Miss Me?

I might not get around to posting all that often this month as I'm away in various places quite a lot and like to use holidays as a strictly computer-free zone.

The past few days its been the visit to the Irish lot for a wedding, as you might imagine much Guinness was consumed (including some at the brewery itself) and the wedding reception got very messy indeed. Anyway, I'm not going to use this blog as a diary but I thought I'd use up one post stating my undying love for all things Irish.

First off, you have the accent. I challenge anyone to find a better accent in the world than that of Southern Ireland, it just sounds so god damn cheerful. You could have the most morbid conversation in that accent and sound like you were talking about winning the World Cup (keeping it topical, well done Spain, much deserved).

And the accent suits the people. I'm not one for sweeping generalisations but every single Irish person I've met (and that's quite a lot) has been really friendly and happy. Things always look better when you visit a place than when you live there ut from what I've seen I'd love to live there one day. I'd be well placed too, from what I can tell about half the island are in some way related to me, I gave up trying to remember the various second aunts and cousins after a while.

The final favourite thing? Irish dancing. It's amazing, as is the music it goes with.

Next up I'm off to Paris, the French have got a hard act to follow.

Capitalism: A Love Story

I watched this for the first time the other day after a very sound recommendation from Aaron and thought it was interesting enough to warrant a post. The only other Michael Moore film I've watched is Sicko (Talking about the failures of American Healthcare) and that was really good as well, but that's for another day.

As is pretty obvious from the title it's a film about the American love affair with capitalism, but obviously its not just Americans who have long preached its overstated benefits whilst hiding the flaws. What we have in the UK is more of a tamed capitalism, but it remains nonetheless. So what exactly is wrong with it, surely it's the good guy to the evil of communism? Well not really.

The general idea of capitalism is that if you let market forces do their thing then over time the best and most efficient businesses and the most beneficial ideas to society will prosper, whilst bad ideas will die out. It runs on the premise that privately owned businesses which aim to make nothing but profit will bend to the public demand because that is how to make money. What capitalism promises is freedom above all else; the freedom to choose a job, the freedom to choose which products you want to buy and the freedom, through hard work, to move up the ladder and live the high life. It's so ingrained in society that people barely notice it, and certainly don't see how things might be different.

But there are plenty of reasons why this is pretty disingenuous. For a start, what use is the freedom to choose if you don't have the means to exercise that choice? By that I mean what use is saying, you can choose where to work, if there aren't any jobs? And is there really choice as to what products we buy with the massive amounts of advertising and monopolising that big companies can carry out. Capitalism without safeguards will inevitably tend towards big monopoly companies that swallow up competition because that's the most efficient way to do business. Once they're big enough, companies don't have to put as much time into customer service or product quality, they own the competition.

And there are plenty of areas where free market systems are very harmful indeed. Generally, if you need a service that is going to be universal and high quality for all then the free market is not where you want to be looking for inspiration. It doesn't suit business to have to provide the same quality to all persons because it just doesn't make money. Much better from a profit point of view to provide the better service to those who can pay more and just give a rag-tag service to those who can't. That's exactly what happens in American healthcare, except the poorest don't get any service whatsoever. That's exactly why our health and education systems are rightly (for now in any case) well out of the clutches of business, we just can't trust them with something so fundamental to our country.

The system survives because it promises prosperity for all and that the money the big companies make is reinvested into providing opportunities for all to make their mark on the world. In reality, capitalism only serves to help those with money make more of it, and every millionth person at the bottom might break through once in a generation which keeps the hopes high for the rest.

What's the alternative, is it just this or communism? Nope. Personally I'm in favour of a more democratic socialism (as might be gathered from my membership of Labour), but that can be tricky to define. Basically, I'm in favour of a more worker focussed economy, with a massive expansion in the number of co-operatives (worker ran businesses) and essential public services being run by the state so that they can be directed to where people need them the most. If we are to have genuine competition then the state has to regulate the private sector to make sure monopolies can't destroy small business.

There is still a place for privately owned businesses, but overall the economy should be rebalanced so that the wealth is less concentrated toward the top. In fact, where co-ops exist, they are often more efficient because the workers are happier and that helps productivity and vision for the future. You also don't get directors giving themselves extortionate pay rises or bonuses, precisely because everyone has the same say and the workers just wouldn't have it.

People shouldn't be content with the 'trickle down' effect, they should demand fair opportunity. We need to control business, and not let them control us. I'd hate to see this country go the way of America where the private sector all but runs the government and just has politicians as not so pretty hand puppets.

I realise democratic socialism might mean different things to different people, but that's what it is to me, that's my vision.

A Win For Common Sense!

I just noticed these two stories on BMA that gave me a little more faith in sense in humanity.First, they've voted to ban the NHS funding of Homeopathic medicine, and even better it now has to be clearly placed on a shelf labelled 'placebo' in pharmacies. Second, they also voted that so called 'conversion therapy' for homosexuals (Therapy where they attempt to turn gay people straight, or 'correct' them as they phrase it) should not be available through the NHS.

It's quite disturbing that these two things have been allowed to hang around for so long, but hopefully this is the beginning of the end for junk medicine. Next in the firing line; Chiropractic, Acupuncture and Herbal Medicine. At least I hope they are.

Here's my favourite part from the article:

In a debate at the BMA junior doctors’ conference in May one delegate, Tom Dolphin, had caused controversy by likening homoeopathy to witchcraft. He then apologised to witches, who were "apparently offended by the association with homoeopathy."

Brilliant. Poor witches, getting insulted like that.

As for the conversion therapy, its a no-brainer to scrap it. In order for something to be 'corrected' it has to be a disorder in the first place. Being gay isn't a mental illness, it's built into who a person is. You can't change that without disastrous consequences, and there's absolutely no reason for anyone to be trying to change it even if it could be done. There aren't any clinics helping straight people become gay are there? So why the other way around.

This sums it up:

"Sexual orientation is such a fundamental part of who someone is that to attempt to change it will just result in significant conflict and depression, and even sometimes suicide."

Two great decisions, but I hope its just the beginning.

Hitch-Hiking Made Cool

I've been doing the same kind of posts for a while now so time for a brief intermission and change in style. I only recently read Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy and thought I'd recommend it here to all you nice followers (I'm nearly up to the target of 20 in my life-list :)).

So anyway, I'd heard a lot about Douglas Adams (the author for those who don't know the books) and the book but never got round to reading it. After all the rave reviews I decided to give it a go, especially seeing as it came with a DIY cover that you could put stickers on. Stickers are always a great addition!

I was kind of set up to be disappointed but I really enjoyed it, so much so that I rifled through it in a day (always a sign of a great book). It's just so ridiculously but intelligently stupid. With some of the ideas in the book it should be damn awful but something about the way Adams writes makes it very funny and it all goes together very cleverly. It makes you think quite deeply in several places as well. Writing a stupid quote that actually makes you think deeply is one of the best and hardest things an author can achieve in my opinion and this is full of them.

Here's the kind of thing I mean, though I could pick from dozens:

"Man had always assumed he was more intelligent than dolphins because he'd achieved so much - the wheel, New York, wars and so on - whilst all the dolphins had ever done was muck about in the water having a good time. But conversely the dolphins had always assumed they were far more intelligent than man - for precisely the same reasons."

It's that kind of thing which looks so ridiculous at first but then makes you think 'Maybe there's a point in there that we don't take enough time to enjoy the things we make because we're too obsessed with having the next and latest trend' which makes this book great. This just happened to be the one I remembered, there are plenty of other, and possibly better, examples in the book. I can certainly see why this book has such a massive cult following.

Definitely worth a read, unless you're unfortunate enough to be someone who takes life too seriously all the time, in which case I assure you that it will be the worst thing you've ever laid eyes upon.

Hell hath frozen over..

Look out your window and pigs may be flying, because I'm about to say something quite rare. I agree with the Tory's. Shocking isn't it?

Not on everything, you should note, I still think they're doing a terrible job, but in the one case of prison reform they seem to be hitting the nail right on the head.

I've thought for a long time that the kind of public sucking up that goes on both sides of the House when it comes to 'being tough on crime' is naive at best, and plain stupid at worst. Our re-offending rate is terrible and something needs to change, locking people up for longer is not ,and never has been the way.

The public seems to hate any sniff of letting prisoners off with lighter prison sentences but if you take emotion out of the equation for just a moment then the answer seems much simpler. Looking at this seems to sum up the public mood:

But what's more worrying is what they suggest when asked how money could be saved from the prison's budget:

People seem to have a knee-jerk reaction that more time doing nothing behind bars is infintely preferable to rehabilitating offender's and making the public safer by making sure they don't re-offend again. Is it better that someone spends 10 years doing nothing behind bars and then re-offending or spending 5 years behind bars doing courses that will help them change their ways for the future?

And this isn't just me being liberal lefty, it makes good sense and has been shown to work. Sending a heroin addict to get residential treatment saves the taxpayer £202,000 pounds compared to sending them to prison because of the fewer crimes they will commit after their time is up. And drug addiction isn't the only area. Lots of shorter sentences would be best being replaced by community schemes. Leave the prisons to deal with hardened offenders, where we can we should be aiming for rehabilitation.

Surely it's time to stop being 'tough on crime' for the sake of looking good and start using our brains when it comes to how to deal with criminals?

(Using 'hath' instead of 'has' definitely makes the title sound better don't you think? :))