O Mother, Where Art Thou?

I was reading a story in a local newspaper today about a baby that had been abandoned in a car park. Normally these kind of things would just pass me by, but today it made me really angry for some reason. Maybe it's because I'm thinking about things with my 'being bad' head on again, but surely this kind of behaviour has to come under that category?? I mean, if you're going to abandon a baby, maybe you should think about not having it in the first place?? I understand accidents can happen but maybe the person involved shouldn't have gotten themselves in this situation in the first place. I know this is a sweeping generalisation, but it's one to think bout. Below is a link to a story regarding the action being taken by a hospital in Canada. Judge for yourself whether it's a good move or not. I'm a firm believer in prevention rather than cure. Wear a cap!

http://www.healthzone.ca/health/parentcentral/babiespregnancy/babies/article/803207--vancouver-hospital-sets-up-drop-off-for-unwanted-babies

Ok, so It's the 2nd of May and I've just realised that I now have 5 days left to do this blog. Having only made 5 previous posts, the best my sorry ass can hope for is a D. Forgive my lackadaisical attitude as I lost interest with my blog around the same time I lost interest in a class where the lecturer is forced to spend the majority of the session telling people to be quiet. If only people felt the urge to speak up as much in other lectures. However, needs must, so I will offer my opinion 5 more times for anyone who cares to pay attention to it. With regards to alcohol, I believe it to be like any other pleasant thing in life; ok in moderation but highly addictive. However, if you wish to truly appreciate the finer aspects of drinking, look no further than the link below. You will find me there for certain.

http://www.camra.org.uk/page.aspx?o=240022

Lying to yourself again

Ok, so after watching my sensational Gunners destroy Porto in the European Cup last night (sorry, I don't like to gloat), my girlfriend took control of the remote and I found myself half watching Famous, Rich and Jobless on BBC One (Link below). The programme follows four 'celebrities' as they embark upon the gloomy path of unemployment; coping on benefits and struggling to find work. My eyes quickly glazed over and I started playing Football Manager. Nevertheless, my attention returned to the TV part way through when Larry Lamb (aka Archie Mitchell) met up with a fellow job seeker. Up until 12 months ago, this woman had a £21,000 p.a. job. Now she lives on £64 a week benefits. She proceeded to tell her sob-story of how she couldn't get motivated to find work and how she only eats bread for 6 days of the week. This smacked of self deception and, as you can probably tell, totally infuriated me! It is not difficult to find a job. It just takes persistence, patience and an ability to not lie to yourself that a life on bread is ok; something that at the beginning, she defends. I recently lost my part time job. I had worked full time for 9 years before I came to university, so losing my part time job after just three months came as a bit of a shock. But I didn't tell myself "everything will be ok", or "all will come good in time". I got off my arse and went and found another job. 17 CVs later and I got one. It was hard, but it wasn't the thankless, impossible task that some people make out. My message to people like this would be stop lying to yourselves and sort your life out!

The link as I promised. See for yourself.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b00rhcr9

Where have I been??

I just realised that I haven't posted anything on here recently. This is due to the fact that I've just been so busy recently. Ok, maybe that's a lie. It's because I've spent far too much time masturbating. There's another lie. I think. Anyway, I know I have to pull my proverbial finger out and start putting more effort into this blog. This has got me thinking about another form of lying that wasn't really discussed; lying to yourself. "I've been meaning to do it!" "It'll be ok, I've got plenty of time". "This game of Fifa/pint/film/book is more important". These are all excuses, reasons given by our procrastinating selves to not do what is important and actually needs to be done. So in a way, we lie to ourselves everyday. No wonder we do it so easily to other people. But how far would you go. How easy would it be to convince yourself that what you were doing was ok? The best example I could come up with of severe self deception is honour killing. The fact that you could kill someone in your own family is bad enough. But the fact that you could convince yourself that you were doing it for the 'honour' of your family is sickening. Below is a link that gives a brief overview on honour crimes and a link to the story of Banaz Mahmod, who is mentioned in the first link. I hope that you'll agree this is about as bad as being bad gets.

www.bbc.co.uk/ethics/honourcrimes/crimesofhonour_1.shtml

www.guardian.co.uk/uk/2007/jul/20/ukcrime.uknews4

Random Topic Lecture

As the title suggests, this weeks lecture was a bit of a hotchpotch in my opinion. It would have been interesting to have covered the topics in separate lectures so we could have discussed peoples views in a little more depth. However, there were still some interesting points raised. I'd like to make it crystal clear that shoplifting is theft. Fact. Just because it has been given a different name, does not mean that it deserves a different punishment, or that we should take a different view on it.
When it comes to the punishment, of course some sense should be used. Nevertheless, it should be as harsh as possible to try and stop re-offending. Below is a link to a discussion on the BBC site that has some interesting opinions on this....

http://newsforums.bbc.co.uk/nol/thread.jspa?forumID=7326&edition=1&ttl=20100213163517

And as a final thought for anyone who enjoys a bit of pilfering, count yourself lucky you're not in America. A look at Kevin Weber's plight would make you think again....

http://articles.latimes.com/1995-10-28/local/me-61957_1_third-felony-conviction-cookie-theft-three-strikes-law

Smoking

An interesting lecture (despite the highly ironic fire alarm interruption), and one that I can relate to. My father smoked constantly while I was growing up; despite the fact we weren't well off and he never had much money. But who am I to criticise. Everyone has been addicted to something in the past, whether it be cigarettes and drink or chilli sauce and football manager (my current favourite). In fact, I'd go so far as to say that people should carry on smoking as much as they like. If the government are successful in cutting the number of smokers by half in the next decade, they will be losing half the current tax revenue gained from cigarettes. Given the current financial state of the country, this shortfall will be made up elsewhere for sure. Probably from petrol, income tax, education and health cuts, cuts in policing etc. All cuts that will affect me. So please, smoke for yourselves, smoke for me and above all.......smoke for your country!!!

My Idea for Week 12....

Hello. I believe that we should have a fetish night in a local club (possibly the Canal Club??). All music should contain explicit lyrics, one in every ten drinks should be spiked, everyone should be paired off with someone to encourage mass infidelity and there should be a projector on one wall showing continuous stand up from Bernard Manning.

Anyway, to the slightly more serious stuff at hand. With the smoking lecture only a day away I found it highly coincidental that the BBC should have these two stories on it's website. So I thought I'd share them. The first is slightly more serious than the second.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/8490490.stm

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/asia-pacific/8493288.stm

See you on Thursday