Olympic Winners Parade – On A Weekday?

 Politics  No Responses »
Oct 152008
 

Tomorrow (16th October), London will host a parade of the UK’s Olympic Games medal winners. It is not something that personally excites me, and I will not be going. Not that I have any problem with the athletes getting a parade – why not?

But why is it on a weekday? And this does not seem to be an isolated case; there seems to be an assumption that if you really want to go, you will find a way of doing it. But what if you are a weekday worker (and most of us are) who might like to go, but cannot take a day off work to get there ? Why should we be excluded ?

It sometimes seems that there is some sort of conspiracy to keep working people away from certain celebrations. Perhaps we would lower the tone.

Banking: Now We Own The Banks, Why Give Them Back?

 Politics  No Responses »
Oct 132008
 

Now that the UK government has ‘obtained’ a large stake in Lloyds, and RBS, the question is whether we should sell off that ownership when things improve. Hopefully we will be hanging onto the banks until we can make a decent profit from helping them out. But what would happen if we kept hold of them ?

Well we would essential lose the capital (or more accurately it would be locked into the investment), but we would get paid dividends every year. Or every year they are paid.

We would also have a greater influence on keeping the banks and bankers well behaved. Given the behaviour of the banks in the past, it would seem to be worth having a “finger in the pie” to keep an eye on their future behaviour.

Some are complaining that the government (and thus the taxpayer) is taking unfair advantage of the shareholder because we are getting a huge number of shares at a very much reduced price. Tough. Those same shareholders were taking advantage of unsound banking practice in the past when they should have been insisting that the banks were properly run.

Different Difficulties of Work

 Politics  No Responses »
Oct 082008
 

Sometimes you hear people comment on how hard they work, almost always emphasising how long they work. But is that really a measure of how difficult work is? Funnily enough the majority of people who claim they work hard and emphasise their long hours, tend to be entrepreneurs or management professionals.

But how hard is their work really ? I am not saying they do not work hard, because long hours are hard. But does that mean they work harder than for example coal miners or nurses ? Maybe not …

I happen to have a quite variable job, and different tasks seem harder than others. For example grinding through some difficult code feels harder than when I am in meetings all afternoon (although to be perfectly honest I would rather be grinding out the code). It seems to me that some tasks are harder than others.

One of the limitations of something like the EU Working Time directive is that it is not flexible enough to cope with the idea that some work is harder than other work. But a relatively fixed limit on the number of hours you can work at least protects against those bosses who believe that everyone needs to work as long as they do to work as hard as they do.

Of course how difficult a particular piece of work is unlikely to have any relation to how much we want to do it (see my earlier comment on coding), or how much is paid for the work.

Student Initiation Ceremonies

 Politics  No Responses »
Oct 022008
 

Today (perhaps because this week is widely the start of the term/semester for new students), the news has been reveling in stories of truely extreme initiation ceremonies for students wanting to join sporting clubs at Universities. I am not sure why they are concentrating on the sports … although I remember from my student days that the Rugy Club were terrifying drinkers, and that was just the women!

There has been many comments in favour and against these initiations. As some deaths have been caused because of these initiations, there is some need for concern.

I can hardly criticise students for consuming alcohol in large quantities … that would be more than a little hypocritical. But these students organising the initiations should reconsider using alchohol as part of the ceremony.

Firstly there is the danger that things could get out of control and become dangerous. Frankly drinking to the point where vomiting is inevitable is pretty dumb and can lead to dangerous situations. I personally would not like to take part in an initiation where humiliation was involved, but that is just me and as long as it is not taken to excess, why not?

Secondly by making alcohol and excessive drinking part of the initiation, they are excluding those who for a variety of reasons may not be able to drink or who may not wish to drink excessively. That does not mean they would not be able to be good members of a sporting club!

Why would someone not want to get involved in drinking ? Well a variety of reasons :-

  • Religion. Muslims are not supposed to drink alcohol, and other religions may also have similar restrictions.
  • Health. Some people are actually allergic to alcohol and can have pretty serious reactions to drinking. Some others may have conditions that drinking makes worse (like psoriasis), or may simply be particularly keen on a healthy lifestyle … we are to some extent talking about sports clubs!
  • Bad experiences. Not every drinking session ends pleasurably; anyone who has had a bad experience will at least think about “never again”, and why should they be excluded from certain clubs? Particularly as most will probably be back on the demon drink within weeks.

Lastly, doesn’t drinking make these initiations just a little too easy ? It is one thing to stand naked in a very cold sea when you are almost unconscious from stupendous amounts of alcohol, but think about how much more challenging it is to do it sober!

Freedom From Religion

 Politics, Religion  No Responses »
Sep 302008
 

The phrase “Religious Freedom” or ‘Freedom of Religion” often comes up, but I would like to see the phrase “Freedom From Religion” used a little more. This is going to sound a bit like an attack on religion itself, but it is not intended as such. Everyone is free to practice the religion of their choice … or none at all.

The key is the end of that last sentence – no religion at all. We’re all too often besieged with symbols of religion and people assume we want to hear about their favourite fictitious god. Certainly the UK is nowhere as bad as the USA where atheists can be subject to treatment that amounts to persecution even including physical and verbal abuse merely for voicing their lack of belief.

But that does not mean the UK is properly secular in public life. Schools can be a little too religious; I do not mind my taxes being used to pay for the education of children, but I do mind that it is used to pay for the religious indoctrination of children. Too many schools are “faith schools” and are at least partially funded by the taxpayer.

In many cases … particularly for primary schools where the most impressionable children are taught, there is little choice other to send children to such schools. The Church of England still “owns” (we won’t worry too much about the fine details of this ownership) 25% of all primary schools. Rather creepily similar to the Jesuit saying “Give me the child for the first seven years and I will give you the man”.

Of course there is nothing deliberately sinister about the CoE schools these days. Long gone are the times when one could be beaten for expressing views even slightly atheistic, but there is still a distinct odour of the Christian religion about such places. One school even boasts of providing a “christian education”.

Moving onto Universities, and you will find the education considerably less influenced by religion as these places are supposed to be serious institutes of learning. But if you have a close look at who is employed at these places you will often find a chaplain or six. Now these chaplains probably are not going to ram their religion down your throat, and are to a certain extent simply a counselling service with a religious twist. The funny thing is that both of the Universities I checked also have independent counselling services.

So what we have here is a special religious counselling service that only certain people are qualified for employment with … just christians (or perhaps people who believe in other gods). Now religious students (and staff) could probably do with a little support from a University, but what is wrong with ordinary counsellors just pointing them at local churches, mosques and the like ? Again I’m not entirely sure why my taxes should go towards paying the salaries of people whose principal talent is talking to imaginary beings.

But far worse are the more in your face examples of religion. The church sign that says “The Wages of Sin is Death”, the kerbside evangelist who harranges you about being saved, the smug Christian who insists that all unbelievers will go straight to hell and suffer eternal damnation. At best this is merely irritating; at worst it consitutes a kind of verbal abuse.

Yet religion seems to have a privileged position in our society … it is considered wrong to criticise the beliefs of others. But why is not also considered wrong to criticise the unbelief of others ? I do not believe, do not want to be preached at, and certainly do not want to see my tax money spent on supporting religious belief in any way whatsoever.

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