Russia, IOC, and Awkward Questions

OK so the awkward questions are mine, I'll get to those in a bit.



As has been across the news lately Russia has passed a number of laws making it illegal to be gay, or to support gay people or gay rights. This is a really ass backwards thing to have done, there's no debating that ,so I won't.

Famous people like Stephen Fry have petitioned the British Prime Minister and the IOC to boycott the Winter Olympics, or have them moved to another location. This has a LOT of backing.
One openly gay athlete has said the boycott is a bad idea, after all, these athletes work up to this pinnacle oftheir career, and might rather stick with a don't ask / don't tell situation for the duration of the event so as not to miss their shot, possibly their one shot, at Olympic glory.

But I got to thinking, the increasingly alphabet soup of LGBTQ people has more than gay people in it, and I assume there must be Trans athletes out there.

Sure enough a google search brings up a site for trans athletes, and two cases of trans athletes within the Olympics, which is where my 'awkward' questions would be going.

I say awkward because I have a couple trans friends, and at least one reader of my blog is trans and having previously lost a friendship through asking such questions, I have been hesitant to ask any more for fear of a repetition, so instead I've been wallowing in ignorance for some time. That's not good so, Im asking.

The IOC states that a trans athlete can compete in their gender two years after the surgery, apparently this gives time for the body to reach the 'right' levels of estrogen / testosterone etc. Until then athletes are to compete as the gender into which they were born. This leads to the situation of Keelin Godsey who is a pre-op trans man competing with women in the Hammer, he missed uot on going to London as he didn't make the cut although he did throw a personal best. He postponed his surgeries so that hecould have a shot at the olympics (and who would blame him).

Another case that came up when I was googling all of this (I hate to call it research, it's not as intensive as real research) was a MMA fighter, Fallon Fox. She's a trans woman who fights MMA, and it seems that some of the women she'll fight (and the commentators and fans of MMA) object to her competing as a woman, despite complying with the Olympic standards.

Does Fallon's bone density and muscle mass, even two years after reassignment surgery and the various medications she'd have taken in that time, give her an undeniable advantage?

How do trans people feel that in order to compete they have to either wait for two years post surgery, or compete as the wrong gender?

How does that compare with women like Caster Semenya who isn't trans but has high levels of testosterone and has to take treatments to bring her below the 'threshold'?

It seems that the definition of gender in terms of athletics is goverened by threshold levels of testosterone / estrogen and people have to be treated if they don't fit within the levels written down for their gender. Is that fair?

You can't use drugs or anything similar to improve your performance, but if you are naturally a certain way they enforce 'treatments' to bring you back in to a range that they will let perform in?
Does that seem right to you?

I will freely admit, gender and sexuality are subjects I am woefully under educated in, so for the most part I try to apply the same theory as I do to race, religion, and all manner of other things: They're human.

If only the rest of the world could just do the same.

Support Up and Coming Bands

Really - do.

Music these days is just way too much comercialilsed, sanitised clone-garbage. TV shows like 'Pop Idol' (or American Idol etc), X-Factor, and 'The Voice' make for amusing entertainment in the opening stages thanks to the bad singers that really can't sing, is prett bland in the middle, and by the end of it we're hoping something other than the winner's single gets to top the charts.

Thank got for the public upsurge in, I think it was 2009, when Rage Against the Machine beat Joe McElderry to the Christmas #1 spot.

Tom Morello apparently donated all the proceeds from this surprise chart topping to charity. Top bloke!

It's Ironic though - there was a mass facebook campaign here to get RATM to #1 because the media was pumping McElderry's song so much it felt forced, and the emphasis was on the RATM refrain "Fuck you! I won't do what you tell me!" which is exactly what everyone who bought the RATM record did - exactly as they were told.

Yes, I bought the record, and the irony of it wasn't lost on me then either.

Anyway, I digress, so, in support of all the people who work their asses off to make anything of themselves as a musician, I dedicate this post to the unsigned bands of the world.

It really is a gutwrenching slog to do anything as a musician. Finding a band is hard enough, sure if you want to play in pub covers bands until retirement you can get a gig almost by looking in the  yellow pages, but if you have the drive, the desire, heck the balls, to get your own music heard then you have a steep hill ahead of you.

You need the right line up, a band that you can rely on to do their job (it's a team effort), to pitch with things that aren't their job - let's face it while it's fun to watch, no one should let the drummer lug ALL of their geard from the van it weight a ton; and running around handing out flyers for a gig is no joking matter either - bands just starting out have to do everything because they can't afford hawkers or roadies.  You have to get along with with your bandmates, not just in the 'for a few hours' way that mates do, but in the 'we'll be living in each others pockets for days or weeks on end' kind of way.

Then you have to get gigs, this means trogging around pubs, clubs, holiday camps, events organisers and giving demo cds. Oh? You don't have one of those, no one's going to listen to you, so you'd best get in a studio and record one ... no cash for the studio, then you'd best have a forgiving family and neighbours because you're recording it in your back room on your computer ... Good luck.

Once you have your first gigs the key then is to connect with a crowd made up friends who've come to see you and people who don't know you from Adam and give them a great night. That means mixing covers with your own material.

Then, and only then, can you build a following, look for a showcase gig and pray that the right A&R guy hears you. Of course today it's a little easier thanks to the wonders of the internet; email, social media, youtube, are all great platforms to promote a band.

Do all that, get lucky, and be in the right place at the right time, and you could go far.

It's a slog. Don't let any TV show convince you otherwise.

These guys below have done what they have the hard way - so please, show them and other hard working bands  a courtesy, listen to them, buy their stuff, and tell your friends to do the same.

Hashtag Alice


Rooftop Farmers


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My Mate Marmite

I do love a controversy, especially a daft one:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mHjssdNNzP0



Normally the only controversy over this spread / condiment is whether one likes it or hates it. The taste really does polarise people on it. Me? I love it.

However it's not the taste that's being targetted now, oh no; it's the latest advert for it (youtube link above) - "End Marmite Neglect"


Why is it causing controversy?

Well it seems that some people take offence at the advert, yes, they find it offensive. They claim it demeans the work of the RSPCA and the NSPCC and carries heavy overtones and child and animal abuse, especiall with it being aired so close after the case of a 4yr old girl who was sadly abused to death.

Personally I think the advert is intended, and succeeds in being, funny. The people I've shown it too have laughed at it.

I have to admit, I don't find it humours me, but neither am I offended by it, in fact I think it's not a  great advert. The only part about it that works for me is the last segment where we see a family tucking in to some tasty looking Marmite crumpets and the youngest pulls a face.

I really and honestly can't see where people get the sensation that it's offensive, nor can I see how it demeans the work of the RSPCA or the NSPCC - it's an advert, and not a good one, it's just bland TV, and if people don't like it they can change channel, make a cuppa, or put up with it while they wait for 1:40 for the ad to end or their show to come back on.

Really, it's a fuss over nothing people. Get off your PC bandwagons and stop giving the nanny state more ammunition to censor us in to eternity.

Doctor who

On Sunday the new actor to take on the role of The Doctor was revealed as Peter Capaldi, the Internet has since exploded in all manner of tribute and polarisation of opinion.

Of course I am no different and I too have opinions. Usually you'll hear the phrase "Opinions are like arseholes, everyone's got one but we don't all want to see or hear it". In this case it's my blog and ill write what I want. After all that's what blogs are all about.

Dr. Who fans are a big and diverse bunch, we have 11 past Doctors to choose from, so I you ask 10 people who their favourite is you'll likely get a dozen different answers.

Of the 'new batch' I favour Christopher Ecclestone's incarnation; he had just the right balance of humour, alien-ness, and seriousness to be 'right'. Those attributes, to my way of thinking, made home come across in a similar way to Tom Baker's incarnation.

I have to admit that I found David Tennant's gurning and facial contortions off putting. I also disliked the levels of emo and angst in his stories, but I can't blame the actor for that.

Matt Smith's Doctor was generally much more fun and I did prefer him to Tennant in the role, but he lacked the subtle menace that Ecclestone mustered, even when caught in the Pandorica and monologuing about what not to put in a trap Smith lacked any menace.

Storytelling and pacing is what's been the main let down in the series since the reboot; most episodes are self contained so the series lacks the cliff-hanger endings I'm used to from my childhood. This makes the episodes rush through what could be a wonderfully complex story leaving us as an audience feeling robbed of the thrill the show should have. It also means that each season is woefully short.

Then there's the magic wa- I mean Sonic Screw Driver. It used tone just a gadget, now it's wafted around several times an episode and used by the storyteller as a Deus-Ex-Mechanica. I suspect this is either because the writers have a huge fondness for the gadget, or can't wrap up the story son enough without alien techno-magic. What ever happened to the companions? Not enough sadly.

Yes, I said companions, plural. The show works at best when it has an ensemble cast ... A crowded TARDIS is a good TARDIS. For too long since the reboot we've had just one or two companions, bring us more travelers, more people to accompany the Doctor; comedy relief, challenging intellect, anachronism, opposing viewpoint, any /all of those tropes in the TARDIS would spice up the currently dull stories.

Please can we stop putting The Earth in danger - some of the best episodes happen elsewhere, and the show felt more - believable (as far as a 900 year old humanoid alien time traveller can be believable) when it didn't mess with exposing the whole planet (in the contemporary time) to the existence of aliens.

Anyway, that's way too much ranting about the show, I should be talking about the new guy. Peter Capaldi is a great actor, best known for aggressive roles or bad guy roles (the thick of it / Neverwhere). I hope this means a return to some simmering menace and calm alien-ness.

I also hope we see more companions joining him. There have been some corking potential companions that seem to have been discarded; Jen (The Doctor's Daughter), she could lend a military and intellectual companion to the mix; Lady Christina DeSouza (Planet of the Dead), she would lend an aristocratic, roguish element, again with intellect.

Frankenburger

So having artificially grown a burger it has now been eaten by not one, but two guinea-pig taste testers...



It's taken around a quarter of a million pounds, but the world's first artificially grown burger has been grown, moulded in to a patty, cooked and eaten. As burgers go it's expensive, and I'd rather have a wagyu burger than a vat grown one, but that's just me.

The burger was grown in strips from stem cells in a nutrient broth nd stimulated with electricity. It took 20,000 such strips, 200pieces of lab grown animal fat, salt, egg powder, and breadcrumbs, and red beetroot juice and saffron (to provide authentic beef colouring) to make the burger.

When asked if he'd feed it to his children, the creator said he had a patty to take home for them.

As to the taste test, well, two people ate the burger, and they seemed to approve, giving comments of; ‘The absence is the fat. But the bite feels like a conventional hamburger. What was conspicuously different was flavour.’ and 'It's close to meat. It's not that juicy. The consistency is perfect (but) I miss salt and pepper!'

The real question is - Was it worth it or was it just a publicity stunt?

Well, if the process can be replicated and be made able to mass produce these burgers on a much cheaper scale then yes it probably was worth it as it could give hope for food to areas blighted with poverty and drought.

Also it could possible be marked commercially as a cruelty free, and possible environmentally friendly, meat which could open it up to vegetarians and vegans who follow their path because of animal cruelty.

The scientists behnd it also claim that vat grown burgers would use 55%  the energy of naturally farmed beef, produce just 4% of the greenhouse gases, and take up only 1% of the land use. Sounds like a win doesn't it.

How many farmers would it put out of business though?

What are the long term effects of eating 'meat'  that's been vat grown in an accelerated manner, and so not naturally developed?

The sheep that had been cloned, Dolly, had to be put down because it developed lung disease and arthritis. Dolly was killed as just six years of age, her breed have alife expectancy of 11 - 12 years. We don't know for sure if Dolly's premature death was a result of the cloning (the sheep she was cloned from was 6 years old and some theorise her DNA was thus 6 years old), or the fact that for security reasons she had to be kept indoors, and contracted a disease that affects sheep kept thusly. Several other sheep in the heard also contracted the lung disease.

I know comparing a cloned sheep to vat grown meat for consumption is a stretch but I do have concerns for the long term effects, much the same as I do for GMO foods. I won't go into the whole Monsanto rant because that would be a whole other blog post, but again there are potential parallels, and being effectively a manufacturong process who's to know what else would / could be added in to man-made meat, especially when even natural meat get cross-contaminated with other meats - yes I'm referring to the horsemeat scandal over here in the UK last year.

Now that the financial backer for this being revealed as Sergy Brin, co-founder of google, I do wonder how much of this is going to become a for-profit project, but then I'm a huge cynic.

For me, the Jury's still out on the Frankenburger, I'll stick to normal meats thank you very much.

The Royal House of Windsor

Last week, here in the UK, a new member of the royal family was born, the new Prince is third in line to the throne.



I have to admit, I really don't get the whole media circus that builds up around the royals. The Royal Family are a part of our history, although the current royal line isn't as British as you may think, they are a core part of Britain, and the concept of them along with the pomp that accompanies anything they do, own, or have done, is a huge tourist draw, which makes them probably the buggest single boost to the UKs tourism trade. In short they're a good thing, but I really don't want to see or hear constant updates on things regarding them.

The Royal baby, is news, but after nine months of near constant coverage on Kate's baby bump I was pretty sick of it all.

Historically this is, so I hear, the first time in a long time that there have been three generations of heirs to the throne alive at the same time.

However, let's look at the family a little closer, you see Windsor is an adopted name brought about by King George V in 1917 following the the First World War to move away from the anti-german sentiments of the time. The Familiy name used to be Saxe-Coburg and Gotha (which is German), a result of their descendancy from Prince Albert. However even Queen Victoria wasn't as British as you may think, her monther was the German, Princess Victoria of Saxe-Coburg-Saalfeld.
In fact there has been German Lineage on the British throne since 1714 when George I, of the House of Hanover, took the throne.

For a time, the King of England was also the King of Hanover.

But, Prince Philip, the Duke of Edinburgh, is British surely, with his near the knuckle gaffes and such?
No. He was born Prince Philip of Denmark and Greece, to House of Schleswig-Holstein-Sonderburg-Glücksburg. BEfore he was allowed to marry the, then, Princess Elizabeth he had to abandon his Danish and Greek royal titles, convert from Greek Orthodoxy to and Anglicanism. He also adopte dthe surname Mountbatten (which is derived from Battenburg - his family's ancestry from Germany on his monther's side) due to anti-German feelings following World War Two. None of Prince Philip's three sisters were allowed to attend his wedding because they had married Germans, some with Nazi affiliations.

As well as being Queen Elizabeth II's Great-Great-Grandmother, Queen Victoria is also Prince Philip's Great-Great-Grandmother.

Who'd have though that in this day and age there was so much in-breeding between Europe's royalty? I mean the British queen has effectively married a cousin, quite removed, but a cousin never the less, and that's a trait that today would be levelled more at families in a Southern States trailer park than the high and mighty of Europe. Then again, that's how royal dynasties were planned back in medieval times, maybe old habbits are hard to break?

At least with Charles marrying Diana (then Camilla) and William marrying Kate there is new, British and non Royal blood entering the line of inheritance.
 
Of course now that Prince George has been born and named, the  media circus doesn't stop  there, a google search shows such headlines as 'Will baby George be circumsiced?' who, outside of that family, cares?

On the matter of Kate, while I'm on the subject of the Royals; here in the UK the media refer to Kate as Kate Middleton. Now, as I recall, Kate Married Prince William. When a woman marries, here in the UK, she takes takes her Husband's name, so she stopped being Kate Middleton and is now Kate Windsor. I wish the media would get it right.

Field Archery

As I said the other I was on vacation recently, and while away I went to a field archery site.



For those that don't know, field archery is a bit of a confusing name for the sport, because the name implies standing in a field and shooting at set targets - like you might have seen on the Olympics. If you thought that you would be wrong, that's Target Archery.

Field Archery is the closest you can get to bow hunting while in the UK. It usually takes place in woodlands, over a course (I used to think it was called 'Course Archery' for this reason) of twenty or so assorted animal-shaped targets at varying ranges.

It's illegal to hunt / kill ANYTHING with a bow and arrow in  this country - unless you're in the City of York, within the city walls, and your target is a Scotsman who happens to be carrying a bow and arrow...

Aside from that one bizarre law hunting and shooting at anything living will land someone in the UK with a hefty fine and / or imprisonment. So no bow-hunting and no bow-fishing for us Brits.
Now we've cleared that up...

We started with a couple of hours on the 'practice butts'. This got us used to the bows and how to shoot at varying distances. The targets on the practice butts were typical target archery targets, with markers every 5 yards from 15 yards out to 70 yards.

It was during this warm up that our tutor / guide, Ryan, told us that the rings on the targets were trying to put us off; the centre ring being gold / yellow calls for your attention, but the ring adjacent to it being red was causing the instinctive part of our brains to react to danger.

This appears to be backed up by pschology where tests have shown that in cognitive tests the colour red showed reduced responses. In other tests red has shown to boost adrenaline levels - another sign of the more primal fight or flight response. Both of these could (I couldn't find anything to back this part up)  add to innaccuracy in some circumstances for target shooters.

We took a break for a genial chat, Ryan is quite a talker, and I got to know the other half dozen guys with us. They have two 20 target courses on their site, and we were told it was probably the toughest course in the UK. This did not fill me with confidence for not losing any arrows.
However off in to the woodland we went, and I managed to mail the first target with my first arrow. This deffinitely bolstered my confidence for the rest of the course.

The course wan't just single targets; there 'Herd' targets - two or even three of the same type (Boars, Hares etc) where the idea is to hit the furthest one and while the others are looking away from you (at the one you hit) you take out the others, then there are 'predator - prey' targets where ou have to shoot the predator before you shoot the prey (so the targets are like a mountain lion and a turkey and you have to shoot the mountain lion before you can shoot the turkey).

Then to complicate things, this site (I don't know about others) has replicated a couple of 'Tree Stands' - elevated shooting platforms similar to those used by American hunterrs, which add another level of difficulty to the shot because you're well above your target.

We finished the 20 target course and thankfully I didn't lose a single arrow. I didn't score on every target but I was close enough to satisfy my ego.

Then to finish the day we did some ranging shots, or what Ryan called 'war shots' - whereby we'd go to their open field and shoot the bows angled up at around 45 dgrees to get maximum range on the arrow. given that their field was spattered with target dummies in medieval get-up it was easy to see how archery affected the battles of that era - it wasn't accuracy of shot that won the day - it was volume of arrows, and the fact that before the batle the archers had time to pop out to the field and drop range markers on the ground so they knew where to aim for any given target.

Interesting (well I found it interesting) trivia:
- You do not 'fire' a bow, you shoot it.
- Arrows are 'Loosed'.
- Medieval arrows didn't have the tips glued on, so if the tip didn't come out the other side of the target, it would stay in the target when the arrow was removed.
- Before battle archers would dip their arrow tips in their army's latrine holes to ensure infected wounds in their enemy.

Big Brother's watching Your Internet

I've had enough of Sun, Sea, and Sand, I'm back from vacation; back to the dull, grey, humdrum of office life.

What a week it's been though, so much news, so much to talk about. I'd best get started really hadn't I.



Biggest thingin the news for me, being a Brit, isn't the new Prince, couldn't really care less about him to be honest and I'll blog about him seperately, it's the new internet securities that our government wants to impose on our ISPs to 'protect children from violent and pornographic images'.

In short the whole thing is, to borrow a phrase from one of my favourite TV show characters, 'Absolute Horse Hockey'.

By the end of the year broadband users in the UK will be required to go through a compulsory opt-out system which will decide what they can and cannot see on the Internet.

In essence it doesn't sound so bad; the default configuration will, as far as we've been told, will block the offending content (such content being defined by the powers that be as sites promoting porn, thinspiration, suicide, bullying etc), but that we as users can turn it all off. No problem there right?
Well, that simple act of turning off the filters will be recorded somewhere in a database, it  has to be for it to work, otherwise yo'll bet setting that filter every time you logon. This means that the government will have created a simplistic database of what could be seen as 'porn users'. That would be misleading though.

Picture a hospital, they use a lot of computers and have IT staff and everything that goes with it. I know from friends and colleagues in the healthcare industry that the IT Security Officers in these places are already fighting a constant battle with firewall softwares blocking sites that contain useful reference material used by the nurses and doctors in these hospitals.

I would imagine schools and other educational facilities would have similar issues in subjects such as Biology, Art, and English. Why English?  I hear you cry, well, a lot of literature contains harsh language and abusive scenes; The Twilight series and 50 Shades series are both handbooks on abusive relationships.

The best internet filter to protect our children from the evils of the internet are the parents, but in this nanny state no one's got the spinal fortitude to stand up and take the responsibility for that, so it falls to the government to try and be the parent.

What's motivating the 'war on porn' as our tabloids are calling it? (Oh and don't forget, despite the crackdown on porn, The Sun will retain it's Page 3 Girl). Well, it seems that the news agencies are tying it in to the fact that in the case of two recent child murders, those of April Jones and Tia Sharp, the perpetrators had both viewed child porn online.

Now, it was my understanding that Child Porn was illegal, so would these new internet filters have stopped these distressing crimes? Probably not, but it gives the government an easy way to ease in another level of control over its citizens and censorship.

On the news were played soundbytes of tearful relatives of April and Tia who were overjoyed at the new of these measures, but in reality it would have mnade no difference, neither girl had been watching porn or thinspiration or anything else covered by the filters online, and the perpetrators would likely have done this anyway.

 My feeling here is that the government is wheeling these poor people out to be the emotional trigger to encourage people to let this censorship pass unabated, making them victims for a second time.
There is also the possible stigma of anyone opposing this being a child-porn supporter. No one wants that, it's not even funny to consider it.

However once it's all in place, it would be easy for the government, especially in the light of the internet and phone snooping the US have been revealed to be doing, for our government to spy on our own internet habits based on this.

The internet habits of me and my family are my concern, until such time as someone breaks the law, but until that time I have a right to privacy over that, and as in other areas the government must go out of their way to even be allowed to investigate it. This new policy would make it all too easy to achieve this end by means of stealth. It needs to be to stopped.

Please go to this link and sign the petition.
https://submissions.epetitions.direct.gov.uk/petitions/51746

Also this one for a wider catchment

http://www.change.org/petitions/eu-leaders-stop-mass-surveillance?utm_campaign=signature_receipt&utm_medium=email&utm_source=share_petition

It does not just affect the UK, but Eurpoe and the rest of the world too.

Lies, Damned Lies, & Statistics

I wanted to look in to things on this score because people in the media always put the spin on that they feel furthers their views. This is one of the things that the BBC has tried to hold true to (and sometimes failed) in so much as they claim to maintain an unbiased view point, unlike any of their American counterparts. Which statistics am I looking at? Crime. Specifically violent crime, and firearms. Why? Well, gun laws to be truthfull. You see, while America has currently one of the highest firearms ownership rates in the world, all the stats we see coming out of the American Media compare firearms crime with firearms crime rates in countries with much tighter gun laws, like the UK, who have probably the most draconian and restrictive firearms ownership laws in the world, and Australia who in the space of about 3 months following a mass shooting enforced a buy-back on firearms. Sounds fair really doesn't it? Well, I'm not sure, you see, to my mind if someone is going to commit a violent crime, they will pick the most efficient weapon available to them; in America that is undeniable a firearm, but elsewhere the MO may be a little different, so I'm planning to look at 'Violent Crime' rather than 'Firearms Offences' as seen in Australia, mainand UK (that's Scotland England and Wales for anyone who's unclear on the difference between UK, England, and Great Britain), and Australia. First, some back story for each country. So, in the UK there's been a number of 'famed' mass shootings; Hungerfood in 1987, Monkseaton in 1989, Dunblane in 1996, Cumbria in 2010. Following Hungerfood and Dunblane the UK restricted ownership of firearms so much that no pistols could be owned (except for some sporting pistols that due to their length classify as 'long arms') and restricted ownership of rifles such that farmer and shooting clubs were largely the only people to have access to them. So outside of sporting situations (incidentally the UK Government had to make exceptions for foreign shooters to be able to practice and compete in the Olympics - UK shooters still had to practice overseas) the only weapons available in the UK are basically .22 rifles and shotguns - which are used for pet control. Despite all of these restrictons, a licenced owner went on a spree killing in Cumbria in 2010. Over to Australia now. A recent 'report' (I put it in quotation marks because while it's intention was to make a point to the US gun lobby, it was so over the top as to be easily dismissed as nothing more than a skit) by John Oliver of the Daily Show (youtube link to part one : https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9pOiOhxujsE) indicated that a complete firearms ban had been brought about in Australia following the Port Arthur Massacre in 1996. The fact is that as of 2007 around 5% of the population still own (legally I hasten to add) firearms for the purposes of hunting, pest control, and target shooting. That same report goes on to emphasise that since the buy-back following Port Arthur in 1996 there have been no mass shootings in Australia. In 2002 at Monash University two people were killed by gunman Huan Yun Xian. It is also worth noting that neither the UK, not Australia has any constitutional (or otherwise given) right to own a firearm, or any other weapon, for means of defence. These countries have no parallel to the much vaunted Second Amendment. I promised statistics, but to be honest I dislike statistics - as the title and the old addage says "there are lies, damned lines, and statistics." What this means is that a good statistician can use numbers to say anything, and that's what's been happening in terms of the gun control debate in the US, especially whether other nations crme figures are brought in. Populations: Australia - 22.32 Million UK - 63.2 Million USA - 313.9 Milion Reported Violent Crimes Australia - 200,880 (approx number calculated by figures per 100000 people) UK - 2,074,000 (number as provided by uk govt) USA - 4,856,510 (from stats published by the US Govt) In Australia, the number of cases of violent crime have risen since the firearms buy-back, but still it has the lowest numbers both in absolute and percentage of population than either the US or the UK. The US has, unsurprisingly the highest absolute number, but then check their population. they may have double the violent crime numbers, but they have well over double the population. % of Population Australia - 0.9% UK - 3.2% USA - 1.5% Now, that's general across the populations, but as with all statistics, there's so much more it doesn't take in to account, population demographics, geographical factors, a whole slew of other things that could impact the numbers. What is does show is that the rates of violent crime would seem to be removed from the rates of gunownership and the legality of carrying firearms in everyday situations. the UK, the nation with possibly the tightest firearms ownership laws, has the highest rate of violent crime, more than double that of the United States.

What's your ideal job?

My boss asked me this question,and I'm really glad he didn't ask it at the interview - I might not have got my job if he did.

"If money was no object, what would you do for a job?"

When he asked me the question I really had no idea how to answer, it wasn't something I'd ever considered, my life's path had gone a certain way and that led to certain jobs, which gradually led up the managament ladder to where I am now; a middle management corporate wage slave - hence the title of this blog.

The reason that I'd never considered it, is because I don't truly believe that I'll ever be in a 'money is no object' situation. I play the lottery, so every week I have a 1 in 13 million chance of this becoming a reality. Of course the odds of being struck by lightning are something like 1 in 575,000, and that hasn't happened yet either, so I'm not exactly waiting for that ridiculously slim chance to actually happen becaus eI'm pretty safe in the assumption it won't.

When I was asked, I think I replied something like, "I'd put my time in to music, maybe become a session musician or something." It wasn't necassarily what I'd do, but the first thing that I thought to say - after all, among my past hobbies does lie failed attempt at music stardom (needless to say I didn't anywhere further than the local pub circuit).

Apparently the answer to the question says a lot about the person answering.

Looking back on that question, today, I think perhaps my answer wasn't so far from the truth. Music and audio is something that has, forgive the pun, resonated with me. I've been a musician, I've written songs, I've recorded songs, I've played to crowds sometimes even fairly big crowds, and it's all a lot of fun. Let me tell you there is a buzz you get when you step up on to a stage to look outon a crowd of people there to see you perform. That buzz is unlike any other I've known, it really plays to your ego, However, money being no object doesn't dictate whether you can have a career as a musician, luck does, and plugging away as a session guy really doesn't do it for me in the way that being a part of an act would. So music is out.

Or is it?
There's more to music and the music industry than the guys up on stage; there's an army of sound guys, lighting guys, roadies, techs - all of whom do their utmost to make the band look and sound as good as possible both in the studio and live.
Then there's  the DJs the promoters, all working to get the band visibiilty.

Me? I like sound, Ilike messing with sound, I like to think that if I wasn't doing my current job and money was no object I'd be doing something somewhere related to sound.
Two 'heroes' one from a book, one from a movie, have always stuck in my mind; Jack Sorenson of the novel 'To Kill The Potemkin' and Jack Terry from the movie 'Blowout' are both experts in sound and both shine through in their field through the course of their respective stories. Neither of these guys are typical action heroes, and both of them stumble across the plot through being very good at their jobs.

Blowout

To Kill The Potemkin

We're on Facebook

Yes indeed, I've been convinced to set up a Facebook page for this blog, so after some time umming and ah-ing over whether or not to do it, i've taken the plunge.

You can find us at:
https://www.facebook.com/moacws

'Murica, guns, and laws - Oh My!

Yes, I'm a Brit! Yes, I am interested in how things play out in America in respect of heir gun laws.
No, I'm not like Piers Morgan preaching for gun control.
Ok, now that's out of the way I can get on with things.
A lot has happened in the USA recently by way of prominent crimes and especially interms of Gun Crime, and what people want to see done to prevent more tragic happenings.
Today I'm looking at two of these instances; George Zimmerman and Marissa Alexander.
In case you missed it, George Zimmerman has been acquited of any wrong doing in the death of Trayvon Martin, and so walks away a free man.
Marissa Alexander fired warning shots at her abusive husband and is sentenced for 20 years.
I'm only talking about these cases now because it's only recently that he respective juries have passed their verdicts. My own opinions as toi the guilt of the parties involved is no irrelevent, as is everyone else's - the descision has been made (barring the appeals process).
So what I'm trying to look at here, is how one person can kill another and walk away almost untouched by it, while someone else spares a life by giving fair warning ends up in jail for 20 years. That to me seems utterly crazy.
Maybe both cases are from different states, so might have different laws affecting them? No. Both cases are in Florida.
Throughout the Zimmerman case people have been crying foul on race reasons - but I can't see how that's valid as Zimmerman is hispanic, and the race reasons cited are white supremacy. I'll classify that one as crazy talk.
Marissa is black, and female - it's possible that both her gender and her race counted against her. Possible, but based on the (lack of) media coverage given to the case it's impossible to judge.
My best guess - Zimmerman had a better lawyer behind him, and a more lenient Judge. Why do I say that? Well, Zimmerman waived his right to a 'Stand Your Ground' pretrial immunity hearing, when Marissa Alexander's lawyer made an appeal under the 'Stand Your Ground' law, the judge denied it.
the 'Stand Your Ground' law, according to the wikipedia, says:
"In the United States, stand-your-ground law states that a person may justifiably use force in self-defense when there is reasonable belief of an unlawful threat, without an obligation to retreat first."
There's a lot more to it than that, if you want to read the whole thing it's here:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stand-your-ground_law
So, in short, ifyou feel you're in evere danger of harm or worse, you can 'stand your ground' and use force. To my uneducated eyes it seems that Marissa's mistake was to fore warning shots. The second she did that instead of shooting at her abusive husband, she lost the 'Stand Your Ground' backing because a warning shot shows premeditation rather than the instinctive self defence action of shooting her assailant.
In a country where a woman was brutally beaten, in front of her child, by a burglar, the fact that in a siilar situation an armed woman who fired a warning shot could end up with more jail time than the guy burgling her confuses and scares the heck out of me.
I would love to think that if a firearm was used in self defence or home defence you wouldn't face such stiff, if any, penalties.
I envy a country where people can legally use a weapon to defend their home, but the way the country implements its laws, and threatens their very existance in a highly violent modern age worries me.

Internet Famous ...

Is it in the human ego to want to be known wide and far?
Is the apparent desire for internet fame an off-shoot of the cult of celebrity that we see in every day lives, just expanding in to the virtual and infinite medium of the internet?

We all have hobbies, and to each person another's hobbies might seem odd or strange. As a hobby that seems to have come across from Japan, Cosplay has been gaining momentum and popularity over the last few years and is often seen 'geek' events like Dragon-Con in the US, and the MCM and LFCC Expos in London.

For those not in the know, the word Cosplay is a portmanteau of Costume and Play. The hobby itself in it's simplest description consists of dressing up as yoru favourite character(s) and exploring your fandom through the medium of costume, while hanging out with like-minded people

Costumes and fans come from all corners of fandom; Anime & Manga (Japanese animation & comics), Super Heroes, TV Shows and Movies, even Computer Games.

The communities around cosplay seem to be freequent and, for the most part, helpful and collaborative, with facebook groups and dedicated forums.

Possibly the best known group of cosplayers, although they may distance themselves from the term, it is very much what they do, is 'The 501st' - an international group of Star Wars costumers who don Imperial / Dark SIde related costumes (their Rebel / Light Side counterparts being 'The Rebel Legion') and attend events, parades, and rallys for charity. What these guys do with their hobby is tremendous and is to be commended, so much so  that other groups have sprung up doing similar things.

For the time and money that these people spend on their costumes and props, to then go and give their time to raise money for charity is a wonderful thing to see hear and read about. These guys use their internet fame to try and make a difference to people, they try to be a force for good.
http://501stlegioncharity.com/
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y0GtiE3kAWQ

However, there's another side to the hobby; one that I'm less happy to see, and the one that this post is most about - the people who seem to be looking to gain fame, and to some extent fortune, from their hobby.
http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/Tabitha-Lyons-Cos-Play-signed-Posters-/111106322393?pt=UK_Collectables_AnimationCharacters_Anime_SM&var&hash=item5f810d4d70
http://jessicanigri.storenvy.com/
http://cottoncandycosplay.storenvy.com/

It may be that I'm too old to understand, but when I was younger the people I wanted signed posters of were rock stars, the emphasis for the purposes of this post being 'stars', but here we have people who are selling signed posters of themselves dressed as someone (or something) else.
I can understand why cosplayers would set up Facebook 'fan' pages for their hobby, some may be in day jobs where they wouldn't necassarily want bosses or clients they connect with on Facebook to see their slightly unusual hobby, or some may use the page to connect with the myriad of people they connect with at conventions without having to use their personal page, all of this I understand, and is reasonable, but I have noticed some people hawking their fan page trying to hook in more 'Likes' for their page simply because they have less 'Likes' than their peers, other have (as in the links above) used their fan pages to promote their online-stores where people can buy signed photos and prints of themselves.

It's at this stage that I can't help feeling that the cosplayers involved have stepped out of being a cool part of the community and in to profiteering, self promotion, and internet fame. This in turn, to my humble way of seeing things, poisons the well of the hobby giving people outside the hobby a skewed view of what the people in the hobby are like.

People like this, from what I can see do it all for themselves; for profit, to be 'cosplay famous' or 'internet famous', whatever the reason, it leaves a bad taste in my mouth and it wouldn't surprise me if it puts others off the hobby.

That said, and self promotion drama aside, I'll admit it's a lot of fun to rock up to a con in costume, if nothing else a great costume can help you feel like a real badass! I also won't deny that it's an ego boost when people identify who you're dressed as and ask for pic - it makes all the hassle in getting the kit together totally worth while.

Women Don't Count as Wimbledon Champions?

I didn't plan to write gender based blogs when I set this up. Actualy I didn't plan anything, but I wasn't expecting to do so much around gender.

However, her we go. In all the media Murray's victory at Wimbledon yesterday is heralded as the end to a 77 year draught of Wimbledon Champions.

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/sport/tennis/wimbledon/10165707/After-77-years-the-wait-is-over-for-a-Wimbledon-champion-as-Andy-Murray-beats-Novak-Djokovic.html

So, the Telegraph, one of our higher quality news papers completely ignores Virginia Wade winning the Championship in 1977.
The Telepgraph isn't alone though, The Times also headlines the 77 year wait for a Champion, as does the Daily Mail.

This is probably just carelessness on the part of the writers and editors - Virginia Wade won the Women's Championship in 1977, but we haven't had a Men's Champion since 1936. Obviously they're meaning Men's Champion, but thet're not saying that, and that's a high level of carelessness.

In this day and age when people take offence at the slightest perceived slur or oversight news writers editors can't afford mistakes like that, and deserve every piece of complaint that comes their way

Police Shoot Dog in California

It's all over the news sites now; a police officer, in California, shot, and killed, a man's dog while the man was being arrested.

The thing is, pretty much all of the sites of seen it on have been critical of the officer's handling of the situation. I don't believe that's correct.

I won't link the video, because it is brutal and disturbing, and to be honestI don't want to be doing with that. It is easy enough to find in various formats on youtube though.

Before we look at the video, let's have a little background; the dog in question is a Rottweiler, these dogs are known to be strong and have a great capacity for causing harm - sure, a well trained Rottweiler is as passive as any other dog, until the owner is under threat, like with any other dog. Rottweilers, however, are built to be lethal, unlike a lot of other dogs, when they bite, they lock on, their muscles are increbibly powerful, and their teeth deadly and sharp. Make no mistake, a Rottweiler is a lethal animal.

So, back to Sunday's scene in California; at least four squad cars at a police incident, later we're told it was an armed robbery, and Leon Roseby walks past, with his dog, and makes an absolute show of filming the incident in progress while shouting very loudly about making sure no one's civil liberties are violated. This was, is, and always will be, a damned stupid thing to do because whatever else it may achieve, it guarantees aggrevation of the police and is clearly going to goad them in to action of some sort.

He puts his dog in the car (the windows are rolled right down) and approached the police who are walking towards him, and offers himself for arrest. This is also dumb - the police didn't even have cuffs out until a few seconds after they got to him.

This is where it all really starts to unravel for the poor dog. Seeing it's owner in trouble it does what any loyal dog would do, it goes to it's owner's aid. A lot of shouting is never going to calm a dog down, the dog won't let the police near itself or it's owner. All credit to the police here - they clearly do what they can in the situation and show a lot of restraint. Why do I say that? The dog lunged at the officer twice, and the officer didn't shoot it on the first lunge.

Anyone who's had a dog of that size and fabled ferocity go for them will know how pant-wettingly terrifying that is; it's all bark, and teeth and slobber and coming for you, and th epolice officer here tried to calm the dog not shoot it on the first  lunge.
Second time around he had no choice because he'd already tried peaceful means.

Why did he shoot it four times? To be humane to the animal. It was clear that the first bullet didn't kill it outright, so maybe he saw it was the humane thing to finish it off, or maybe he wanted to make sure that a wounded and enraged animal didnt make a third lunge. Don't mistake the the second, third and fourth shots as overzealousness, they were needed.

Leon Roseby is now looking to sue the police for killing his dog. I hope to heck he fails. He engineered the situation in which his dog died. It's come out that the police had asked him to turn down the music in his car as it was interfering with their operation, he said he was complying. I have to say I can see no compliance of that nature in the video; he goes to the car ... puts the dog in it, but doesn't secure the dog, doesn't make an effort to turn down the music, then leaves the car to go to the police.

He could have avoided this outcome at a number of junctures, but he didn't. He only has himself to blame here; he goaded the police, he did not comply with their request to turn his music down, he did NOT secure his dog in the car.

It seems that two investigations are now ongoing in relation to that incident; one investigating Roseby for interferring with a plice scene, and another for the police officer shooting the dog.

I hope the police officers in question are cleared of any wrong doing.

Is Equality really what activists want?

Increasingly in recently months there's been a lot of ... well, a lot of everything around equality: 'I need feminism because ...", the red square avatar containing the '=' symbol, assorted political debates on equality of varying types, and newspapers seemingly promoting hate.

None of these really seem to me that they have the necessary gravitas to actually drive anything towards equality.

Now, here's where it all risks going decidedly un-pc. I'm not a feminist, and I don't want to be one. Ever. I'm prefectly happy being who and what I am.

Allow me to explain.

I don't think people should label themselves and risk isolating themselves because they choose to label themselve as some subset of humanity. We're all people, can't we leave it at that and be equal?
Apparently not.
If I offer my seat to a woman on the train I'm a male chauvenist pig, if I open a door and hold it open for a woman to pass through ahead of, or behind me, I'm a misogynist and degrading women.
There I Was thinking I was being nice.

So a little research, some ballbusting comments from 'feminist' 'friends' later and I've come to the conclusion that the stereotypical man-hating feminist of media portrayal isn't actually too far from the truth.

Let's delve a little deper, and look at some example situations that don't revolve around me:
A large number of 'I need feminism because...' pictures have circulated around the 'net. Of the ones I've seen only a fraction make a good point other are like this:


Actually this is the most bluntly NOT feminist one i've seen, and has been countered by this one



So, those two counterpoint each other nicely, what about the others ... well, fortunately there's a tumblr just for these pictures:
http://whoneedsfeminism.tumblr.com/
So here's a couple of gems:

http://whoneedsfeminism.tumblr.com/image/20912132531
".. because I Still hold gender biases and I don't want to"
Nothiong to do with feminism - just to do with that guy's own prejudices that he wants to blame on society ... other people .. anyone but himself

http://whoneedsfeminism.tumblr.com/image/20911631385
".. because I am more then the sum of my parts"
It's a nice pithy statement, that anyone could apply. It has nothing to do with equality.

http://whoneedsfeminism.tumblr.com/image/20911110653
".. because being black does not negate my womanhood"
Nor does being a woman negate your being black, but you just labelled yourself in to two groups. You're a human, a person, don't isolate yourself in persecution of what someone else might say to or about you.

http://whoneedsfeminism.tumblr.com/image/20950009989
".. because basic rights have no gender"
Sir, you are doing it right!

http://whoneedsfeminism.tumblr.com/image/20971963121
".. because I dream of a world where rape is finally in the history books."
Somneone needs to tell this lass that men can be raped. Not only can men be raped, they are, and should that act produce a chid they can be sued for child support maintenance. Rape is not a feminism issue. In fact, female rape victims actually are better off than male ones.

http://24.media.tumblr.com/tumblr_m2dnlp3axb1rtcur5o1_500.jpg
".. because because people of all sexes, sexualities and genders deserve equal rights and freedom from the fear of violence."
Someone else getting it right.

http://whoneedsfeminism.tumblr.com/image/20967305589
".. because experience with livestock DOES NOT translate to women’s reproductive health!"
OK, I'll admit it, I don't understand this one at all

I really could go on forever with these, therhe's a wealth of them across the intenet, but hopefully this little crossection has illustrated my point.

In short, don't lebel yourself in to a group then expect to be treated like everyone else, just go out there and be human, and treat everyone else like humans.

Dads & Fathers

"Anyone can be a father, but it takes someone special to be a Dad."

That's a phrase I've heard and seen a lot. I've also seen it transposed too, but to engender the same meaning.
What does it mean? Well, anyone can be biological sire of a child, but it takes someone special to care for that child through the years and help mold that child into a useful person.

I know, I wrote a fair bit about Fathers' day recently, but today's post is a little different, it's about the people who choose not to be a 'Dad' to the child they fathered.

So, a couple split shortly before the birth of their child. So now they're separated (divorced or whatever), for the sake of argument, the child stays with the mother and the father voluntarily pays child support while seeing his child every other weekend or something. This sounds fairly good, yes?
Now, both parents find new partners. The father starts missing visits, paying less attention to his child, breaking promised visits and activities, and paying less support because his funds are stretched - all the while publicly shelling out some hefty amounts of cash on his 'new family'. Gradually his twice a week visits become once a month, then increasingly sporadic, until finally he claims "This is not my child."

He's a nice chap isn't he?

What would you do?
Force him to test for proof it's not his child and make sure he pays child support?
Accept his implied accusation of infidelity and be happy he's out of the child's life?

For my money, the father in this hypothetical situation is running away from his responsibilities, but I would suggest that keeping him away from the child is in the child's best interest as he is likely a destructive influence whether he believes his claim to be true or not.

It will not be often I invite comment, so make the most of it, let me know your thoughts people of the internet.

Fathers' Day

Sunday just gone was, in case you missed it, Fathers' Day.

I always used to think that Fathers' Day was just another notch on the greetings cards companies bedposts, another time to cajole people out their hard earned to buy cards and expensive presents for their parents. After all, there's Valentines Day, Mothers' Day, and probably more to boot.
In previous years I'd buy my dad a card and maybe a small comedy gadget, and my kids would (under guidance of their mother) get me a card and some chocolate.

This year it was different, well it was for me, anyway.

You see, although I call them my kids they are technically my step-children. Over the last year their natural father has become more and more distant; missing visits, cancelling visits, breaking promises, culminated on un-friending the eldest on facebook and now claiming they're not his. I'm not going to go in to the bad feelings I have towards this man, this isn't about that.
Instead, I'm more joyed at how my kids are handling this; the elder one - now over 18 wants me to adopt them. On technicalities I gather this makes very little substantial difference as they're an adult now, but on an emotional level it means a hell of a lot to me. The younger daughter, still very much a child, is calling me 'Dad', something that's been happening more and more over recent months, and is now the norm rather than an occasional happening. When this first started happening I smiled and the 'mistake' was corrected. Now however I get called Dad a lot more, I'm 'the best Dad ever' so I'm told, and it's the best damned thing a child can say.

So, back to Fathers' Day. I received not one, as in previous years, but two, and a present. I will no doubt gain many more pounds in weight from the candy dispenser I was bought, but the real gift was the two cards; one from my younger daughter telling me how great a Dad I was, and one from my elder daughter, not only saying how great of a Dad I was, but why I was great and how thankful she was that I was there for her when she needed a father.

I had no clue that Fathers' Day was supposed to put a lump in your throat like that. Best Fathers' Day ever!

Born this way

What's contained below isn't written by or about me. It was written by a friend of mine on Facebook.

However, she writes with so much more passion, experience, and knowledge, on the subject that I can't help but repeat her work here and hope more people have a chance to read it.

Setting the Record Straight About Being Transsexual.

Or “Born This Way”

Okay, so why have I borrowed a lyric from a Lady Gaga song (Born this way)? Well it makes sense to me, the lyrics that is, as she wrote it with trans people (as well as others) in mind. I've used the same words myself to describe it to people over the past few years, longer then the song has been (it's only been out for about a month and a half at time of writing) so I'm not really plagiarising. When it comes to being transsexual we really were born this way. Allow me to try and explain it to you, then hopefully at the end of the day; you'll be that little bit nicer, and perhaps a touch more accepting of any trans person you encounter, read about or see on television.

Thanks to lots of near hysterical stories, witch-hunts by unscrupulous newspapers, rumours floating around the internet, Chinese-Whispers and out and out lies, the truth about trans people is often hard to find, and where it is found, rarely believed.

Now, I'm not asking you to understand what it's like to know you are or have been trapped in the wrong gender, how could you possibly comprehend that? You've always known who you are, what you are; all your lives - and for that I and those like me envy you. You KNEW you were a boy or a girl and no-one disagreed with you. No one beat you up or hunted you through the streets of your home town, no one called you names or shunned you. So how could you understand? Of-course we knew too, the problem was that it was not the gender everyone thought we were right from the moment we were born!

But what I am going to tell you is the truth, setting the record straight; so that you can go away with a little bit of understanding about us . This isn't my story – although it's obviously inspired in part by the events in my life – nor am I going to tell you specifically what has or hasn't happened to me. That's not why I've written this, I don't want or need your sympathy; nor do I want five minutes of fame. These are just the facts regarding transsexualism, as I (a transsexual woman) see them. I'm sure you can go and get lots of information from doctors and surgeons but this is about having transsexualism by someone who has the condition. Put it this way, if you want to know what it is like in space you can go and talk to an Astronomer or an Astrophysicist, who will no doubt be able to tell you the science and the theory behind why it is so; OR you can talk to an Astronaut who has actually experienced space. So consider me the equivalent of that astronaut.

A large number of people are not aware of what transsexualism and transgenderism is and means – again, lots of rumour and myth going about; so I'll tell you. Someone who suffers from transsexualism has a condition that means they feel their body does not match their gender identity. Some will describe it as being trapped in a body with the wrong gender. They, we; will have lived with the condition all our lives and prior to transitioning, will have fought long and hard against it. Some, unable to cope with the feelings and fearing that those around them will not understand and accept them, opt to commit suicide.

At some point those who go on, will see a doctor and begin the long and painful road to matching their body to their gender identity.

I would like to point out that someone with this recognised medical condition is not a transsexual but a transsexual person – describing someone as a transsexual is akin to describing someone as a black.

Transgenderism covers a wider spectrum of similar conditions and is used as a catch-all term for transsexual people, transvestites, cross-dressers, and many more. As with transsexual, the correct term is transgender people/man/woman, not a transgender. Nor is someone transgendered, as I've seen in print a number of times.

Both the words transgender and transsexual are often shortened to trans.

A trans woman is someone who is presenting as female, ie – if they dress like a woman, call themselves by a female name etc, regardless of whether or not they have had any surgery; then they are a woman. Trans men are the exact opposite. Please do us the common courtesy of addressing us appropriately.

Nor do trans people like to be called trannies, a term most find offensive and insulting and one which many of us equate to black people being called niggers and gay people being called fags. It hurts, so please don't use it.

Oh! and in-case you are wondering there is a term for not being a transgender person too – Cisgender.

Transsexualism is unrelated to Homosexuality and has nothing to do with sex. Transsexualism and transgenderism is about gender identity and being who that person knows they are inside.

A friend of mine once tried to describe it as living in a box. You never did anything wrong and you just happened to be placed there when you were born. Everyone, your friends and family have told you that you belong there and that any wish; any desire you have to leave and escape the box, is very wrong and unnatural.

Friends stop by and peek in and even chat with you for awhile. You can go to work, go to bed, go to dinner, go on a date so long as you remain inside that box. It is all you have ever known and are ever supposed to want to know. But inside that box you feel nothing but misery, a misery that words would never adequately express.

There is a doorway out of the box anytime you should wish to leave however once you leave you can not go back in. You can leave anytime you wish, but waiting outside are all those people who will yell at you, ridicule you and judge you for leaving the box. They will say there is something wrong with you and you should just be happy in your box!! Yet, through that open doorway you can see all kinds of people and most of them are not living in any box themselves. They can wander around doing as they wish to do and they are happy, but you are not allowed to.

An interesting analogy, although I don't know if it's really any easier for people to understand.

One of the things I hear time and again, no matter where I go or what I read is that it's a life-style choice – ie: we choose to have gender reassignment surgery and so therefore we bring it all upon ourselves...

That's far from true. No transsexual man or woman chooses to be so, we are born transsexual and it's no fault of our own – that's where the line from Lady Gaga's song comes into it (and no I'm not really a fan, I just like that song).

Medical science has been working hard to try and work out how and why transsexualism occurs in a small minority of people and whilst no definitive answer has yet been found, there is evidence that it has a genetic origin involving the androgen receptor (NR3C4) . This receptor is activated by the binding of testosterone, where it has a critical role in the forming of the primary and secondary male sex characteristics. Transsexual women have been found to have longer repeat lengths on the gene, which was proven to reduce its effectiveness at binding testosterone. In transsexual men a variant genotype for a gene called CYP17 which acts on the sex hormones pregnenolone and progesterone has been found. This causes the body to have a similar allele distribution pattern to that of cisgender males rather then women.

Other evidence has been found that it involves the structure of the brain, with portions of transsexual peoples brains having been found in separate studies conducted in 1995, 2000, 2002, 2004,2006 and 2008 to be far closer to the brains of the gender the transsexual person feels they are, then the gender they were born in to. This was found to be the case regardless of weather or not the person in question had taken hormones.

People often claim it is perhaps due to the environment or upbringing – ie: the old nature vs nurture argument – and that perhaps people have made their children become transsexual – often by pandering to their desires (instead of slapping it out of them perhaps?). There's a flaw in this argument – several flaws in fact.

Firstly, this conflicts directly with the numbers of military personnel who have come forward as transsexual people – including the likes of Parachute Regiment heroes awarded decorations for heroic actions under fire.

Secondly, there is the unfortunate incident involving David Reimer; who following a botched circumcision that destroyed his penis at 8 months old, and under the advice of Psychologist John Money was given Gender Reassignment Surgery and raised as Brenda. For several years David lived life as Brenda and was completely unaware that he had been born male. John Money claimed it was a success and that it clearly indicated that gender identity was a learned part of life. David however would come to disagree vehemently, experiencing severe suicidal depression about being treated and raised as a girl and refusing to see John Money. By the age of 13 David's parents told him about the accident and by aged 14 David assumed a male role, eventually going on to receive treatment to reverse the reassignment and to marry and adopt children. Sadly, in 2004 David Reimer took his own life aged 38, several years after his identical twin brother – driven to schizophrenia by what had occurred to David – had committed suicide .

So, gender identity is not something that is simply forced upon people by societal expectations.

There is a myth that has done the rounds about lots of transsexual people who have gone through with the surgery, only to realise at a later date that it's not what they wanted and they've made a mistake. As I said at the top of this article I'm going to tell you the truth, I'm not going to tell you that no one has regrets, some people do and that's very sad.

Take Charles Kane for example. In 1997 he paid £60000 to transition into Samantha, by 2004 he had taken actions to reverse the surgery. Charles now claims that Gender Reassignment Surgery is wrong and shouldn't be allowed based upon what occurred in his case, but here's the thing: Charles isn't a transsexual person. Yes okay, he had GRS (gender reassignment surgery) but he shouldn't have. He convinced psychologists and surgeons that he was suffering from transsexualism following a traumatic break up of his marriage. He even lied to himself about it. In fact, Charles Kane now freely admits that he needed counseling for severe depression rather then Gender Reassignment, but if you lie to doctors convincingly enough... He paid his way into getting what he thought he wanted and in doing so he paid to skirt all the security precautions set in place to ensure that it's the right thing for that person.

Look at it this way, it's much like a hypochondriac who convinces an unsuspecting doctor and themselves that the symptoms he or she is exhibiting is that of the medical condition they believe they have. This is in effect what Charles Kane did.

There are people who aren't really suffering from transsexualism who manage to get Gender Reassignment Surgery but there are procedures in place to limit that number, and of the approximately 12000 people in the UK who have undergone GRS less then 10 have since come forward to say they shouldn't have done it for one reason or another.

The normal procedure for those who have a need to undergo GRS involves several years of talking to expert psychologists, psychiatrists and doctors before they finally refer you to the surgeons who will perform the surgery. This also involves a lengthy “real-life test” where in order to proceed you must live and work full time in the gender role you wish to become. That test can take up to 2 yrs to complete that to the satisfaction of the psychologists, sometimes longer. The vast majority of those who go forward for GRS will do so because they need to, and more importantly; will become far happier and more productive members of society. It is possible to circumvent some of these procedures by paying and traveling abroad for surgery, but such loop holes are increasingly becoming harder to find and less available. This in turn means it is harder for mistakes – such as in Charles Kane's case – to be made.

Ridicule, harassment and abuse often become a part of a transsexual persons life. Most transsexual people simply want to get on with their lives as best they can, same as everyone else the world over; but often society has other things in mind. Newspaper stories often ridicule unsuspecting transsexual people, deliberately misgendering them and portraying trans people as something to laugh at and pity, lesser beings if you will. Television shows screen caricatures designed to disgust, or feature comedic routines where transsexuals are the butt of the joke. So called Talk-shows invite transsexual guests for the audience and viewer to poke fun at and ridicule. Even those unfortunate transsexual victims of crime are commonly reported in a negative light, with dark “facts” about things they may or may not have done being used as if they were some sort of justification for the crime against that trans person!

Were the news stories and television jokes about black people, Muslims, Jews or almost any other group of peoples you care to think of there would be outrage – in fact there has been! Yet here it's generally perceived to be okay, after all it's only transsexuals...

Take Peter Kay's creation “Geraldine”, recently trotted out for an appearance in aid of Comic Relief; a character designed and used to make fun of transsexual people. His appearance in aid of charity was quickly followed by appearing on “Loose Women”, “The One Show” and “Lorraine” and spreading more anti-trans humor before a rerun of the show were he created “Geraldine”

This sort of thing filters down to the general public, who encouraged by what they read in the papers and see on the television; verbally and sometimes even physically attack trans people. Newspaper articles often portray transsexual people as liars, deceivers and people who can't be trusted and are incapable of doing their jobs – jobs they may well have done for years prior to their being exposed by the Press! Why? Because elements of society think it is acceptable to do so, their right even. There have been a large number of occasions when I've seen people argue for their right to be bigoted towards transsexual people despite showing care and respect to other groups.

Something to be aware of is that being trans is dangerous. Across the world over the last 2 years hundreds of people have been murdered just for being trans. In South America and Eastern Europe for example, trans people are frequently found beheaded or burnt alive. America has seen trans people strangled, shot and beaten to death. Here in the UK too, trans people have been stabbed and strangled. Many, many more trans people are attacked and assaulted but survive. Now I'm not saying that it only happens to trans people, there are many other groups of people who are targeted by bigots; but I am talking about trans people here.

In countries around the world, Conservative groups, Right-Wing organisations and some Christian groups would have you believe that trans people are dangerous. That a transsexual woman using the ladies toilet or changing room is going to rape women or commit awful acts of pedophilia against the children they encounter! These groups are not only encouraging a lie, they are also making the world a far dangerous place for trans people to exist.

What do I mean by that? Well look at it this way, what happens when a community finds out that a pedophile is living in their midst? That person is often attacked, their homes damaged or destroyed and they are driven away or hurt. If people believe the lie that transsexual people are connected with pedophilia then it doesn't take a rocket scientist to figure out what's going to happen next! And it IS a lie.

There are a number of reasons for it being a lie that transsexual people will rape or commit pedophilia and they are good ones. First and foremost, a transsexual woman doesn't want to be perceived as male and often have a dislike for the male genitalia they poses before surgery. In some cases this is out and out disgust, even hatred for it. They don't like seeing it there, so they are unlikely to want to use it. Secondly, transsexual women take estrogen in order to develop a more feminine figure and grow breast tissue, a secondary effect of which is a lowering of the libido and a chemical castration. Thirdly, you can rest assured that when entering the toilets, that any transsexual woman you encounter is likely to be far more fearful of you then you are of them. Why is that? Well it's simple really, if you realise that they are trans and take offense at their being there then you might rush out of the ladies toilets and tell your boyfriend/husband/gang of friends, who may also be as offended as you that we are there and decide to make it known to us, verbally or physically. So really WE are afraid of YOU.

Those aforementioned Conservatives, Right-Wing groups and Christian communities will tell you that trans people should be made to use the toilets of the gender we were born in to, so a transsexual woman should be made to use the Mens and a trans man should use the Ladies. That's assuming they are not telling you that we shouldn't exist in the first place! But here's the thing, if you force a transsexual woman in to the gents toilets then she's going to be hurt – physically I mean. Think about it, any man in there is either going to think a cisgender woman is coming in, in which case there is a real danger of her being raped – regardless of if she has had surgery or not; or they are going to recognise that she is a transsexual woman, in which case she is in danger of being beaten, even killed. That, in my book; makes using public toilets under those conditions, a death sentence.

The same when using a public changing room. Few pre-op transsexual women are going to go swimming for example, and those that do are hardly likely to wander around the changing area naked for everyone present to see that they are transsexual women – remember what I said could happen if someone takes offense and rushes out of the toilets to tell friends and/or family? Same thing could happen in the changing rooms too. And of-course after surgery a transsexual woman is no more physically equipped to rape a girl or woman then, well; any other woman!

So you see, what these groups are trying to tell you is a clear-cut lie, it's also very dangerous – not to you, but to us.

Sadly not every trans man and trans woman can pass people in the street without – at best – being stared at and/or talked about. This is because they stand out from the norm. This unfortunate situation is brought about due to hormones. Not the hormones the trans person is taking to accompany the Gender Reassignment; but the hormones they were born with. It's a sad state that in the UK and most other countries around the world Gender Reassignment Surgery can not occur until the person in question is 18yrs or older. This means that generally speaking most people will have experienced puberty in their birth gender and stopped growing by the time surgery takes place. So transsexual people are forced to try to adapt fully formed adult bodies of their birth gender, and the success of this varies from person to person.

Should it all matter? No it shouldn't matter if the person you pass in the street is a transsexual woman or not, it's none of your business, and what they have or haven't got between their legs is none of your concern (unless you are in a sexual relationship with them) yet oddly it does matter to you. YOU make it an issue, not trans people. It may be hard for you to accept but transsexualism has been around for a very long time, no seriously. Okay, surgery has only been available since the 1930's but there have been transgender peoples throughout history – from the Roman Gallea – priestess's of the Goddess Cybele, to the Two-Spirit Native Americans and beyond, it's nothing new. So that being the case, why do the Press make such an issue of it? Why are trans people beaten, abused and even killed all over the World?

I do understand curiosity, it's part of what makes us human. That desire to learn about things that we don't understand is what drove us to become what we are as a species. From that point of view I'm usually happy to talk to people who are curious and who genuinely want to understand me a little better – although like I said at the start: How can you really understand something that you have absolutely no point of reference for? But I will – assuming the time and place is right – normally take the time and effort to help you out a bit. In return all I ask for is the same courtesy and dignity you show others, that and the right to live my life as I see fit, without fear of persecution and death. Is that really, honestly; too much to ask for?

Because of what I do I travel all over the country, and I enjoy doing so; but I live with the constant fear that sooner or later I am going to encounter a transphobic bigot who won't just stop at verbally abusing me. I try not to let it stop me but if I'm honest it's scary as hell and many trans people choose not to go out and about because of that fear. There is – at time of writing – approximately 61113205 people living in the United Kingdom, of that number it is estimated that 12000 are transsexual people, not really a threat is it?

So, what can you the reader do? Well you can accept it when we say that we didn't choose to be transsexual people, that we didn't just wake up one morning and decide to be the opposite gender. Accept it when we tell you that we are not insane, freaks or perverts or anything else nasty that bigots choose to call us. We are human, just like you; we've just had to go out of our way to correct an unfortunate mistake of nature. Don't crucify us for that. We're not evil or unnatural, we won't hurt you, or your kids. We can't turn your kids into transsexual children just by looking at or being near to them. Get to know us, we're not that different to you. You may even like some of us.

We're just trying to live our lives, give us a chance to do that

As I said, elquently written, with the passion born of experience.
Here's the link to the original article:
https://www.facebook.com/notes/joanne-beck/born-this-way/10150173433344134

Who is / What is MoaCWS?

MoaCWS:- Memoirs of a Corporate Wage Slave

I'm arguably middle-aged, depending on which definition you look at; the US Census lists it as 35-44 and 45-54, while Oxford English dictionary lists it as "The period of life between young adulthood and old age, now usually regarded as between about forty-five and sixty." Psychologists say it's from around 40 to 65. So on that there's no clear agreement.

Now, where was, oh, yes, I'm arguably middle aged, but distinctly a corporate middle management wave slave (hence the title).

This is my first real foray in to blogging, my aim is to NOT blog about the everyday humdrum boringness or whinges, but to comment on news items with my own thoughts, make observations on people in general, and maybe post a few articles here and there from my own hobbies - yes, despite the commute and the 9-5, I do spend some time doing fun things ... well, they're fun for me.

I will note that it's possible that my views may not be politically correct, so ... well, you have been warned. Read at your peril.