From Respect to Apathy

A brief discussion of the change of attitude towards the oldest people in society.

(a little something I forgot I'd written during the first year of my Social Care course)

Many people can remember a childhood in which respect for your elders was something that barely needed mentioning. It was a given, that even if you didn’t like the oldest members of your family or your community, you would at least respect them.  This was not simply because your parents reminded you, or for traditional reasons (although they played a part too.)  It was a question of value.  As recently as the 1980s, most communities still had a good number of elderly people who had lived through WW2.  Even if the detail of their experiences was not of interest to some, most younger people felt admiration for that fact alone, and those who didn’t could be shamed with the cry “I fought in the war for you, have some respect!”

Those who led less thrilling and dangerous lives still inspired and helped to teach younger generations.  Bringing up large families, providing a decent level of nutrition during rationing, learning the intricacies of the family trade, maybe travelling the world, were experiences that could be drawn upon to advise the younger generations.  Even something as simple as being the custodian of family recipes (or keeping the secrets to themselves and serving the finished product) added more value to members of the older generation in the eyes of the younger.

Even further back, grandparents were rare. Survival to childbearing age was celebrated, and to stay alive long enough to see your grandchildren grow up you would have had to possess considerable survival abilities.  Village elders were revered and respected simply for getting to that age.

For generations, the percentage of people aged 65 or above in the UK (and in many places worldwide) has been growing.  They now make up 16% of the population; by 2033 they are expected to reach 23%.  The old and wise are not as rare as they were, one reason that they are less valued.  Also, their wide range of experiences, once a goldmine for the young, are less relevant than they were.  Children grow up and travel further from their families than they used to. Convenience foods have led to a decline in home cooking.  With the advent of the Information Age, personal or business advice, or any life lesson, can be had from the internet, a hired expert, or one’s peers.  The questions and difficulties of the modern youth or adult can be more conveniently and competently answered from other sources than their “olds”.

Little realisation.. time heals and all that..

I just re-interpreted some lyrics in order to mend a piece of my heart that got broken years ago.

"There was nothing in the world that I ever wanted more than to feel you deep in my heart..
There was nothing in the world that I ever wanted more than to never feel the breaking apart of my pictures of you."


This song is one of a few that I could never listen to without tears.  Ah, but now, time has passed, I'm over him, and when I think of him, the pictures are less clear.. broken..   and thats ok.

Video: The Cure - Pictures Of You

I found this explanation of he way society treats those unable to work while completing my Social Care degree. It is not my personal feeling. It was one of the more depressing parts of the course:As a disabled person you are unable to fulfil your expected role: work, produce, purchase, rinse , repeat. This is seen as a deviance from the norm, and a threat to the stability and welfare of wider society. Because of your disability you are permitted exemption from those duties, but only as long as you are genuinely ill (have a diagnosis/physical manifestation of your disease) and that you are trying your hardest to get well (showing signs of improvement, participating in programmes designed for improving your health.) http://amplify.com/u/dsq9 http://amplify.com/u/dsqa

Real Scientology, Real Scientologists.

I won’t fully recount here what the PAC RPF is like. At best it is a gulag where time stands still. The only thing that makes it bearable are the some of the dedicated staff there. Some had been on the program for seven years or more. That is seven years without a day off, no contact with wife or family, no music, twenty-minute meal breaks. A phone call to your parent’s on Christmas day. A day otherwise spent cleaning floors and toilets. For the most part the RPF is kept hidden from the public and staff. For the most part, we helped build sets for the Int events and furniture for the “Ideal Orgs”.

At one point, following an IAS event, the RPF was allowed to watch the video of the event where Tom Cruise receives the IAS medal and is proclaimed by DM as “the most dedicated Scientologist I know”. I looked over at the guy sitting next to me, a man who had worked on the ship with LRH, had been an SO member for over 25 years, who had been on the RPF for 6 years separated from his wife and family. Really? An actor who has been actively disseminating for a couple of years is the most dedicated Scientologist on the planet?

via markrathbun.wordpress.com

Eventually, some cult members encounter enough bullshit that it seems to act like smelling salts, and they wake up and start wondering how the hell they can get out of the mess they are in.

This is my first post on Amplify! #myfirstpost on another bloggy thing.. I have no idea why. Mainly "because its there" but this is nothing like climbing a mountain, obviously. http://amplify.com/u/d3sv

The Age of Uncertainty: Almost Lost Forever

via ageofuncertainty.blogspot.com

Found this thanks to @adders on Twitter. The very thought of someone dropping an old photo album into a bin.. how *could* they?

Huge Commonwealth Games cock-up leads to condoms blocking drains | Sport | The Guardian

The condom blockage follows an outbreak of gastrocolic problems such as diarrhoea among swimmers this week.

via guardian.co.uk

Is it me or is it weird how the wording makes it sound like the condom useage is related to the Delhi Belly?

Confidence, Power, Love

I have a few memories of being in some kind of choir in high school. It baffles me that I felt able to sing back then, surrounded by other people who could hit the notes and hold them, but years later I won't knowingly let anyone hear a single note. It really does seem that the words of one loved one eroded my belief in my voice so badly that even contradictions from my most loved today can't mend it.

Facebook/Synching mobiles

"pull the photos down from Facebook and put them on your phone. That would breach Facebook's terms of service." http://bit.ly/cDyIb6 but thats what my blackberry does! I'm deleting Farcebook for Blackberry.

Parents, dont let your kids be assholes.

"'I feel like no-one': Girl, 12, dies in father's arms from mystery condition after being tormented by school bullies"

http://bit.ly/bfoEaK

from @stonewalluk

The key information for Stonewall's interest here was that the bullying included calling the girl a lesbian.

When I picked my kid up from junior school yesterday, two boys jogged past me. They were taunting each other with "You're gay!" "No, you're gay" in dull voices, as if it was a routine they were both bored of but neither were willing to stop because the other would claim victory and be proved right.

It annoyed me, a lot.  I wanted to stop them both in their tracks and say something, anything to make them think. ("You say 'gay' like its a bad thing" ..  I tend to overestimate most kid's ability to understand my one-liners.)  But they were glassy-eyed, barely aware of what they were saying.  Maybe if their parents were there they woudn't have been shouting it.  Maybe their parents were the ones that led them to believe that 'gay' is bad and using it as an insult is just harmless fun, either by using such taunts themselves or by allowing it to go un-commented previously.  I still aren't sure whether it was a good thing or not that their parents weren't there. I don't know if I could have stopped myself from saying something to them. 

What was the last book you read?

I'm reading Snow Crash by Neal Stephenson right now, and really enjoying it. I play Second Life, and it is fun seeing the parallels between The Street and the Grid. Before that, I read Burning Chrome by William Gibson. Never before have I been brought to tears by a science fiction story. I need to read Neuromancer, but a friend recently sent me the Millennium trilogy by Stieg Larsson, and then there is my college reading list.. sigh!

Ask me anything

Decisions...

I used to have another blog, which I was keeping for blogging about my SL shop/business.  The problem was that I didn't really have much of one to blog about.  So I scheduled the blog for deletion, and decided to keep just this one.

The problem is, it seems I'm using this one for personal stuff and SL photography, which his going to lead to stuff like Scientology/Chanology/Anonymous, and other serious stuff I might like to comment on now and then, getting lost. 

So, my solution is - let the deletion take its course, decide which topic I'm going to discuss here, and make a new blog to carry the rest.  Step 1 - Decide what to use this blog for. Step 2 - Think of a new name for my other blog.

I hade decision-making.

I thought I'd made the decision there. For a moment.  I posted on my Tumblr that I'd be using that for the serious grown up stuff.  But now I don't know.. I think I'll make another blogger blog after all.

Last thoughts on this (heh. theoretically):  The reason I'm having such trouble deciding whether to blog frivolous gaming related and personal stuff seperately from the serious stuff and how to go about organising that is that I take the serious stuff personally!

Day 5 - Real Life Sucked Too Bad

I missed my proper Day 5 yesterday.   We had family visiting, and while they were here our kid went off on one, a real screaming sobbing drama fit.  I can be fragile about things like being insulted and screamed at and not trusted by my own ten year old, and this was no exception. Once our guests had gone I took my meds and retreated to bed with a cat and a book.

We are likely to have the same problem today. Whether I get any college work done or not probably depends on the degree of drama and screaming.  Whether I get a photo done today depends on whether I get enough college work done.

Scientology v. The Internet: the battle continues

"If you imagine 40-50 Scientologists posting on the Internet every few days, we’ll just run the SP’s right off the system. It will be quite simple, actually."

Scientology GO/OSA cultist Elaine Siegel announces attack on the Internet

This isn’t new, but they are still at it, as seen in this recently liberated email concerning methods of mitigating possible damage from Panorama's latest Scientology documentary "The Secrets of Scientology"

(SP = Suppressive Person - anyone critical of Scientology.  Scientology also teaches that SPs are generally intollerant and will seek to destroy anything good in the world. See here - if you dissagree with Scientology, you are antisocial personality and are no better than Hitler.)

Calamity, Day 4 of 365 - Calypso

Calamity, Day 4 of 365 - Calypso, originally uploaded by CalamityK.

Randomly playing with Elements filters resulted in something that reminded me of a Suzanne Vega song.

Piercing - Bliensen + MaiTai - Emotional Piercing slurl.com/secondlife/Horst/34/164/22

Hair - I modded Ash Ash from Analog dog (I'm so going back THERE when I get my pocket money) slurl.com/secondlife/Analog%20Dog%20Hair/56/132/23

Eyes - Base: Dulce Secrets ::DS:: Eyes 06 by AnneAlyce Maertens slurl.com/secondlife/Kissena%20Park/159/206/22
Eyes - Prim "contacts": [OMFG] Eyes of Luna by Perefim Cao (shop now closed)

Skin - -Belleza- Belle Pale Silver Rubies slurl.com/secondlife/Belleza/128/128/22
.. with Skinthesis - Eyeliner - Walk Like An Egyptian (possibly a freebie or an offer) slurl.com/secondlife/Ode/102/188/776

Shush.. (day 3 of 365)

Shush.. (day 3 of 365), originally uploaded by CalamityK.

.. don't tell anyone, but I'm freebie hunting again. Lovely store this, can't wait to get back here when I actually have some pocket money. (Shush at slurl.com/secondlife/Saint%20Regis/249/58/21 )

Dress - *DD* Royal Blue Medieval, free from Donettas Discoveries slurl.com/secondlife/Alquimia/77/84/22

I actually have no excuse for using Ubi rather than Calamity, as Calamity was freed the other day less than 20mins after a call to UK Linden Lab support number. Apparently they are closing the UK customer support office, so next time I get stuck, it could be a lot longer than a week :(

day 2 of 365: Ubi on the beach.

day 2 of 365: Ubi on the beach., originally uploaded by CalamityK.

I gave up waiting for Calamity to be un-ghosted. I'm continuing on the 365 using Ubiquitous Rain as my model instead. (She is my Official Alt.)

Wearing free top and jeans from some hunt or other, free hair from soneone's giftbox (may add details here after I find them). The jars are free from LL and available at one of their freebie shops, I think at Nautillus.

Can I be excused? :(

I guess I picked a bad day to start my 365.  I'm still ghosted.  I honestly thought someone would have freed me by now.  As it is, my only option is to try to take another shot of me pretending to be a cotton wall puff, or I wait til LL sort my problem out.  I don't have the time to be creative with it either because I'm only home for an hour and won't be back til gone ten tonight. (Why did I decide to do a 2-10 shift after a morning at college? Another particularly bad choice.  Well done me.)

I'm starting a Second Life 365..

day 1 260910, originally uploaded by CalamityK.

This is day 1, and only picture I can get of myself today. I figure things can't get any worse, if I start of from ghosted. Been that way for a day now, one support ticket from me, one from my partner who is a Premium member, and my theory is that they get attended to faster.

To the right is the house we are living in until I finish the lighthouse on the hill. The tree is one I made, I see similar all over SL selling for loads but of course mine can't match those for that odd cartoon-realism.

You'll notice the Linden trees are yet to rez. They can be like that sometimes.

Right. I'm back.

GET your FEET off my SOFA and clear up those empty cans and bottles, what do you think this place IS?

What was the most interesting place you've traveled to?

In real life or in my head? China Mieville took me to New Crobuzon, that was interesting. I was homesick for Waterdeep for years, still am occasionally. But real life interesting? Probably some place in Second Life.

Ask me anything

yooo.. just saw you on twitter ...the new ipad from apple is out if ur a member of twitter u can beta test 1 for free if u use this site http://bit.ly/cUZnCr

Beta test an iPad for free? with a side order of spam and internet cooties? nothanx.

Ask me anything

What's the origin of your name?

Calamity Kessel is my Second Life avatar's name. I picked it because I intended to roam SL as a kind of Space Pirate. I got distracted several times over.

Ask me anything

When you were a kid, what did you want to be when you grew up?

A lorry driver. I still wouldn't mind it. It would have to be a big lorry.

Ask me anything

Financial Times wont run this ad..

The FT refused to run this advert.


So.. Amnesty asked bloggers to do it. So here it is.

Stinks, doesn't it?