Radioactive fish

According to study results just released, radioactive pollution from the Fukushima nuclear disaster last year (April 2011) was found in fish caught off the North American coast only four months later. Whilst it was shown that the intensity of the radiation was relatively low, this does not negate the fact that environmental effects of the disaster have spread from the locale and the region to the hemisphere. This new evidence proves once again that nuclear contamination continues to poison the planet. Even if, like Germany, all countries abandoned nuclear power production immediately, the effects of radioactive pollution will yet be felt for thousands of years. It makes no sense to compound the accumulation of problems by continuing this outrageous assault on the environment. Moving away from nuclear power to renewable energy production is the only course of action which will protect the planet.

Aversion to gambling

Whilst far from unique, the depth of my aversion to gambling is unusual. It pains me to see people forfeiting their wages in the hope of winning a jackpot. I hate being told about next week's housekeeping money being fed into insatiable slot machines. I feel sickeningly upset when I hear about a student who, having spent their year's student loan at the local casino, then runs up thousands of pounds of debt in a futile attempt to assuage a gnawing hunger to gamble.

My aversion has multiple components:

1. I detest the anxiety involved when hoping to win (anything). There is already more than enough anxiety in my life, and adding to it would be perverse.Clearly, some people enjoy the frisson that is probably a key part of the experience for them, an enjoyment that maintains their behaviour.
2. I cannot bear the disappointment of losing money. For some people, it is losing that spurs them into further gambling in the hope of recovering their losses.
3. When I hear about someone losing money, I find it easy to imagine how I would feel were I to lose that money (sympathy rather than empathy)
4. I imagine the consequences of losing evey last penny, and being unable to afford to buy food, warmth, light. I lived on the bread line back in the 1980s, and feel a powerful urge to avoid a life of penury.
5. I imagine losing all my possessions: house, car, computer, smartphone, books, music, DVDs. These are things I have chosen carefully, and in which I have invested much of myself: they mean a lot to me.
6. I imagine losing the important relationships in my life. There is a desolate scene in The Full Monty in which the character who also plays Mr Chuckles loses his family.
7. I imagine the shame of having to admit to people that I have gambled everything away.
8. I imagine the fear of being caught up in the murky underworld of debt recovery. The scene in Lock, Stock and Two Smoking Barrels, in which Tom and his mates are threatened by Barry "The Baptist" with mutilation and shame if they don't pay a gambling debt, is nauseatingly unsettling.

I feel ethically antagonistic to the idea of business turnover and profit deriving from people losing their money. Harsh though it may sound, I cannot but help think of these businesses as behaving parasitically. I am also aware that a proportion of gambling that takes place probably attracts the attention of organised crime (or is that just in the movies?), also parasitical, with which I wish to have no involvement, and have every desire to avoid funding.
A society that places emphasis on gambling is a society that peddles fantasies of escape from reality.
In contrast, I feel strongly drawn towards a work ethic that prizes working for a living, with a concomitant ethic that prizes working hard, for which one should be proportionately rewarded. I believe that I become more who I truly am through engagement in my work, and especially by working hard. Gambling is the antithesis of these ethical principles, and an implication of gambling is that work is for suckers.
As we have witnessed, with astronomical quantities of money disappearing from national economies as a result of the sub-prime mortgage scandal in the US, followed by the collapse of some commercial banks, followed by the near bankrpting of countries such as Greece, Spain, Portugal, Italy and Iceland, how money is spent can have a very significant impact on the lives of hundreds of millions of people. When money is spent on the wrong things, in this case on speculation, governments fall, workers are thrown out of their jobs, pensioners lose their pensions, and the standard of living drops. Speculation of this kind is no different from gambling, except that vast numbers of innocent people are swept up in the subsequent destruction. I can't help but wonder what would happen to national economies were people to stop gambling and start businesses instead.

There is considered to be something glamourous about a casino When Ian Fleming's character James Bond walks into a casino, we are being told that he associates with very wealthy, champagne-sipping people who can afford to dress elegantly, and who wish to suggest they are so wealthy that they can afford to risk losing some of their wealth. The reality of casinos in Sunderland, UK, or I guess Las Vegas, Nevada, is perhaps rather more seedy. The gambler's hope (although not the only reason why they gamble) is to win money. Their msitake is to over-estimate the probability of winning. A casino is a business that understands the probabilities, the net effect of which is always to relieve people of their money, albeit perhaps over a period of time Were the opposite true, casinos as businesses could not exist. Regarding betting, the sleigtht of hand is slightly different: for bookmakers: to survive in business, the odds have to be weighted in favour of the business. Lottery's work slightly differently again, in which the prize money is dependent on total stakes, and the lottery company makes its money by retaiinng a proportion of the stakes.

I have never bought a lottery ticket, and even though they seem to be sold everywhere in the UK,  I do not know how to mark a lottery ticket. At the odds of 14,000,000 to 1 against winning, it seems incredible to me that people do buy lottery tickets - maybe it manifests the intensity of their desperation for a better life.. I have never visited a casino, and find it easy to imagine the range of negative feelings that I would probably experience were I to do so. I once went into a betting shop, simply because I did not know what they look like. I felt sorry for the people who spend so much of their lives in such places, for the one I visited was grim. Far from feeling tempted to place a bet, I felt soiled, and could not leave fast enough.

...to be continued...

Reform of the House of Lords

The first, and most obvious thing to admit is that reform of the House of Lords, the upper chamber of the UK parliament, is not the highest of priorities for anyone much at present, with the exception of Nick Clegg, leader of the Liberal Democrats. In these economically straitened times there are more pressing issues. Perhaps the constitutional issue of Scottish independence is more deserving of centre stage.
However, even though not pressing, the House of Lords does still require reformation, and if not now, then when? The chamber is populated mostly by 92 hereditary peers, 26 Lords Spiritual and a large number of political appointees. Many of the hereditary peers were cleared out some years ago by the Blair government..It would be very hard to assert that the 786 peers who currently make up the House of Lords are a representative sample of the UK population. A majority of the lords passed middle age quite a few summers ago. There are too few (181) women, too few black and Asian people, and too few people with disabilities. I am happy to support reform of the House of Lords.
The popular solution to the objection that the House is unrepresentative is to suggest that membership should be by popular election - either 80% or 100% of members being elected. However, I see little value in replicating the process of electing members of the House of Commons. Instead, my preference would be for an all-appointed House, made up of every facet of British life. So there would be representatives from:

1. trades unions (TUC)
2. the employer's federation (CBI)
3. BBC radio
4. commercial radio
5. BBC television 
6. commercial television
7. the film industry
8. the live music and recorded music industries
9. the theatre 
10. the visual arts
11. the Consumers' Association
12. the construction industry
13. the road transport industry
14. the rail industry 
15. the airline industry
16. the airports 
17. the sea ports
18. the coast guard
19. the police 
20. the fire and rescue service
21. the ambulance service
22. the British Army
23. the Royal Navy
24. the Royal Air Force
25. military intelligence
26. the Anglican Church 
27. the Roman Catholic Church (this might require a change in Canon Law)
28. the Greek Orthodox Church
29. the Methodist Church
30. Jehovah's Witnesseses
31. the Salvation Army
32. the Baptist Church
33. the Religious Society of Friends (Quakers)
34. the Unitarian Church
35. the Humanist Association
36. an Orthodox Jew
37. a Reformed Jew
38. a Sunni Muslim
39. a Shia Muslim
40. a Hindu
41. a Jain
42. a Buddhist
43. a pagan
44. every significant ethnic group in the country, including Roma people;
45. Russell Group universities
46. Million + universities
47. FE colleges
48. sixth form colleges 
49. secondary schools
50. primary schools
51. teachers' unions
52. headteachers
53. hospitals
54. the British Medical Association
55. nurses and midwives
56. dentists 
57. chiropodists;
58. social work
59. probation
60. prison service
61. the charitable sector
62. volunteer organisations
63. the National Trust
64. animal protection organisations
65. conservation organisations (such as CPRE)
66. political parties across the political spectrum, including the far right and far left
67. London
68. English Midlands
69. North East England
70. North West England
71. South East England
72. South West England
73. Southern England
    
74. Northern Ireland 
75. Highland Scotland
76. Lowland Scotland
77. Wales
78. the EU
79. the US
80. the BRIC countries
81. the Commonwealth
82. young people
83. pensioners

The purpose of this rainbow of representation would be to ensure that any significant legislation could be exposed to scrutiny by every group that has any kind of interest in it, and that the views expressed would receive a formal public platform. Whilst I have lobbied MPs (members of the House of Commons) on several occasions, I have never seen the point in contacting a member of the House of Lords. My proposal would mean that everyone in the country would have someone to contact about any legislative issue. I believe that such a House would command respect across the UK. However, the politicians in the House of Commons, when it comes to choosing how to reform the House of Lords, will, no doubt, simply plump for popular elections, as they always do, claiming that "it's more democratic". Does SMS text voting for one's preferred celebrity constitute high quality democracy? After the Second World War, Winston Churchill, hardly a bastion of socialist values, was instrumental in enhancing the quality of democracy in North Africa by promoting the creation of trades unions. Organisations (such as a trades union) give ordinary people a voice.
What would the reformed House be called? How about the House of Representatives?