Electronic Scribblings

Is saying sorry accepting blame or moving to healing?

Please show your support for a sincere & unifying apology from the entire Australian Parliament

http://chezzag.vox.com/library/post/p...

As an Australian who lives in a town with a relatively large indigenous community, I understand the importance of this forth coming apology to the Stolen Generation. I also recognise that there will need to be further actions of reconciliation to help heal our past so that we can all move forward as...

I have seen a few posts about the upcoming plan of the Australian Government to say sorry to the Indigenous Australians for the actions of previous governments.

Now the issue of apology is a thorny one as it often comes years, if not generations, after the original crime and the people doing (or expecting to make) the apology are not those who comitted the crime.

However all of us who fail to act to change a wrong are passively facilitating the continuation of that wrong.

If I saw you being beaten, and do nothing, I may not be the one beating you but I am permitting the beating to continue, I am doing nothing to stop it.

If I see you lying hurt, and do nothing, I am allowing your hurt to continue. I am failing to get you the help you need to start healing ~ I permit your suffering to continue.

Sooner or later I must recognise the suffering, and accept that I stood by. And then say sorry. I did not hurt you, but I am sorry you are hurt. I am sorry I did not act to help before. Now we recognise that you hurt, we can work to heal you.

I am born Australian. Maybe my ancestors were some of those that were cruel, that treated the Aborigine peoples as vermin. I don't know. But I am sorry it happened, that it was permited to happen and that it was ignored, brushed under the carpet and people pretended for so long that it wasn't our problem. No one diserves that.

I do exist...

at least in some sense :) Work continues tough, but not as insane. I am still trying to kick my caffine habit *twitches* and trying to find time to upgrade a D&D Pixie Warlock character from 5th to 9th level by Saturday.

Content??

Ohh! Fairy winged pigs flying past my office window, with little baskets in their mouths... why are there flames from the baskets??

(sorry!)

Lifeblog post

Dad already has a few crocuses in his garden!

s320x240 Sun 27/01/2008 14:59 270120081336

Air forces memorial

260120081321

BBC: Why companies need female managers

Hmmm, I agree with the facts in that I think there are valid and real differences between genders. I think however this is a spectrum and M/F is vastly simplified way of looking at things. But I do like that is is finally being talked about rather than assume that we are all the same really, honest, if only given the same chances. I think I need a new icon for 'Equal but different', 'no boxes please' or some such.
~~~~~~

When Helen Fisher speaks, the politically correct members of her audience are likely to flinch. Declaring that she's "definitely not a feminist," the American anthropologist from Rutgers University dissects the differences between men and women. (xxx) What Ms Fisher says is not psychobabble. She bases her findings on archaeological evidence, MRI brain scans, genetics and large-scale surveys of how men and women behave.

And understanding that male and female brains develop and behave differently is important not just if you are in the dating game. It also helps us to hire the right people, improve teamwork and can - to quote part of the title of her talk at the World Economic Forum in Davos - grow a company's bottomline.
(XXX)
On average, women gather more data, consider the context, are intuitive, have a sympathising mind and think more long-term. Ms Fisher calls it "web thinking". Men, on the other hand, are more focused, think linear, focus on rules and the short-term - "step thinking".

Full story on BBC News

Capturing fleeting thoughts

Vox works in a different way to Livejournal, but some aspects may carry over. Due to a discussion on a LJ community I was thinking about the rights & wrongs of community posts, and who owns the posts, and what the non-virtual world manners mean in a virtual world.

OK, This is my blog. Now who owns the comments? Does each individual own the comments they make on either this Vox blog, or on my LJ or in any community?

The physical world equivalent is paper. Now if I send a letter to be published in a newspaper, it is in the public domain. I cannot be surprised to see that people have written to the paper and the paper has posted them in response. What right do I have to demand that the paper not publish, or remove, responses I don't like? I suspect in the main the newspaper would tell me where to go unless the comments were defamatory or libelous in which case they may not be published.

If I post a round-robin letter to a select few of my friends I would not expect it to be in a newspaper, or to get letters from people I have never heard of, or find out that the information within was the subject of public gossip. OK, I may happily accept that Auntie Jane told Cousin Max about the contents, or let him read it, but not down the pub. Having said that, what if Auntie Jane knows I fell out badly with cousin Max & she still shares the information? I get hurt, angry & rant I guess. And don't send Auntie Jane anything I need to trust her not to share.

The equivalents are posting in a community / public blog posting or restricted blog posting.

Now some of this doesn't quite work. Bits of paper can more easily be shared around or accidentally left where someone else could read it. Restricted membership of a newspaper/publication doesn't restrict it to only those people.

We think the virtual world is 'safer' in some respect as when we call ourselves something patently not our 'real' name we expect privacy from people in our physical world (unless we tell them our alias) and get shocked & horrified to find out that we have been 'outed'. equally we think that if a post is locked to a specific list of people (friends only / Neighbourhood only / community membership only) that the information will not spread. mmmmm. Well, it is certainly bad manners to do so: like gossip ~ I tell you something in strictest confidence but you have to respect that confidence.

Blogging Etiquette ~ the modern minefield.

Something worth living for, something worth dying for

Sparked by this post by Scio, Scio who posed a question:

How could anyone support abortion if they knew that they might have been killed? You've had years to realize that if you had died then none of your fondest memories would have occurred, your favorite desserts would have gone uneaten, music unappreciated...how we cannot be fiercely protective of our own lives is beyond me.

My response:

~ Yup, I am fully aware of the dichotamy that I might not exist, but then I wouldn't exist to care. I am also protective of life, of liberty of justice. But I say that if you are unjust, unfree then life is less worth living. Would I die to preserve the freedoms of what I believe in? Possibly. If so I must therefore contemplate the idea that the freedoms I choose to believe in may have lead to my non-life.

You see, I am adopted. Yet I support choice when it come to abortion. The fact I can do this, despite the fact I may well have not existed had my first/birth mother made a different choice. The idea that I would not have existed is almost incomprehensible to the living person here. Yet am I a hypocrite for supporting something that would have snuffed my life out before it was realised?

But this has made me think (ok, in 2 directions: I am following one).

What value do we place on life, any life? Is a foetus more or less worthy than a 5 year old, a 15 year old, a young adult or a mature one? Is the life of a chinese girl baby worth more or less than an american boy? A palistinian soldier versus a Tibeten nun?

Who gets to choose who lives or dies? The obvious answer is that no one should, yet every day there is death. Death caused by the hand of another person. It would be trite for me to say that more die daily in war than by abortion.

I choose to support the right to choose abortion, but I will also try to support those who will change our society so that those doing the choosing no longer feel they need to choose.

People choose abortion because either they do not want to be pregnant, or it is inconvienent, or because they do not want the baby.

Isn't it better to change the world so that being pregnant is not an inconvienence? That the pregnant, the mothers (and fathers) are not discriminated against?

Yet in  the UK, and I think america, it COSTS to bring up a child and many people say that if you cannot afford a child you should not get pregnant, that young women who get pregnant and keep their child are 'sponging' because they need tax-payers help to live, to bring up their baby. Is it the same in the US? I guess so.

Sure there are, and always will be, idiots who think the laws of nature don't apply: they can't get pregnant even if ignoring contraception (or avoidence). They are the same ones who refuse to believe that they could ever get lung cancer with a 5 pack a day habit, or drive fast ~ crashes happen to other people ~ or all sorts of other risky behaviour. And society must deal with the results, even if it manages to educate the rest of us.

So question: Does you area allow girls to continue school as teen-moms? Provide health & social care for people who can't work or who are too poor to care properly for a new baby, or another baby? Do your hospitals have free checkups / maternity care? are workplaces flexible with hours, giving the same pay per hour to a part-time mom/worker? is their affordable child-care facilities? Do your colleges or Universities have flexible studying? How much does having a baby cost? Do people look down on single moms/dads? Does your religion accept and help with money & support for someone who has chosen to keep their baby?

No? Then the best way to fight the need for abortion is to fight the reasons women have them.

Davos 08

I am actually finding this quite interesting ~ it brings up and links a few things that are worth thinking about in linked terms.

Davos 08 AKA World Ecoomic Forum 2008. This is the BBC's blog from the WEF in Davos, with reports, analysis and comment from BBC journalist covering the event. You can read full coverage here.

There seems to be some really cool topics of discussion about teaching former child soldiers / traumatised children to play, mob-video-blogging interviews live, How to end poverty without increasing the resources consumed, and mention of other, more off beat, discussions. Not to mention the chance to see, maybe even talk, with some big names in business, politics and innovation.

 

A dream yet to be realized..............

A dream yet to be realized..............

http://dancingbear.vox.com/library/po...

Documentary on Gay, Black Civil Rights Leader Bayard Rustin on LOGO Tomorrow night, LOGO will air the film Brother Outsider; the documentary presents the life of civil rights activist Bayard Rustin. Despite his critical role in the fight for black equality in the U.S. and his close work with Martin...

Being Here

This ad makes me tear up, every time. Mom died of bone cancer, secondary to breast cancer.

The cross in my icon is photographed from her headstone.