A break from blogging

I'm very aware I haven't blogged much of late. At the moment it is more a stress, a chore, than a pleasure . The blog has always been something I have enjoyed doing, but at the moment my focus is on finding work after the end of March, paying the mortgage and keeping my home and cats . That is where my energy has to go.

I'm not sure what to do with the blog. I don't really want to give it up for good, but I also know I need to put in work to get back the readership and more importantly the debates in the comments boxes. I'd love to get more women writing for it, but again that takes effort . I need to kickstart the blog before anyone would want to join.

There is some much going on in the world, but I don't get a chance to write . I then feel frustrated as I haven't posted and that then gets stressy .

I find at the moment that it I write a status update or do a link on Facebook, I get lots of comments and debate . Here though, more effort but less response . Is there a point anymore to this blog when I get more interaction with people on Facebook ?

I also need to tart up the design , its all very tired .

But, before all that I need to concentrate on financial survival. That is my priority .

I'll leave this post up for a while, then I will take the blog down while I decide what to do with it.

I feel very attached to this blog, which is why I hate seeing it just going downhill.

I'll give it some thought .

Bloggers block

Apologies for the very light blogging. I have more time on my hands, now being unemployed, but find it hard to get motivated and also to adjust to my new circumstances. i will try to post on this, as though I do tend to steer clear of too much personal stuff, it is relevant given the fact that many more people will be joining me in being unemployed . It does have a major effect on how I see myself as much as the fact I'm broke.

More later.

Absence from the blog

Apologies for not blogging or commenting here for a while.

I'm facing redundancy, and to be honest I'm pretty preoccupied with that at the moment.

Lots is being said by the Con Dem Government on the pain we are all having to face to clear up the mess of the bankers . Thing is, its not the bankers who are making sacrifices for some mythical good of the country , its the public sector .

Did I miss something; did nurses or doctors or housing workers or social workers or teachers cause the recession ??

Nope, yet we public sector workers are the ones being made the baddies . Take a look, if you have a strong stomach, at the Daily Mail with its stories of how privileged we are. Hmm, I never received a bonus in my life, yet alone a six figure sum, that encouraged me to take mega risks with the economy.

Have I been paid much much more than someone in the public sector? Well, most of these stories do not take like for like. A previous partner , who did work in the city, once told me the sort of work I was doing would be rewarded with about triple the salary if I was in a private company. OH and his pension and redundancy package was every bit, and more , as good as mine .

Yep, Chief Execs are paid well, but look down at the bottom of the salary rung. The support workers helping people , the old for example, lead an independent life . Those who work with the homeless , those with a learning disability, mental health problems and many more. Check out those salaries , less than £20,000 , and then gripe about their pensions .

Pensions, yep, gold plated handed on a plate to us aren't they? Well no, I large whack comes out of my wages every month .

Thousands of public sector workers will be losing their jobs . This will impact on the economy in benefits and money not being spent , as people tighten their belts. Where exactly will the mythical private sector jobs be exactly ?

Those who talk of cuts cuts and more cuts, of sacrifice , will not be effected really.

I don't have inherited wealth to fall back on, and that was not because my parents were lazy. Far from it, but illness meant we did not have money . Not quite the case with much of the Cabinet .

I have worked bloody hard all my life , and now worry what will happen if I can't pay the mortgage . I'm fucked if interest rates rise majorly.

I'm luckier than many, I have a redundancy package that means I'm OK for about 6 months max. But then what, as more and more workers join the dole , competing with me for the few jobs there are?

What happens to those without a payout . with mortgages to pay ? More repossessions and homelessness?

Many will have been on short term contracts or only with a year or two behind them, no payout for them.

So yeah, real life getting in the way a bit.

Still, in a few weeks more time for blogging. A silver lining!

What the Osler decision means

Very interesting analysis of the verdict in Dave's libel case, including implications for bloggers, over at Jack of Kent.

David Osler libel case, the impact on lives

Yesterday I posted about the victory for Dave, fingers crossed that there won't be an appeal.While still very relieved and happy, I'm increasingly pissed off by the litigant's attacks on Dave . She is basically saying it was alright for him, he has a good job and his own home, she is distressed .

Well, it wasn't a bed of roses for him !

Without going into detail , he did not have the money for legal support. He is not loaded and risked losing his home . I did not have the money to help him either . We can all get the violins out,Dave though has not played this game , even though he could have.

This has hung over us for nearly three years . Lets not forget Dave did take down the post and gave her a right of reply , as a gesture as she was upset. He did not need to do that. Oh no, that wasn't enough.

OK, lets get out the violins, or at least borrow Kaschke's very well worn one .

Before Dave got the pro bono help, he had to do all the legal work himself, building his defence and responding to her e-mails and letters . He had to go to court and represent himself .

This meant that weekends and annual leave were used up, as he was holding down a full time job. This meant that for the last two years we did not have a holiday together as he did not have the time or spare cash. It meant that he could not spend as much time with either me or his children, impacting on them and their mother with whom he shares childcare. Yes Kaschke, you aren't the only one with children who need your time and love.

Leave was taken to go to court for his own hearings, and to support Alex and John who are also being sued , as was mine when I could . Yep, fun way to spend time off in the Royal Courts of Justice. He faced the prospect of defending himself at what was likely to be a one week jury trial at the Royal Courts of Justice , pretty bloody overwhelming .

Life was , as I say on hold. The stress was at times overwhelming . What if he lost , where would he find the money. Bankruptcy and losing his home was a very real option. Luckily we have a strong relationship, but nevertheless it would strain and test the best of them.

Yes , eventually he was offered pro bono help and we are extremely grateful for that,for the first time some weight was lifted from our shoulders . Dave was offered this as Robert and David felt strongly that this case should not be going to trial and they wanted to do all they could to help. Kaschke did not get this help, though she blogged asking if anyone would come forward . Dave did not stop her getting help, in fact it would have been better for all concerned if she had. What was he to do, say no , I'll go it alone ?

No one came forward to help her case ,draw your own conclusions . That is regrettable, but not our problem.

Dave has not played the poor me card, though he could have. He has behaved in a dignified way .

I just wanted to set the record straight.

Support Dave Osler !

Those of you who read Dave's blog will be aware he is facing a libel case in November. It has been going on a year and is very stressful and time consuming.

No legal help from the NUJ, though he is a journalist , and only recently a bit of free legal input. As he hasn't got a spare £5-10,000 , he has been doing most of the legal leg work and will be representing himself at a four day libel case .

Now this isn't about whether you agree with his politics, its about the freedom of bloggers. If he loses , and is hit with damages and costs, that affects all you bloggers out there. Oh and it is not just about a blog post, its about what is said in the comments. This will affect you lot .

So get over there , if you haven't already, and show your support.

No attacks on the litigant, don't give her any ammunition to attack Dave.

Round up

Last week busy helping Dave entertain his girls in Brighton and this week bloggers block, so no posting from me recently.

To try to kick start myself, here is a round up of what other people are writing about on the blogs.

Well the F- Word are highlighting the reactionary views of some Tories, including Phillip Blond who appears to be part of cuddly caring Cameron's inner circle.

This, for example, is his take on abortion: "I find it deeply, deeply problematic, and very, very worrying. I think it's one of the more disturbing moral things we do … There probably are cases for abortion in very extreme instances … but by and large, I think it should become an unacceptable practice. I would probably want to limit it to only the most extreme cases: rape, or when someone was very young, or incest. It's not something I can philosophically support."

He is also not to keen on lesbian and gay people being parents either:

The evening’s chief provocateur is Phillip Blond, director of the Progressive Conservatism Project at Demos. Blond stirs the conversation pot by arguing that society should discourage adoption of children by gay couples. There is much hooting around the table and a call for data supporting his claim that having one parent of each sex is best for kids. Instead, Blond resorts to a line of argument I find weak, namely that since humans have raised kids in heterosexual couples for aeons, it must be good.


More off message Tories here.

Hakmao, who I'm glad to say hasn't disappeared, posts on a story I meant to cover :

Exams for an Evangelical Christian curriculum in which pupils have been taught that the Loch Ness monster disproves evolution and racial segregation is beneficial have been ruled equivalent to international A-levels by a UK government agency.
[.....]
The courses are based around the Accelerated Christian Education (ACE) programme, which originated in Texas in the 1970s.
[.....]
* the Loch Ness monster, which “appears to be a plesiosaur” from photographs, helps to disprove evolution;
* apartheid was beneficial to South Africa; reasons include the claim that segregated schools “made it possible for each group to maintain and pass on their culture and heritage to their children”;
* “unquestionable proofs” and “unarguable evidences” existed for creationism.

Pretty scary that kids can be taught such crap. Isn't education meant to look at facts, evidence and develop critical thinking? How can using the example of a tourist attraction that does not exist be the basis for disproving evolution ? Will the tooth fairy and Father Xmas be part of the curriculum next ? I suppose if people can believe in imaginary gods then the Loch Ness monster is plausible.

Liam has posted on why being arsey to Special Branch at the airport might not be a good idea if you want to get home for a pint. 

 Check Jim's 'Sports Desk' which this week  includes  fishing  !

Now for travel and over to Coatsey who writes off a whistle  stop day round East Anglia.

Back to more serious matters and Dave looks at how the awful death of baby P, or Peter Connolly as we now know him, is being used as a stick to beat single parents :

For every Tracey Connolly, there are hundreds of thousands of warm, loving and supportive lone parents who do their best by their kids. To generalise from two deeply damaged individuals to a political offensive against single mums as part of some back-to-the-fifties family values drive smacks of grandstanding of the most contemptible kind.

Thats your lot, hopefully I will feel inspired soon.

The Total Politics Blog Poll

Details over here.

In summary :

The votes will be compiled and included in the forthcoming book, the Total Politics Guide to Blogging 2009-10, which will be published in September…

The rules are simple.

1. You must vote for your ten favourite blogs and rank them from 1 (your favourite) to 10 (your tenth favourite).
2. Your votes must be ranked from 1 to 10. Any votes which do not have rankings will not be counted.
3. You MUST include ten blogs. If you include fewer than ten your vote will not count.
2. Email your vote to toptenblogs@totalpolitics.com
3. Only vote once.
4. Only blogs based in the UK, run by UK residents are eligible or based on UK politics are eligible.
5. Anonymous votes left in the comments will not count. You must give a name
6. All votes must be received by midnight on 31 July 2009. Any votes received after that date will not count.

It is being hosted by Labour List, LibDemVoice and Iain Dale's blog.  Hopefully that will move it away from its right wing slant, but it would be good to get more leftie (wider than Labour) and feminist blogs. Yeah I'd like a few votes, we are one of the few or only British leftie blog written by women across a number of left groups (LRC/Labour, AWL, Permanent Revolution and SSP, more welcome !) , but regardless vote !

Who will I vote for ?  Well Stroppyblog and Dave of course ! Now need to decide the other eight .

Right, off you go and vote and remember the deadline is the 31st July.

Blogging

Bit quiet on the blogging front , I have been away from my laptop, being wined and dined in Brum by Volty and Denham.Well cheesy chips and Jack Daniels , but a pleasant evening nonetheless sitting by a canal debating Jazz and hearing tales of Denham;-)

Its also quiet as MJ is at home eating cheesecake, watching Torchwood and getting ready for baby no 2 and Cat is away in Mongolia !

That leaves Janine who this weekend is busy at the AWL "Ideas for Freedom" and Vicky who I suspect is out celebrating her 21st today. Happy birthday Vicky !!

On the topic of the Team StroppyBlog, we are always keen to have new women bloggers join us (and the odd male leftie guest post). Get in touch if you are interested .

Blogging, hot weather and jazz...

Apologies for light blogging of late. That's partly because 1) I'm very busy, 2) bloggers block and 3) its too damn hot ! I even don't like drinking alcohol when the its sunny, I prefer drinking in dark seedy places as opposed to on the beach, which makes me feel sick even with just one glass of JD let alone a half bottle:-)

Hopefully inspiration, and thunderstorms , will strike . In the meantime a musical interlude. A few weeks back I went to see Ornette Coleman at the Meltdown festival. This caused some debate over at Dave's blog and Mr Denham posted on the subject, twice .Now I like to listen to all sorts of music and am always up for discovering artists new to me. I have listened to bits of jazz over the years ( Miles Davis, Charlie Parker, John Coltrane amongst others). Being with Dave has meant hearing lots more ! In talking to him and Jim I have discovered there is basically two types of Jazz, Osler Jazz and Jimmy (Denham ) Jazz. Jim apparently is good time!

So to cut to the chase, here are some you tubes of jazz that Jim won't like . Next week , lucky girl that I am, have the opportunity to watch him in action, playing the drums. I'll report back !

First off John Coltrane with Alabama . This was written in reaction to the bombing of the 16th Street Baptist Church,by the Klu Klux clan, that resulted in the death of four girls.




Now for some Miles Davis with a track from Kind of Blue, although to really torment Jim I should have uploaded something from Bitches Brew .



After tormenting Mr D, here are some female jazz vocalists which I believe cross the Jim/Osler categories .

I have picked Billie Holiday singing Strange Fruit. Its one of the most powerful songs about racism, where she sings about the lynching of black people .Its one of those songs Im not sure saying I enjoy it is quite how I feel . The lyrics evoke feelings of anger at the suffering and racism.



OK, bit of a theme, here is Nina Simone singing Mississippi Goddam.Nina was part of the Civil Rights and this, like John Coltrane, was partly a response to the Church bombings.

Finally , round off with some Dinah Washington:

Im off...

Well just till friday.

Play nicely ;-)

Twittering

Just a question really, why twitter?

I use Face book and quite like that. I can play scrabble , check out groups, events and what people are up to. I can have a chat and a gossip. There are links to posts, news and you tubes. I blog and pop over to others. So why Twitter?

I joined twitter, but it all seems a bit of duplication with the Face book updates and so have not really twittered. I keep getting requests for people to follow me , such as from the Green Party. Hm. I don't want to be followed, it makes me want to slap them !! Leave me alone. But that's the point of Twitter, not to be left alone.

Thoughts anyone ?

Another snowed under Stroppyblogger

Apologies for lack of posts these last few days. My excuse is I'm helping Dave with looking after his girls . Mamma Mia , sing along version, played continuously is doing more damage to my brain cells than my usual consumption of JD. This is not my natural territory, I mean childcare not Dancing Queen, but that is in gay bars when I'm usually drunk and I'm stone cold sober at the moment. So far I have managed to feed them and they in return torture me with Abba till Dave gets back from college. They are though lovely girls and I say that as someone who doesn't have any maternal broody feelings whatsoever.So clear thought and blogging is in short supply for a few days.

I will though just do a quick round up of upcoming meetings.

First off a reminder that tomorrow night there is Jewish Socialist Group meeting : After the War on Gaza . Check out an earlier post for details.


Then on Saturday there is Gender, Race and Class - An Anti-Capitalist Feminist event. Details again in an earlier post. The venue has changed , its now SOAS, Thornhaugh Street, Russell Square, London. Details here.

Finally on Sunday, "SYN/HOPI - Revolution Betrayed - 30 years since the Iranian revolution, Joint Socialist Youth Network and Hands off People of Iran meeting."
This is from 18:00 - 21:00 in the Bertrand Russell Room, Conway Hall, 25 Red Lion Square .
More details here.

Tarting up the blog

I know I have said this before, but I really need to update and smarten up this blog.

One of the things I plan to do is change the picture. I was hoping to get someone to draw me a cartoon 'Stroppy' (sorta punky ), but that has fallen through. One option that occurred to me was to design an avatar and use that. I have a mac and so far can't find an application that does that, well only a head and I want a full body one.

Any ideas ?

Or any budding artists ?

Blogging

Apologies for the very sporadic blogging at the moment. This is due to a combination of being very busy with work plus trying to get back into writing posts after the hols.

I should write more about the situation in Gaza , but it is probably an area I don't feel too expert in (does that normally stop me you may well ask).

I might do a round up of other posts on the issue, people who are better at articulating the issues. I also have a guest post lined up by David Rosenberg, from the Jewish Socialist Group...so watch this space.

I will also post on other subjects. That's not to mean I don't think its important, ( and I was on the demo last Saturday and hope to be on others), its that others cover it better than me .

Stats

In the interests of transparency and wanting to show off a little,well I'm being honest!, here are some stats .

I'm really pleased the blog is gaining in readers and is averaging about 300-350 unique visitors a day. I now there are issues with how its counted, but the direction is up!

Thanks to my co-bloggers and guest posters for all their work. Oh and looks like the cats and Obama gave me a blog bounce over 600 on Wednesday...reward for a very late night. I think the highest ever was about 700 and that , sadly, may have been due to searches of the words Broder/CPGB/Iran/AWL. Pah, the left is fucked.

Anyway I really really will do some tidying up and revamping in the weeks to come. Anyone wanting to guest post, let me know. Ideas and comments always welcome . And Punchie, yeah lifestyle...blah blah blah.I'll ignore that.

Seriously though I do want to build a group blog of socialist feminist bloggers , its not all ego. So i'm chuffed, even if its still way below the big boys .
















Month Page Unique First time Returning
Loads Visitors Visitors Visitors
Nov 2008 4,980 3,841 2,813 1,028
Oct 2008 12,542 9,322 6,390 2,932
Sep 2008 12,911 9,223 6,324 2,899
Aug 2008 14,235 9,867 6,804 3,063
Jul 2008 10,652 7,586 4,747 2,839
Jun 2008 10,153 7,595 5,144 2,451
May 2008 12,094 8,661 5,595 3,066
Apr 2008 13,082 8,956 5,964 2,992
Mar 2008 11,226 7,772 5,161 2,535
Jan 2008 12,020 7,332 4,504 2,828

Coatesy has a blog !!

About bloody time .

Check out the one and only Coatesy .

Ed's blog

A quick plug for a newish blog - EdIsRed by lovely friend and comrade Ed Whitby. So far, it mainly includes Unison local government issues, the campaign to stop Ed's local Tyne and Wear Metro being privatised and a pic of his boyf.

Stroppy - add Ed to the blogroll will ya, sis? Ta.

Harry's Place, racist websites and the lefty blog response

I haven't been around much the last few days, so this is my catch up on the the issue of Harry's Place and Jenna Delich.

I'm not going to say much as others have already written at length on this, instead I'll highlight some posts .

First off Jim, as usual, calmly addresses the issue:

We basically come from very different places and usually when I read HP it's with one long tut on the go.

However, that does not mean I think it should be closed down. Particularly for mentioning an uncontested fact - that a UCU union member posted a link to an article on the website of David Duke, who's politics are down the line racist.

... I can imagine someone scan reading the piece and, not knowing who David Duke was, forwarding the link. Although, having said that, they would have to be pretty unobservant not to cast their eye to the right of the screen, to the array of links and banners which do rather give the game away. Thankfully being unobservant is not yet a crime.

However, if I'd posted a link to a vile and genuinely dangerous racist, when it was pointed out to me I'd go "oh my good Lord" take down the link and apologise to everyone. In fact exactly that happened to me once - I linked to a BNP members blog. The piece itself was innocuous (it was on some local bit of news I think) but I hadn't bothered checking out the rest of the blog so I got a horrible surprise when someone said "Jim, why are you linking to fascists?"

It's one thing to link to abhorrent material (after all I've even done so in this post, it can be impossible to avoid if you're to allow the reader to judge for themselves) but it's quite another to kick up a fuss when someone highlights the fact that you did so. It's alright to make a mistake, it really is, who's perfect after all? But if you react to that mistake by refusing to correct what you've done and instead closing down the opposition - well, don't expect to feel the love.

Tactically she's clearly made one of the stupidest decisions of her life because her name will now be associated forever with posting a link to one of the world's leading racists and thinking it's everyone else who has the problem. Let's bring Harry's Place back on line.

Now I have my differences with Andy, but he has argued strongly on SU that its pretty hard not to a) know who David Duke is b) even if you didn't the website is pretty clearly written by someone with racist white supremacist views (the guy was in the KKK ffs ). Andy takes apart the idea that someone might miss the 'clues' about the nature of the site :

So it is immediately obvious to anyone who visits it with a remotely critical outlook that this is a far right, anti-Semitic and racist web-site

What is remarkable is why so few left activists are prepared to challenge this, rather than making excuses for it.

It is incumbent upon the left and the Palestinian solidarity movement to both be aware of the conscious effort of far-right Anti-Semites to infiltrate the movement , and also to vigorously oppose and exclude these anti-Semites. Association with the likes of David Duke is extremely damaging for the Palestinian movement.

By linking to this article, that gave credence to anti-Semitic myths of Jewish conspiracy, and that was hosted by a notorious and obvious neo-Nazi she was at least exhibiting an indifference to anti-Semitism. We have already seen such tolerance of Anti-Semitism in the debates over IndyMedia’s moderation policy, and socialists providing a platform for the anti-Semitic Gilad Atzmon.

For those that still have trouble noticing a far right site when its bleeding obvious Mod has a guide.

For some rational thoughts on the subject of Israel and Palestine pop over to Dave's.

Other posts to have a look at include Phil and Shiraz.

Lazy blogger

Not posted much lately due to a combination of being tired, busy and not inspired.

I had planned to do a music post after watching some bands playing locally last night, but they didn't inspire either.

Anyway I'm off soon to meet a friend ,sit in a bar on the seafront and drink cocktails or wine or something alcoholic ...