On Lucy Meadows

If this case ain't the straw that breaks the camel's back with regards to the press then I don't know what is.

Teachers require scrutiny, of course, as they teach children all day.  Thing is, teaching has a statutory regulator which decides what the standards are and who is falling short; something the press lack.  Today we find ourselves in a world where the most bigoted and fearmongering journalist for the most bigoted and fearmongering mainstream newspaper can hound an innocent person to death without any fear of being held accountable for his actions.

No.  This is unacceptable.  There is no "free press" anyway, and nor were their actions in this case legal, but they can get away with it.  The "freedom of the press" amounts to nothing more than a series of crimes that we all know they won't be prosecuted for committing.

There needs to be a law governing press activity, and it needs to read as follows:

A journalist or media business of any kind cannot begin to investigate the private life of any individual unless they have reasonable grounds to suspect that they will find information relating to some act of public misfeasance committed by the individual under investigation, nor can they publish any such details that do not have any bearing on an act of public misfeasance committed by the individual in question.  

Or as an example, an MP having an affair is committing an act of private misfeasance, so it cannot be published.  An MP having an affair who uses his expenses to buy the silence of his mistress is committing an act of public misfeasance, so the whole business can be published.

A teacher is not doing wrong by being trans, so digging into such a person's private life should be unlawful.

On Steubenville

Trigger warning

The Steubenville gang-rape has brought an important fact to light: women should not get drunk, lest they be raped.

Okay, I'll bite.

Ladies, don't be drunk,
don't be sober,
don't walk alone at night,
don't go out in broad daylight.
Don't be a granny,
don't be a baby,
don't wear skirts,
and don't wear trousers.
Don't be straight,
don't be gay,
in fact don't even exist,
or else take some damn responsibility for what happens to the rapist.

As you can see, it's very hard for a woman - men too, but mostly women - to live her life without handing some manner of ammunition to a rapist, sometimes even after she's done living her life.  The internet is alight with discussion as to how this case is a lesson to young men about the perils of social media - a sentiment echoed by the judge himself - when it should be a lesson to young men about how it's wrong to go around raping.

CNN has lamented the fact that the boys will have to sign the sex offenders' register and have that looming over them, but they raped somebody!  At the time that they raped her, they admitted they weren't even sure if she was alive or dead, but they raped her all the same then urinated on her body when they were done.  They carry hatred and contempt for women to such a degree that it makes them a great danger to any woman within striking distance yet CNN finds it uncomfortable that others be allowed to know this fact in order to maintain public safety.

Others have said that the whole thing is just an attack on Ohio's football program, an attitude which makes them scarcely less dangerous than the two rapists at the centre of all this.  This attitude stems from the behaviour of the colleges themselves, who will gladly expel a rape victim to protect her rapist in order that he keeps on making them money from ticket sales.

In reacting to this case, society has once again put money and status and testosterone above women's bodily autonomy.  Excuse me while I rampage and break things.

Woodcare pt. 2 (plus a rant)

  I'm going to share this article, as with all the talk over the shooting of those schoolkids it is worth remembering that most people with mental ill-health do not go on to become killers.  I live with depression, I'm also autistic, I even have the so-called "warrior gene", yet I struggle to think of any situation in which I could murder.  Such a thing is either in a person or it is not, but most forms of mental ill-health do not contribute to it.  The panic which follows such events will inevitably lead to some poor sod with hyperactivity or autism or mutism - or even just someone who is unusually shy - who has never harmed a person in their life getting lynched by a bunch of eejits (egged on by the Sun) who confuse different with dangerous.  The problem has chiefly to do with culture.

  I found this quote.  It's attributed to Morgan Freeman, but then a lot of quotes on the internet are attributed to Morgan Freeman just because it gives them a measure of authority:-

"You want to know why. This may sound cynical, but here's why.

It's because of the way the media reports it. Flip on the news and watch how we treat the Batman theater shooter and the Oregon mall shooter like celebrities. Dylan Klebold and Eric Harris are household names, but do you know the name of a single *victim* of Columbine? Disturbed people who would otherwise just off themselves in their basements see the news and want to top it by doing something worse, and going out in a memorable way. Why a grade school? Why children? Because he'll be remembered as a horrible monster, instead of a sad nobody.

CNN's article says that if the body count "holds up", this will rank as the second deadliest shooting behind Virginia Tech, as if statistics somehow make one shooting worse than another. Then they post a video interview of third-graders for all the details of what they saw and heard while the shootings were happening. Fox News has plastered the killer's face on all their reports for hours. Any articles or news stories yet that focus on the victims and ignore the killer's identity? None that I've seen yet. Because they don't sell. So congratulations, sensationalist media, you've just lit the fire for someone to top this and knock off a day care center or a maternity ward next.

You can help by forgetting you ever read this man's name, and remembering the name of at least one victim. You can help by donating to mental health research instead of pointing to gun control as the problem. You can help by turning off the news."

Whoever actually wrote this has gotten it bang on.

Okay, pictures of finished things now.

And I've succeeded in fucking about with the heliotropic behaviour of a bramble.  Hooray!

Rhizobium woes

Thus far, my beans aren't nodulating.  I still don't know if the deficiency is in cobalt or Rhizobium.  I've been looking online for a cheap way to test for the presence of Co whilst browsing Rhizobium stockists.

  Most places (quite sensibly) won't ship live bacteria to any address that isn't a school or college.  Trouble is that this includes Rhizobium.  Some strains of Rhizobium can infect humans, but not the same ones that infect beans.  Thus far, the only place I've found that'll sell me Rhizobium will also sell me Penicillium, Candida, and Staphylococcus. OH HELL NO!  I shan't publish the address because I don't want to encourage or facilitate stupidity.

  Staphylococcus is the genus which includes the dreaded MRSA.  Whilst certainly dreaded, MRSA lives on the skin of 1-in-3 of us and is only likely to harm you if you have an open wound or a compromised immune system.  Still, after the huge media flap over MRSA (ethical journalism FAIL!), you'd think they'd be careful with Staphylococcus.

  Penicillium gives us penicillin.  Penicillin is restricted for a good reason, in that overuse of it is what started this whole superbug fiasco in the first place.  People should not be making batches of dubious penicillin in their garden sheds.

  Candida is a fungus that gives you ringworm or thrush.  Bloodstream infections from Candida have a mortality rate of between forty and fifty percent.  A vengeful, twisted eejit who got hold of a batch of Candida could load up the Karcher, take it down to Westfield and give ten thousand people a dose of thrush.  It also makes wine go off and I can't be having that!

Suffice it to say that I shan't be shopping at a place so reckless as to offer any germs to anyone.

  So, I'm back to square one.  A mate's dad grows V. faba and he gets N fixation just fine, so I'm trying to get a clod of his soil to spread on mine.  He's fine with it, the only problem is he's down in Southampton.  Next time I visit Ro I'll stop by, but that won't be for a while yet.

I best get working on that Co test...