Not really listening

I'm not really paying that much attention to the political parties at the moment. It's not that I don't care. I guess it's that I feel tired of sitting through the same stuff basically over and over again. When Tony Blair and "New" Labour first came into power I was hopeful. I did notice that they didn't actually seem to do anything but was comforted a bit by the explanation that first and foremost was their commitment to paying off the national debt and therefore eventually having more money to spend in the country. I also felt hopeful that their election would mean a politically fairer and more tolerant country and that hope probably stopped me from being totally impartial.

I realise that they've had a difficult time to be in power too. I mean you have to take the reality of the moment into consideration too. It's not been an easy time nor is it going to be and I understand the difficulties in some ways. I understand that introducing social change too fast can cause problems, but it seems to me that that's one thing you can't accuse this government of doing.

I understand that they want to keep the voters with them too. Well, I certainly wouldn't want either of the other two parties in power at the moment. I tend to see Labour as the best of a bad set of choices.

But still, we're living in a country where the health system is just a mess. That's thinking about GPs, hospitals and dentists. The country is not in a good way is it. And it's like no one but the government is involved in treating the problems. Most people are just alienated from political life these days it appears.

Even with global warming. Well, yes, there is the Kyoto treaty but in this country the increased the amount of pollutants it's putting out into the atmosphere.

Geting flat ready

Just doing the last bits and pieces to get the flat ready for someone to come and see it. That'll be tomorrow. And all my things packed. Be gone in three to four weeks I guess. That's the focus for now. Just want to get there and get settled in because I've a lot of hard work to do once I get there. Not worried about it, just realizing that it's going to take up a lot of my time.

The Courier

Well, the apology to the care home is on the front page of this weeks Courier and there's a two page article on the treatment of dementia inside featuring the home. It's a good article and there's piccies of the garden furniture they bought with the money I gave them and the inside of one of the three OT huts that they bought too. One of the huts has a corner shop theme, the other a beach theme and there's still one to be put up.


It's also the only home in the area that deals with this kind of severe dementia and is important to the area as it gives people here the chance to be near their relatives and not to have to send them out of the area. The care there is very good and they, as was stated by relatives in the article, make a great deal of difference to the clients lives. When they've come from other places relatives have noticed the change for the better once the residents have settled in. People who previously were agitated and withdrawn can manage to relax enough to smile and speak again.

When the new owner took over a few years ago he had a task on his hands to get the home up and running. I don't think that it's any secret in the area that before he took it over three or so years ago it wasn't recommended. He quickly worked wonders and continues to do so with the help of the brilliant manager there and the caring staff.

I was sad that my relative eventually had to go there. I'd come up here to look after her while recovering myself. But, I'n glad she went there because she still had personal freedom as in far as it was possible and care and encouragement.

The guy who runs it employs more staff than he's legally obliged to as well.

I donated the money to them as a thankyou because I knew the difference it made for my relative to have the freedom they allowed her. It was hard for her being there as freedom was a big thing with her but she was so ill there was no choice, so many illnesses, Lewy bodies dementia just being one of them and in the end she had to have round the clock medical and supervised care. The last eighteen months of her life were very difficult indeed. It's only now looking back that I can sit down and think about just how dreadful it was for her. Before it was just trying to do what you could to allieviate some of the fear and to make the quality of her life as good as it could be in the circumstances. She died very peacefully in her sleep but those eighteen months and particularly the last twelve or so where very difficult and distressing indeed. She just had a number of illness that were appalling. I was here to support her and help her as much as I could.

So people were right to be frightened

When Bush senior sent troops Iraq some of the population supported him against Saddam. The US president decided to pull the troops out because of lessening support back home leaving those who had supported him in Iraq to be tortured and killed by Saddam's regieme.

Years later his son decided to invade Iraq to depose Saddam. He's advised to send twice the troops that he intends by military experts but ignores them. He's told that the troops he's sending will be enough to depose Saddam but that there aren't enough military personel to protect the peace once Saddam has gone.

A lot of the soldiers that go know the score. When the troops get into Iraq a number of the population voice their shock at the number of troops Bush has sent. Some wonder what he's doing and remembering back to his father's actions decide not to get involved because they fear reprisals when things go wrong.




So, what has happened. Well, things have gone as forecast by the experts and known by a lot of the military and the Iraqi people. There weren't enough troops to begin to deal with the situation in Iraq after Saddam and his political party had been overthrown. The situation in Iraq is now more dangerous on day to day basis for the people than before the invasion.



Bush was told by military advisors in his own country that this is what would happen if he didn't send in enough military.

Unknown

I was talking to someone locally the other day who said that they weren't afraid of dying at all and infact looked forward to it because they believed that it would be a time of peace.

I'd have to have a brain transplant I guess to be able to believe anything about anything supernatural (belief in the unknown) wholly. I do believe now though that there are things going on that I don't understand at all because I don't have the knowledge or developed senses to understand what they are. And I'm aware that if there is existance after death and this is some kind of awareness development thing or something that you wouldn't get to know would you because it would rather give the game away. It's possible you wouldn't learn a thing because you'd know what was expected of you.


I have to say before I had the strange meeting myself experience I had been looking at my Buddhist lotus dangling ornament and had been thinking that I'd like to change some of my personality. It was a few days before I think. It's not the first time something like this has happened though the last time it didn't involve any artefacts and had been just just general thinking about something. Going by that experience I might have known if anything was going to come from it that it wasn't going to be easy. Thinks back to one of the most traumatic experiences of my life.

I do certainly believe now that there is something beyond what is the obvious. But will not go any further than that even though I think about things in a more complicated and accepting way at times but I always realise that whatever happens it doesn't really point to anything absolute.

I have been wondering (very sightly) about reincarnation. Wondering if there could possibly be anything in it and wondering if it could be inter species if it does exist. I've hardly thought about it at all, it's just something that briefly crossed my mind.

I hope that if it does I never have to go through here again.

Flippin' heck.

The Independent

http://news.independent.co.uk/world/science_technology/article312997.ece


Guess the article will only be on line for today as it's been there a couple of days already and most Independent articles are only free for three days.


You just have to ask why things have ever got to this stage. It's not as if it's not been obvious for quite a while what's happening. But, still this is where we are. It's not good and added to the fact that the earth is now releasing extra carbon into the atmosphere because of higher temperatures it's not a pleasant situation.

Still there has to be an atmosphere where damage limitation is the goal, doesn't there. It's been apparent for quite a while too that damage limitation is the reality of the situation, global warming/climate change has been here for a long time now.

I just find it sad that recently scientists have been coming out to slam ecologists and people they see as environmentalists for no reason at all it appeared other than to put them down, a sort of ego exercise rather than anything else. I'm not going to make a blanket statement because I know there are good scientists out there but one reason I think that some scientists have been barking up the wrong tree is that because of the way they work they just concentrate on small areas of science at a time or in some cases, all the time. Ecologists and environmentalists while not specialising in the minutae of various specialities, though interested in and aware of them, tend to look at the planet as a whole for most of the time.

But damage limitation is all it is now. I have no idea what's going to happen though some of the effects of the ice meltdown are easy to predict, the rest I wouldn't even try. I knew that there were going to be surprises because predicting totally accurately what so many different changes were going to bring about to the whole of the ecosystem was just impossible. It could not be done, somethings would vary from what was predicted. But the fact that all this is going to bring great changes has to be accurate. But what they're going to be in total, who knows.

It would be nice to see people publically interested. There are still a few eco protesters on the continent, not many, but a few. I'd've thought that people would be interested, both in following and understanding what is going on, and publically making their knowledge and hopes for change known. Hoping that it's all being taken care of is rather a forelorn hope sadly because ecology is not popular. Too hippyish for the present culture, and hippy in this culture has not been seen, strangely enough given the situation, a good thing to be.

Still, there you go.