Dear President Putin

Dear President Putin,

I write to you today as a father of a twelve year old son and grandfather to a one year old granddaughter. I write with a heavy heart and many concerns and worries for their future. However I write now with an even heavier heart after listening with care to all the challenges that face our world because of the situation in the Ukraine and Crimea.

I know that you are a politician, I know that you have worked hard to get where you are. You have probably done some things in your life that you are very proud of, the Sochi Games for example. Equally you have probably done some things that will never come to light that you are not so proud of. I am not here to judge you or your past for it is not my right. I am writing today to ask you as the good man I believe you to be, and I believe that fundamentally all are born good it is their acts that change that, to look at what is happening and think about the consequences.

In the 1980's I remember being at college, where I was studying science A levels, watching a really disturbing film called The War Game. You may not have seen it but you can always watch it on YouTube not that I think you will because I think you probably know all about it or have seen something similar in Russia. Many young people today will not understand what it meant to live under the shadow of Mutually Assured Destruction and even though I went on to study Nuclear Physics as a first degree at university I still wonder why we ever allowed weapons of mass destruction to ever be made.

Today I see that prospect looming again, a new cold war, a new struggle for global domination. And sir, I am frightened. I am frightened not for me, I am 49 and have had my chances in life, no I am frightened for my children and their children.

I have spent my whole life trying to preserve life, save life and better life for those around us who have less. I am probably the world's craziest socialist capitalist that has ever existed but as I have grown older I reason that we do not improve our world by the bullet but by the word and the thought.
I saw the faces of the soldiers on the television both Ukrainian and Russian and I saw real fear in their eyes. As a psychologist I worry that the pressure they are under may lead to mistakes being made that could cycle out of control. I worry that the pressure all world leaders are under at the moment may lead to mistakes being made.

I am not so silly as to listen to propaganda from either side. I am someone who will study and reflect. I have never believed Russians are the enemy nor believe that the average Russian believes that Western peoples are their enemy. All peoples of this world are equal, we all breathe air and we all bleed the same colour and fundamentally we all share the same planet. There are rich and poor in both our countries and many people from both share common loves such as sport or theatre or science. We have our disagreements but that is the nature of human beings. That doesn't mean we should resort to war.

I understand that there are native Russians in the Crimea, I understand that there is a need to ensure their safety but I do not want to see a war come about because of this. And I don't really think that you do either. I am not a diplomat, in fact my mouth often gets me into trouble, but I am someone who deeply loves his children and believes passionately about the world we live in.

I have a dream, just like Dr King did, that one day all men and women will be equal and that their children will play together in friendship and cooperation where differences are talked through and violence is a thing of the past. Call me a fool but are we not supposed to be civilised and isn't this the way in which we mark a civilisation, debate and democracy.

I ask you in this open letter, which I  sadly doubt that you will read or even gain knowledge of, let alone reply to, to talk to your friends in the Ukraine. Talk to your friends in the West and the East, talk to those who you would seek to undermine the interests of your people, talk to those who are on the streets those who are poor and those who are scared for their children. Seek peace I beg of you, seek diplomacy for it is the right thing to do. Be the bigger man and say 'you know I can wipe you out if I chose to but I'd rather be your partner and make everyone a better life' 

Yesterday I watched as my older son left to undergo his officer selection for the Royal Navy as an engineer and it made me very proud. He his the most gorgeous gentle soul and I know that joining the armed forces would seem like the opposite of that but the technology that the war machine brought can go a long way to helping humanitarian causes too. By all means protect your families but do so in a humanitarian way. Work for peace I ask of you not for war. For in war everyone loses and if this escalates to the point of superpower versus superpower all that will happen is that there will come a point that even the Generals in their bunkers will have nothing left to come out to.

Yours with a heavy heart and a picture of those whom I spoke of and love.

Trace Senior   

Not now not ever in my name!

The death of Lee Rigby is the most horrific disturbing thing to have happened on the streets of Britain since the Yorkshire Ripper walked them when I was a young man.

It is right that his killers go to jail for effectively life. It is right that they are kept away from our society. I do not believe that they should have the opportunity to commit such heinous crimes again.

However I also do not believe that they should, as the far right demand, be put to death.

Even more worrying was the call of the mother of Andrew Young for the killer of her son to be put to death for a single punch that caused the 40 year old Aspergers sufferer to fall to the ground and crack his skull.

Now this may not make me popular but I would like people to take some time to reflect. Here is a piece I wrote on the Death Penalty a while ago.

https://www.blogger.com/blogger.g?blogID=4428684397426764882#editor/target=post;postID=6995367744814505316;onPublishedMenu=allposts;onClosedMenu=allposts;postNum=88;src=postname

I stand by these thoughts today as I did then even though I am deeply saddened by both of these deaths and sympathise with the families of those who have been lost.

Yet the argument still remains. You do not stop murder by threat of execution. It would not have prevented Lee Rigby's death nor would it have prevented Dunblane or Lockerbie or 9/11 or 7/7. We have to seek the root of these issues that would make one person wish to commit such crimes. That root is in the way our society works and that society is becoming more dichotomous and disintegrated as every day passes.

We have to prevent the radicalisation of young men and women at source. We all have a responsibility in the death of anyone who is killed unlawfully as we spend much of our time just accepting I'm alright Jack. Our world is more insular and self serving now than it has ever been. This relates to those at the highest level of our society and the lowest too.

Power, money, religion are all opiates of the people. We are hooked on looking after number one and have forgotten basic humanity. We are no better than Piggy in Lord of the Flies.

I beg of you, in the name of that is good in our world, look to the future with positive eyes, look to the future with a view to making our world better. Do not seek revenge for revenge's sake but take what we have learned and use that as a powerful tool to change the future for the better. Do not become radicalised and look to your neighbour as being your brother or sister. Seek peace in your heart and peace for humankind. Look after your neighbour do not persecute them for they are different. Help them to be better, to be kinder, to have more love. 

Herr Govebbels strikes again

Now some of my readers may feel uncomfortable about my constant attacks on Michael Gove especially as I liken him to the Nazi Party's minister for propaganda Josef Goebbels however I am deeply serious about my concerns.

 

 

Propaganda is of course controlled information and Mr Gove has by no means the monopoly on that yet this commentator believes that the ideas being forced through in education today are closely aligned with the ideology of dictatorship.

 

 

Plato believed that you should educate people to their level and not beyond for only the elite should be in control of our future. Marx believed the opposite but as Orwell reminds us on a regular basis absolute power corrupts absolutely, so Chairman Mao and his little red book used education for the same ends. Ultimately though both systems relied on the absolute power of those at the top controlling those at the bottom and that power was consolidated in education. Not true education which relies on freedom of thought and expression but indoctrination. There should be absolute discipline with menial or quite major punishment being used to force obedience to the learning. 

 

My critics will say that Gove is about freedom of choice but is he? He wants to create an elite system where only those who have the right background will get the right education. Education is a right not a privilege, not something that can be bought.

 

Now what makes this worse is that there are plans underway to increase the school day to 10 hours. Now I regularly work those sort of lengths of day but you can not keep it up for long and a child of 4? Please who does he think he is. And doesn't the working time directive mean that this would put a child at school for 50 hours a week? Is this the indoctrination of slavery? Not only that but these poor 4 year olds will be forced to be tested on their functional skills. I have worked all my life in education in one form another and quite frankly testing like this is not only going to psychologically scar the child it is going to prove absolutely nothing.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

So your smiling face looks down upon us happy in the knowledge that you are about to destroy generations of young people by sending them down a route that was basically found to be flawed in so many ways. Yet like Herr Goebbels before you Mr Gove you are not interested in the children which you claim to be you are merely interested in furthering your own political aims.

 

 

Well I am Winston Smith and I will not listen to your nonsense as Big Brother is a fantasy and will stay one because I am not a number nor are my students. We are not to be ranked by rote but we will be judged by our achievements in the world around us. How we help people, how we teach people and most of all how we give people the strength to think for themselves. This is 2014 not 1984 and I will continue to fight for the power of education.  

 

 

 

 

 

 

Another day, another death another excuse

Today Amanda Hutton was found guilty of the manslaughter of her son Hamza Khan.

Today the soul searching and finger pointing starts.

Today the City of Birmingham were told they are in the last chance saloon as far as protecting the vulnerable children in their city is concerned.

Well here's the truth.

With a system that promotes poor education of officialdom and a system that gets people with little academic and less practical knowledge in to educate those officials are we really surprised?

Take for instance the way that social workers are educated. They are now expected to gain a degree in Social Work before they start practice. However they are often being taught by people with diplomas and no real academic prowess or understanding of people. They may teach them about how forms are filled out or how to cover their own backs but they do not teach true critical reflection or how to look at the reality of what is a really difficult job. And only the enlightened realise that it is about people skills and understanding how people interact that really pass on worthwhile knowledge.

At the same time as that they are sent out on practice placements where they will hardly ever see the blood and guts of a real situation.

This is similar to the way doctors are taught in their first three years.  All book work no people work.

We need to be creative with our thinking we need to have a different idea on how we deal with difficult issues

http://alcoholdebate.blogspot.co.uk/2013/10/when-blind-drunk-lead-those-who-would.html

If one single person had had the courage to do something rather than mess around in teams sharing information and having a few pretty discussions then maybe Hamza, Baby P, Daniel and Victoria may all still be alive today.

Voltaire said it best:

            "With great power comes great responsibility"

We often put masses of power in the hands of individuals that have no idea how to handle it. This needs to be completely rethought. That way we may find a more creative solution to the ills of the world. This way we might learn and this way we may stop such awful situations from arising in the future.

Its rough up North part 2

This commentator is unfortunately unhappy again. Well where have you seen that before?

http://tseniortfte.blogspot.co.uk/2013/07/whats-in-name.html

This was my take on Katie Hopkins and her attitudes towards names. Now she's started on accents.

http://uk.news.yahoo.com/katie-hopkins--stephanie-mcgovern-and-northerners-sound-stupid-131026114.html#VpTiGmV

Please excuse me but which rock did you crawl out from under?

When I married my wife my accent changed from the broad Yorkshire to one of more like that great Huddersfield actor Patrick Stewart. Oh did I speak with such eloquence, with such vigour and my Richard III was magnificent (Did I tell you that I was quite a thespian myself? No I didn't think so and that is for a different time perhaps)

Now though, because I'm divorced, I speak au naturelle with a proud Yorkshire accent (although I do a fair West Country one having lived in and around these parts for years now) I could never do Scouse, even though I lived in Liverpool for several years, go'ed you say, but no sadly I could never quite master it. Unlike Jan Molby the great Liverpool and Danish footballer who I met on several occasions at Anfield or clubs or bars around the City. He really did master the Liverpool accent but funnily enough most people who I met thought that was charming or mildly amusing but certainly not horrible.

But does it matter?

For years regional accents were frowned upon particularly at the BBC. Even when I was a child and won a poetry competition that led to my first radio appearance I noticed that Radio Leeds had all proper speakers around me. My Geoffrey Boycott accent wasn't really that wonderful I might add. And so once again I got into a mind set that said I hard to speak proper and there was nowt else to be done.

Yet now I look on things somewhat differently for as someone who has grown up in a diverse world I have come to appreciate that diversity should be celebrated. So Katie Hopkins you can take your thoughts place them in a tin and go away. As one member of the Royle Family might say 'My arse!'


After all whilst I love Patrick Stewart's Jean-Luc Picard I'm delighted to say

We shall not be assimilated we have no wish to be Borg!  

So you're the worst child in the country - Official!

Yes the coalition are at it again and this one is quite possibly the icing on the cake as far as them wanting an elitist society

     "Children will be ranked in academic ability from the age of 11 for all to see!"

So who is going to tell the poor little mite at the bottom of the league table that they are the thickest individual in the country and for how long will that stigma continue. Well long enough to roll out the mobile gas vans!

Yes this commentator is seeing more about Nazi Germany circa 1933-38 in this country than Great Britain 2012, the land of the Olympics, the land of aspiration and inspiration. I wonder how Danny Boyle would film this. And why didn't he have his National Health Service piece finish on mass murder and burning of the corpses (Oh sorry that's what the coalition would have you believe about the so called failing NHS trusts)

I am genuinely frightened for my child, already shell shocked by the news that Gove has announced the removal of coursework from final exam marks and my twelve year old son's year are the guinea pigs, and wonder should I take him out of the country completely.

When are we going to wake up or have we already sleepwalked our way into a catastrophe so huge that we can no longer escape the black hole that this Government has created.

Billy Joel's song "We didn't start the fire" could so easily be adapted by some clever lyricist at this time and I'm sure we would see words like bedroom tax, close the Trust, take from the sick because it's only fair and just, creeping into the song.

I am British I am proud and I say no more. We didn't build this nation to trample on the ideals of the great reformers. We built this nation to be Great.

Right now it feels more like Little Britain as ruled by Edmund Blackadder without the laughs or irony!

What's in a name?

Well a lot it would seem if you have seen this you tube piece

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=edZjdgU0asM

Katie Hopkins is without a doubt one of the saddest individuals on this planet if she thinks that you judge a person by their name. Sadly she may be right as I believe that there are many individuals out there who are exactly like that, even sadder I've bedded a few of them in the past.

Now that might seem like a childish statement however the psychology behind it is rather more fascinating. For it is the psychology of class, power and sex.

We like to believe we live in a classless society where everyone is equal. I'd like to put an academic spin on that if I may for a second:

What a load of bollocks!

Oh I'm sorry if you're offended but after all I'm just showing my class as so to speak.

You see I am most definitely working middle class. My mother and father both worked hard and when I was born they gave me a wonderful name. So wonderful that I ditched it as soon as I could.

For they called me Tracy.

Now growing up in a rough tough Yorkshire school with what was always perceived as a girl's name meant that I was gay! But hang on I couldn't be gay because homosexuality wasn't acknowledged in Huddersfield then. Ask my best friend Paul, he hid his homosexuality for years due to the fact he was not only gay but mixed race. And I thought I had it hard with a girl's name. I also found it hard to get off with the girls I fancied too because of it. Because they thought I must be gay too. So I was ostracised by the boys for being worthless and the girls because I was well ...... worthless.

So how did I overcome this? Well I changed my name to Trace, (everyone thinks I'm American now) and went about bedding as many posh women as I could. I played cricket and wore a blazer with my whites. I played badminton and golf because it was a great way to distance myself from my background. I even learned to sail because I thought it was a good way to better myself socially (This is what watching Howard's Way does for you), oh and I also learned to mix cocktails and speak with a Noel Coward accent. The reason why I was so successful was because these women never saw me as a threat, or a serious companion, just an interesting shag with a bit of rough as so to speak. Either that or they were trying to find out if I was gay and could be turned!

And there lies the problem with Katie Hopkins. She is by no means alone when she says that she judges a child by their name. I see it all the time. Interestingly enough I see it with my youngest son now. The number of times he is judged because of where he lives and what I look like. You see I tend to dress down most of the time, scruffy some would say. And I pick my son up from school so I must be unemployed. No I just happen to earn a living in a different way to others and chose not to act like a fashion model all of the time. I am also highly intelligent with a string of letters and awards after my name.

And this is all about bullying for want of a better name. People are so insecure with their own lives that they have to turn it on the most defenceless in our society, our children. A child doesn't know the significance of a name unless an adult smears it in some way. And then a child will copy that act from the parent.

So is there something in a name, well yes if you listen to your parent's views. Children are not born thinking ooh you're named after a type of wine so you must be getting ready to appear on the Jeremy Kyle Show. They are born wonderfully untainted and it is adults who use them as pawns in the chess game of life.

And for your information Katie when I was younger I believed that the only way to better myself was to Roger some posh bird. That is until I quickly realised that they were so caught up in their own mediocrity and self importance that they could never understand what the act of making love was all about. So I learned to understand people and in particular women. I learned about making love, not shagging. And I learned that actually when we are all naked and with our lovers class doesn't mean a thing nor does a name.

I am so glad that I grew up Katie, isn't it about time you did too?