rather than give."

This kind of sentiment is what worries me so much about this kind of stuff. Mel and IDS don't seem to grasp the fact that - let me spell it out for those at the back -

"PEOPLE DON'T ALWAYS CHOOSE TO BE UNEMPLOYED AS A LIFESTYLE CHOICE"

They don't seem to tumble to the possibility that people can be poor and unemployed because of arbitrary factors like pure bad luck. Their attitude seems to be "anyone who is unemployed is too lazy and idle to get a job." Mel is guilty of the things she accuses her opponents of. She can't see them as victims in any circumstances! She can't see them ever giving, only taking! If this punitive philosophy is espoused by the guy tasked with sorting unemployment. Yeah people are going to worry!

"This is tantamount to saying that the poor are a breed apart — incapable of ­displaying the same human dignity as the rest of society."

said someone who said this:

"to encourage the poor to take some responsibility for themselves and for others."

Call me cynical but doesn't this imply that the poor generally don't do these things willingly? Thus implying that they don't have the same sense of dignity as other members of society?

She then blames the entire left for creating a poverty layer as part of a plan to keep themselves in work. No, really.

"Their resulting entrapment in permanent poverty then gives the Left their own meal ticket for life through the enormous industry they run to manage the lives of the poor."

With that in mind it is heartwarming to see Mel's own solution to welfare recipients.

"But there was one important element of the U.S. scheme from which the Coalition is flinching. It set a cut-off point for benefit payments if the claimant hadn’t found work by the end of a set period."

"But it seems that the IDS proposals will not contain that crucial ­welfare cut-off point. So one might say that, far from being unprecedentedly harsh and cruel, these proposals don’t go far enough."

Setting a specific time limit for finding a job and then cutting their benefits after that time is up is seven shades of stupid. Finding a job is dependent on so many external factors. Availability, the whim of an employer, the economy, the time of year and so on. You cannot put a time limit on something that owes so much to pure chance. Yeah you can cut the benefits of those who obviously aren't looking for work (that's why you have to sign on in the first place), but to put a set limit for everyone regardless of circumstances is brainless and actually downright evil.

This kind of sentiment to the unemployed and those on benefits is what worries me so much, especially now that those in power share them. We never hear of the problems of the collapse of traditional manufacturing base jobs, outsourcing, the service sector orientated jobs market (that is why many young men with poor communication skills find job hunting difficult), the reliance on agencies that deflate wages and allow employers to lay off agency workers at a moments notice when things are slack. That job security is wretchedly low these days. As for people who are better off on benefits (and I admit it can happen.), is it always out of laziness, or down to low wages that don't reflect the cost of living? Or due to the large numbers of part time entry level jobs? Is it moral to cut child benefits to children who had no say in their parents circumstances?

But all this would be both hard to convey and would require a lot of reflection and self analysis, which isn't really the turf of Melanie Phillips. I mean why do you have to bother with all that shit, when unemployment is all down to people being to lazy to get a job. You don't have to tackle the root causes, because there aren't any. People choose that life, and we'll punish them for it. It's all their own fault and not down to say something like bad luck or the butt end of a very free market orientated jobs sector. We don't have to change anything because they brought it all on themselves. That kind of attitude is growing, and if we judge a society on how it views those on the lower rungs, that isn't something to be proud of.

Outright Racism at the Express

This headline from the Daily Express is one of those occasions when a Northernbloke post writes itself:

Obviously the Daily Express defines "Muslims" as this grotty looking bloke holding his stupid placards (or as they are technically known - A4)

The story is about a bunch (3 of them) of Muslim "fundamentaslists who heckled the courtroom after Roshonara Choudhry was jailed for life for the attempted murder of her MP

Stephen Timms after she was caught up in radical Islamism and decided to take "revenge" on Mr. Timms by stabbing him for voting for the Iraq war. Now I may be a cynic; but does that headline have a dual implication, not just that some deluded blowhards made absolute dicks of themselves in a free court that would be abolished if these planks ever got their way. But that by extension the British Muslim population often take the same attitude with the country as a whole? Because it seems like crass labelling to me, and a deliberate distortion of events to put a greater rhetorical point across.

There is no excuse for headlines like this. Roy Greenslade has often described Richard Desmond as a rogue proprietor, who blatantly obfuscates and insinuates with his headlines (think the more lurid "Maddie" headlines.). This headline is up there with the "Muslim Schools Ban Our Culture", a rhetorical device designed to highlight how these alien fifth columnists are nothing but ungrateful traitors who loath "our way of life", and can never ever meet any common ground with "us". This is the mindset that made a 21 year old straight A student throw her life away in a senseless attack on someone who did something she didn't like, and why a loner from a suburb of Burnley had a fucking cache of weapons prepared for a race war. And this kind of mindset, of monolithic, mutually irreconcilable "camps" is all being indulged on a national newspapers front page headline available all over the country.

Jon Snow VS the "Poppy Facists"

Even if you don't always agree with him, Jon Snow deserves some admiration for his commitment and dedication to a high standard of professionalism in what he does, and this includes his commitment not to wear any form of sign or symbol upon himself during public broadcasts which he believes to be unsuitable for someone in his career to do. Quite a lot of people know this who normally wouldn't do so, as this moratorium extends to the remembrance poppies that are pretty much universally worn by anyone who's on telly during this time of year. This perceived intransigence on Snows part has not always gone down too well with some, and has led to accusations that Snow is being disrespectful to the cause the poppies are worn for. In this case it has led to a small clash between a commentator on Snows blog and the man himself issuing a swift rebuke to his accuser. Like many of these spats; the original blog post was not about the thing that caused the spat but was about another topic (why more people in [Snows opinion] don't take up cycling) and got waylaid somewhat. It is also a prime example of the dual standards of logic that that significant minority who claim like free speech and expression, but apparently only if what is said or done meets their approval. So here is commentator Stan:

"jon,when you ride your bike,do you ever think of the hundreds of thousands of british troops who gave there lives in world war 2 tokeep our great country free you alone dishonour them by not wearing a poppy.YOU LOOK WHAT YOU ARE ON YOUR BIKE."

Hmmmm bit of tortured logic there. Snow replies:

"Stan they died that we might be free to wear a Poppy whenever we wish. i wish to wear mine on Remembrance Sunday. When you wish to wear yours is your business. Compelling people to wear poppies because YOU think they OUGHT to is precisely the Poppy fascism, or intolerance, that I have complained of in the past. On yer bike Stan, with or without a poppy, it’s all your own free choice..Hitler lost the war!"

The whole John Snow won't wear a poppy thing is a storm in a teacup, but it does highlight how occasions like remembrance Sunday, and something like the aftermath of the death of Princess Diana can take a wrong turn. Remembrance day and the wearing of the poppy are supposed to be a poignant reminder of the enormous human cost of war. Diana's death was indeed a genuine human tragedy, a young mother of two young boys who was hounded to death by bullying photographers. But in both cases (especially the latter) there was a feeling that a lot of the "grief" or "showing our respects" had a distinctly demonstrative feel. There was little of the feeling that this was a measured reaction to a tragedy, but just an excuse to mawkishly ham it up by showing how much you care and are "patriotic" by crying the loudest at the cameras, or by excessive use of the caps lock on the comments pages. And that I'm afraid is a hell of a lot more disrespectful to the memory of a cause than Jon Snow not wearing a poppy.

The Double Front Faith Schools Put Up.

One of the great ills of our age is how our kids (well yours, I don't have any myself) education has been used as an ideological battleground. Schools are political, and don't be an unwitting casualty for Gods sake. This article on the findings of a school adjudicator discovered that Christian faith schools unwittingly favour middle class kids, though that is of little surprise to me. Faith schools are largely problematic because they segregate different faiths off from one another at an early age (apparently just shy of 70% of Northern Ireland's under 25's have never met the "other side") and now to top it off they (the adjudicator did say other faiths do it) compound it by segregating on class lines as well. It is hard to see how we can have a harmonious society when so little mixing occurs.

Like faith segregation; class segregation brings problems too and is far more widespread than the former. For an in depth analysis of the problems it brings, direct to the Nick Davies education articles, it's there in the blogroll. The basic gist of the articles can be summarised as the fact that a large middle class intake into a school can be a large driver for academic success. I'm not saying that means all working class parents are rubbish at raising their kids, or that middle class people are automatically academic "betters" - God no, it is a more practical fact. More affluent parents can focus more holistic attention to a school. Why? Because their income is higher, it is easier for one parent (aka Mum) not to have the need to work, or at least to work full time, thus they have more free time to pursue on things like schools. A working class family may have two parents who by necessity have to work full time, perhaps holding two jobs, or more. Many of these jobs have crap hours that coincide badly with school hours. It isn't that they are short on parenting, they are short on time and this is what the article touches on. Middle class parents can win favour with churches by being more flexible to attend them, or to help out with voluntary church work. They know this and are sort of in tune with this back door selection. There is nothing fundamentally "better" about what faith schools teach that explains their academic success, but they can attract a high intake of kids with parents who have the time to push for high standards and tada! Although I can't overlook the more questionable parts of a faith schools curriculum it seems a lot of middle class parents can. I can't say I blame them but it does unwittingly exacerbate what is wrong with schooling today. Right wing columnists are missing the point when they say that the comprehensive system doesn't work, it doesn't really exist in the first place. Selection didn't end with the cull of the 11 plus, it just went on under more coy methods. As I said a devoted bunch of middle class parents who have the free time to expend huge amounts of energy on their kids education can drive schools to up the game, but they are not touching many schools at all, and these are falling behind and is at the root of everything that is fucking everything up in our education system. Pushy parents who have the time to join the PTA and give a head teacher a flea in the ear may be a colossal pain in the arse but they are an effective one. It is unfortunate that they can be a scarce one.

PS. I must implicitly point out that I am not saying working class parents don't place as much value on their kids education, that is obviously untrue. It is that often they simply do not have the financial freedom to expand as much free time to get involved as they may like to. But by increasing the amount of the parents who do have the time to other schools, then they hopefully speak for them into the bargain as well.

Elf N Safety (Don't) Ban Haloween.

If we were to take everything the tabloids say at face value then we would assume that just about every special occasion from Christmas to Bonfire night; to Easter had been either curtailed or even outright banned by the evil "elf n safety" killjoys. This time it seems that Halloween itself has come into the firing line of the clip board Gestapo, which is presumably why we get this article:

Halloween health and safety horror: 'Remove the stalks and wear goggles' before you go apple bobbing.

Oh God here we go again.

"Most sensible people consider it a jolly Halloween tradition that poses a danger no graver than getting a squirt of water up your nose.

But now apple bobbing has fallen foul of the health and safety police – with participants advised to wear goggles, remove stalks and use bottled water."

So have the "elf n safety police", whoever in God's name they are, saying that kids have to wear goggles as implied by this opening sentence?

"A hospital eye consultant said a ‘high-velocity impact with an apple’ had the potential to cause serious eye injury, while dirty water could lead to infection or blindness.

He recommended disinfecting water containers, using bottled mineral water and turning on lights so you can see what you are doing.

And ophthalmologist Parwez Hossain, from Southampton General Hospital, even suggested contestants remove the apples from the water with their hands instead of their mouth."

Of course not. It is just the advice of an ophthalmologist who has been asked how to prevent unnecessary injuries at Halloween time as part of an NHS trust scheme at that hospital, to offer advice (that people are not somehow bound to honour), the bottled water thing is put in as he says that the risk of eye infection is less than tap or stagnant water. Seems pretty straight forward, and in the case of other occasions, successful.

"Admissions to casualty on Bonfire Night have gone down as people have become more aware of health and safety but we have not seen a decline on Halloween."

The goggles advice seems to be in relation to a hypothetical activity involving "high velocity impacts" and not directly related to apple bobbing, but whens a technicality like that ever going to stop these kind of headlines? And when is that going to stop the reader comments who have only read the headline or glanced at the story itself, and have completely missed the point.

"What tosh this Parwez Hossain talks. Does this twit realise that if everyone went through life as precautious as he is suggesting he'd be out of a job, ans theree'd be no NHS. If these lot had their way we'd all sit at home in padded room with only one person moving around at any given time to reduce the risk of causing an injury. Someone tell this bloke to get a life."

"It's amazing, I wonder how I made it through my childhood without risk assessments for Halloween. Come on, three people admitted to hospital, out of how many? Percentage rate of injuries versus total participants?? It's easy to make up figures to suit your own ends. I hope the person with the non-job who came up with these recommendations is first to go in the cuts... but then the NHS is exempt, and therefore this waste of fresh air will carry on trying to protect us from ourselves."

This kind of journalism is the ideal thing to appeal to readers confirmation bias. They have a presupposition about something, and the article implies that that presupposition is right, which they cherry pick whats written to support their bias. In short these stories aren't going to go away soon.