South Tyneside people putting something back

Today marks a sad milestone for my family, but I know that the people at South Tyneside Cancer Connections will be there to support them.

Cancer Connections is a small local charity that does some great work in the community. Just last night the Gazette carried the story of cancer survivor, Debra Slesser (pictured) raising money to support the charity. She is typical of many people at cancer connections who, despite their own difficulties, selflessly give something back to their community to help others.

STRESS

Why do I put myself through it, I have a pretty stressful life at the best of times but why do I have to compound it all by supporting Newcastle.
Everyone has their breaking point.

Bricks

A busy week ahead… Training today will consist of a 30 minute ride immediately followed by a 10 minute run. Jelly legs here I come.

Winos

Can lunar cycles affect the taste of wine? I’ll give you a big fat clue – NO!

Photo from night sky info web site

Brown isn’t green

There is absolutely nothing ‘green’ about subsidising the car industry so it can cram even more cars onto our congested roads and pavements.

If Gordon Brown was serious about the budget being “a job creator, a quality of life improver, and an environment-enhancing measure” he’d start by putting real investment into renewable energy, home insulation and a decent public transport system.

He’d also reverse his ridiculous planning/education policies that mean people have to travel ever increasing distances to work or school.

Not much chance of that though as he’s already spent all our cash on bailing out the polluters and the captains of capitalism.

Credit where credit is due

If you campaign on environmental or social justice issues, being against stuff tends to be the easy part. Most people, when push comes to shove, tend to be against destroying greenbelt land or sending kids up chimneys.
The more challenging bit, that in my view separates the campaigners from the reactionaries, is championing change that brings about a beneficial effect. Personally, I’d include both regulation to deliver a decent quality of life and building a renewable energy infrastructure in that category.
In the past I have criticised Councillor Joe Abbott and his fellow Lib Dems for opposing renewable energy generation, while supporting road building and airport expansion. But credit where credit’s due, Joe appears to have had a rethink on renewable energy and I congratulate him on that. The truth is if we are going to leave an environment fit for future generations to thrive in we need to start delivering renewable energy schemes now, and plenty of them.
Sadly the South Tyneside Indy Alliance Party has chosen to throw in their lot with the reactionary anti-environmental camp - Again.

Not just another Sunday run

I gave this test a go on Sunday to work out my heart rate training zones. The results were interesting, and a lot different from the ‘220 minus your age’ formula which has been traditionally used to calculate heart rate training zones. I’ll repeat the test a few times over the summer just to confirm the results.
Of course the real test will be whether I’m fitter and faster in 3 months time.

No uniforms, no Makems

It’s 2009 and England is sending a woman to prison for working as a prostitute. Why don’t we just go the whole hog and adopt sharia law while we’re at it!
I can see the argument that working as a prostitute wasn’t compatible with her day time job as a police officer, and hypothetically could have left her vulnerable to blackmail and corruption. I also recognise that there could well be more to this case than meets the eye; maybe we’ll discover in a future trial that a genuinely serious offence has been committed.
But on the basis of the information reported, I can see no reason at all why she should have been imprisoned. Do we not have better things to spend our money on during an economic depression than incarcerating sex workers.
As to her refusal to entertain clients from Sunderland… I couldn’t possibly comment.

For a Green feminist view on prostitution, see here.

It’s not the end of the world…

Despite all the hype it appears that Barack Obama is not going to deliver any meaningful action on climate change during his presidency. He obviously doesn’t grasp what the implications of inaction on global overheating are. PZ Myers does, and puts it into context rather well.