Counting Birds by ranfuchs @ 26/01/2008 – 23:11:39

Not so long ago you could see millions of starling covering the sky.

 

Despite the bird flu, and some people’s idea to get rid of all birds wherever they are (and all animals if possible too) the annual garden bird count day was held today.

It was a warm, sunny day, just perfect for such an event, and we all enjoyed watching a large number of birds coming to our feeders. Not as many as the past-days flocks of starlings. I do miss the woosh they use to make and the amazing clouds they formed. But that was pretty happy not to have such a flock landing in my garden. By the way, does anyone know what happened to all these starlings?

What we did see was:

Goldfinches: 5
Black Cap: 1
Bull Finch: 1
Chaffinch: 12
Greenfinch: 4
Blackbirds: 7
Magpie:1
Carrion crow: 1
House sparrow: 8
Great tit: 2
Coal tit: 2
Blue tit: 5
Starlings: 5
Dunnocks: 3
Robyn: 1
Wood Pigeon: 1
Collared dove: 2
Feral Pigeon: 2

Not bad for an hour of bird watching. Our feeders definitely do their job.

Trust the News: An inquiry into Iraq war will happen

Foreign Office minister Lord Malloch-Brown said that an inquiry into the Iraq was will happen eventually, but now is not the right time.

Your Lordship, now is never the right time. Unfortunately, now is the only time we have. So what is that you’re waiting for? Post-retirement inquiry? Post losing the next election? Or maybe that senility and old age will prevent those responsible from appearing in court?

The public was lied to. This is a fact. Public money was used for inappropriate purposes, this is another fact. And no one can give a single reason what the f*** we are doing in Iraq. If it was not the government but a private company, this would have been considered criminal and lead to jail sentences. But the government is immune, even against criminal acts.

You were not there where the decision was made, and cannot be blamed. It was not your government, but those who made the decisions are your peers. By protecting them you become accomplice.

So the earlier we know the fact, the better it will be for all of us. So what are you waiting for?

Poetry and Modern Education

A poem:

Rats racing,
Cats Chasing.
Birds flying,
Cats crying.
Child calling,
Milk warming.
Cats lapping,
Birds tapping,
but
Cats napping.

This is not my poem, but my nine year old son. It was his homework. He felt very proud. The teacher praised him, and he got the HP award. What a wonderful inspiration it was. But when he wanted to read his poem to the class, his teacher refused. She felt it would hurt the feelings of those who did not do so well.

Is this a new trend in education? Hide the good, not to discourage the majority?

Trust the News: Education and HIV

‘One in five is high-school children is unaware of the connection between HIV and sex.’

Math and science are on the decline, and so is English and History. So what do they learn at school?

Can you use a mobile phone? Why can't they?

Can use a mobile phone? Do you know anyone who cannot?

I didn’t think so. So let me tell you a secret. British services cannot.

I am not talking about the secret service here – they have been familiar with the technology since  007 – but rather about the other services.

Since I moved to the UK, we used dozens of services delivered to our house: from parcels, to handymen, from utilities to inspection. 

Some gave a great service (Waitrose.com – 5 stars)
Some were bad (why did it have to take six weeks to fix the still-under-warranty fridge? What was I supposed to do in the meantime?)
Some I could book immediately.
Others were nightmare to book (BT at top, Virgin not far behind).

But the one thing common to all was the way they scheduled their appointments. They would only agree to give a general time of their visit, like: in the morning, or around noon, or in the afternoon. Just like the days before the clock was invented -- after sunrise, the Bedouin say.

As a working person, I would ask them to be more specific. None of them would. This I could  accept, but what I could not was that when I asked them to call or SMS me just before they leave for my home. “Sir, this is not something we can do,” they would say.

Guys, what year are you living in? Making a telephone call is not something you can do? Is it because your servicemen or drivers don’t have mobiles, or is it possible that the convenience of your customer is something that you really can't be bothered with.

Martial arts and violence

My son was taking karate classes at his school. He loved it, he was good at it (genetic I suspect .) But when his friend's parents commented that there was enough violence in the world, and that kids should not learn martial arts, and his class mates were teasing him, he stopped. I can’t talk him into going back.

Isn't is amazing how much our life is defined by ignorance and stupidity?

Most traditional martial art are non violent. There is far less violent in a karate match than in a football match. Very little of the violence in our street is by martial artists. On the contrary, it has been shown that martial art training in violent neighborhoods reduced violence. This is for two reasons:

• Traditional martial arts instill self discipline. “Be a devil for yourself and an angel for the other.” The gang culture in our streets is about lack of self discipline.
• When people are confident (not arrogant) in their ability to defend themselves, there is less chance they, or people around them, will be attacked in the first place.

There are two type of non-violence attitude.

1. You avoid violence for philosophical reasons, while knowing that in cases when violence is the only resort, you will not be afraid to use it. This attitude reduces violence. 
2. You avoid violence out of fear. Being a cowed attracts violence. After all it does not take two to start a fight.

 If more people avoided confrontation for philosophical reason, out of choice, instead of running away from it out of cowardice, our streets would be much safer.I still hope I can talk my son into going back.

School Bullying

Today’s paper reported on another school girl who committed suicide, allegedly as a result of school bullying.

I don’t know if the claim is true, nor do I know the statistics. But from my personal experience, school bullying is much more tolerated in the UK, than in any other country I’ve been.

I have three kids going to three different schools, and this is the fourth country we’ve lived in. We’ve always lived in similar type of suburbs, and sent our kids to similar types of schools. By all means, my three kids have encountered (fortunately, not first hand) more bullying here than in any of their previous schools.

The scarier thing is not the bullying itself, but the total inability of the schools stuff to discipline the bullies. Despite the fact that a single bully can make life hell for an entire class, school stuff is not given any means whatsoever to discipline them.

As one of the teachers said: “I don’t know why we need to sacrifice entire classes of good student for some hypothetical ideal of giving everyone equal opportunity. It doesn’t work.”

If at school you realize that bullying is not punishable, can we really complain about the level of violence in our streets?

The problem with chicken

Today I am going to talk about how we don’t make the difference we want to believe we do, and about chicken.

Let’s start with some unpleasant truth. Contrary to the old wisdom, saving pennies made nobody rich.

If your mortgage, taxes, car, rates and the rest of the big expenses consume 80% of your income, saving pennies on the 20% of your available income will, at most, allow you to rent a couple more bad videos per month, that’s it. Is it worth the effort?

In other words, too often we put too much effort into areas that, despite our best intentions, make no difference to anyone. To make a difference we need to first identify what really matters, and focus our efforts there.

Where do chicken fit into the picture?

In recent years, it’s become common knowledge how badly chicken, and other farm animals, are treated. If you’re not familiar with the issue, just imagine yourself taking a London rush-hour underground ride in the summer, for eighteen months, after which you will be slaughtered.

Sounds fun?

This is exactly what the chicken are complaining about.

Being conscious of such cruelty, many in the UK have shifted to free range eggs and poultry; and now about 60% of all eggs sold in supermarkets are free range. Yet, despite this shift, over 70% of all eggs in the UK are produced in old-style cruel batteries.

This is because, once again, we have been looking at the fringe of the problem – our home consumption, while the majority of eggs in the UK are not consumed directly by the household, but by the food industry.

Is your bread made with free-range eggs?

So if you are a free-egg enthusiast, unless you confront the industry labeling standards, and change the way you consume ready made product, consuming free-range eggs will mostly deal with your conscious and not with chicken.

Incompetence?

Some interesting social trends have been on our news lately. Let’s look at some examples:

1. Social mobility in Britain is lower than other advanced countries and declining.
2. English education is on the decline and every year, and our students performance declines to international standards.
3. The UK has the second highest teenage pregnancy rate in the developed world

Let’s assume that these surveys (and many others) have been conducted properly and their results are reliable. Considering that these trends have developed under Labour government, whose prime call is to support of the middle and lower socio-economic groups, what can we conclude?

In my view there are only two possible explanations. The first is gross incompetence. That is, our politicians are too busy with politics that they have no time left for policies (assuming that they have the ability). Therefore, most policies we see are just done off-hand, normally as a knee jerk reaction.

The other option is sinister. Remembering that the highest rate of support for the Labour comes from lower socio-economic groups, to guarantee re-election, the government needs to ensure that these groups spread, or at least remains unchanged. Trying to improve their status will be cutting the very tree the government is based on, and must be avoided.

Every failure is a win someone’s win, every loss a gain. When you say that something is a failure, think who was the winner, and then you will have the complete picture.

Each of us should make their own mind which of the two options describes our government better, incompetent, or devious.