On one of the social networking sites where I hang out, they've introduced a "report abuse" feature for comments on posts. Yesterday I saw a post by someone trying to be helpful and to explain this new feature to others, saying they should report it if they see "naughty" comments, and later, when asked about what he had meant by that, he said he had used the word "naughty" to refer to "anything that a person would not like to see in a comment."
I'm seriously hoping he didn't really mean that. Taken literally, I could report his comment on that basis: I really would not like to see people suggesting that people should report others for saying things simply on the grounds that it's something they'd rather not see.
But this got me thinking: what would it be ok to report people for?
It's very easy to say: report comments which are racist, sexist, hateful. It's easy to say that, because this is what western culture currently says is unacceptable. Just as there were times when racism was the social norm, but blaspheming against God could get you burned at the stake. (Which seems to me a blasphemy against God, but that's another story.)
It's also very easy for me to say this because I'm a woman and I'm Jewish, so racism and sexism are serious issues for me personally.
But here's the problem: I want the freedom to express myself, to say what I think without someone forcing me to shut up. And this means I have to give that freedom also to those who would say things that offend me.
Sure, there are things I hear (or read) which offend me and personally I'd rather people didn't say. Like I said, I'm a woman and I'm Jewish, so I get offended by some stuff that objectifies women and I get offended by negative stereotyping of Jews; I'm an Israeli, so I get offended by some of the stuff I hear said about my country; I'm a follower of Jesus, so I get offended by anti-God stuff and by... hang on a minute, this is where it gets kind of interesting...
You see, as a follower of Jesus I get offended not just by vile things people say about Jesus or about his followers - as a follower of Jesus I get offended by unloving attitudes that people show towards one another, and I get particularly angry when these attitudes come from people who claim to be Christians. When I hear people spewing hatred towards a group of people and claiming to do so in the name of God, to me this is blasphemy.
But back to what I was saying before: there are things which offend me and personally I'd rather people didn't say them. But there's a major difference between saying "personally I'd rather you didn't" and saying "thou shalt not". You see, there are things I say that offend other people, and just as I don't want someone to force me to shut up, I don't want to force others to shut up either.
Some of those who read my posts over there may at this point say: so why did you yell so loudly about those boob pictures? and I will say again: there's a major difference between saying "personally I'd rather you didn't" and saying "thou shalt not" - I won't tell you not to, but just as you have the right to post things that offend me, I have the right to point out that they do offend me. And, once you know I'm offended, you might or might not change your behaviour as a result - it's up to you: there is no automatic "someone is offended by X, therefore I mustn't say X" - human discourse is such that as soon as we open our mouths we may offend someone somewhere, and we won't get very far with debate if causing offence would automatically make us shut up. I blog about my faith knowing that what I say is offensive to lots of people - being a Jewish believer in Jesus is something that some would prefer to sweep under the carpet and pretend there's no such thing. And saying that I believe Jesus is the only way to God - that is obviously offensive to people who believe in other ways. But this is what I strongly believe, and it's important to me to talk about it openly.
So, just as I value the freedom to say things that are offensive to others, I will fight for the right of others to say things that are offensive to me.
p.s. I do, however, reserve the right to moderate comments on my own posts - my focus here was on what people say on their own or on other people's posts (or what they say offline). Still, I don't often remove comments, it's not a decision I take lightly, and certainly not just on the grounds of the content being offensive to me personally.
Showing posts with label rants. Show all posts
Showing posts with label rants. Show all posts
23 Sept 2011
21 May 2011
No, we can't
Dear Mr Obama,
I'm an Israeli and, like the majority of Israelis, I have longed for peace for as long as I've lived. The idea that one day we'll be able to just live normal life without people getting killed when they're going to work or doing their shopping or sitting at a café - that is a dream we have been dreaming ever since the State of Israel came into being.
No, that's not true. We've been dreaming that dream for a lot longer. We dreamt that dream whilst being persecuted in a whole load of different countries - we got persecuted in one place so we packed our bags and went elsewhere, hoping that in that place we might be allowed to live in peace. We dreamt that dream when we started to go back to our land, and when Britain promised us a home on that land, and when the world - the League of Nations at the time - gave Britain a mandate to look after our land as a temporary measure and help make this dream happen.
Britain let us down. It took part of our land and gave it to the Arabs, so the territory available for that promised home shrank into a tiny little bit of land. I'm sure you've seen the map plenty of times and you know the size of Jordan as compared to the tiny size of Israel even including the disputed territories which we took back in 1967 and which you want us to now "give back" - as though we'd taken them from their rightful owners! Those disputed territories were never under Palestinian sovereignty - and I can't help wondering how come nobody seemed to contest Jordan's occupation of that area between 1949 and 1967. How come the world did not put pressure on Jordan to give that land to the Palestinians? How come the oil-rich Arab countries did not bother to rehouse these people and left them in refugee camps for almost twenty years?
But for some reason when Israel took it back (and yes, I say "took it back" because it was originally part of our land) the world's perception started to change, and now you are telling us we should go back to the so-called 1967 borders (they weren't borders, they were armistice lines, but that's another story) and I wonder:
Leaving aside for the moment the question of who has more right to that piece of land - because from where I'm looking, and many in my country see it that way, if giving up some of our land would earn us real peace then that's worth it - so leaving aside the question of whose land it really is anyway, here's my question:
What on earth makes you think that we will have peace if we give up those disputed territories and return to the so-called 1967 borders? We didn't have peace in the almost 20 years up to 1967 when the State of Israel existed within the 1949 armistice lines, and these disputed territories were under Jordanian rule. The Arabs kept attacking us during that time. What on earth makes you think that they'll stop attacking us now if we simply go back to how it was then?
There may be some Palestinians who promise they will and actually mean it. I don't know - I can't see inside other people's heads. But what I do know is that there are those who have declared openly that they have no intention of ever stopping as long as we are holding on to one shred of what they regard as "the whole of Palestine" and what we call the Land of Israel. As far as Hamas is concerned, even Tel Aviv is "occupied territory". They have shown absolutely zero inclination towards compromise. Do you really think that if we give them an inch they will not demand the whole mile?
I used to be young and naive and believed that if only we gave the Palestinians a land of their own, all would be well - we could get our dream, we could live side by side in peace and harmony. But looking at history, I can't back up that optimism. Looking at 1948, when the State of Israel was founded on the part of our land which the UN had decided to grant us - the UN had given the Palestinians part of the land, but they said no. They could have had an independent state all this time if they had really wanted to, but instead they chose to believe their Arab brothers who promised to wipe us off the map so that they could have the whole of the land to themselves. Thank God, that plan did not work out and we are alive to tell the tale. But the attempts to wipe us off the map have not ceased, and there is no sign that they're likely to ever stop until the day Jesus comes back and sorts the whole world out.
So in the meantime, we have to do what we can to survive. Because we have nowhere else to go. And without a realistic hope that halving our territory again would bring peace, I don't think we can afford to do that.
I said in the title "no, we can't" and of course it's a play on words, based on your own slogan. But seriously, what I mean is: no, we can't afford to do what you say; and also: no, we can't make peace happen, despite our deep desire and longing for it - not as long as there are people like Hamas around, who are intent on destroying us completely. We long for peace, and we have shown willingness to pay a price for it in terms of giving up land - but there are those who will not settle for just some land, they want it all, and they want us out of there. And we have nowhere else to go.
I'm an Israeli and, like the majority of Israelis, I have longed for peace for as long as I've lived. The idea that one day we'll be able to just live normal life without people getting killed when they're going to work or doing their shopping or sitting at a café - that is a dream we have been dreaming ever since the State of Israel came into being.
No, that's not true. We've been dreaming that dream for a lot longer. We dreamt that dream whilst being persecuted in a whole load of different countries - we got persecuted in one place so we packed our bags and went elsewhere, hoping that in that place we might be allowed to live in peace. We dreamt that dream when we started to go back to our land, and when Britain promised us a home on that land, and when the world - the League of Nations at the time - gave Britain a mandate to look after our land as a temporary measure and help make this dream happen.
Britain let us down. It took part of our land and gave it to the Arabs, so the territory available for that promised home shrank into a tiny little bit of land. I'm sure you've seen the map plenty of times and you know the size of Jordan as compared to the tiny size of Israel even including the disputed territories which we took back in 1967 and which you want us to now "give back" - as though we'd taken them from their rightful owners! Those disputed territories were never under Palestinian sovereignty - and I can't help wondering how come nobody seemed to contest Jordan's occupation of that area between 1949 and 1967. How come the world did not put pressure on Jordan to give that land to the Palestinians? How come the oil-rich Arab countries did not bother to rehouse these people and left them in refugee camps for almost twenty years?
But for some reason when Israel took it back (and yes, I say "took it back" because it was originally part of our land) the world's perception started to change, and now you are telling us we should go back to the so-called 1967 borders (they weren't borders, they were armistice lines, but that's another story) and I wonder:
Leaving aside for the moment the question of who has more right to that piece of land - because from where I'm looking, and many in my country see it that way, if giving up some of our land would earn us real peace then that's worth it - so leaving aside the question of whose land it really is anyway, here's my question:
What on earth makes you think that we will have peace if we give up those disputed territories and return to the so-called 1967 borders? We didn't have peace in the almost 20 years up to 1967 when the State of Israel existed within the 1949 armistice lines, and these disputed territories were under Jordanian rule. The Arabs kept attacking us during that time. What on earth makes you think that they'll stop attacking us now if we simply go back to how it was then?
There may be some Palestinians who promise they will and actually mean it. I don't know - I can't see inside other people's heads. But what I do know is that there are those who have declared openly that they have no intention of ever stopping as long as we are holding on to one shred of what they regard as "the whole of Palestine" and what we call the Land of Israel. As far as Hamas is concerned, even Tel Aviv is "occupied territory". They have shown absolutely zero inclination towards compromise. Do you really think that if we give them an inch they will not demand the whole mile?
I used to be young and naive and believed that if only we gave the Palestinians a land of their own, all would be well - we could get our dream, we could live side by side in peace and harmony. But looking at history, I can't back up that optimism. Looking at 1948, when the State of Israel was founded on the part of our land which the UN had decided to grant us - the UN had given the Palestinians part of the land, but they said no. They could have had an independent state all this time if they had really wanted to, but instead they chose to believe their Arab brothers who promised to wipe us off the map so that they could have the whole of the land to themselves. Thank God, that plan did not work out and we are alive to tell the tale. But the attempts to wipe us off the map have not ceased, and there is no sign that they're likely to ever stop until the day Jesus comes back and sorts the whole world out.
So in the meantime, we have to do what we can to survive. Because we have nowhere else to go. And without a realistic hope that halving our territory again would bring peace, I don't think we can afford to do that.
I said in the title "no, we can't" and of course it's a play on words, based on your own slogan. But seriously, what I mean is: no, we can't afford to do what you say; and also: no, we can't make peace happen, despite our deep desire and longing for it - not as long as there are people like Hamas around, who are intent on destroying us completely. We long for peace, and we have shown willingness to pay a price for it in terms of giving up land - but there are those who will not settle for just some land, they want it all, and they want us out of there. And we have nowhere else to go.
27 Oct 2010
the clear English award...
does not go this year to HM Revenue & Customs (that's the tax authorities here in the UK) for their "How to fill in your Short Tax Return" guide, which had my head spinning whilst staring at one paragraph in particular.
(Note: the "did you start" in the heading refers to when it was that I started to be self-employed - I started in November 2007 and therefore this paragraph applies to me; the british tax year runs from 6 April to 5 April and the tax return I'm having to complete now is for the year to 5 April 2010.)
here's what they say - clear as mud...
(Note: the "did you start" in the heading refers to when it was that I started to be self-employed - I started in November 2007 and therefore this paragraph applies to me; the british tax year runs from 6 April to 5 April and the tax return I'm having to complete now is for the year to 5 April 2010.)
here's what they say - clear as mud...
Did you start between 6 April 2007 and 5 April 2008?I did eventually manage to understand what I'm supposed to do (I think) but I could have had more hair left on my head if they'd have actually written this thing in English in the first place.
If you made up your first books to a date before 5 April 2009, put in boxes 3.7 to 3.10 (or 3.11) the figures for the year beginning on the day after your last end of year date, and ending on the end of year date between 6 April 2009 and 5 April 2010.
If you made up your first books to a date after 5 April 2009, you cannot use this form.
11 Oct 2010
so fed up with all this "93% won't" nonsense!
once again I get an email supporting a good cause but absolutely doing my head in with the emotional blackmail that's added in: 93% of people won't forward this... will you be one of those who... yada yada
if only they didn't include this rubbish, I might have actually read the whole thing, and who knows, I might even have chosen to forward the email. but I'm afraid I get so annoyed when I see these things that I just press Delete.
maybe this is why 93% won't forward it? because 93% are fed up to the back teeth with the amount of emotional blackmail they get from their friends on the email? (not to mention all those facebook status update things.)
how about a slightly more respectful approach? how about emailing and saying: you know, there's this cause which I feel is important, I wonder if you'd like to support it to by forwarding the email to others? I wonder what percentage of people would rise to that...
if only they didn't include this rubbish, I might have actually read the whole thing, and who knows, I might even have chosen to forward the email. but I'm afraid I get so annoyed when I see these things that I just press Delete.
maybe this is why 93% won't forward it? because 93% are fed up to the back teeth with the amount of emotional blackmail they get from their friends on the email? (not to mention all those facebook status update things.)
how about a slightly more respectful approach? how about emailing and saying: you know, there's this cause which I feel is important, I wonder if you'd like to support it to by forwarding the email to others? I wonder what percentage of people would rise to that...
5 Oct 2010
come back logic, all is forgiven
Again and again I see this stuff in blogs and in replies to blogs: people saying there's no such thing as absolute truth, there's what's true for you and what's true for me... and I find myself imagining this scene:
I want to know what drugs everybody has been taking.
And I sure hope what I bought in that 4-pint container this afternoon doesn't turn out to be strawberry ice cream, because it won't go that well with my muesli in the morning.
I'm in the supermarket, standing in the milk aisle, looking at the milk. I can see blue top milk and green top milk, I can see two-pint containers and four-pint containers and one-pint containers of milk.A man standing next to me says: hey, you want to say it's milk - that's cool. if that's what makes you happy, you go on thinking it's milk. that's your truth. me - I see it as strawberry ice cream. that's my truth.
Another guy comes along and says: that's fine, that's your truth, as long as it makes you happy... to me this is the Eiffel Tower.
I want to know what drugs everybody has been taking.
And I sure hope what I bought in that 4-pint container this afternoon doesn't turn out to be strawberry ice cream, because it won't go that well with my muesli in the morning.
30 Jun 2010
so, why don't I feel like forwarding an email with such a great story
This is one I've seen before, it's about a brave woman called Irena Sendler, who saved Jewish children in Nazi-occupied Poland and paid a high price when she was caught.
And I checked it on Snopes and it's true. A true story about a brave woman - what's not to like?
So why was I feeling uneasy? I read the Snopes entry and pondered a bit. The one thing that Snopes say they can't verify is whether or not it's true that she was nominated for the 2007 Nobel Peace Prize, because that information is not actually publicly available. So this claim is possibly true but we can't know for sure.
And I checked it on Snopes and it's true. A true story about a brave woman - what's not to like?
So why was I feeling uneasy? I read the Snopes entry and pondered a bit. The one thing that Snopes say they can't verify is whether or not it's true that she was nominated for the 2007 Nobel Peace Prize, because that information is not actually publicly available. So this claim is possibly true but we can't know for sure.
Snopes also quote a statement from the International Federation of Social Workers, who expressed disappointment that she didn't get this prize. With that I have no problem - anyone is entitled to express disappointment with a result that they're not happy with.
Here's what I'm not comfortable with in the email that's being circulated:
Here's what I'm not comfortable with in the email that's being circulated:
Last year Irena was up for the Nobel Peace Prize.
She was not selected.
Al Gore won --- for a slide show on Global Warming.
The implication being: aren't those people terrible, to award the prize to that man for such a piddly thing instead of giving it to this wonderful brave woman.
Now, I'm not particularly an Al Gore fan, and I'm not quite convinced about the Global Warming theory, but I don't like the way his efforts are made fun of by calling his movie "a slide show", and more importantly, I don't like the way this value judgement is being tied in with the whole thing, so that people will feel like they really ought to forward this email because Irena Sendler was such an amazing woman, and thus they're being manipulated into signing up for this value judgement about Al Gore at the same time - if you want to honour this woman, can't you do it without rubbishing another human being who is, whether you agree with him or not, trying to do something for stuff he believes is important?
It's this mixing of different issues that I don't like, bringing the Al Gore issue in through the back door so you don't notice because your eyes are too moist from thinking of this brave woman's sacrifice - I don't think that's actually honouring to her memory.
(and being a nitpicker I can't fail to notice that it says this Nobel prize thing happened "last year" - which means this story has been circulating on the email since 2008.) (lesson no.37: don't believe everything you read on the email, but most importantly do not trust what they say about how long ago stuff happened.)
Now, I'm not particularly an Al Gore fan, and I'm not quite convinced about the Global Warming theory, but I don't like the way his efforts are made fun of by calling his movie "a slide show", and more importantly, I don't like the way this value judgement is being tied in with the whole thing, so that people will feel like they really ought to forward this email because Irena Sendler was such an amazing woman, and thus they're being manipulated into signing up for this value judgement about Al Gore at the same time - if you want to honour this woman, can't you do it without rubbishing another human being who is, whether you agree with him or not, trying to do something for stuff he believes is important?
It's this mixing of different issues that I don't like, bringing the Al Gore issue in through the back door so you don't notice because your eyes are too moist from thinking of this brave woman's sacrifice - I don't think that's actually honouring to her memory.
(and being a nitpicker I can't fail to notice that it says this Nobel prize thing happened "last year" - which means this story has been circulating on the email since 2008.) (lesson no.37: don't believe everything you read on the email, but most importantly do not trust what they say about how long ago stuff happened.)
29 Mar 2010
*sigh* Where does he get this from???
Apparently the current President of the USA thinks the message of the story of the Exodus is that "wherever we live, there is oppression to be fought and freedom to be won." He further said, "In retelling this story from generation to generation, we are reminded of our ongoing responsibility to fight against all forms of suffering and discrimination." [quoted from this newspaper article]
Now, don't get me wrong, I am not for one minute trying to say that there's anything wrong with fighting against suffering and oppression.
What irks me is the feeling that such an amazing and special story is being hijacked, being used to promote a message that simply is not there in the text. Last night we sat and told the story, and I'm sorry but whichever way I look at it, I do not see how it is about the responsibility of human beings to fight against suffering/oppression/whatever. It is not a story of a rebellion, of a human fight for freedom. It is the story of a bunch of people who were severely oppressed and were amazingly, spectacularly, miraculously, rescued by God himself!
I can certainly see more than one point in this story, more than one message. There is the message about God's faithfulness - he remembers his covenant with Abraham, Issac and Jacob and he comes to rescue his people. There is a message about God's almighty power, which could be paraphrased as: don't mess with God! If he's fighting for you, you're in a very safe place, but if he's fighting against you - you don't stand a chance. (This can be a bit uncomfortable for those who like to think of God as merely a cuddly daddy-type who invites you to sit on his lap and gives you presents and says "there, there" a lot.) And of course I see the theme of being saved through the blood of a faultless lamb - a theme which was pointing to what was then the future, to the coming of the Messiah who was to be sacrificed so that all may go free through his blood.
And it is because I see such important themes in this story that I got so cross when I read about Obama's interpretation. It devalues the whole thing. It takes a story of God's awesomeness and turns it into a speech about human values. Yes, these are good values - and I believe God does want to see everyone set free. But that's not what Passover is about - it's not about human beings fighting for freedom, it is about human beings receiving freedom, won by God himself and handed to them on a plate. For the Israelites at the time it was freedom from the Egyptians - won for them by God and all they had to do was accept it, by smearing the blood of the lamb on their doorposts. And the clues about what was then the future arrival of the Messiah - again, they are about God himself winning freedom for humankind (this time for all humankind, not just the Israelites), and all we have to do is accept the blood sacrifice of the faultless Lamb of God, the Messiah, Jesus.
Please, let's not confuse freedom fighters (commendable as they may be) with freedom-receivers.
Oh give thanks to the LORD.
Now, don't get me wrong, I am not for one minute trying to say that there's anything wrong with fighting against suffering and oppression.
What irks me is the feeling that such an amazing and special story is being hijacked, being used to promote a message that simply is not there in the text. Last night we sat and told the story, and I'm sorry but whichever way I look at it, I do not see how it is about the responsibility of human beings to fight against suffering/oppression/whatever. It is not a story of a rebellion, of a human fight for freedom. It is the story of a bunch of people who were severely oppressed and were amazingly, spectacularly, miraculously, rescued by God himself!
I can certainly see more than one point in this story, more than one message. There is the message about God's faithfulness - he remembers his covenant with Abraham, Issac and Jacob and he comes to rescue his people. There is a message about God's almighty power, which could be paraphrased as: don't mess with God! If he's fighting for you, you're in a very safe place, but if he's fighting against you - you don't stand a chance. (This can be a bit uncomfortable for those who like to think of God as merely a cuddly daddy-type who invites you to sit on his lap and gives you presents and says "there, there" a lot.) And of course I see the theme of being saved through the blood of a faultless lamb - a theme which was pointing to what was then the future, to the coming of the Messiah who was to be sacrificed so that all may go free through his blood.
And it is because I see such important themes in this story that I got so cross when I read about Obama's interpretation. It devalues the whole thing. It takes a story of God's awesomeness and turns it into a speech about human values. Yes, these are good values - and I believe God does want to see everyone set free. But that's not what Passover is about - it's not about human beings fighting for freedom, it is about human beings receiving freedom, won by God himself and handed to them on a plate. For the Israelites at the time it was freedom from the Egyptians - won for them by God and all they had to do was accept it, by smearing the blood of the lamb on their doorposts. And the clues about what was then the future arrival of the Messiah - again, they are about God himself winning freedom for humankind (this time for all humankind, not just the Israelites), and all we have to do is accept the blood sacrifice of the faultless Lamb of God, the Messiah, Jesus.
Please, let's not confuse freedom fighters (commendable as they may be) with freedom-receivers.
Oh give thanks to the LORD.
18 Mar 2010
"If you like"
Grrrrr...
Got an email from Shelfari with book recommendations. Nice of them, you might say. It would be if they had actually used the information they hold to provide me with relevant recommendations - like when I log onto Amazon I get recommendations based on books I've bought, said I own, showed an interest in... that makes sense. But Shelfari, who have records of books I own, books I've read, books I've marked as favourites, books I've given x number of stars to, etc... Shelfari don't seem to have made any attempt to access that information and use it. So their email lists a whole load of books I've never heard of by authors I've never heard of, each under the heading of "if you like XYZ, you might also like: ................." when XYZ is a book I've mostly never heard of...
oh, there's one exception, it's the bit where they say "if you liked Catcher in the Rye by J.D. Salinger, you might also like To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee," which is interesting as (a) I really don't remember if I liked Catcher in the Rye and even if I did like it when I read it probably about three decades ago, I have absolutely no idea if I'd like it now; but, more importantly, (b) To Kill a Mockingbird is a book I've actually listed on Shelfari as a book I've read! (and that book I actually remember liking very much)
So, big brother ain't doing all that well :)
Got an email from Shelfari with book recommendations. Nice of them, you might say. It would be if they had actually used the information they hold to provide me with relevant recommendations - like when I log onto Amazon I get recommendations based on books I've bought, said I own, showed an interest in... that makes sense. But Shelfari, who have records of books I own, books I've read, books I've marked as favourites, books I've given x number of stars to, etc... Shelfari don't seem to have made any attempt to access that information and use it. So their email lists a whole load of books I've never heard of by authors I've never heard of, each under the heading of "if you like XYZ, you might also like: ................." when XYZ is a book I've mostly never heard of...
oh, there's one exception, it's the bit where they say "if you liked Catcher in the Rye by J.D. Salinger, you might also like To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee," which is interesting as (a) I really don't remember if I liked Catcher in the Rye and even if I did like it when I read it probably about three decades ago, I have absolutely no idea if I'd like it now; but, more importantly, (b) To Kill a Mockingbird is a book I've actually listed on Shelfari as a book I've read! (and that book I actually remember liking very much)
So, big brother ain't doing all that well :)
14 Mar 2010
Is it just me?
Like everyone else, I get these emails now and again - words of wisdom on pretty backgrounds, sometimes even a powerpoint presentation with beautiful music... but are these really words of wisdom? is it just me that picks the nits, that wants to edit before passing it on, and often doesn't pass it on?
is it just me that wonders: would these words seem so wise and profound if they didn't come with beautiful pictures? if this is really true, does it need to be packaged like this?
I'm not saying it's all wrong. Far from it - a lot of it is good and true. But I feel it's presented in a way that is meant to distract us from thinking about whether or not it's true. I feel the pictures and the music are there to lull us into a kind of passive listening and absorbing, unquestioning, unthinking. I feel we're being discouraged from thinking critically about what is on the screen in front of us, from weighing up the words and seeing for ourselves whether we agree with them or not.
And I feel even more strongly about the video being circulated now, titled "The Interview With God" - how dare anyone put words into God's mouth in this way? Yes, some of the words are good. In fact, I'd go as far as to say that most of them are true. But dressing it up as though God himself would say this - sorry, that's unbelievably presumptuous! and to suggest that when God is asked at the end of the interview what else he would like his children to know, that all God says is, "Just know that I am here. Always." - sorry, is that really it? God as our loving, gracious father who just smiles and wants us to know he's always here? Is this why he bothered to give us, for example, the Ten Commandments? Is this why there's all that stuff in the Bible about God's wrath, about the need to repent and turn to Jesus so we can escape God's just punishment? I'm sorry, I don't buy into this. It's nice, it's pretty, but it's not the whole picture. It's a sanitised and heavily-edited version of what the real interview would be like.
Okay, I've got it off my chest now.
is it just me that wonders: would these words seem so wise and profound if they didn't come with beautiful pictures? if this is really true, does it need to be packaged like this?
I'm not saying it's all wrong. Far from it - a lot of it is good and true. But I feel it's presented in a way that is meant to distract us from thinking about whether or not it's true. I feel the pictures and the music are there to lull us into a kind of passive listening and absorbing, unquestioning, unthinking. I feel we're being discouraged from thinking critically about what is on the screen in front of us, from weighing up the words and seeing for ourselves whether we agree with them or not.
And I feel even more strongly about the video being circulated now, titled "The Interview With God" - how dare anyone put words into God's mouth in this way? Yes, some of the words are good. In fact, I'd go as far as to say that most of them are true. But dressing it up as though God himself would say this - sorry, that's unbelievably presumptuous! and to suggest that when God is asked at the end of the interview what else he would like his children to know, that all God says is, "Just know that I am here. Always." - sorry, is that really it? God as our loving, gracious father who just smiles and wants us to know he's always here? Is this why he bothered to give us, for example, the Ten Commandments? Is this why there's all that stuff in the Bible about God's wrath, about the need to repent and turn to Jesus so we can escape God's just punishment? I'm sorry, I don't buy into this. It's nice, it's pretty, but it's not the whole picture. It's a sanitised and heavily-edited version of what the real interview would be like.
Okay, I've got it off my chest now.
26 Dec 2009
Privacy problems on Facebook (stop me if you've heard this before...)
and this time, dear readers, we'll focus on photos and tagging.
Facebook very kindly gives us the option to choose privacy settings for each photo album. Nice, I thought. Except that they then totally ignore those settings if someone is tagged in the album.
Here's a live scenario I've got right now. (except that I'll change the names of the people involved, because, unlike a certain mark z, I do care about people's privacy...)
My live news feed tells me about one of my contacts, let's call her Elizabeth Hopkins:
Elizabeth Hopkins was tagged in an album.
It then shows me the photos in which my contact was tagged, and underneath that there is a live link to the album in which she was tagged.
I click on that album and get to see all the photos in that album, as well as any comments (by people I don't know) and the full info about who else was tagged there (again, mostly people I don't know).
Now, the album was posted by someone - let's call her Orla Edwards - who is not a contact of mine, in fact she and I don't even have any contacts in common, and she has set the privacy for this album so that I'm not allowed to see it. How do I know? When viewing this album - which I reached through the notice about my contact Elizabeth being tagged - there's a link at the top which says "Back to Orla Edwards' photos", and guess what happens when I click on that link? I get a message that says:
This content is currently unavailable
The page you requested cannot be displayed at the moment. It may be temporarily unavailable, the link you clicked on may have expired, or you may not have permission to view this page.
Seeing as I've just been viewing this album, my guess is that it's the last option: "you may not have permission to view this page."
So, Facebook, if I do not have permission to view it, why did you just show it to me?
and by the way, just to make double sure that I really do not have permission to view that album, I visited Orla's profile and, no, there are no photos viewable to me.
so, to sum up, what I have found is this: if person A (in my example Orla) posts an album and sets it for friends only, and someone then tags person B (in my example Elizabeth) in that album, each and every contact of B's can see the whole album which person A set for her friends only.
and they call this privacy?
Facebook very kindly gives us the option to choose privacy settings for each photo album. Nice, I thought. Except that they then totally ignore those settings if someone is tagged in the album.
Here's a live scenario I've got right now. (except that I'll change the names of the people involved, because, unlike a certain mark z, I do care about people's privacy...)
My live news feed tells me about one of my contacts, let's call her Elizabeth Hopkins:
Elizabeth Hopkins was tagged in an album.
It then shows me the photos in which my contact was tagged, and underneath that there is a live link to the album in which she was tagged.
I click on that album and get to see all the photos in that album, as well as any comments (by people I don't know) and the full info about who else was tagged there (again, mostly people I don't know).
Now, the album was posted by someone - let's call her Orla Edwards - who is not a contact of mine, in fact she and I don't even have any contacts in common, and she has set the privacy for this album so that I'm not allowed to see it. How do I know? When viewing this album - which I reached through the notice about my contact Elizabeth being tagged - there's a link at the top which says "Back to Orla Edwards' photos", and guess what happens when I click on that link? I get a message that says:
This content is currently unavailable
The page you requested cannot be displayed at the moment. It may be temporarily unavailable, the link you clicked on may have expired, or you may not have permission to view this page.
Seeing as I've just been viewing this album, my guess is that it's the last option: "you may not have permission to view this page."
So, Facebook, if I do not have permission to view it, why did you just show it to me?
and by the way, just to make double sure that I really do not have permission to view that album, I visited Orla's profile and, no, there are no photos viewable to me.
so, to sum up, what I have found is this: if person A (in my example Orla) posts an album and sets it for friends only, and someone then tags person B (in my example Elizabeth) in that album, each and every contact of B's can see the whole album which person A set for her friends only.
and they call this privacy?
5 Nov 2009
the true meaning of Christmas? give me a break
just got the newsletter from a lovely Christian retreat centre that I know and love, but...
one retreat they're advertising is titled "the true meaning of Christmas" and I'm afraid I've got rather fed up with this well-worn phrase, along with phrases such as "it's all about Jesus" and "Jesus is the reason for the season" and all that stuff which attempts to imply that this festival is purely a Christian festival and that it's all about celebrating the birth of Jesus. (something which, incidentally, probably happened in autumn and not "in the bleak midwinter"...)
in an item about another December retreat they say: "Somewhere along the way, modern day society hijacked Christmas. The consumer-driven world urges us to find our happiness by spending more, eating more, drinking more." - sorry to spoil the fun, guys, but eating more and drinking more were part of the 25 December pagan celebrations long before modern-day society and long before Pope Gregory in 597 decided to "Christianise" the pagan celebration of the "rebirth" of the sun god and start pretending that it's the birthday of the Christ.
so no, modern-day society has not hijacked something that is Christian, it's actually the Christian church that originally hijacked something pagan, and as a Christian I do wish the church would do the sensible thing and just hand it back.
one retreat they're advertising is titled "the true meaning of Christmas" and I'm afraid I've got rather fed up with this well-worn phrase, along with phrases such as "it's all about Jesus" and "Jesus is the reason for the season" and all that stuff which attempts to imply that this festival is purely a Christian festival and that it's all about celebrating the birth of Jesus. (something which, incidentally, probably happened in autumn and not "in the bleak midwinter"...)
in an item about another December retreat they say: "Somewhere along the way, modern day society hijacked Christmas. The consumer-driven world urges us to find our happiness by spending more, eating more, drinking more." - sorry to spoil the fun, guys, but eating more and drinking more were part of the 25 December pagan celebrations long before modern-day society and long before Pope Gregory in 597 decided to "Christianise" the pagan celebration of the "rebirth" of the sun god and start pretending that it's the birthday of the Christ.
so no, modern-day society has not hijacked something that is Christian, it's actually the Christian church that originally hijacked something pagan, and as a Christian I do wish the church would do the sensible thing and just hand it back.
1 Dec 2008
I wonder how it feels...
One of our local papers has an article about Boxing Day, in which they helpfully explain:I do wonder how it feels to sit there in heaven and watch people commemorate the day you were stoned to death in this bizarre fashion, riding horses and hunting foxes - or, for that matter, sitting at home and eating and drinking too much in front of the television.
But then, why should I be surprised at this, when just the day before that people will have been sitting at home and eating and drinking too much to commemorate the birth of the Saviour of the World? It seems that any earth-shattering event is a good excuse for that.
In fact the day after Christmas Day is the feast of St Stephen, commemorating the stoning to death of the first Christian martyr. He is, incidentally, the patron saint of horses, which is why it was the traditional day for the big meet and why there are so many race meetings.
But then, why should I be surprised at this, when just the day before that people will have been sitting at home and eating and drinking too much to commemorate the birth of the Saviour of the World? It seems that any earth-shattering event is a good excuse for that.
3 Sept 2008
Sorry, Josh, have we been introduced?
Putting my fuddy-duddy hat back on (what do you mean, have I ever taken it off?) I have to say, Shelfari has slightly gone down in my estimation today.
First of all, they send me an email full of enthusiasm and excitement about having been acquired by Amazon. Like, I'm supposed to be pleased about this? You guys think I actually like Amazon? You think I've got this pro-uberdog streak that makes me gush with enthusiasm every time I hear about another big powerful company getting more powerful? Why?
And then, as if this wasn't enough, I find that this email from this company is taking the chummy My Space approach to communication and their email to me is signed:
Happy reading
Josh
So I've got a new friend, have I? A new best mate to be all chummy with? Well, at least he hasn't signed up as my "friend":-)
First of all, they send me an email full of enthusiasm and excitement about having been acquired by Amazon. Like, I'm supposed to be pleased about this? You guys think I actually like Amazon? You think I've got this pro-uberdog streak that makes me gush with enthusiasm every time I hear about another big powerful company getting more powerful? Why?
And then, as if this wasn't enough, I find that this email from this company is taking the chummy My Space approach to communication and their email to me is signed:
Happy reading
Josh
So I've got a new friend, have I? A new best mate to be all chummy with? Well, at least he hasn't signed up as my "friend":-)
18 Jul 2008
Equality for women in the workplace - not quite as straightforward as some would like to think
There's been quite a bit in the papers here recently on the subject of women's equality in the workplace, including this interesting article in the Times a few days ago. As far as I understand, it all started when Nicola Brewer, chief executive of the Equalities and Human Rights Commission, said that "improved" maternity leave legislation is actually making employers more hesitant about employing women.
Is that really surprising?
I think the campaign for women's equality started with good intentions but has been spoiled by a gradual erosion of common sense. There have been some issues that were certainly worth fighting for, and I'm very glad I live in a time and place where women have the right to vote, the right to own property and manage their own bank accounts, etc. And the principle of equal pay at work sounds good too, but...
When the government intervenes and says to the employer: you have to keep your employee on if she gets pregnant, and you have to give her 39 weeks' paid maternity leave - sorry, but how is that fair and equal? How is the employer supposed to fund these extra wages, when he still has to pay someone else at the same time to do the work that he's paying his female employee not to do? How are small businesses supposed to survive under such conditions?
It's putting employers in an impossible situation. The law says they're not allowed to prefer men to women when they're choosing staff. That sounds good - surely they should just hire whoever is best for the job. But the issue of paid maternity leave changes the arithmetic and we no longer have a level playing field. If an employer knows that when he hires a woman of childbearing age he risks having to pay extra every time she has a baby - well, it's going to make very clear economic sense to hire a man instead; unless he could pay the woman less, but oh no, we want equal pay.
It seems to me we've been trying to do what the Brits call having your cake and eating it. We demand to be treated equally, loudly asserting that of course we are just as capable as men are of doing the job (if not better in some cases). Treat us as you treat your male employees, we demand. But treat us differently when we have babies.
Sorry, but why on earth should they?
I'm not sure I have a solution, except that I'd like the legislation to get a bit more common sense mixed into it. I'd like to see a clear distinction made between sexual discrimination - treating someone differently just because she is a woman - and reasonable discrimination, which in fact is what people do all the time, applying common sense to choices they have to make. When I want to buy something I make choices about which shop to go to, when I need a plumber I make a choice about which one to call. If someone needs to hire staff, they make choices. If their choices are based on criteria that are relevant to the job, there shouldn't be a law telling them they're not allowed to. If the fact that I'm a woman of childbearing age is potentially relevant to my performance at work - which it is, as if I were suddenly to get pregnant and have a baby my performance can suddenly plummet from excellent to non-existent for a while and at that time my boss would be obliged by law to keep paying me (and guess what, even if you're not planning to have a baby, these don't always go according to plan) - now where was I? yes, if the fact that I'm a woman of childbearing age is potentially relevant to my performance at work, then my potential employer should be allowed to take that into consideration. He should be allowed to decide that he prefers a man for the job; or an older woman. He should be allowed to say: I'd like to take you on, but I'll pay you a bit less than I would pay a man, because I'm risking additional costs and inconvenience in case you get pregnant. He should be allowed to say these things without worrying about employment tribunals.
I'd like to see employment tribunals concerning themselves with real discrimination and real ill-treatment of employees by their employers. I'd like to see employers free to make reasonable choices that make sense. Equal pay for equal work - yes, that's an excellent principle, that is fair. But can we women guarantee that we will give our employers equal work? No, we can't. There is a small biological difference that we can't ignore.
And why should employers have to pay us when we take maternity leave? If the government thinks we should get paid, let the government fund such payment out of our taxes. I know there are countries where the government pays women to stay at home and look after their babies - I'd love to see that here. Being a mother is one of the most important jobs that exist, and as these days most households require more than one income to survive, I'd like to see the government recognise that and provide financial support for mothers who stay at home to perform this crucial job.
But demanding that employers cover it? Of course it puts them off hiring women. Employers are normally in the business of making a profit, they do their sums and if they don't do their sums they'll go under.
Or am I missing something?
Is that really surprising?
I think the campaign for women's equality started with good intentions but has been spoiled by a gradual erosion of common sense. There have been some issues that were certainly worth fighting for, and I'm very glad I live in a time and place where women have the right to vote, the right to own property and manage their own bank accounts, etc. And the principle of equal pay at work sounds good too, but...
When the government intervenes and says to the employer: you have to keep your employee on if she gets pregnant, and you have to give her 39 weeks' paid maternity leave - sorry, but how is that fair and equal? How is the employer supposed to fund these extra wages, when he still has to pay someone else at the same time to do the work that he's paying his female employee not to do? How are small businesses supposed to survive under such conditions?
It's putting employers in an impossible situation. The law says they're not allowed to prefer men to women when they're choosing staff. That sounds good - surely they should just hire whoever is best for the job. But the issue of paid maternity leave changes the arithmetic and we no longer have a level playing field. If an employer knows that when he hires a woman of childbearing age he risks having to pay extra every time she has a baby - well, it's going to make very clear economic sense to hire a man instead; unless he could pay the woman less, but oh no, we want equal pay.
It seems to me we've been trying to do what the Brits call having your cake and eating it. We demand to be treated equally, loudly asserting that of course we are just as capable as men are of doing the job (if not better in some cases). Treat us as you treat your male employees, we demand. But treat us differently when we have babies.
Sorry, but why on earth should they?
I'm not sure I have a solution, except that I'd like the legislation to get a bit more common sense mixed into it. I'd like to see a clear distinction made between sexual discrimination - treating someone differently just because she is a woman - and reasonable discrimination, which in fact is what people do all the time, applying common sense to choices they have to make. When I want to buy something I make choices about which shop to go to, when I need a plumber I make a choice about which one to call. If someone needs to hire staff, they make choices. If their choices are based on criteria that are relevant to the job, there shouldn't be a law telling them they're not allowed to. If the fact that I'm a woman of childbearing age is potentially relevant to my performance at work - which it is, as if I were suddenly to get pregnant and have a baby my performance can suddenly plummet from excellent to non-existent for a while and at that time my boss would be obliged by law to keep paying me (and guess what, even if you're not planning to have a baby, these don't always go according to plan) - now where was I? yes, if the fact that I'm a woman of childbearing age is potentially relevant to my performance at work, then my potential employer should be allowed to take that into consideration. He should be allowed to decide that he prefers a man for the job; or an older woman. He should be allowed to say: I'd like to take you on, but I'll pay you a bit less than I would pay a man, because I'm risking additional costs and inconvenience in case you get pregnant. He should be allowed to say these things without worrying about employment tribunals.
I'd like to see employment tribunals concerning themselves with real discrimination and real ill-treatment of employees by their employers. I'd like to see employers free to make reasonable choices that make sense. Equal pay for equal work - yes, that's an excellent principle, that is fair. But can we women guarantee that we will give our employers equal work? No, we can't. There is a small biological difference that we can't ignore.
And why should employers have to pay us when we take maternity leave? If the government thinks we should get paid, let the government fund such payment out of our taxes. I know there are countries where the government pays women to stay at home and look after their babies - I'd love to see that here. Being a mother is one of the most important jobs that exist, and as these days most households require more than one income to survive, I'd like to see the government recognise that and provide financial support for mothers who stay at home to perform this crucial job.
But demanding that employers cover it? Of course it puts them off hiring women. Employers are normally in the business of making a profit, they do their sums and if they don't do their sums they'll go under.
Or am I missing something?
20 Jun 2008
Just eat less calories - now why didn't I think of that!
Got into a debate elsewhere on the web and the subject of prejudice against "the obese" came up - and what prejudice there is out there! It seems that in a society that won't allow anything that might seem like you're possibly a teensy bit discriminating against people who sleep with those of their own gender (for example), anyone whose bmi is above a certain line is still considered fair game. And why? Because, as a guy called Andy on that thread pleasantly explained to me, the arithmetic is simple - eat less calories and you lose weight; eat more calories and you gain weight. Simple. So there's no reason why people should be overweight, and therefore - following Andy's logic - if I'm overweight it's my choice.
I'll just pause here to clarify some terminology. If you don't know what a BMI is when it's at home - lucky you... You probably don't have a weight problem. Those of us who have struggled with weight issues are more likely to have come across this term: Body Mass Index. I don't remember off the top of my head how it's calculated, but it represents a certain ratio between your weight and your height, and is supposed to measure you against the supposedly healthy standard. If you're on one area of the graph you're considered to weigh a healthy weight; a certain level above that you're considered overweight; go over that level and you're officially obese. Which is where I've been for a while now. And oh, how I hate this word! It just sounds horrible, doesn't it? And when people talk about "the obese" it just sounds yuk, you can feel the disapproval coming at you through that word. Somehow saying I'm fat doesn't feel so bad, don't know why.
But back to that brilliant piece of logic I was presented with, that showed that obviously being way overweight is my choice...
I have made many stupid choices in my life. The thing is that when you're presented with temptation, the price tag is usually hidden. When I chose to start smoking (aged 14ish, eager to become "grown-up") yes, I knew it wasn't healthy, but I had no idea how strong the addiction would be. I had no idea how difficult it would be to stop. About twenty years later I finally managed to kick that habit, but it certainly wasn't simple. Would I have made the same choice at 14 had I known what it was going to be like? Who knows. Anyway, I'm not here to talk about smoking, it was just an example of a bad choice I made.
Was there a particular moment along the way, a decisive point at which I made a choice that would affect my weight? You know, I don't think there was one. There was a gradual sliding that started when I was about 23 and the person I started going out with at the time decided that I needed feeding up. At the time I was thin - not horribly thin, not like current-day models, just nicely slim. I weighed 50 kilos (about 8 stone) which for my height (or should I say my shortness) is a good weight. I had always been slim, and had always been able to eat whatever I liked without putting any weight on. And I had always had a sweet tooth. I remember when I started working (my first job when I was 15) I had this Friday afternoon ritual, coming home from work (in Israel we finished early on a Friday) via the Elite chocolate shop. They sold chocolate by the weight, and I would get 250 grammes of this kind, 250 of that kind, etc (don't remember them all, but my favourite was definitely the chocolate-coated orange peel) and then I'd head home with the chocolates and the similarly heavy Saturday newspaper (yes, in Israel the Saturday paper comes out on Friday, we just don't have a newspaper on the Sabbath) and after lunch I'd lie on my bed, reading the paper and munching through chocolate.
And I didn't gain one kilo as a result.
And no, I was not using up tons of energy through exercise. I wasn't even doing housework! I was sitting on a bus all the way to work, sitting at my desk at work, then sitting on the bus all the way home. A completely sedentary lifestyle, with absolutely zero physical exercise. Eating whatever I felt like, and staying thin.
Until age 23, when suddenly the magic spell was broken and the food I ate started actually making a difference to my size. I was extremely surprised to suddenly find that I had gained 5 kilos. I was totally new to the world of weight-gain, diets were a foreign subject to me, and in the years to come I was to learn a lot about this subject! I was to learn how absolutely climbing-up-the-wall depressed and/or ratty some diets can make you. I was to learn how infuriatingly-easily the weight creeps back up once you stop whatever diet you put so much effort into. I was to learn how hard it becomes to find nice clothes that actually fit you and flatter your figure once you've crossed a certain line. I was to learn how much harder physical exercise becomes once there's more of you to shift when you move. I was to learn how your body resents the extra weight you're putting on it and expresses its resentment through all sorts of creaks of the joints, all sorts of aches and pains that sometimes make you feel like you're your mum's age.
And I was to learn how infuriatingly smug some people can be who have never experienced any of this.
This is just a bit of my own story. Obviously there are people whose situation is even more difficult than mine. Obviously there are those who have medical conditions that affect their weight, or who take medication that affects it. (I was put on steroids once and blew up like a balloon!) There are those like my next-door neighbour who is in a wheelchair and simply can't do any exercise. But I reckon there are plenty of people out there with stories similar to mine, people who suddenly found at some stage that their metabolism changed and the eating habits they'd grown up with were not serving them well now, but suddenly changing your eating habits as an adult is not that easy - partly because generally changing habits isn't easy, partly because there are so many different theories coming at you from different directions that it can be very confusing.
I have tried counting calories, and yes, I did lose weight through that, but could I carry on doing that for life - weighing everything you eat, keeping a daily record of exactly how many calories you have consumed? No, I'm afraid that was only doable for a short time, for a few months of pushing myself really hard. And many other diets are just not healthy as a long-term plan.
My brother recently introduced me to the concept of the low-carb diet, which I do find much easier than others I've tried in the past. I like meat, so eating lots of meat is no hardship for me... The great difficulty is resisting my sweet tooth, and I have ups and downs on that front, which translate pretty directly into ups and downs weight-wise - so yes, it does work: focusing on eating lots of protein + fat, filling up on that so that you won't need the carbs - to my surprise I found it does work. But there is still that bit in a corner of my mind that equates sweets with a treat, which is a problem.
So here I am, I weigh 76.5 kilos, which makes my bmi 32.5, and apparently if it's over 30 you're officially obese. I never chose to become overweight. It happened, and fighting it once it's happened is actually very very difficult. If it was really as simple as people like Andy reckon, we wouldn't have such a huge diet industry. And seriously, Andy, putting aside the fact that I would love to once again just stroll into any shop and buy nice clothes, do you really think I enjoy the discomfort of having to lug so much weight around? Don't you think if it was so simple to lose weight, I'd have done it by now?
I'll just pause here to clarify some terminology. If you don't know what a BMI is when it's at home - lucky you... You probably don't have a weight problem. Those of us who have struggled with weight issues are more likely to have come across this term: Body Mass Index. I don't remember off the top of my head how it's calculated, but it represents a certain ratio between your weight and your height, and is supposed to measure you against the supposedly healthy standard. If you're on one area of the graph you're considered to weigh a healthy weight; a certain level above that you're considered overweight; go over that level and you're officially obese. Which is where I've been for a while now. And oh, how I hate this word! It just sounds horrible, doesn't it? And when people talk about "the obese" it just sounds yuk, you can feel the disapproval coming at you through that word. Somehow saying I'm fat doesn't feel so bad, don't know why.
But back to that brilliant piece of logic I was presented with, that showed that obviously being way overweight is my choice...
I have made many stupid choices in my life. The thing is that when you're presented with temptation, the price tag is usually hidden. When I chose to start smoking (aged 14ish, eager to become "grown-up") yes, I knew it wasn't healthy, but I had no idea how strong the addiction would be. I had no idea how difficult it would be to stop. About twenty years later I finally managed to kick that habit, but it certainly wasn't simple. Would I have made the same choice at 14 had I known what it was going to be like? Who knows. Anyway, I'm not here to talk about smoking, it was just an example of a bad choice I made.
Was there a particular moment along the way, a decisive point at which I made a choice that would affect my weight? You know, I don't think there was one. There was a gradual sliding that started when I was about 23 and the person I started going out with at the time decided that I needed feeding up. At the time I was thin - not horribly thin, not like current-day models, just nicely slim. I weighed 50 kilos (about 8 stone) which for my height (or should I say my shortness) is a good weight. I had always been slim, and had always been able to eat whatever I liked without putting any weight on. And I had always had a sweet tooth. I remember when I started working (my first job when I was 15) I had this Friday afternoon ritual, coming home from work (in Israel we finished early on a Friday) via the Elite chocolate shop. They sold chocolate by the weight, and I would get 250 grammes of this kind, 250 of that kind, etc (don't remember them all, but my favourite was definitely the chocolate-coated orange peel) and then I'd head home with the chocolates and the similarly heavy Saturday newspaper (yes, in Israel the Saturday paper comes out on Friday, we just don't have a newspaper on the Sabbath) and after lunch I'd lie on my bed, reading the paper and munching through chocolate.
And I didn't gain one kilo as a result.
And no, I was not using up tons of energy through exercise. I wasn't even doing housework! I was sitting on a bus all the way to work, sitting at my desk at work, then sitting on the bus all the way home. A completely sedentary lifestyle, with absolutely zero physical exercise. Eating whatever I felt like, and staying thin.
Until age 23, when suddenly the magic spell was broken and the food I ate started actually making a difference to my size. I was extremely surprised to suddenly find that I had gained 5 kilos. I was totally new to the world of weight-gain, diets were a foreign subject to me, and in the years to come I was to learn a lot about this subject! I was to learn how absolutely climbing-up-the-wall depressed and/or ratty some diets can make you. I was to learn how infuriatingly-easily the weight creeps back up once you stop whatever diet you put so much effort into. I was to learn how hard it becomes to find nice clothes that actually fit you and flatter your figure once you've crossed a certain line. I was to learn how much harder physical exercise becomes once there's more of you to shift when you move. I was to learn how your body resents the extra weight you're putting on it and expresses its resentment through all sorts of creaks of the joints, all sorts of aches and pains that sometimes make you feel like you're your mum's age.
And I was to learn how infuriatingly smug some people can be who have never experienced any of this.
This is just a bit of my own story. Obviously there are people whose situation is even more difficult than mine. Obviously there are those who have medical conditions that affect their weight, or who take medication that affects it. (I was put on steroids once and blew up like a balloon!) There are those like my next-door neighbour who is in a wheelchair and simply can't do any exercise. But I reckon there are plenty of people out there with stories similar to mine, people who suddenly found at some stage that their metabolism changed and the eating habits they'd grown up with were not serving them well now, but suddenly changing your eating habits as an adult is not that easy - partly because generally changing habits isn't easy, partly because there are so many different theories coming at you from different directions that it can be very confusing.
I have tried counting calories, and yes, I did lose weight through that, but could I carry on doing that for life - weighing everything you eat, keeping a daily record of exactly how many calories you have consumed? No, I'm afraid that was only doable for a short time, for a few months of pushing myself really hard. And many other diets are just not healthy as a long-term plan.
My brother recently introduced me to the concept of the low-carb diet, which I do find much easier than others I've tried in the past. I like meat, so eating lots of meat is no hardship for me... The great difficulty is resisting my sweet tooth, and I have ups and downs on that front, which translate pretty directly into ups and downs weight-wise - so yes, it does work: focusing on eating lots of protein + fat, filling up on that so that you won't need the carbs - to my surprise I found it does work. But there is still that bit in a corner of my mind that equates sweets with a treat, which is a problem.
So here I am, I weigh 76.5 kilos, which makes my bmi 32.5, and apparently if it's over 30 you're officially obese. I never chose to become overweight. It happened, and fighting it once it's happened is actually very very difficult. If it was really as simple as people like Andy reckon, we wouldn't have such a huge diet industry. And seriously, Andy, putting aside the fact that I would love to once again just stroll into any shop and buy nice clothes, do you really think I enjoy the discomfort of having to lug so much weight around? Don't you think if it was so simple to lose weight, I'd have done it by now?
20 May 2008
Free personal nutrition report? I'm extremely unconvinced
So there's a company that's offering a free personal report to tell you what you should change about your nutrition. I thought I'd give it a go - what did I have to lose?
The way it works is that you fill in a questionnaire online, which they analyse and then they send you a link to your "personal" report which you can view online. I wasn't too surprised to see that their report ends up with recommendations for the purchase of health supplements from them - after all, why would they be offering a free report if they didn't hope to make a profit somehow? That's fair enough in my book.
But really disappointed me was the way the questionnaire was phrased. They ask you about certain types of food, and the question is: how often do you eat this? e.g. how often do you eat red meat/wholemeal bread/fruit/etc. And then on the basis of that rather limited information they produce what is supposed to be a personal report for you - how on earth do they reckon they can produce a personal report about my nutrition when they have no idea how much I eat of anything - all they know is how often I eat this stuff! Say you have two people filling in this questionnaire - John eats 100 grammes of red meat 5 times a week, whilst Jane eats 250 grammes of red meat twice a week. The answer to the question "how often do you eat red meat?" is going to be 5 times a week for John and twice a week for Jane, but they both eat the same amount per week.
Either I'm missing something, or this is one big con!
The way it works is that you fill in a questionnaire online, which they analyse and then they send you a link to your "personal" report which you can view online. I wasn't too surprised to see that their report ends up with recommendations for the purchase of health supplements from them - after all, why would they be offering a free report if they didn't hope to make a profit somehow? That's fair enough in my book.
But really disappointed me was the way the questionnaire was phrased. They ask you about certain types of food, and the question is: how often do you eat this? e.g. how often do you eat red meat/wholemeal bread/fruit/etc. And then on the basis of that rather limited information they produce what is supposed to be a personal report for you - how on earth do they reckon they can produce a personal report about my nutrition when they have no idea how much I eat of anything - all they know is how often I eat this stuff! Say you have two people filling in this questionnaire - John eats 100 grammes of red meat 5 times a week, whilst Jane eats 250 grammes of red meat twice a week. The answer to the question "how often do you eat red meat?" is going to be 5 times a week for John and twice a week for Jane, but they both eat the same amount per week.
Either I'm missing something, or this is one big con!
13 May 2008
Who was it that thought up this expression - and why?
Once again I read in today's paper about a crime involving a "member of the public", and no matter how many times I've come across this expression I still can't get my head round it.
Am I missing something? It just seems like such a pointless, meaningless piece of euphemistic journalese. What does it actually mean when they say that someone is a "member of the public"? As far as I can see, all it means is that this is a person, one of us plebs, an ordinary human being. The public is us, not an exclusive club or political party or even book club or library, where you have to take out membership. I've been a member of the public for 46 years now, how long have you been a member? Can I cut up my membership card and stop being a member of the public? Are there any benefits to being a member?
I can see the point of euphemisms for expressions that may be considered obscene or offensive, but what's so bad about saying the guy who was stabbed on Oxford Street was, well, a guy who was stabbed on the street? an ordinary bloke? If what they're trying to say is that they think he wasn't a criminal, then they could say just that: the man stabbed on Oxford Street is believed not to have been a criminal. How about that? And anyway, I don't see that criminals aren't members of the public - they're just not very law-abiding ones, that's all. And there's another expression they could use if the intention is to say he wasn't a criminal: a law-abiding citizen.
Hey, I think I've got it. In other countries they could say he was an ordinary citizen, but the Brits aren't citizens, they're subjects, and nobody would understand the expression "ordinary subjects". I wonder - am I right? Is "member of the public" just a British expression?
Am I missing something? It just seems like such a pointless, meaningless piece of euphemistic journalese. What does it actually mean when they say that someone is a "member of the public"? As far as I can see, all it means is that this is a person, one of us plebs, an ordinary human being. The public is us, not an exclusive club or political party or even book club or library, where you have to take out membership. I've been a member of the public for 46 years now, how long have you been a member? Can I cut up my membership card and stop being a member of the public? Are there any benefits to being a member?
I can see the point of euphemisms for expressions that may be considered obscene or offensive, but what's so bad about saying the guy who was stabbed on Oxford Street was, well, a guy who was stabbed on the street? an ordinary bloke? If what they're trying to say is that they think he wasn't a criminal, then they could say just that: the man stabbed on Oxford Street is believed not to have been a criminal. How about that? And anyway, I don't see that criminals aren't members of the public - they're just not very law-abiding ones, that's all. And there's another expression they could use if the intention is to say he wasn't a criminal: a law-abiding citizen.
Hey, I think I've got it. In other countries they could say he was an ordinary citizen, but the Brits aren't citizens, they're subjects, and nobody would understand the expression "ordinary subjects". I wonder - am I right? Is "member of the public" just a British expression?
3 Apr 2008
This one is dedicated to that lovely lady who just rang my doorbell - she showed great perseverance, albeit coupled with a slight insensitivity
What are blogs for if you can't get these things off your chest.
So what happened? It's like this. There's a charity that is doing a bit of fundraising in our area at the moment, a good charity as far as I know and I would have been inclined to drop something into their envelope, if this lady hadn't annoyed me so much.
The way they go about it is that they put an envelope through your door so that hopefully you will put something in it and have it ready when they come to collect. But they don't tell you when they're coming, so it's a bit hit and miss. So far, not a problem to me. No big deal as far as I'm concerned.
But this lady turned up and rang my doorbell at an inconvenient moment - she couldn't know it, but I'm having a major flop day today and wasn't dressed so couldn't really go to the door. I looked to see who it was (aren't net curtains a great invention!) and that's how I know - and that's how I know who it was that stood there for a very long time ringing my doorbell again and again, which personally I think is extremely rude and inconsiderate. It's as if whatever I'm doing is so much less important than putting a pound in her charity's envelope. I think people who go from door to door can sometimes forget that they don't know what they may be interrupting. What if I was a tired mum who had just at last managed to get her baby to go back to sleep and was hoping for a five-minute snooze after a sleepless night? What if I was a shift worker trying to get some sleep before getting up for the night shift? What if I just had something on the stove that would burn if I left it for a minute? I'm sure if I carried on I could think of a zillion other reasons why ringing the doorbell half a dozen times would be extremely annoying.
It's a bit like those sales people who bang on the door as well as ringing the bell, which makes me feel like going to the door and saying: where's the fire?
Maybe next time I should.
So what happened? It's like this. There's a charity that is doing a bit of fundraising in our area at the moment, a good charity as far as I know and I would have been inclined to drop something into their envelope, if this lady hadn't annoyed me so much.
The way they go about it is that they put an envelope through your door so that hopefully you will put something in it and have it ready when they come to collect. But they don't tell you when they're coming, so it's a bit hit and miss. So far, not a problem to me. No big deal as far as I'm concerned.
But this lady turned up and rang my doorbell at an inconvenient moment - she couldn't know it, but I'm having a major flop day today and wasn't dressed so couldn't really go to the door. I looked to see who it was (aren't net curtains a great invention!) and that's how I know - and that's how I know who it was that stood there for a very long time ringing my doorbell again and again, which personally I think is extremely rude and inconsiderate. It's as if whatever I'm doing is so much less important than putting a pound in her charity's envelope. I think people who go from door to door can sometimes forget that they don't know what they may be interrupting. What if I was a tired mum who had just at last managed to get her baby to go back to sleep and was hoping for a five-minute snooze after a sleepless night? What if I was a shift worker trying to get some sleep before getting up for the night shift? What if I just had something on the stove that would burn if I left it for a minute? I'm sure if I carried on I could think of a zillion other reasons why ringing the doorbell half a dozen times would be extremely annoying.
It's a bit like those sales people who bang on the door as well as ringing the bell, which makes me feel like going to the door and saying: where's the fire?
Maybe next time I should.
2 Apr 2008
How does the supermarket know I'm so special...
It's still a couple of weeks till my birthday but I got a birthday greeting in the post today. From my supermarket. So very touching... sorry if I sound a bit cynical, but really, it's nice of them to offer me a free box of chocolates (though in some ways it's the last thing I need...) but what narks me is the sentimental gibberish they put on the card: "Because you're really special, we'd like to make a fuss, by treating you to something sweet, especially on us." Well, really, I wouldn't have appreciated such twee mock-poetry from a friend, but from my supermarket? In what way exactly am I special to them? Do they particularly value the way I wheel my trolley round their aisles? Do they admire my own special way of choosing carrots?
But this is nothing compared to the pharmacy chain with whom I also hold one of those so-called loyalty cards (do they really think they can buy my loyalty by giving me one penny back on every pound I spend? I'm not that cheap!) - I hardly ever shop there, but I still get these ridiculous leaflets in the post with all sorts of money-off vouchers (usually for stuff that I have no interest in buying) which they claim to send me especially "as a valued customer". I look at those and think: aren't you confusing me with someone else? someone who actually spends more than the odd five pounds once in a blue moon when she's sort of stuck? I know for a fact that there are women out there who spend a small fortune regularly on make-up etc, so their "valued customer" threshold seems a bit low.
Thank God I don't need these corporations to give me a sense of value and of being special.
But this is nothing compared to the pharmacy chain with whom I also hold one of those so-called loyalty cards (do they really think they can buy my loyalty by giving me one penny back on every pound I spend? I'm not that cheap!) - I hardly ever shop there, but I still get these ridiculous leaflets in the post with all sorts of money-off vouchers (usually for stuff that I have no interest in buying) which they claim to send me especially "as a valued customer". I look at those and think: aren't you confusing me with someone else? someone who actually spends more than the odd five pounds once in a blue moon when she's sort of stuck? I know for a fact that there are women out there who spend a small fortune regularly on make-up etc, so their "valued customer" threshold seems a bit low.
Thank God I don't need these corporations to give me a sense of value and of being special.
30 Nov 2007
There ain't no such thing as a free report...
Goodness me, that assertiveness training did come in handy today!
I saw an advert in the paper recently for a certain consumers' organisation which all Brits know, with an attractive new offer: "For the first time Which? Reports are now available to you on an individual basis without you having to subscribe to Which?." Great, I thought, a step in the right direction! There were a few products on their list which I'm thinking of getting at some stage, and if I can get their report on each of these for 99p then that's good value as far as I'm concerned. So I phoned.
And yes, the offer is for real, and I did eventually manage to get the guy on the other end of the phone to take my £2.97 and send me the three reports I wanted. But clearly the whole idea behind this is to hook people into subscribing - what they tell you on the phone is that yes, you are very welcome to buy the reports you're asking for, but for just a little bit extra they can send you the magazines that these reports came from, and then if you don't want to carry on subscribing all you have to do is phone them and say so. And judging by the hard sell I got in the course of this phone call today, I can imagine how much time and energy I would have to spend on explaining that I really really really am sure that I don't want a subscription, even if they send me a free alarm clock...
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)