It's about what you can do

One thing I hope people will get from the Paralympics is a sense of not beating themselves over what they can't do, but celebrating what they can do. If you look at the athletes, they have over come amazing odds to excel in the sports that they do, some border on the ability of being in the Olympics with the times that they set despite having a disability. These are good role models to show what you can do if you try hard enough. This statement is not aimed at disabled people, this aimed at all people. How many of us say we can't do something without at least trying, or give up after the first couple of attempts. I'm not particularly computer literate & I'm dyslexic but felt like writing this blog would be a good thing for me to do, to help out on accounts, though I do need to take some decent photos to load onto this blog. But hopefully there will be a change in attitude, even with me perhaps I will eventually learn to play a musical instrument. Living in hope Pagan Chapain

Crystals

It's been a while since I touched upon a Witchcraft subject, so I'm going to talk about these sparkly beauties. Crystals have been big business in the New Age & Pagan markets & many books have lists of crystals & their attributes. I've trained in crystal therapy, don't judge me it was a free course & it did definitely do something, but I have a feeling that it was more down to the placebo effect, I believe this due to the fact if 'energy' came into it sure it would bare the scars of a wounded planet possibly wounded men & women as a lot of our beloved crystals are far from ethically sourced, the recent political battles with the platinum mines are case in point. So if they have these energies that heal why don't they bring the energies that harmed the people or landscape in extracting them? Yes gemstones have different properties in their make up diamond being pure carbon, quartz being a silicone dioxide as well as a high scoring word in scrabble, but are we holding on to superstition just for a mass market or does it really work & my scepticism is just working overtime. Does the leaving them out in the sun destroy the 'negative energy' by radiation & the full moon 'realigns the energy' through it's magnetic pull. I never thought I'd see the day when I might put science into said post. I suppose quartz does power watches, but if you wanted quartz that badly go in your garden, those white round pebbles are quartz, Britain is full of quartz, you don't need to get it from some country thousands of miles away, flown in at the expense of the carbon footprint of the planet & at least you know it's ethically sourced & you haven't harmed the planet to get them. I do admit though that I have kept some of the crystals I bought in my less enlightened as to how they were sourced days.

The Right to Die

With Tony Nickilnson shuffling off this mortal coil, dying of natural causes it does bring up many thoughts on the right to die. With his death I can't help feeling confused on what I should be feeling, should I be glad that his wish was fulfilled or sad that he had no say over when he went? As to whether or not I would say I agree with euthanasia is a difficult call. In a clean cut world it could be be seen as an easy decision to make, if they are in a position where they feel trapped in their body & are unhappy then they should be allowed to make that decision. The world however is not that clean cut, there are some people who may not want the burden of someone who is totally reliant on them to everything for them & may press the person into wanting to die and made to feel worthless. In the case of Alzheimer's disease how can someone in the more advanced stages consent? How would somebody know when they feel the time has come, when they are confused themselves? It is not an easy question to be answered, which is possibly why it keeps failing in parliament to shift either way. There are some people despite crippling illnesses like these who achieve great things, Professor Stephen Hawking being a prime example of this, rising through the ranks of science despite having motor neurone disease. What would I do if faced with a similar dilemma, at one point I thought I knew, but if it came to the crunch would my opinions still be the same?

Sexual Attacks

This is probably going to be the hardest entry for me to write having been indecently assaulted by a woman at the age of the 13, the same time I was coming to terms with the fact that I was gay, but it does seem that issues relating to sexual attacks are hitting the press rather a lot of late. Julian Assange who did a good service to the world with Wikileaks has now become a hypocrite, telling the world to face up to what they have done & yet won't even face trial for his own sexual assault charges in Sweden, whilst trying cause civil unrest to try & hide the unforgivable act that he is accused of. Then there are the down right stupid & irresponsible words of Todd Akin saying that women's bodies are unable of pregnancy if it is legitimate rape. It all smacks of of a blatant disregard for someone's sexuality & their right to be in charge of their own bodies & that somebody can come along defile somebody & not face consequences. This is also marred when someone has a sexual encounter that that they consented to but regret afterwards & then claim rape afterwards as some sick, twisted power play. Plus people blame other cultures of rape or sending people into prostitution, often with little or no proof, or tar the whole group of people with the same brush as a sick & twisted small minority that do not represent the rest of the group. All sexual/indecent assaults & rapes should be punished as it destroys lives, but so to do false accusations. If you are in a place sexually where you don't want to be say no, get yourself out of the situation & if it is not possible always report the attack as you you may not be the only victim, yes it is scary, but talk, there are groups who will listen & offer support & advice, you are not alone. On the flip side if you consented to something you later regretted learn from it, which is what I did, having experienced a non consensual attack before it happened, I can tell the difference between the 2 even though they both feel emotionally raw. Keep safe.

Quicktime

Perhaps I'm a victim of the instant society, I order online & it arrives in a couple of days. I recently, well not so recently bought a hoodie from America, so far it has taken 2 months to get here it is due to arrive today. It was meant to be for my nephew's birthday, which was over a month ago. But going back not that long ago this would not have seemed that unusual, perhaps I should have pre empted this & ordered it 4 months ago, but it is the first time that even something from America has taken this long to arrive. In all fairness though they did not take the payment until it was well on its way, which I suppose is a good thing. But just as I was thinking it there were a couple of independent t-shirt retailers in Britain who took a little while to deliver, perhaps it is more of  small business thing in which case, I should be more patient as they have fewer staff to put through larger orders. But beyond just getting gifts, I do feel that perhaps we try & do things far to instantly, how many people take time to cook nowadays, people want higher speed travel & communications, just feeling frustrated a reply to an email can sometimes take a few hours rather than seconds ignoring the fact that sometimes people are busy elsewhere. In the days of post it would take longer & that was not that long ago. So perhaps we should learn patience, my German friendship cake was not instant but well worth the wait. Perhaps I should follow my own advice a bit more too. Good things come to he who waits including promotion, woohoo.

The World has not gone away just because the Olympics is here

I am guilty of referring to the Olympics a lot, but I have not let the rest of the world go unnoticed, there are still problems in the Middle East, Gore Vidal died, South Sudan & Sudan have come to a trade agreement, the north of India had a major power outage. A millionaire gets found murdered in London. Has the Olympics provided a much needed screen to develop peace or is it clouding us from what is actually important in the world. Are we just getting carried away just so we can have just a couple of weeks thinking that all is well in the world? Is it helpful? One thing for sure this time this year is a stark contrast to the riots of last year & yet the country is still in an economic turmoil. Perhaps the unification of this country behind one thing has done us good at a very tough & turbulent time. But please everyone do not take your eyes off the ball as far as the rest of the world is concerned.

The Olympics so far

With the opening ceremony not embarrassing us, well mostly, the chronological order of history was out a fair bit & a random volunteer leading out India, what can we say? Well good things & bad, as of time of writing this Team GB have not got a gold medal (though hopefully this is about to change, but not holding my breath). One amazing thing is that every team this year has a female competitor, it has surprised me that it took this long but hey, there is also women's boxing for the first time too, so yay for women's rights. The amount of openly LGBT competitors is down though, so not quite so good, but that is probably more to do with the qualifying times/scores of the individuals & the ability for some of the athletes to be out. We're doing OK as a nation on medals but not fantastically. But as an event for Great Britain well it doesn't seem to be working out too well financially. the British tourists are staying away from Olympic areas as they are expecting the traffic to be a nightmare & most hotels have put up their rates 10 fold so putting them out of price reach for somebody wanting to take in a show in London for the weekend or go to the beach at Weymouth. Stratford-upon-Avon however has had a boost to there economy because people want to see Shakespeare's stomping ground. A fair few of the sponsors of the Olympics had been tax dodging until protesters tightened their grip on them & looking at the Olympic sponsors, why don't we go all out in unhealthiness & have KV the official pork scratchings of the Olympics & Mr Kipling & Ginsters can have a go too. Then there is the empty seats, although they do seem to be seeing to that already. Will the Olympics boost our economy the answer seems to be no at the moment, with the irony that now London's attractions are so quiet now that it would be the perfect time to visit them. So far though I have been enjoying them, predominantly because I have been selective what I have been watching. But what happened to the quintessentially British sports of tossing the caber, gig racing, cheese rolling, pub skittles & street football? We were even good at tug-o-war back in the earlier days when it was an Olympic sport, why did we not see those we could have stood a chance of getting a gold in those, OK with the exception of gig racing & tug-o-war they are not international but we could have seen something interesting. Anyway off to check the medals board.