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Would you support the ban of fireworks in the UK?

28 Friday Oct 2016

Posted by A Dreamy Sparrow in Culture, Ramblings

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In Singapore (the country of many bans), fireworks have been banned for decades for public use except for certain events where safety precautions have been taken… and I know many Singaporeans who look to countries in the West for their freedoms and moan about their lack of freedom in Singapore. Singapore after all is a country with a “benevolent dictatorship. Singaporeans grow up knowing there are things the government banned for their own good…. things the government deems too important to allow the public to experiment with and learn by trial and error. Fireworks being one of them. Bubble gum another… and now in the UK there are people calling for this ban. Are they serious? Yes they are. An online petition for the ban of fireworks has been started on the British government’s website that has now amassed just over 5300 signatures. If the number of signatures reaches 10,000, the petition will be debated in parliament. It does look set to get that way. The petition was started on the 10th October and has already generated that many signatures.

The reasons calling for the ban in the UK are a bit more multifaceted than the reason behind the Singaporean ban though. Singapore’s fireworks ban was started due to the government’s perception of its dangers to human beings alone. It stems from a Chinese tradition of lighting firecrackers during festivities, which caused quite a lot of property damage, deaths and injuries. The UK’s ban – because the British love their animals so much – is deemed necessary by some because it not only causes deaths and injuries to people, but also animals. 

Of course there are Singaporeans unhappy with the many bans imposed on the by the government. They write articles such as this.

 Some Singaporeans might call this regression. 

But frankly, I don’t really care much for fireworks myself so if the ban goes ahead, it wouldn’t bother me.

If you’re interested in signing the petition for the ban on fireworks in the UK, go tohttps://petition.parliament.uk/petitions/168663

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Address internalized racism

17 Saturday Oct 2015

Posted by A Dreamy Sparrow in Culture, Racism

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by Donna K. Bivens 

It is important to be aware of
three major things:

1. As people of color are victimized by racism, we internalize it. That is, we
develop ideas, beliefs, actions and behaviors that support or collude with
racism. This internalized racism has its own systemic reality and its own
negative consequences in the lives and communities of people of color. More
than just a consequence of racism, then, internalized racism is a systemic
oppression in reaction to racism that has a life of its own. In other words,
just as there is a system in place that reinforces the power and expands the
privilege of white people, there is a system in place that actively discourages
and undermines the power of people and communities of color and mires us
in our own oppression.
Individuals, institutions and communities of color are often unconsciously and
habitually rewarded for supporting white privilege and power and punished
and excluded when we do not. This system of oppression often coerces us
to let go of or compromise our own better judgment, thus diminishing
everyone as the diversity of human experience and wisdom is excluded.
Equally harmfully, the system can trap people and communities of color in an
oppositional stance that can undermine creativity as situations are seen
through a limited victim/perpetrator lens that cuts us off from the breadth of
possibility.

2. Because internalized racism is a systemic oppression, it must be distinguished
from human wounds like self-hatred or “low self esteem,” to which all people
are vulnerable. It is important to understand it as systemic because that
makes it clear that it is not a problem simply of individuals. It is structural.

3. Internalized racism negatively impacts people of color intra-culturally and
cross-culturally. Because race is a social and political construct that comes
out of particular histories of domination and exploitation between Peoples,
people of colors’ internalized racism often leads to great conflict among and
between them as other concepts of power — such as ethnicity, culture,
nationality and class — are collapsed in misunderstanding. Especially when race
is confused with nationality and ethnicity,internalized racism often manifests in different cultural and ethnic groups being pitted against each other for the scarce resources that racism leaves for people who do not have white
privilege. This can create a hierarchy based on closeness to the white norm.
At the same time it cripples all of us in our attempt to create a society that
works for all of us.

Click here for more resources related to this topic

Fengshui. Don’t believe it.

17 Friday Jul 2015

Posted by A Dreamy Sparrow in Culture

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Tags

bazi, bullshit, careers, fengshui

I developed an interest in occult sciences as a teenager. I had an unhappy childhood, and growing up I found I always lacked purpose or drive. So I turned to occult sciences to try and find answers in life to guide me. It has done squat for me. Absolutely squat. All the money I’d ever spent on it… Looking back, I know now it was all for nothing like what I thought I’d get back for what I paid for. But I hung onto it for years, dabbling occasionally in it, hoping to let it guide me properly. I got upset when it said my life is in for bad luck, or if it said that of my kids. Then the rational skeptic in my brain kicks in and I start thinking can all this really be true? What is the proof for them? Should I be basing important life decisions on them? Etc.

Well it looks like the occult science bubble has definitely burst tonight. And funnily I feel pretty relieved. It was like a huge weight off my chest. And it was all down to this guy (let’s call him “C.”) who owns this Fengshui website at geomancy*dot*net. On it he operates a free advice forum. I’m sure he is doing it all for good will and a bit of self-promotion, but still mainly goodwill. You see he does not have to dispense advice to others if they ask. But he does anyway. And he does try. I know I can be really determined to get to the bottom of things, and once I’m in that mode, well I might seem vexatious to some. I was one of those kids who always asked “Why?”

Anyway recently I’ve been asking him a lot of questions about how to find out the best/most suitable careers by looking at our birth charts.

Now according to the Fengshui theory, careers can be chosen based on what Elements they can be classified as. The Ancient Chinese believed there were 5 elements in the world. Earth, Water, Metal, Wood and Fire. (Even just this alone should have put my rational skeptic brain off wasting more time on this endeavour and sent me running for the hills. But no. I persevered, trying to get to the bottom of it all.)

The problem is that careers are usually classed by Fengshui elements in a pretty crude way, which doesn’t really make it very useful. For example Water careers are said to be things like sailing, marine related industries, etc. But take sailing for instance. It really is a kind of sport, and sports however are classed as Earth careers… Or marine biology for instance, is a form of science. And Science is usually classed as Wood careers.. If you have a job like Vanessa Mae’s… Well she is a performer and her expertise is in music. Specifically violin. You could say her career is Water (music and arts are generally classed as such), Fire (because it is a performance career and performing in front of others, being a star, it can be argued as a Fire element), then you have the instrument she plays – the violin – that’s generally made of wood, so she’s in a lot of contact with wood, especially since she said before she usually practiced what… 8 hours a day? So what career element is she? A mix of many… And you can do this analysis for many other jobs as well. There are very few jobs today that are a pure Element type. Most jobs are mixed elements if you really analyse it. I guess what I’m trying to say is, there is no fixed answer on this topic. Read: There is no objective way of determining what element any career or job is, in the Fengshui sense.

Also even if you found a job that seems to fit all the elements you require to balance out your chart or whatever, doesn’t mean you’ll even like the job or find it interesting, or if that job requires a huge amount of studying and you’re perhaps too old to retrain (e.g. doctor), or if you don’t have the mental capacity to deal with the requirements of the job or the training (say being a criminal lawyer requures almost 24/7 involvement with work, plus a strong stomach because of the gruesome details of some murder cases say, which if you are a mother of young children with a lot of hoysehold responsibility, or if you are natyrally quite squeamish or easily upset, would not suit you no matter how suutable the job’s Career Elements are for your chart…

So I asked quite a few questions to C. about this topic and he got really upset at me. I didn’t really understand everything he wrote in his explanations of the concepts. On hindsight that’s probably because it was a load of metaphysical gibberish (as most occult sciences are) to a rational skeptic mind like mine. So in the end I said it all makes little sense to me. And I don’t really see the point in even using the Fengshui system to determine suitable careers for myself because basically it is a very gray and vague area. Very non-specific and hmm… Drove me nuts trying to understand it all. C. actually went on the offensive from the outright. Whoa… Why was he so mad? And now I realised he felt his career and the very stuff he was pushing were threatened by the nature of my questions, as he could not do anything other to admit in a wishy washy sort of way that well, there is no definite way of figuring out this sort of thing.

But I am glad this happened because it was the final straw that broke the proverbial camel’s back. I really needed to witness the farce that came from one of the self-proclaimed experts on the subject and the non-answer of my questions to finally say, “You know what? This whole Bazi Career thing is a crock of shit. It doesn’t really work. It is about as useful as a chocolate teapot for finding out one’s suitable careers.”

But lessons have to be learnt in life and for that, I guess this is where my life has led me.

So now hear me on this. If you really really want to figure out what the best career/job is for yourself, here are a few suggestions I can offer you – many of which are from legit career advise websites and discussion forums (non-occult ones, mind!) :

– Work with your natural atributes and aptitudes and preferences. Doing MBTI tests can often be a good start, followed by doing something like Dependable Strengths program to find out where your strengths and weaknesses lie, plus your natural preferences – because it is always ten times easier to work with your natural preferences than to go against the grain. Anyone can force themselves to get used to doing work that they are not naturally inclined towards, and even do it quite well, but they will never be as happy or fulfilled doing so than if they had done something in alignment with their natural preferences right?

– Come up with a shortlist of possible career matches, then see which one suits.

One thing to always bear in mind is that even if you found the perfect career for you, it’s still no good if you live in a place where there may be little to no job opportunities for that particular career path, and if you are stuck in that place and migrating to a country with those career opportunities is out of the question, you’d have to consider forgoing that career path.

So in short, there are very many factors that influence what your career path will be. And the fengshui bazi thing is such a tiny tiny part of that decision tree, if you ever decide to utilise it. And if you don’t utilise it, don’t worry. You are NOT going to be worse off for it. In fact I would hazard a guess you’ll actually save a lot more time, money and hassle by NOT using fengshui bazi methods to try and find your most suitable career.

Beautiful Tibetan couple’s wedding pictures

02 Saturday May 2015

Posted by A Dreamy Sparrow in Culture

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Tags

couple, tibetan, wedding photos

http://news.163.com/photoview/00AP0001/88095.html?from=ph_ss#p=AMRAJ6N000AP0001&from=tj_review

It’s very romanticised, yes I know. I think they look so good in their traditional dress and the pictures of them living as their ancestors would are just so beautiful. Of course, life was not easy in the kind of nomadic lifestyle their ancestors lived. Still, I think it’s a pity that lifestyle is lost. It’s good that the couple did not want to forget their roots though.

The strange case of ‘The Grateful Doe’

19 Monday Jan 2015

Posted by A Dreamy Sparrow in Culture, Thoughts

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Tags

reddit, websleuths

http://m.imgur.com/gallery/SorBO

This is quite a remarkable case. At first I’d read about this on the Daily Mail’s Facebook feed and I thought it strange the mother only reported her son missing 20 years later. Many people commented on Facebook saying the mother is doing so for ulterior motives or neglect of some sort. Not wanting to believe the general consensus, I decided to do a little bit of Googling myself and found this search result. Now that answers the question.

I’m also happy the folks at Websleuths helped piece together this mystery that led to the mother being able to report her son missing finally. Also, Reddit users helped too.

Reddit has often been implicated in many news reports. I do have a Reddit app on my phone which I use to view an occasional Reddit thread of interest. Now for some reason, I just never got on with Reddit. I’d signed up for an account, but when I wanted to log into it again, I forgot what username or password I chose before and have to sign up for another account again. This happened again and I kind of just gave up on Reddit. Well I gave up on being an active participator in the forums but I definitely lurk around sometimes if it’s something interesting to me.

Websleuths is just so much easier for me to use.

Over the years, I have met quite a few nice people at Websleuths myself and learnt a lot from participating in the forums and helping wherever I can. In another life, I would be a police detective. I’d love such a job.

Countries – Geert Hofstede

27 Thursday Nov 2014

Posted by A Dreamy Sparrow in Culture, Travel

≈ Leave a comment

Tags

geert hofstede, national culture

http://geert-hofstede.com/countries.html

I love travelling and learning about different cultures and languages. Found this just now and was surprised at how Geert Hofstede analysed different countries in terms of six dimensions, one of which is masculinity. It’s really interesting. You can compare countries too.

Insubstantial words | Monday Evening

22 Tuesday Jul 2014

Posted by A Dreamy Sparrow in Culture, Fashion, Spirituality

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Tags

tattoos

http://mondayevening.wordpress.com/2014/06/22/insubstantial-words/

As this article concludes : we shouldn’t judge people by appearances. That is true.

I’ve been contemplating getting a tattoo for a long time. Well over 20 years. The only reason I held back was because I was afraid of being passed over promotions at work or not passing interviews, or not being able to progress in my career as a result. But really I think the real reason was that I wasn’t sure why I had the urge to have a tattoo. Sure, I thought some tattoos are beautiful works of art. But I just wasn’t sure if at the time, it was just me being a rebellious young lady – because I was. And people I liked or looked up to didn’t have tattoos. Well, they didn’t seem to flash them even if they did have some discreet ones.

Fast forward to now. I’m in my mid 30s, and I have had no career to speak of for the past 12 years. Okay I have been a homeschooling mum… but I never really was the sort of hippie mum who wanted to homeschool from the start. I did it more out of necessity, as my eldest had a condition which meant she would never ever thrive or be happy in a school environment. Right from the start, when she was a baby, I had the feeling that school would be tricky for her, but I still went through the motions, hoping it would be nothing like what I suspected.

We tried putting her in school for about 4 years and when that all just culminated in a really horrible time for her, I decided enough was enough, and we never looked back. And she’s come on in leaps and bounds since, although at the sacrifice of my career. I have come to enjoy homeschooling and even view it as preferable to conventional schooling, although sometimes I do wonder what would have become of me had I not given up a career to do this.

I used to not be sure what sort of career or jobs were good for me. I tried many jobs, really did, but ultimately I feel really I am only happiest and more suited to a job in the arts. Maybe in caring professions as well. But not in corporate jobs or engineering or IT, or even food and beverage.

I guess some day, when my children are grown and my “career” as a homeschooling parent is over, I intend to go back to work and preferably in one of those professions I know I suit. And because I know now that tattoos are not as big an issue in these jobs (many of the people working in them seem to have tattoos these days)I feel that finally, I should just go get my first tattoo done.

But it has taken me so long to do this. I suppose it’s probably a good sign that I did take so long. When I was younger and trying different work environments and jobs out, I wasn’t certain if I was gonna be the type who could carve a career in banking or some other corporate industry, so I played it safe by not getting any tattoos. I know I could get a tattoo in places clothes would cover, but I always wanted a tattoo on my arm, and these will never be discreet.

I became a born-again Christian some time ago, and I did research this a lot. The Bible doesn’t specifically say anything about tattoos. Tattoos are more like a physical adornment, like jewellery or makeup, or even hairstyles. And if a Christian is going to be pulled up for having tattoos, then other Christians who are into dressing up, wearing earrings, makeup, etc. can also be pulled up for doing so, because it all comes from a desire to want to prettify oneself the way one likes. It is all the same to me.

I’ve always loved beautiful tattoo work. I know there are bad tattoo jobs out there, and I’m not gonna say all tattoos are beautiful. But I see this as a very important thing and I want to get it right, so I will be going to a good tattoo artist (and saving up the funds for this)to have good beautiful work done on my body.

I know how taboo tattoos can be. But to judge a person as a bad person because of the fact they have tattoos on their body? And especially as a Christian, I’ve learnt not to judge people like this.

The demonisation of immigrants

25 Monday Nov 2013

Posted by A Dreamy Sparrow in Culture, English, Research, Thoughts

≈ 2 Comments

Tags

asylum seekers, immigration, uk

Whenever there is a discussion on higher taxation and benefits cuts in UK, some people inevitably start blaming immigrants and asylum seekers for the UK’s current economic problems.

The fact is that the UK takes in fewer asylum seekers than the European average. Germany for instance, takes in more than twice as many asylum seekers than the UK. According to this BBC article published just a month ago, the UK is 4th in EU, below Germany, Sweden, Belgium and France, when it comes to the number of asylum seekers.

According to the Migration Observatory in the University of Oxford, in the year 2011, asylum seekers made up only 7% of the net migration here, and only 33%of asylum applications are granted. The UK received 0.41 asylum applicants per 1000 people in its population. This figure is below the European average of 0.65 asylum applicants per 1000 people in its population.

Many people are misunderstood about the types of financial assistance asylum seekers receive from the government as well as how long they are allowed to stay here. According to this website asylum seekers are not allowed to work while their applications are being assessed. They are only allowed to live on handouts, and their handouts are much lesser than what a local is entitled to.

Non-asylum immigrants who come here for jobs or to live with their spouses or families come here either on work/spousal/ancestry visas, or by way of EU (European Union) nationality. EU nationals are granted free movement and travel within all countries in the EU zone. EU nationals in fact, make up the majority of the immigrants in the UK.

As for non-EU immigrants in UK, their visas are by no means easy to obtain. Spousal visa applications and Indefinite Leave To Remain visas (there are no Permanent Residence visas here anymore) cost between £550 to £1500 in application fees alone, with no guarantee of the application being approved. Criteria is strict and stringent, as the government started cracking down on bogus marriages a few years ago, and applicants are required to send in copious amounts of paperwork and evidence of their eligibility to stay in the UK, as well as pass the Life In The UK test.

Since 2008, the UK introduced a points-based system to weed out all would-be economic immigrants who are considered unskilled. The UK only accepts immigrants who possess higher qualifications at degree level, higher-level work experience, are skilled in occupations on UK’s Skills Shortage List, have adequate mastery of the English language, and who have adequate funds to support their stay in UK. Apart from that, the government introduced an annual cap of 22,700 on the number of Tier 2 (General) visas that can be issued to skilled immigrant workers.

All non-EU immigrants here on any sort of visa are not allowed to claim any social welfare, which means any benefits, tax credits or social housing for example, are closed off to them. Their visas clearly state they have no recourse to any public funds. This is not some new rule. It’s been going on for a long time. At least the last 10 years.

As a result of many of these immigrant-curbing measures, net migration has been falling steadily for the past few years.

According to the Migrant Observatory in the University of Oxford, in 2011, foreign-born nationals made up 12.3% of the UK’s population, bearing in mind that asylum seekers only make up a tiny portion of this.

Are migrants really draining the UK’s economy and welfare budgets, despite their lessening numbers? A recent study by academics at University College of London says otherwise. Their figures suggest migrants contribute £25bn to the UK’s economy, and the article had the following more to say:

“Recent immigrants were 45% less likely to receive state benefits or tax credits than people native to the UK and 3% less likely to live in social housing… People from European Economic Area countries have been the most likely to make a positive contribution, paying about 34% more in taxes than they received in benefits over the 10 years from 2001 to 2011… Other immigrants paid about 2% more than they received.”

So if migrants are not the ones draining the welfare pockets, who are? The answer is less obvious. According to this article published in the Guardian 7 months ago the lion’s share of welfare money – around £90bn – went towards funding state pensions for the elderly. The next biggest welfare expenditure, roughly £50bn(i.e. about half of what went towards funding state pensions)went towards means-tested financial support for both the employed and the unemployed (in the form of tax credits, family benefits and income support, for example). The rest trailed behind in the chart, taking up far less welfare spending compared to the above two. Crucially, only about £5bn of welfare spending went towards Unemployment. Yes, contrary to the propaganda propagated by tabloid papers and politicians here, the unemployed are NOT the ones crippling the country’s welfare expenditure.

The unfortunate fact is that the elderly – the ones on state pensions – cost the most in terms of welfare expenditure. This makes sense, as the Baby Boomer generation continues to age but the poor economy is unable to keep up. These charts don’t even take into consideration the huge burden the aging population puts on the National Health Service – the UK’s state-managed social healthcare system, free at the point of service.

That said, research has shown that the NHS is a far more cost-effective healthcare system compared to the private healthcare/health insurance systems found in other countries. I hardly think the NHS should be scrapped in favour of privatisation, although my personal experience of the NHS has been a bit hit-and-miss. It is not a perfect system, and from my experience of living in countries where I had private medical insurance, I will say that the care I received from the NHS felt a bit basic, thought I’m sure the NHS was never set up to be the equivalent of private healthcare anyway. For a state social healthcare system that ensures people, no matter how poor, do not fall through the cracks, I think the NHS is good.

I don’t know what is the best solution to all this, and I certainly don’t want the elderly to suffer so we the young ‘uns can have an easier time. But if the country’s economy continues to stagnate or worsen, more and more people will be forced to rely on more means-tested financial support from the government, which is the second biggest welfare expenditure in this country. It doesn’t help that successive governments have been cutting more and more benefits, and raising taxes, rather than increasing financial support for those who need it.

Back then, Hitler blamed the Jews for all the economic problems Germany faced, and many Germans believed his propaganda. These days, we have the politicians blaming immigrants for draining our resources when they should know better that the true culprits are to be found elsewhere. Yet people are falling for this, blaming immigrants for the country’s ills.

There is no doubt that we live in rather difficult times, but as has been the case in bygone eras, immigrants/non-locals/”outsiders” seem to always end up getting the blame for the locals’ suffering.

Black Pete/Zwarte Piet : You know something is really wrong when the whole world is talking about it.

18 Monday Nov 2013

Posted by A Dreamy Sparrow in Culture, English, Racism

≈ 1 Comment

Tags

black Pete, Pete zwart, racist, tradition

It seems the media has been really having a go at the Dutch St. Nicholas / Zwarte Piet custom in recent times.

Last December, the Guardian did an article on the racist origins of this custom.

In October this year, the Independent ran a piece on this.

And now the heat’s going up as the BBC, Huffington Post UK, SBS news (Australia), France24, CS Monitor, The Daily Beast, Reuters, The Star (Canada), Deutsche Welle (Germany), Gulf Times (Qatar), just to name a few, have published articles about it within the last month.

The New York Times published a good article today about this as well. And earlier this month, the Economist also did so.

But some things have to be said. And no matter how the Dutch justify it, Black Pete / Zwarte Piet is a tradition that is racist in origin, even if most of them choose to celebrate it these days as a fun thing without bothering about Zwarte Pete’s origins. And from what I’ve seen so far, only the native Dutch will defend this tradition to the death and say it is not racist, even if it is apparent to most other nationalities that this is a racist and archaic practice.

The Dutch pride themselves on being tolerant and pragmatic people. And indeed, the Netherlands is a beautiful country, and not *all* Dutch people agree with the Zwarte Piet tradition, but in a survey conducted by pollster Maurice De Hond last month, an overwhelming 91% majority of a representative sample of Dutch people said the tradition should not be changed to ‘suit the tastes of a minority’.

So how can they get it so wrong on this one? Are traditions really worth defending no matter how wrong they seem in the modern context? In this case, I’d say that the British are more enlightened than the Dutch. At least the sale of golliwogs have been banned in England for some time, and most British people (except the minority) are of the opinion that golliwogs are racist emblems of the past and rightly so, have no place in modern civilised society.

Not all traditional customs are beautiful, and not all traditions need to be relived.

The Last Interview with Yellow Dogs Before Half of Them Died in a Murder-Suicide

12 Tuesday Nov 2013

Posted by A Dreamy Sparrow in Culture

≈ Leave a comment

Tags

dead, yellow dogs

Sad news.

http://www.vice.com/en_uk/read/the-last-interview-with-yellow-dogs-before-half-of-them-died-in-a-murder-suicide?utm_source=vicefb

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