it’s “blog for choice day”, the 36th anniversary of the roe v. wade decision.

this year’s question:

What is your top pro-choice hope for President Obama and/or the new Congress ?

the overturn of president bush’s global gag rule, which denied funding to any organisation which offers abortion, abortion counselling, or which tries to make or keep abortion legal in its own country.

because it’s one thing to try to impose one’s morality on a nation which has democracy and a wealth of resources – it’s another thing entirely to impose one’s morality on those who live in countries which are oppressive and poor.   countries where the maternal mortality rate is high, and infant survival low.  where contraceptives are needed to prevent the wildfire spread of hiv.  the lives of those women are at our mercy, and punishing them for unintentionally getting pregnant by forcing them to have children they may be unable to bear (physically, emotionally, or financially), is beyond the scope of any human’s right.

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as we head into the final days of the bush presidency, there is, i think, a general sense of good riddance to bad rubbish – wanting to wash our hands of the whole sordid thing and finally be done with it, once and for all.  there is discussion about whether or not he, or members of his administration should be brought up on charges.  whether or not obama will/should pre-emptively pardon him.  in many corners a belief that in order to move forward as a nation, we must forgive, much like what happened after nixon and watergate.

i can’t bring myself to do it.

i remember with crystal clarity, thinking in 2000 (after finally letting go of hope that gore might somehow claim victory)… “we’ve survived poor presidents before.  how bad could it be?”  those exact words.

in my craziest nightmares, i could not have begun to fathom just how singularly and willfully destructive one man could be.  the depths of despair i have felt under the thumb of this one man – worse than any dictator because he did not destroy and kill in spite of his country’s citizens, but because they elevated him to power.

and then he left them to drown in the streets like dogs.  the most powerful man on the planet, a man with the power to summon the most powerful armies in the world at a moments notice, the power to call upon nations of allies, the power to annihilate much of the globe with the touch of a button, the power to launch humans into outer space… sat and watched for days as 2,000 people died in front of his eyes.

i have never in my life felt so utterly helpless as to sit watching americans die on television, because he claimed he could not step in to save them.  i will never, ever forgive him for that.

i sobbed when he invaded afghanistan.  i sobbed when he invaded iraq.  i have raged over guantanamo and habeus corpus.  i was sickened over waterboarding and abu ghraib and extraordinary rendition.  i felt violated by the warrantless wiretapping and deeply shamed by both his superb displays of blind, blithering ignorance and “christian” fundamentalism.  as an expat, i have had to suffer the humiliation of having people believe i might have voted for him, and the blatant anti-americanism he managed to engender in so many countries around the world.

he is a liar, a corrupt and morally bereft politician, and a blood-soaked murderer.

how bad could it be?  if only we had known.  many people felt the “assault” by the iraqi journalist who threw his shoes at him was a grave crime against a world leader and head of state.  i say if the worst thing that happened to bush after all his crimes against humanity was having to duck an errant shoe, then he got off pretty fucking lightly.

it has been 729 days.  three more left until the nightmare is over.

black mountain – tyrants

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the older i get, the more easily disillusioned i become.

the last time i whinged about selling out i said:

And when blatant greed outweighs moral fibre, or loyalty to one’s beliefs, it’s hard to fathom the depths to which society has sunk in pursuit of the almighty dollar. art, music, film all plundered by conglomerates with no sense of sanctity or cultural reverence. and stars, writers, singers all eager to prostrate themselves at the temple of crass commercialism.

I don’t know why i still expect any semblance of moral rectitude – nothing is sacred and no one is immune. it just strikes me as a sad commentary on today’s society that the threshold for cashing in seems to get lower with every passing day.

but one of the last people i would ever have believed possible of selling out at that level would have been bruce springsteen.

bruce has built his musical career as an icon cum proxy spokesperson for the blue-collar, unionized, hardscrabble working class american.  the flannel shirts and worn jeans and brow-sweaty bandanna are an integral part of his lyrical and physical imagery.  many of his songs specifically reference the plight of the working poor, and he has deep ties to the protest songs of the 60s.  he’s made no bones about his political leanings, his lyrics often reference a post-globalisation wasteland, and his 2004 record “devils & dust” was noted for its anti-corporate sentiments.

so imagine my surprise to learn that bruce has inked an exclusive deal with wal-mart to release his greatest hits album.

that’s right – walmart.  the largest and most controversial anti-union employer, the most prominent worldwide symbol of  exploitative labour practices and globalisation, the largest profiteer of outsourced american jobs, the most vocal anti-obama corporation.

i recently had a discussion with a friend of mine about veal.  i said i don’t eat veal (or fois gras) because i believe it deliberately creates a market for animal suffering.  he then played devil’s advocate, accusing my other meat-eating and leather-wearing tendencies of exemplifying hypocrisy.  i said that while i understand that some people try to live completely vegan anti-cruelty lifestyles, i am not capable of such rigours in the world i inhabit.  i cannot stand on principle against everything i find morally objectionable, and still live my life – and i don’t pretend to.  my actions are specific and my parameters narrow.  i pick and chose my battles, and do what i feel i can.

so i understand that sometimes we make compromises for the sake of profit or expediency or convenience.

however i don’t go around singing about the nastiness of veal, then sell my songs to a gigantic commercial cattle operation either.

and so this is more than a sellout.  using kurt cobain’s image to sell sneakers is selling out.  this is hypocrisy of the most repulsive kind.  making your fortune by worshipping the working class hero, then undercutting him by doing a deal with the devil to line your pocket at the expense of american labour, is frankly, gross.

god, i remember when people used to stand for something.

i’m beginning to understand why so many old people are crotchety.

reel big fish – sellout

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nothing makes me more irate than hearing the tube service is delayed or reduced due to “staff shortages”.  coinkydink that it coincides with the beginning of the holiday season? i think not.

get the fuck to work, you lazy union bastards.*

*please note for the record, i’m not anti-union, i’m anti-rmt union, the most useless coalition of workers ever to wear the union label.

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you know that i.d. card initiative that i keep banging on about?

it’s officially started being rolled out to foreign students and foreign spouses as of last week.

Ministers predict that between 50,000 and 60,000 cards will be issued by the end of March.

Home Secretary Jacqui Smith said: “In time, identity cards for foreign nationals will replace paper documents and give employers a safe and secure way of checking a migrant’s right to work and study in the UK.”

and in a farcical twist, revealing just how ill-conceived this entire sham is…

the home office admitted that there is not a single scanner in any government office which can read them.  and no plans for issuing any.

home secretary jacqui smith has offered an appealing invitation:

That is why I will be inviting those who want the chance to get one of the first UK identity cards to pre-register their interest.

I am confident the small group of volunteers chosen for these first cards will quickly realise, like I already do, that identity cards are secure, convenient and here to help protect us all.

gee, thanks but no thanks, jacqui.

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wow. can it really be a year since i last posted about world aids day?

this marks the fifth year running that i’ve posted about this day. and while in previous years, i’ve done stuff privately for the cause of hiv/aids, this year i asked all of you to help too, by sponsoring me for the royal parks half marathon on behalf of unicef’s “born free” campaign.

together we raised £500 to help fight the spread of hiv in the worlds most vulnerable areas. thank you so much again. and if you didn’t get a chance to contribute before, you can still do so.

i’d like to try to turn this into an annual thing – doing one public charity fundraiser a year for hiv/aids causes. i’ll let you know what i decide to do for 2009.

because in the meantime, aids hasn’t gone away. year after year, it only gets worse.  another 2 million people have died.

we can’t continue to watch it happen, and do nothing.

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“There may be times when we are powerless to prevent injustice, but there must never be a time when we fail to protest.” – activist, author, nobel peace prize winner, and holocaust survivor elie wiesel.

i went out to protest today. protesting from half a world away, against a law which doesn’t even directly affect me. protesting in a tiny group, in the grey day, in front of a symbolic, but empty government building.

my husband didn’t get it. he didn’t understand why i felt the need to speak out in such a small, ineffectual way. i was surprised – we’d just had a conversation about how much anti-gay discrimination there is in the u.s., on a local and national level, about how people’s partners from other countries can’t even come to america to live with them because their partnerships or marriages are not recognised.

but it doesn’t affect you, he said. it won’t change anything.

and i asked him if by that logic, whites shouldn’t have bothered protesting against jim crow laws. if civilians the world over should not have protested the invasion of iraq. if westerners shouldn’t have bothered protesting against apartheid. if students shouldn’t have protested for democracy in tiananmen square.

sometimes protests effect great transformation, and sometimes they don’t.

but you protest because some violations and crimes against humanity are too large, too egregious, for silence. you protest because standing up is the right thing to do, because it is important to register your dissent. because if enough people start paying attention to injustices, if the collective voice becomes loud enough, then an opportunity to achieve change can be created. if one person protests, then 10 people may protest. if hundreds of people protest, then thousands may march. if thousands march, then millions may vote. if millions vote, then anything is possible.

there were only a few people at the protest in london today. there were thousands and thousands who turned out all over california, and other cities across the u.s.

i don’t know if any of this will bring about change. i only know that you have to speak up if you want to be heard.

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i’m still on an election high, so thought i’d share some of the more powerful links i’ve been greedily gobbling up

i didn’t vote for obama today.

people took to the streets to celebrate Obama’s victory in New York, Seattle, Austin, San Francisco, Boulder, Gainesville, Boston, Portland, Madison, Richmond, Baltimore, Santa Cruz, and Washington, D.C.

Virginia, let’s go change the world.

this is a day for glory.

reactions around the world

the face of change

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i’ve been almost afraid to breathe. the fear that i’ll have my hopes dashed once again this election have me so wound up, i daren’t trust any polls, pundits or predictions.

eight years ago, in spite of all popular will, my candidate lost. four years ago, in spite of all meaningful logic, my candidate lost. along the way, the country has become lost.

so very, terribly lost.

so you’ll excuse me if i haven’t had the audacity to hope for much from this election. when your hope ends up in a million little pieces, time and time again, it gets a little harder.

of course, there’s a certain segment of the american population that understands that truth much better than i do.

like the 109 year old woman, the daughter of a slave, who just cast her vote for the first african-american presidential nominee.

if she still has hope, how can i not?

like these two boys.

if they have hope, how can i not?

like this man. just a man. not a saviour, not the answer to our prayers, not even always right. who is the target of death threats because of the colour of his skin.

yet he still has hope. he tells me there are better days ahead, if we’re willing to shed our fears and doubts.

he asks me to believe.

how can i not?

(links via bitchphd and nicole, respectively)

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guess what’s back again?

yes, that’s right, my absentee ballot.

as a point of interest, notice the size of the actual return address, where i’ve indicated with the purple arrows – go ahead and click if you’re curious to see it full size.

third time’s the charm, right?

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people often think i’m some sort of alarmist when it comes to privacy issues in this country.

i submit exhibit “a”:

Everyone who buys a mobile telephone will be forced to register their identity on a national database under government plans to extend massively the powers of state surveillance.

Phone buyers would have to present a passport or other official form of identification at the point of purchase. Privacy campaigners fear it marks the latest government move to create a surveillance society.

A compulsory national register for the owners of all 72m mobile phones in Britain would be part of a much bigger database to combat terrorism and crime. Whitehall officials have raised the idea of a register containing the names and addresses of everyone who buys a phone in recent talks with Vodafone and other telephone companies, insiders say.

another completely useless proposal. this is meant to get at terrorists who use pay-as-you-go mobile phones. what the government fails to understand here is that:

a) we’re only 2 hours away from the rest of europe… where no such registers exist, and current law says you’re allowed to bring in pretty much anything from the eu into the UK as long as it’s not illegal or exceeds “personal use”

b) the rate at which people swap sim cards in and out of phones, or amongst friends, family, etc. makes any such register hopelessly inaccurate from the start

c) there’s this thing called the internet where you can buy all sorts. clearly no one in government has ever shopped for a mobile from hong kong on ebay.

d) the only way in which this register could possibly work would be if they

- first outlawed private sale of mobiles by individuals (new or used)
- second outlawed private sale of sim cards (which is really what they’re after)
- third outlawed swapping of sim cards amongst individuals
- fourth signed on all mobile service providers
- fifth managed to sign the entire eu onto the notion of restricting mobile/sim sales and import/export in the uk
- sixth outlawed the purchase of mobiles from non-approved sources (such as the internet)
- seventh devoted more enforcement resources to monitoring the internet for sales (because they don’t already have enough to do with trying to restrict guns, drugs, child pornography)
- eighth restricted sales of mobiles only to adults (as the idea of having children’s info on a database would be most unpalatable to the public)
- and ninth devoted more resources to monitoring the mail for the illegal transport of sim cards smaller than postage stamps.

in other words, this is another harebrained scheme by government designed to “crack down on terrorism” by infringing on the rights of many millions of innocent citizens, which is easily circumvented well before it is even put into law… much like the i.d. card initiative.

unfortunately, that won’t stop them from trying.

my morning jacket – off the record

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in reading charlotte’s blog post today, i discovered that today is blog action day.

charlotte was the very first person to sponsor me for my recent half marathon on behalf of unicef’s born free campaign, so i’d like to take the opportunity to pay it forward. she’s posted about the links between poverty, aids and women in her native south africa, and has suggested “the girl effect” as an organisation which can help effect change.

and so i’m calling attention to it here as well. “the girl effect” is a foundation which seeks to effect large scale change through raising the standard of living of the 600 million adolescent girls living in poverty in the developing world.

a few facts about the girl effect:

• When a girl in the developing world receives seven or more years of education, she marries four years later and has 2.2 fewer children.

• An extra year of primary school boosts girls’ eventual wages by 10 to 20 percent. An extra year of secondary school: 15 to 25 percent.

• When women and girls earn income, they reinvest 90 percent of it into their families, as compared to only 30 to 40 percent for a man.

yet for every developmental dollar spent, girls receive less than one half of one cent.

“if the goal is health, wealth, and stability for all, a girl is the best investment.”

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i finished in about 2:13. i take ten minutes off that time which was spent waiting for the loo at mile four. (the one gripe i have about the organisation of the race is that there were nowhere near enough toilets! they had us using the parks public toilets, which with 6 stalls for the women, was just a disaster.)

it was a warm, sunny, beautiful day, and i felt fantastic the whole way through. i ran the last three miles flat out, just feeling stronger and stronger. i had the *best* playlist, which kept me going.

a few pics from j’s mobile (sorry if they’re skew! taking photos while running is harder than i thought!)

thanks again to all those who sponsored me – it really lifted my spirits during the race to know how many people believed in this cause!

this song has nothing to do with anything, except that it kicked in at mile 12 and sent me flying

phantom planet – do the panic

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so tomorrow is my run! the weather is (fingers crossed) supposed to be good, if a bit warm for my liking. there will be 12,500 people running through the streets of london, and i’ll be one of them, plodding along in my blue unicef t-shirt. i am proud to do my part for this important cause, and great organisation.

so in my last installment, let me tell you a little bit more about why i’m running.

when i last left off on this topic, i told you about how many children are still dying of hiv in underdeveloped countries. how 90% of children born with hiv will die before they reach the age of 5. horrible, *preventable* deaths.

but hiv affects children and mothers in these countries in so many other ways.

– pregnant women are not getting the opportunity to be tested. they can’t prevent hiv tranmission to their children if they don’t know. in west and central africa, only 2% of pregnant women are getting tested.

– babies must be tested early to get treatment early. in poor countries, they must often wait until the age of 18 months to test for hiv. but there is a test available which can be done at just 6 weeks.

– it’s recommended for hiv positive mothers that they do *not* breastfeed their child, as this can be a route of transmission. however in many areas, there are either no available/affordable milk substitutes, or no safe water sources.

– only 10% of hiv+ children will get the medications they need. hiv progresses rapidly in infants. children whose immune systems are most vulnerable, are not getting the care they need, and they are dying. this no longer happens in rich western countries, where hiv positive children usually live well into adulthood.

– when hiv+ mothers don’t get the appropriate healthcare and medicines, their children end up as aids orphans. there are 11.6 million aids orphans today in sub-saharan africa. entire generations of children grow up without parents. some have to become carers for their dying parents. when the parents die, older siblings are often forced to take on the role of parent and hold their families together. on top of the grief of losing their parent, aids orphans are far more likely to grow up poorer, miss out on education, and be stigmatised by the community.

so much of this is so preventable. in the u.s., for example, there were just *38* pediatric aids diagnoses in 2006.

38.

that’s because pregnant women routinely receive testing, treatment, and care to prevent hiv transmission in 98% of all cases. babies who are born with hiv are tested early and receive appropriate care and medication. the mothers receive treatment and followup to stay healthy. they have the highest quality healthcare and support available to them and their children. they will get to see their children grow up.

shouldn’t every mother and child have these opportunities?

that’s what the “born free” campaign is all about, and that’s why i’m running. every child should have the opportunity for a future, and we really can help. it doesn’t have to be this way. we’ve come so far and made so many advances against this virus in our own countries, and yet so many little children are still needlessly facing death every day.

so many people have sponsored me already, but i’m still short of my goal. please consider sponsoring me, no matter how much or how little. it’s really, truly appreciated.

with heartfelt thanks,
jen

edited to add: oh wow!! i’ve just reached my goal!! i am so, so, so thrilled! thank you all so much! i can’t thank you all enough – it means so much to me, and i’m just so happy to be able to do this for something i believe in so strongly.

thank you thank you thank you!!

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i’m so proud of my friend (and honorary third sister) diana, who was just listed in san diego magazine as one of their “women who move the city”.

she’s one of the strongest, smartest and most socially conscious women i’ve ever had the good fortune to know, and she just makes the world a better place to be. basically, she just kicks ass.

and *she* has more foreign policy experience than sarah palin

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as part of my commitment to run the royal parks half marathon, on behalf of unicef’s “born free” mission, i’ll be doing a weekly series here to publicise why i feel so strongly that this intiative deserves your support. please consider sponsoring me at my justgiving page, or simply click the widget in my sidebar. a big thank you for anything you can contribute.

born free: unite for children, unite against aids

i’ve been incredibly busy lately, and not had much time to blog. but with only 3 weeks left, and only 50% of the way to my fundraising goal, i need help. if you’ve thought about donating before, but haven’t yet, please consider it again now! if you haven’t considered it before, let me tell you why your help is so important.

when i last left off on this topic, i wrote about how out of the people living in sub-saharan africa only 9% of hiv positive women, get the antiretrovirals that can prevent transmission to their babies.

yet in the u.s. and europe, small children dying of aids is nearly unheard of now. in these areas, mother-to-child transmission rates are less than 1%. this is because with access to proper healthcare and medication, 98% of hiv positive mothers *do not* pass on the hiv virus to their newborn babies. we are so lucky to live in countries where mothers can protect their newborn children from becoming statistics.

the picture in the poorest countries is much more dire. the kind of rampant devastation this disease is wreaking on the vulnerable and poor is truly awful, even just in words. that innocent children are suffering in such numbers from something so preventable, is just unfathomable.

– in 2007, there were 2.1 million children with hiv, and 90% of those live in sub-saharan africa.

– in 2007 alone, almost half a million children were infected with hiv and did not receive care or treatment.

– mother-to-baby transmission accounts for over 90% of hiv in children.

– 50% of these children will die before the age of 2, and most are dead before they reach the ripe old age of 5.

– every minute of every day, a baby is born with hiv, and a child dies of hiv-related causes

**but this is preventable!** testing and medications can save babies from a death sentence.

just 68p will buy antiretrovirals for a mother and baby at birth. (that’s just over a dollar at today’s exhange rate!) think about how much good your donation can do for these children – if they only get the chance to be born free of hiv, they can go on to live long and healthy lives, instead of likely dead by five years old.

such a small amount can make such a life and death difference. so won’t you consider giving, even a pound/dollar or two?

(in my next posting, i’ll be talking about other aspects of preventing mother-to-child transmission, and the impact hiv has on babies’ and children’s lives.)

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argh! why oh why do people in london not move aside for ambulances!!!

it’s infuriating! they all sit there passively, not even attempting to pull to the side of the road. and now, having actually been in the back of an ambulance, it’s even more maddening.

that could be someone’s family member in there, suffering a heart attack, or with internal injuries, or going into anaphylactic shock. and they just sit there in their cars on their mobile phones, or playing with the radio, or twiddling their thumbs, without any sense of urgency whatsoever.

*move the fuck over*

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you know, although i am a self-described bleeding heart liberal, i’m *not* anti-republican. i have several intelligent friends who are republicans, and (even though they are wrong ), i can respect that they honestly believe that conservative policies are the best way to run a country.

however, i’m just going to go ahead and say it: i cannot respect a woman who calls herself a feminist and votes for any ticket with john mccain or sarah palin on it. for me, “feminist” isn’t a label you slap on yourself – feminism is living and acting in a way that advances the goal of equality for all women. you don’t have to call yourself a feminist to be one, and calling yourself a feminist doesn’t automatically make you one.

i find it incredibly insulting, therefore, that mccain seems to think that by sticking a woman of sarah palin’s calibre on his ticket, he can attract women voters who have felt disenfranchised by the ritual slaughter of hillary clinton.

mccain who, on the ledbetter fair pay act, (a bill restoring the right to sue when discriminated against on the basis of pay for doing the same job), said:

“They need the education and training, particularly since more and more women are heads of their households, as much or more than anybody else,” McCain said. “And it’s hard for them to leave their families when they don’t have somebody to take care of them.

huh??!!??

mccain who has maintained a 0% rating on a woman’s right to choose since 2001, explicitly advocating for roe v. wade to be overturned, opposing funding to prevent teen pregnancies, and voting against even requiring health insurance plans to cover basic birth control.

mccain, who just selected sarah palin as his running mate.

clearly sarah palin is a bright, ambitious woman. but the idea that she would somehow appeal to hillary voters is ludicrous beyond belief.

sarah palin who is against abortion even in cases of rape and incest.

sarah palin who supported pat buchanan for president in 2000. (you know, the guy who said aids was a punishment for gays, and believes feminism is contributing to the decline of western civilisation.)

sarah palin who likes the story about women being created from a man’s rib so much, that she believes it should be taught in schools.

sarah palin, a woman who has the gall to call herself a “feminist”. i’ll say it once again: a feminist is not something you call yourself, feminism is something you *do*. being an elected official does not automatically mean you advance the cause of women.

gloria steinem gets it spot on:

Here’s the good news: Women have become so politically powerful that even the anti-feminist right wing — the folks with a headlock on the Republican Party — are trying to appease the gender gap with a first-ever female vice president. We owe this to women — and to many men too — who have picketed, gone on hunger strikes or confronted violence at the polls so women can vote. We owe it to Shirley Chisholm, who first took the “white-male-only” sign off the White House, and to Hillary Rodham Clinton, who hung in there through ridicule and misogyny to win 18 million votes.

But here is even better news: It won’t work. This isn’t the first time a boss has picked an unqualified woman just because she agrees with him and opposes everything most other women want and need. Feminism has never been about getting a job for one woman. It’s about making life more fair for women everywhere. It’s not about a piece of the existing pie; there are too many of us for that. It’s about baking a new pie.”

Selecting Sarah Palin, who was touted all summer by Rush Limbaugh, is no way to attract most women, including die-hard Clinton supporters. Palin shares nothing but a chromosome with Clinton. Her down-home, divisive and deceptive speech did nothing to cosmeticize a Republican convention that has more than twice as many male delegates as female, a presidential candidate who is owned and operated by the right wing and a platform that opposes pretty much everything Clinton’s candidacy stood for — and that Barack Obama’s still does. To vote in protest for McCain/Palin would be like saying, “Somebody stole my shoes, so I’ll amputate my legs.”

emphasis mine

and that, in a nutshell is what it boils down to. you cannot support women’s rights and vote for a platform which seeks to undermine them. you cannot vote for a woman candidate who does not believe in the power of women. you cannot believe in the inherent equality of women and elect a president who sees you as a second class citizen, and thinks he can appease you with someone like sarah palin.

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the other day forbes came out with its list of the 100 most powerful women in the world. on a list of 100 women, exactly *five* were from the uk…and one of those is the bloody queen.

for the second most powerful nation in the world, that’s pretty pathetic… but explains the complete lack of surprise when it was reported yesterday that not only are women not cracking the glass ceiling in britain – they’re actively losing ground. i’ve written here a million times before how i find subtle (and not so subtle) sexism much more institutionalised here, but it’s just so disheartening to see the knock-on effects in black and white.

The Equality and Human Rights Commission (EHRC) said that in 12 of 25 job categories it studied, there were fewer women holding top posts.

…
According to the report, there are now fewer women MPs, cabinet members, national newspaper editors, senior police officers and judges, NHS executives, trade union leaders and heads of professional bodies, compared with 2007.

The number of female media bosses, MEPs, directors of major museums and galleries, chairs of national arts companies and holders of senior ranks in the Armed Forces has remained the same.

Women’s representation had increased in the House of Lords and among company directors, council leaders, university vice-chancellors and top civil service managers.

However, in six of these categories the increase was less than 1%.

i think probably the only way it could get more depressing, would be to see sarah fucking palin at the top of the forbes list.

the strokes – modern girls and old fashioned men

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there’s an american expats forum that i’m a member of. every so often we get people enquiring how about how they can move to the u.k., because they’re so disgusted with the direction america is taking, particularly with regard to civil liberties.

i have to laugh. if only they knew.

today as i was coming home on the train, the police had once again implemented random stop and search at clapham junction station. they do this every few weeks as far as i can tell – force everyone transferring between platforms to show their ticket, then pull aside “random” people to go through metal detectors, and prowl around with drug sniffer dogs. no surprise as well that the majority of the people being forced through the metal detectors are black. reasonable suspicion of, you know, having actually committed a *crime* not necessary, thanks to section 60. me? as a white female, i just sail on through.

oh, and here’s a little tidbit i discovered today. did you know that the audit commission routinely requires local councils to submit personal information about their constituents for “data matching” without individuals’ consent? the data protection act doesn’t apply to them, natch.

and now they’re requiring them to handover all council employees’ bank account details. yep, that would be *my* bank account details. because i might be committing fraud. (never mind that they’re still losing this info left and right.)

some days i really can’t believe i live here voluntarily.

radiohead – karma police

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i’m watching the closing ceremonies of the olympics, and the “handover” of the flag and flame to london for the 2012 summer ceremonies.

i wish i could be excited about the prospect. i wish i could say i’d still be here and be proud to be hosting the festivities. watching the olympics live and in person has been one of my lifelong dreams ever since i was a little girl. i should be ecstatic at the opportunity.

however day after day, i am continually astounded by the sheer ineptitude and poor infrastructure of this massive city. when i can’t reliably get to work on time, do errands after 6 pm, or get customer service that even remotely resembles anything like *service*… well i despair of the idea of adding *millions* of tourists to the mix.

i mean, they couldn’t even get the bloody logo right, the budget has ballooned from an initial £2.3 billion to over £9 billion, and the london olympic committee is already downplaying expectations.

whilst i have no doubt that four years from now it will be a sparkling televised affair, i can only breathe a sigh of relief that i won’t have to be subjected to the unmitigated disaster it will make daily life for ordinary londoners.

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