Maggie And Me

One of the UK’s most controversial former Prime Ministers Margaret Thatcher passed away 8th April.

A recent UK television programme was discussing her life and contribution to politics, in this they questioned Gerry Adams Irish Sinn Féin politician. Mr Adams, funnily enough blamed old Maggie for the troubles Northern Ireland had experienced in the past.

Strange that; and there was me thinking that the IRA and Loyalist Paramilitaries were the cause of all that cowardly violence dished out to the innocent people residing in Northern Ireland, and those serving in the armed forces too!!

Well, guess history is definitely defined by the opinions of people, and if you are inclined to listen to Mr Adams, well, then he had no part to pay in the murders and bombing of Belfast, or those that took place in the UK either.

How quickly he forgets!!

Anyway, sad though it may be that the ‘Iron Lady’ has departed – her grip on the Government purse strings still lingers. UK tax payers are paying for her funeral, great!

So, I was wondering – where is my invite, as a tax payer??!!! Oh, and also, could the tax payer of the UK see fit to also foot the bill for my lavish funeral, when I need it, of course.

      

My Dress Is Not A Yes

The Slutwalk

‘My dress is not a yes’!! Chanted the thousands at London’s Slutwalk. What is a Slutwalk, well, they are demonstrations to reclaim the word slut to prevent it being used against women as a derogatory term, and female reaction over how some idiots from the male of the species treat them.

What sparked this new wave of female demonstrations? A comment made by a Canadian police officer during a health and safety talk to students; ‘Avoid dressing like sluts’ he told them, and this will supposedly be enough to prevent victimisation and rape.

Since this one comment thousands of women across the globe have taken to the streets outraged that; women wearing skimpy clothing = the right for men to abuse them.

It is quite strange that in today’s society where women are bombarded with images of sex and sexy from every media outlet available, that when they then succumb to what the media peddle, the world soon retaliates against them.

I thought sex and sexy was not to be questioned by people. I thought these images weren’t classed as offensive or shocking now?! Aren’t half naked women the norm for our society?

Well, apparently these images of female ‘sexuality’ can be criticised, but only when it is convenient to excuse a heinous act of vile violence that a man perpetrates; rape. Women wearing skimpy outfits then quickly become a target, their clothing magically converted into some green light for wannabe rapists. After all if a woman dresses for sex, she must want sex, lots of it and from any ‘Tom, Dick, or Harry’. WRONG!

Yet, a woman dresses sexy or provocatively to attract male attention, and entice sexual desire; surely that cannot be denied, otherwise why else reveal more flesh? Not necessarily so. Women are notorious for dressing to impress other women actually; and no not because they are lesbians, but because they want other women to envy what they are wearing or how they look.

So, when some men see a woman out and about, and these men feel inclined to make a sweeping generalisation that ‘she has to be looking for sex’ or by wearing that oh so tight dress ‘she is asking for it’; consider this, that is your assumption based on faulty logic produced by your testes.

That idea of a woman and what she wants are stereotypes built up in those men’s minds, therefore not based on truth or fact. Rape should not be the by product of any woman’s wardrobe choice; that act has no justification, regardless of how short a woman wears her skirt.

Truth is a woman should be able to walk around naked if she chose to and never fear being raped by some men who cannot control their own mind or bodies. Question; if these men can’t control their own mind or bodies then why are they being allowed to wander the streets alone, without supervision?

Yet there will always be some men who will always argue that if a woman wears such and such, and goes out to a club, and is out after a certain time at night, and flirts and drinks alcohol and goes against her nature by wanting lots of sex with many different men; well, then that woman cannot expect anything less than being raped.

Yet this notion is a double standard based on bigotry and chauvinism. In society women are supposed to be sexually liberated, available and willing, yet, if they are then they are sluts, they deserve to be raped. Women may lust after men, have sex, want sex and enjoy sex, they might not want babies or marriage and maybe they drink more than a small Sherry at Christmas, but rape is still rape!

Maybe it is the skewed version of society branded and sold so well by the media, marketing and advertising executives to blame. After all men and women live in a world dominated by sexualised imagery, which are meant to entice, inspire, motivate and of course brain wash us all.

So, within the real world there also exists a make believe fantasy version where images of submissive, permissive, eager to please and sexually in need women permeate through to us all. These images included the naked, half naked and dressed sexily. Surely then these images (man made too usually) are the visions of lust that fuel some men’s minds and beliefs about women, women’s roles and what women want? Especially when women are then encouraged to emulate these false images too.

So, it is once again a case for objectification. Some men being manipulated to see women as objects, sex objects, just a body or even part of a body; but never as a person, not real, not human, not someone to identify with who is more than mere sexual parts and desires, more than merely their sex.

Maybe this objectification creates rape?

Or maybe rape is about power, domination and control? It is an attack, someone exerting themselves over another to harm and create submission. Being attacked creates fear, receives a reaction, puts the victim in their place and shows them who is ‘boss’. Is this what rape is?

Rape has no excuse, not one and there is NO negotiation on the word NO. There are no arguments that can OK rape in any society; it is never justified, never.

For me if a person cannot understand the sentiment behind the non-ambiguous, simple enough two lettered word that is NO, then you shouldn’t be even engaging in any type of sexual intimacy These people obviously have missed some fundamental learning process that most of get loud and clear; NO means and always has meant NO, and sex without consent is RAPE!!!!

We Will Never Forget – Remembrance Day (Poppy Day or Armistice Day)

Remembrance Day is a memorial day observed in Britain since the end of World War 1.

The day remembers the members of the armed forces who have died in the line of duty. Remembrance Day is observed on the 11th of November to recall the end of hostilities of World War 1, on that date in 1918. Hostilities formally ended ‘at the 11th hour of the 11th day of the 11th month’, in accordance with the Armistice which was signed by representatives of Germany and the Entente that morning.

The red remembrance poppy has become an official emblem of Remembrance Day in Britain, partly due to the poem “In Flanders Fields”. The reason the poppy is so synonymous is because these flowers bloomed across the worst battlefields of Flanders in World War 1. Their hauntingly beautiful presence all too appropriate a symbol for the blood that was shed in these fields, and many others during the war. World War 1 was referred to as; ‘a war to end all wars’, such was the death toll and violence involved.

As British we honour our military dead from not only World War 1 & 2, but every other conflict where British troops have fought and fallen.

Two minutes of silence is held on Remembrance Day at the eleventh hour (11:00 a.m., 11 November). This time marks the moment (in the UK) when the armistice became effective. This two minutes is a mark of respect for the dead.

The First Two Minute Silence in London (11 November 1919) was reported in the Manchester Guardian on 12 November 1919:

‘The first stroke of eleven produced a magical effect. The tram cars glided into stillness, motors ceased to cough and fume, and stopped dead, and the mighty-limbed dray horses hunched back upon their loads and stopped also, seeming to do it of their own volition. Someone took off his hat, and with a nervous hesitancy the rest of the men bowed their heads also. Here and there an old soldier could be detected slipping unconsciously into the posture of ‘attention’. An elderly woman, not far away, wiped her eyes, and the man beside her looked white and stern. Everyone stood very still … The hush deepened. It had spread over the whole city and become so pronounced as to impress one with a sense of audibility. It was a silence which was almost pain … And the spirit of memory brooded over it all’.

The above extract still accurately portrays even to this day, how powerful the sentiment of the silence is, what is means to the country, and the effect is has over the people.

There is also traditionally a Service of Remembrance. The service includes the sounding of the “Last Post”, followed by the period of silence, followed by the sounding of “The Rouse”; ‘The Last Post’ is played as it was the common bugle call at the close of the military day, and the ‘Rouse’ was the first call of the morning. The service is ended by a recitation of the “Ode of Remembrance”, there are religious blessings given, and the playing of the national anthem also.

The central part of these services revolve around the many Cenotaphs (Greek for empty tomb) around the British Isles. Here during services wreaths are laid signalling the high honour bestowed on the fallen troops.

In Flanders Fields
By John McCrae, May 1915

In Flanders fields the poppies blow
Between the crosses, row on row,
That mark our place; and in the sky
The larks, still bravely singing, fly
Scarce heard amid the guns below.

We are the Dead. Short days ago
We lived, felt dawn, saw sunset glow,
Loved and were loved, and now we lie
In Flanders fields.

Take up our quarrel with the foe:
To you from failing hands we throw
The torch; be yours to hold it high.
If ye break faith with us who die
We shall not sleep, though poppies grow
In Flanders fields.

We Will Never Forget

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© Bex Houghagen and The Savvy Senorita, 2012. Unauthorized use and/or duplication of this material without express and written permission from this blog’s author and/or owner is strictly prohibited. Excerpts and links may be used, provided that full and clear credit is given to Bex Houghagen and The Savvy Senorita with appropriate and specific direction to the original content.

Some content thanks to wikipedia

Struggling To Make Ends Meet – Poverty in the 21st Century.

Ed Miliband (Leader of the Opposition Party), Boris Johnson (Mayor of London) and many others are now calling for, and indeed advocating the introduction of a living wage in the UK. What is this initiative? Well, it’s an hourly rate for working people, which is re-set each year to reflect the increases in costs of living. The rate of this living wage is based around what an employee requires to provide their family with the mere essentials of life.

The recommendations for these living wage rates are; £8.55 an hour in London and £7.45 an hour for the rest of the UK. Yet, these figures have already come under criticism for falling short of the real requirements of what workers need to survive.

Yet people are expected to now survive on a minimum wage. In comparison to the current minimum wage for those who are aged 21 and above, which is now a paltry £6.19 an hour; the figures above already prove a shortfall for the workforce. Most employers will only pay the minimum wage, regardless of the job, the duties and qualifications required. Cheap labour, exploitation and damn near slavery are what the UK work force is used to. With unemployment on the increase the employer ethos of ‘take it of leave it’ is never more powerful. People will put up with terrible wages and unfair working conditions or face unemployment. It isn’t exactly job satisfaction that keeps people working, inasmuch as sheer necessity. Workers in the UK are already being short changed of the basic requirements that are needed for them to actually live, so then how are they currently surviving without a living wage?

Well, when people don’t earn a living wage they have to work two jobs rather than one, get credit cards and loans merely to eat, and actually to travel to work! People are forced to live in poverty whilst actually working full time, their children aren’t eating properly, they can’t afford to heat their own homes and so and so on. What century is this anyway? Seems awfully analogous to something Dickensian.

Things have changed, relatively perhaps; but the premise remains the same.

So isn’t the living wage an answer to all those issues? Well, it is a fairer and more equitable option, where employees may actually feel they have value. Surely working people deserve to earn enough to live and participate in society, otherwise they might as well be outcasts. What are they working for exactly; and it isn’t just to pay taxes and pay bills (those days are, or I thought they were, over)! This isn’t a time of the landed gentry and farming peasants! People want to live a life! At the moment most people aren’t, so if the current minimum wage isn’t doing society justice then what are the issues with changing it?

Well, the UK Government are the issues. They aren’t sold on implementing a living wage, but crazily enough they are happy to provide benefits to subsidise low income families (those surviving off the minimum wage). In fact the amount of benefits being paid to those in work is on the increase! That means that society is already helping out low-paid employers, which to be honest really makes no sense. Doesn’t that outlay of benefits alone indicate that the wages are too low in comparison to the ever increasing cost of living and taxes? Why not then just solve the root of the issue instead of applying a sticking plaster that clearly doesn’t work; as people are still in poverty!

Yet, it isn’t merely about the cost of these benefits to the taxpayer; it’s about the cost of changing people’s work ethic. Actually demonstrating that is does pay to work. That people aren’t just working to pay the bills, and keep their heads just above the water line. That life isn’t all hard slog and little else; I mean isn’t that what the mill workers in 19th century thought about their lives? When will this working poverty and servitude ever change for the working people of the UK? It is a perpetual and entrenched vicious circle! What does society or the economy get out of such a system, nothing!

I thought we’d left the cotton mills behind?

For those who argue the UK couldn’t afford a living wage, that is somewhat naïve and morally wrong. What makes more sense; extra household debt (ethereal money that doesn’t really exist in the economy, and that no-one can afford to pay back), and money being given in benefits from taxes, or, money given in real wages whereby it can be properly invested into the economy?

I can see why this push for change is being blocked though; ordinary working folk could actually gain something rather than merely get less. I know; it’s a shocker and such an outrageous idea! How dare the ordinary people want more than merely working their hearts out for nothing other than paying their bills! What is the 21st century coming to?! Any new initiative meant to embetter a workers life comes up against opposition; the national minimum wage itself wasn’t looked upon favourably, neither were trade unions, equal pay, employee rights or the abolition of child labour, oh, and slavery.

How can a country prosper if their people don’t? Simple question, yet no one is willing to answer it!

Check out: http://www.livingwage.org.uk/

Copy Right Notice:
© Bex Houghagen and The Savvy Senorita, 2012. Unauthorized use and/or duplication of this material without express and written permission from this blog’s author and/or owner is strictly prohibited. Excerpts and links may be used, provided that full and clear credit is given to Bex Houghagen and The Savvy Senorita with appropriate and specific direction to the original content.

The Chicken And The Egg, Which Came First; Happiness OR Intelligence?

Which came first, intelligence or happiness?

According to UK research completed by University College London; lower intelligence will signify more unhappiness in life, those who display higher intelligence will be happier.

In a study comprising of 6,870 people; the participants who answered they were ‘very happy’, were those people with an IQ of 120 to 129. However, the highest proportion claiming they were ‘not too happy’ was found in people with an IQ of 70 to 79. People with lower intelligence were reporting that they felt significantly unhappy in their lives.

Has this study found a correlation between intelligence and happiness? Lower intelligence was linked to; lower incomes, worse health, worse  mental health, and more feelings of powerlessness to complete even mundane activities. Are these feelings only associated with lower intelligence, or is there more involved such as social status?

In my experience the higher the intelligence of the person the more issues they have with mental health and unhappiness. Over thinking life, struggling to fit in and be accepted, dealing with personal issues alone, pressures of work and family, and being more aware of themselves and others. How many famous people; artists, musicians, politicians have been unhappy enough with their lives to commit suicide? Were these acts a result of a deficit in intelligence?

How has the intelligence of the participants in this University College London study been measured? IQ tests have come under fire in the decades gone by for being culturally and language specific; ignoring and not inclusive of the vast sections of society, experiences, and different cultures. They also focus heavily on Mathematics; if you have no head for sums you won’t perform well.  What does an IQ test really prove?

What do you think about intelligence and happiness??? Are they reliant on one another or can you have one without the other?? What makes you happy? Is there a measure for this emotion? Is happiness a constant thing or fleeting? Is it your intelligence to blame for unhappiness?

Have a look at below link for further information:

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/health-19659985

Please leave your comments below, thanks 🙂

Copy Right Notice:
© Bex Houghagen and The Savvy Senorita, 2012. Unauthorized use and/or duplication of this material without express and written permission from this blog’s author and/or owner is strictly prohibited. Excerpts and links may be used, provided that full and clear credit is given to Bex Houghagen and The Savvy Senorita with appropriate and specific direction to the original content.