Herbert Henry Asquith

One of the most important lessons I would say to people comes from fiction.

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The city I live in is very poor and deprived and has built up a bad reputation, when you tell people you come from here you can just see the expression on their faces...
... so a lot of young people move out, try to get rid of their accents and generally deny who they are to gain middle-class respectability. And they think it's the only way to succed in life, but I wouldn't call it success if you turn your back on who you are.

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In "Paris", a glorious book by Edward Rutherfurd, in 1299 Jacob ben Jacob hears from his Christian friend that the Jews are going to be persecuted and driven out, so he pretends to become a Christian. The rabbi confronts him thus:

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He could not tell the rabbi the truth. And as he stared at this man he did not like, he felt a sudden and terrible guilt. He longed to cry out: “I did it because the Jews are going to be expelled. I did it to save my family.” But he could not. There lay his greatest crime. He was doing nothing to warn his own people. He was going to wait as their doom approached, watch while they lost everything, including their homes, and were cast out to wander the world.

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“Will you betray us then, Jacob ben Jacob?” the rabbi asked bitterly. “Will you be another Nicolas Donin?”

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This was a searing accusation. For every Jew knew that Nicolas Donin, the Franciscan who’d persuaded Christendom to burn the Talmud, had been born a Jew himself. Nothing was more terrible, it was often said, than the vengeance of the traitor.

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“Never!” he cried. He was deeply hurt. But it was the rabbi’s parting words that would haunt him.

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“You call me a fool,” the rabbi said. “But it is you who are the fool, Jacob. You convert. You join the Christians. And you think: Now I shall be safe. But you are wrong. This I know, and this I tell you.” He shook his head. “You are a Jew, Jacob. And no matter what you do, no matter what the Christians say—believe me—you will never be safe.”

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And I think this is what people need to know. You will always be you, some people are going to hate you for no reason because of your class, race, gender, and it's not worth trying to gain such people's approval and you're better off without them.

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In the end Jacob understands this and follows the rest of his community into exile rather than live a fake life among people who don't really accept him. And I wouldn't compare my situation to his but it's what I want to do too.

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I'm completely for them, the anti-vaxxers are some of the people who make me most angry, especially as someone on the autistic spectrum faced with the vaccines cause autism frauds. A child with asd should be supported and appreciated for the contributions they can make, morethan neurotypical people if the environment is right.

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The implications that people with asd are freaks who have no place in the organic, natural society that anti-vaxxers want. But the only harm that is being done is to the children who aren't vaccinated and to their friends who are all put at risk when herd immunity is weakened.

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I certainly think anti-vaxxers and people like Matthias Roth should be prosecuted for basically luring people to their deaths, I normally try to see the other person's point of view but I am furious about this. I recommend Bad Science by Ben Goldacre on the matter.

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I don't know that!

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I hope I am aware of my limits and don't speak about topics I don't know anything about, it irritates me massively in others and I hope I'm not like that myself. One of my worries is that one day I'll be speaking about a subject I don't understand and a passing expert will massively tell me off. This is what AE Housman (my favourite poet) had to say.

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"Frailty of understanding is in itself no proper target for scorn and mockery ... but the unintelligent forfeit their claim to compassion when they begin to indulge in self-complacent airs, and to call themselves sane critics, meaning they are mechanics. And when, relying on their numbers, they pass from self-complacency to insolence, and reprove their betters for using the brains which God has denied them, they dry up the fount of pity."

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It is a bad thing and I hope I don't do it, but you'd have to ask the people I speak to :)

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The illness, I have, hypothyroidism, it often isn't diagnosed because its symptoms are confused with ageing. We've gone a long way from the time when whole villages with a bad water supply would be enfeebled and die of "cretinism" but, partly because of my own stubbornness and pride, it took me a long time to seek help and when I did no one was sure what the problem was. So I don't want anyone to suffer like I did.

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I've been walking and thinking about my next long-distance walk :)
http://dry-valleys.tumblr.com/post/142510352899/between-moddershall-and-idlerocks-i-only

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When I was ill this would have been totally impossible, so when I've done a big walk I donate money to research and treatment for people with hypothyroidism, to help anyone else that is in that situation.

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In my view, everyone should have a general blood test every once in a while, it is a matter of public health and the health service should make them available for anyone that is worried about if they are ill or wants to be prevented from getting ill.

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(My mum also has hypothyroidism and it was picked up when she was having her blood tested for other issues, and then she got cured, so that's how it can happen if we are determined to do it).

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Yes, I do think we punish ourselves, most notably in climate change and other environmental problems. I'm British and when we got flooded I agree with this author it was caused by selfish and greedy farmers and people in towns who only want to further their own interests.
http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2015/dec/29/deluge-farmers-flood-grouse-moor-drain-land
The same author said the same things two years ago and it's so depressing that he was ignored.

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I actually got some amazing photo shoots out of it but I'd give it all up to ease the pain of the victims of floods that could have been prevented, of course the rain would have fallen but it could have been absorbed by trees and roots, not simply dredged away until it flooded poor folk in towns.

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Also, people across the world are driven out of their homes by a problem that Donald Trump, Ted Cruz etc don't think even exists, let alone do something about it.

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I encourage people to plant trees, I joined treesforlife.org.uk and I'm going to go to Scotland and work for hem in September, so I don't just rant and rave, I do stuff :)

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Yes, when I was unemployed I had more than my fair share of stress about could I afford this, could I afford that, and I was so flattened I didn't do a lot of things I could have done. I'm hardly wealthy now, and I still get quite a bit ofit.

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It is natural, I think. I don't like it when right-wing people say there is no such thing as society, every man for himself, blame the victim. I recommend the excellent book The Road To Wigan Pier by George Orwell, in one he discusses healthy and unhealthy diets.
"The ordinary human being would sooner starve than live on
brown bread and raw carrots. And the peculiar evil is this, that the less
money you have, the less inclined you feel to spend it on wholesome food. A
millionaire may enjoy breakfasting off orange juice and Ryvita biscuits; an
unemployed man doesn't. Here the tendency of which I spoke at the end of
the last chapter comes into play. When you are unemployed, which is to say
when you are underfed, harassed, bored, and miserable, you don't want to
eat dull wholesome food. You want something a little bit 'tasty'. There is
always some cheaply pleasant thing to tempt you. Let's have three pennorth
of chips! Run out and buy us a twopenny ice-cream! Put the kettle on and
we'll all have a nice cup of tea! That is how your mind works when you are
at the P.A.C. level. White bread-and-marg and sugared tea don't nourish you
to any extent, but they are nicer (at least most people think so) than
brown bread-and-dripping and cold water. Unemployment is an endless misery
that has got to be constantly palliated, and especially with tea, the
English-man's opium. A cup of tea or even an aspirin is much better as a
temporary stimulant than a crust of brown bread. "

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Little has changed in the 80 years since that was written!
http://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2016/mar/16/george-osbornes-sugar-tax-economic-fears-budget

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