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@drewjacksontalksaboutstuff--blog
I am not a fan of the Conservative Party and even less of a fan of David Cameron. That said, I saw nothing wrong with his description of migrants trying to enter our country as a “swarm”. He was clearly using a metaphor to indicate the number of migrants approaching our shores. There is nothing wrong with that. Not everyone agrees, though. For the sake of that one word, Mr Cameron has come under fire from…[Read more]
There are conservative Christians in the United States who are really getting their knickers in a knot over the Supreme Court of the United States making same-sex marriage legal in all 50 states. I have seen some fairly extreme reactions on Facebook in the days since the ruling on Friday. "God defines marriage, not the courts" is one example. Really? Do you know how God defines marriage in the Old Testament? It is not all one man with one woman, you know. There...[Read more]
A petition has been started on Change.org by a French student asking for a question on the English exam of the baccalaureate to be annulled or for extra marks to be awarded to those who did answer it. Why? Apparently the question has been deemed "impossible to answer" because they did not know one word in the question, the word "coping". Seriously? They want a question annulled for that? That makes it impossible to answer? According to the petition starter, it could only be understood by someone bilingual. These are French students doing an English exam. Am I...[Read more]
How long is it going to be before the United States wakes up to the idea of gun control? In the space of about a week there has been the report of both a 3-year-old shooting himself and a 21-year-old shooting people in a church. Is this really what the Founding Fathers had in mind when they framed the Second Amendment? I have no idea what they had in mind when they enshrined "the right to bear Arms" into the Constitution of the United States, but I cannot imagine that it was a hellish reality where civilians can obtain guns and commit random killings when "the silicon chip inside [their] head gets switched to overload" and...[Read more]
I read an article yesterday morning about "elite firms" in the UK preferring "privileged candidates". We are halfway through the second decade of the 21st century and still the idea that talent and privilege go hand in hand persists, at least in some quarters. Why, I have no idea. There are elite firms that have used such criteria as "the candidate's accent and experience of travelling". Because both of those are such valuable indicators of a person's ability to do a job. Well, actually, no. They mean nothing when it comes to how well they can work with others or do their job without playing about on Facebook or Twitter. They could be absolutely useless in the job. But as long as they have the "right" accent and have travelled widely, right? There is a side effect of this cherry picking of candidates, though. As if that were not bad enough, those of us who do not fit the narrow definition of the profile are defined as "disadvantaged". Are we really? Is it really a disadvantage to have an accent that fits in with a regional drama? Or a disadvantage to have travelled less than someone else? Or a disadvantage to have less money than someone else? If you are an interviewer with an "elite firm" then I suppose so. But that is about the interviewer's perception. They perceive these things to be a negative in the context of weeding out candidates for a job with their firm. But outside the context of applying for a job with that firm? No. Anyone of any background of any accent can make it in life if they just have the drive to succeed. But apparently some firms do not recognise this. Maybe they will eventually. Probably by about 3015.
I read an article this morning about a Christian couple in Australia who are going to divorce if same-sex marriage is going to be made legal there. They have the idea that marriage is from God and, in their own words, "refuse to recognise the government’s regulation of marriage if its definition includes the solemnisation of same sex couples". But the thing is, governments do regulate marriage. They pass marriage laws that define what marriage is. And those laws can be changed. Expanding who can marry does not affect those who are currently married. And it is just an expansion. Instead of just limiting marriage to male-female couples, Australia, like other parts of the world before it, is considering expanding marriage to same-sex couples. That does not affect this Christian couple in any way, shape or form, so I am at a bit of a loss as to why they should be considering getting a divorce. But that is their choice, strange as it may seem. That divorce, if it happens, will not involve a church, as their wedding did. It will be an entirely legal process. In fact, marriage itself is a legal contract which is why, if it does not end with the death of one of the spouses, it has to end in a legal manner. Regardless of how religious their wedding was, regardless of how many times they invoked God, regardless of their belief of doing it "in the sight of God and the community", they were still entering into a legal contract. And if their marriage does not end with the death of one of them, then it ends in the courts. They do not go back to church to dissolve it. So is marriage really ordained by God? Or have people just made that connection over the years? Something to think about.
It has been reported this week that there are CEOs of national charities here in the UK with six-figure salaries. The largest that I have seen quoted is £240,000 (about US$368,162 at the time of writing). How reasonable is it for the CEO of a charity to take a six-figure salary? Charities are, by definition, non-profit making organisations. The money raised by the charity goes to supporting the activity of the charity, whatever that may be. There are going to be administration costs and some of those are going to be wages and salaries, but surely having such a high salary is an expense too far? Should the CEO of a charity really command a six-figure salary? Or should a more modest salary be standard? Is it reasonable to say that they should have a salary commensurate with a CEO in industry? Surely if they want that kind of salary they should work in industry. And if they have moved from industry to be the CEO of a charity, they should have stayed where they were because charity work, even the CEO of a charity, should not, in my opinion, come with a six-figure salary. How these charities run themselves is, of course, up to them. But does it really encourage people to give to charity when they know that the CEO is in receipt of a six-figure salary? Or are they more likely to pull their charitable giving and use their money in other ways? I would not be surprised if charitable giving goes down as a result of this, even to charities that are not paying the person at the top a massive salary and that will be a shame.
Certain phrases really should be re-thought. I received an email yesterday that started with "You’re receiving this email because you’re one of the most active [political action group] members in your area". To me that sounds similar to "You could already be a winner!" or, slightly worse, those emails that go straight to my bin or trash folder and begin with "hi handsome", usually purporting to be from the woman with the yellow breeches or whatever colour and style of trousers they happen to be that day. People are always wanting something from you when they begin like that. This email was no different. It would actually have been a better email had it simply not begun with that sentence. Just cut it out completely. Okay, they want something but just cut out the flattery. No need to butter me up by telling me how active I am. And since I tend to overanalyse things, it distracts me. Most active? Me? I might have signed some online petitions and contacted my MP a couple of times, but I am not sure how that qualifies me as "one of the most active members" in this area. Unless almost everyone else is completely apathetic. There is that possibility, I suppose. But I digress. Possibly emails like this are done to a template and no one has thought very much about how they actually read. Or perhaps they read just fine to whoever wrote them originally. Sometimes things do sound fine in your head. The idea of "say it in your head first before saying it out loud" doesn't always work. It can still sound okay in your head. So possibly with emails like this, someone thought that it was a reasonable thing to say. And someone else might even have agreed. But it still has that overtone in my mind, that suggestion of "I/We want something from you and here it comes". Shame really, because that is the only point at which the email falls down. Okay, yes, they do want something from me. That is the point of the email. But making it obvious from that initial phrase puts me on the defensive. "Uh oh. They're flattering me. What are they after?" Suspicious straight away. Without that phrase, there would have been more of a gentle lead up to what they wanted and I would be more likely to be responsive. Maybe I should give email writing classes?
Veganism doesn't promise to save your soul but you do come across a lot of characters in veganism, some of whom enthusiastically preach the good news of veganism as often as they can. They witness to the truth of veganism in their life and how it can change yours for the better. And veganism is fairly splintered, just like a lot of religions are. Not quite as splintered as some religions are, but there is more than one way to be vegan. It's not quite as simple as not eating animal products and not using animal products. Well, basically, yes. That is it in a nutshell. But just as a religion can be summed up in the words of a creed, it's not as simple as that. The doing it part is a bit more complicated. The same goes for veganism. The doing it part of following a vegan diet is a bit more complicated. There are various ways to actually do it. And whichever you decide to do it, someone somewhere will think that you should be doing it their way. Or disagree with some aspect of what you do. But whichever way we do it, we're all vegan. We're all vegan but are we all united? Is that true for religions? Not really. I have come across groups of vegans arguing with other groups of vegans over the stupidest details of following a vegan diet. Who cares as long as we are following the basic principle of not eating animal products? Does it really matter, for example, if someone is fully raw or not? No. It matters if they are eating animal products or not. But, just like people who follow a religion, vegans can be prone to get bogged down in minutiae. I just get on with it. I follow a vegan diet the way that I want to do it and it works for me. And I do it quietly (no preaching).
I had a Dave Gorman moment when I was at my local supermarket today. I got everything that I wanted, the corn on the cob, three packets, a brown loaf, a split tin loaf, a pasta salad and four one litre cartons of milk. Then I made my way to the checkouts. There were a lot open but they were also busy. So I counted up how many items I had. Ten items. I counted them again to make sure. Ten items. Great, I can use the express checkout, ten items or less. So I headed straight there, only to be stuck behind a woman who was loading what must have been 20 to 30 items on to the conveyor belt and the cashier had not noticed. Bloody great. There is a big notice above both express checkouts and two smaller notices to the side of the checkout. And each divider, which this woman had to use to separate her shopping from the person in front, states that it is an express checkout, 10 items or less. You would have to illiterate not to get the clues. They do everything but put flashing lights around them. And you know that even then some people would still be oblivious to them. I despair of some people, I really do.