Muck & Brass

Flicking through the channels one popular news programme caught my eye, or to be more accurate, my ear.

BBC 2's popular Newsnight program was featuring a blogger who had 'brought down a council'.

"Interesting" I thought to myself, not realising that this story was set in a town where I used to live.

Somerton, which was once the capital of the kingdom of Wessex is now a small town in Somerset, and like small towns the world over, has a council that controls most of what happens in the town.

In a democracy that council has a responsibility to act, well, democratically, and if it fails to do so someone somewhere will question that.

That is part and parcel of democracy.

Regardless of whether the individuals are paid or unpaid, they make their own choice to stand as councillors, a choice that should only be in the interest of the public that they supposedly choose to serve.

If, at any point they start to move away from democracy it is the public that must cast a lasso around them, and pull them back in.

There is no doubt in my mind that is exactly what Niall Connolly has done with his blog "Muck & Brass".

What local, national and international public authorities must realise is that we still live in a democracy, and because of that everything they do should be in the public interest.

If that doesn't happen, then I sincerely hope for more like Mr Connolly.

http://muckandbrass.blogspot.com/

Simple, Polanski is a Paedophile

[TW@link]

Today I signed a petition, and with it made this comment:

He may well be a brilliant film maker, but that doesn't negate the simple fact... Polanski is a Paedophile. And Hollywood stars, who we've watched and loved over many years, are turning their backs on the public, and becoming rape apologists. I accept that Hollywood culture is highly patriachal, but that doesn't mean it's right, the fact that you are in the limelight gives you the oppurtunity to make a difference. And if you don't want this kind of pressure, well, give up the business then, and stop using your wealth and fame to allow a paedohile to go free

I hope Emma Thompson enjoys her day, and takes this away for contemplation.

Then I hope she tells all her friends, and they make the right decison and stop backing Polanski.

It's the only choice.

Some Thoughts on Question Time.......

• Jack Straw didn't do as well as I expected, and in many ways let us down by not addressing the concerns of the general public. Philip Honour (Labour List) writes (click for full story):
  

"The next election will not be won and lost on which party talks the toughest on fascism and the BNP, but it will be on the issues that make people vote for extremists. Question Time showed up the gulf between the thinking in the Cabinet and the Labour grassroots but, more importantly, the gap between Labour and the public"

• Bonnie Greer is every kind of awesome, She sat next to far right fascist Nick Griffin and treated him with the contempt he deserved, yet at no point did she lose her cool, at times she turned and looked directly at Mr Griffin to ask him pertinant questions, Bill Jamieson at The Scotsman sums it up quite well:
  

"CHARMING, witty, disarming , amusing: there's no doubt who stole the show … Bonnie Greer

I'm just concerned that it is now acceptable to become a member of the BNP, that they are now a going-concern in politics, and for all those that say he will not survive this, that the BNP will now falter, maybe you should look at how this kind of publicity helped in other countries!

Lee Skevington for MP?

Some time ago, somebody in the family started to make our family tree in the hope that we had some "important" relatives.

It remains an unfinished project, now taken on by another family member, but it was clear that "nobody of any significance" was in the family.

Except they were.

I can stand and proudly say that most of my family were, and indeed are workers, and working class: which makes them hugely important, and very significant.

My Grandfather worked in a Ropewalk for many years until its closure in 1968, (plans are still under way to make this a heritage site)

So my vote should have been going to Labour, but it hasn't:

For a long time I haven't 'got' the Labour party, it seems to me that they were desperate to move more to the right, to start looking after the wealthy and punishing the poor.

In my opinion THATS not how the Labour party should behave, and increasingly there is a call to return to true Labour.

Now, maybe things are changing, thanks in part to my nephew, Lee Skevington who is Labour's Prospective Parliamentary Candidate for Yeovil: He says:

I am proud to call myself a member of the Labour Party. However for me being a Labour member places me to the left of the current Labour government. I am proud to be a democratic socialist and I stand for election in Yeovil on the democratic socialist ideals upon which the Labour Party was founded. I also believe that this is what the grassroots of the Labour Party still believes in.

I stand for the working class. You can't be for both big business and working people, you have to choose and this is why New Labour has got into the trouble it has. In our 2005 manifesto we said we must "support the wealth creators" but what has been the social cost of such a policy?

I am a trade unionist and I believe in collective action. When working people stand together in solidarity in the face of adversity there is little that can stop them.

I stand for redistribution of wealth. I believe the wealthiest in our society have an obligation to the very poorest.

I believe in common ownership. When big business isn't working in the interest of the people, or it isn't doing its job, there is no reason the government should not intervene. A good example would be utilities and the railways.

In short this was what was in the Labour Party Clause IV before Tony Blair changed it and what the Labour Party stood for.

Old Clause IV: To secure for the workers by hand or by brain the full fruits of their industry and the most equitable distribution thereof that may be possible upon the basis of the common ownership of the means of production, distribution and exchange, and the best obtainable system of popular administration and control of each industry or service.

Being my nephew won't get him the vote, being Labour's Lee Skevington with good working class ideals just might.

I'm sure his Great Grandfather would vote for him.

Charlie Brooker kicks Jan Moirs homophobic ass!

Why there was nothing 'human' about Jan Moir's column on the death of Stephen Gately

Jan Moir's rant about the Boyzone star Stephen Gately is a gratuitous piece of gay-bashing

Charlie Brooker at The Guardian

Coming Out

A reflection in honour of National Coming Out Day (UK) 2009

Firstly, I'm a heterosexual.

I think it's important to realise that, simply because I can't fully understand what it feels like to come out.

I can't understand it because I've never done it, and I'm not likely to.

However, there is one thing I do know about coming out;

It aint easy!

Another thing is that it may take a while, not neccesarily to come out, but to understand your own feelings, to realise the anxiety's that you feel, to realise that the path you have chosen isn't the right one:

To finally realise that you are Gay

That's the first step.

And, as we say in Somerset;

Its a Gurt Bigun!

So for all of you who are coming out today, or who have already come out.

Have a GREAT Day LIFE.

A few words to someone special....

Ok, theres this blog, y'know

It lays dormant quite a lot, because of time issues, or lack of thought, or whatever-excuse-is-handy-at-the-time.

Yet some people come back and check in, look around to see if anythings changed.

And I apologise for not giving my time to it.

But today I hope that one person in particular looks in, and reads this.

One person who has not been without a certain amount of suffering.

A good, kind person that has been there for her family and has had to make choices that deep down inside she knew she didnt want to make, yet for many years she has supported those close to her.

A person that I regard as a Hero

What you have done, in my opinion, is very brave.

And just so you know, I continue to love and respect you.

That is all.

namedropper

Ok, I was wrong.

I denounced Twitter without fully understanding it,

Now I have changed my mind,
actually, its quite good.

I mean, when people like, say , Maggie Philbin reply to a 'tweet' you've got to smile.

Tim is walking

My friend Tim, who's wife sadly passed away earlier this year; is walking 250 miles around part of the South West Coast Path in aid of Cancer Research.

I wish him all the best.

If you look for the truth outside yourself,
It gets farther and farther away.
Today walking alone, I meet it everywhere I step.
It is the same as me, yet I am not it.
Only if you understand it in this way
Will you merge with the way things are.
- Tung-Shan

Not a Man-Hater, I know...

My friend Melissa McEwan has written a great post at the Guardian CiFA:

Despite feminists' reputation, and contra my own individual reputation cultivated over five years of public opinion-making as a blogger, I am not a man-hater.

If I played by misogynists' rules, specifically the one that dictates it only takes one woman doing one mean or duplicitous or disrespectful or unlawful or otherwise bad thing to justify hatred of all women, I would have plenty of justification for hating men, if I were inclined to do that sort of thing.

Most of my threatening hate mail comes from men. The most unrelentingly trouble-making trolls at my blog, Shakesville, have always been men. I've been cat-called and cow-called from moving vehicles countless times, subjected to other forms of street harassment and sexually harassed at work, always by men. I have been sexually assaulted – if one includes rape, attempted rape, unsolicited touching of breasts, buttocks and/or genitals, nonconsensual frottage on public transportation and flashing – by dozens of people during my lifetime, some known to me, some strangers, all men.

But I don't hate men, because I play by different rules. In fact, there are men in this world whom I love quite a lot.

There are also individual men in this world I would say I probably hate, or something close – men who I hold in unfathomable contempt. But it is not because they are men.

No, I don't hate men.

Continue reading here

Also read:

• Jackson Katz
• Men can stop Rape
• The Male privilege checklist
  
• Shakesville: Feminism 101
• The F-word on EU Gender neutral language guidelines
• Shakesville on Masculine bias in language
• No Pasaran
• Anti-sexism items for sale