Keyboard Warriors: Is Twitter the right forum for political discussion?

I have been mulling this one for a while. The heated discussions between different twitter celebrities and thinkers and the abuse and trolling and so forth. Is it the right forum for a political discussion? Should we go back to public meetings and speakers corners?  I am a huge fan of twitter and technology and of debate. I think ideas need to be fought for, and against, in order for our society to evolve and progress. But is Twitter the best place for these debates to take place, and if not why do we insist on doing so there?

140 characters, the maximum length of a tweet, if you are old enough to remember was the amount you got on a single SMS text message in the days before 1 of 2, or MMS or whatsapp or BBM or whatever this is what we had to limit ourselves to. Too many texts risked being ranty - risked someone replying to the middle text before the last one and the conversation getting very confused and out of sync. So Twitter limited its 'microblogging' character limit to the same amount and that decision has had lasting consequences I don't think anyone could have perceived years down the line.

Now you either get long, shouty multi tweet arguments with people you disagree with (Facebook is just as bad but for different reasons) or you get, as is the case with many celebrities when they dare to utter something stupid, ill thought out, ignorant or offensive someone just tweet back "CHECK YOUR PRIVILEGE" or "GO DIE TORY SCUM" or something equally unhelpful. Does anyone think that will really change that person's mind? Or advance the arguments?

You see my problem is, while I might (and do) occasionally tweet someone when I am offended by something they say I am not comfortable doing it. If it is somewhere between block/unfollow and just ignore it and walk away I am always in two minds. Because 140 characters is not nearly enough to make a nuanced critique of someone's speech in a manner that they might recognise they have made the error and apologise. SO more often than not I just let it slide. Angry with the person but frustrated that the forum is so unsuited to developed discussion.

And yet lots of other folk are unperturbed by this facet of the site. Many people are using it not only to RT things they agree with to their followers, but also to comment and correct on things that people they don't disagree with ( but still follow, clearly) write. I admit sometimes this is entertaining. Sometimes such as the #inspirationalwomen or #solidarityisforwhitewomen threads genuinely helpful and interesting. Is is just that the technology is so new that we are just evolving ways now of making a proper point on Twitter without resorting to confused strings of comments or insults? Can Twitter ever replace the editorial, the blog etc as a means of sustained discussion? I don't think so and this is evidenced by the number of people sharing news articles and stories. As I do too.

But here is the rub. If we can accept that in hashtag form that twitter might be illuminating in micro-blogging a particular aspect of a persons life or experience to inform a debate or in sharing snippets of information from a myriad of specialities but that it is not suitable for political or philosophical discussions can we just stop trying to change peoples minds directly on twitter. By all means do the sort of thing like #inspirationalwomen which changed my mind so drastically but can we stop tweeting people "check your privilege" or "tory scum" or whatever because I don't think it is helpful or productive. Or, we could just go back to tweeting pictures of our dinners and attend some public meetings, debates and hustings like we used to? I think that would be best.

Take care with you child's feelings

I was reminiscing over the weekend about childhood 'trauma'. Not the sort of trauma resulting from sexual or physical abuse, heavens no. I mean the moments in our childhood where we remember feeling hurt, vulnerable or insecure.

I remember a time when I was about four or five. It is one of my earliest memories and during a gathering of the extended family - I am guessing, Christmas - I walked into the sitting room to find everyone giggling. I didn't know why. Eventually I managed to ascertain there was something on the wall and it had my name on it, and a love-heart and someone else's name on it - presumably some long forgotten childhood play-friend, I cannot for the life of me recall. I was hurt, ashamed and embarrassed and worst of all I didn't know why. This puerile joke by an uncle, or aunt, or cousin (I never found out who the culprit was because as a grown child/adult I never wanted to bring it up to ask) confused me but I knew romantic feelings were something to be embarrassed about. I had gathered that much. And that people sometimes made fun of you behind your back. I had gathered that too. I am sure at the time it seemed innocent - maybe those complicit and uneasy thought "the kid is young, they won't remember" but I do. I do remember. And have found it terribly hard to start relationships, and harder still to keep them for fear of what others might think of my partner.

I remember another time I had bought a birthday present for my mother. I was proud of it in the way that kids are - even though as an adult I see that it was horrid, cheap and tacky (but what else can you do with saved up pennies!) but kids mean well and it was a sweet gesture. I left the room and the house but snuck around to the window of the garden to listen to my mother's reaction - but instead I heard my father mock the gift. He was cruel, and went to down because he thought I wasn't listening. But I was. I sat under the window blubbing to myself. From then on in I have hated giving gifts. I spend hours in shops, spending more than I can afford, often to not give the present at all and pretend I forgot - or it got lost in the post - or cop out with money and a card.

These minor little incidents meant, I am sure in good humour, or in the knowledge that I was out of earshot have had a profound effect on me and my confidence. I was always a sensitive child and perhaps I took them more to heart than another kid would. Perhaps I was a sensitive child because of them. All I know is I was sensitive, and I got bullied quite a bit for it.

Now I have children of my own and I worry that something I say, or do, seemingly innocuous will have such a profound effect on them. That they will in years to come repeat some offhand joke I made while tipsy at new year, or comment made after I thought they were long asleep upstairs. It worries me.

Can you avoid making these sorts of mistakes with your child? Is it possible to be the perfect parent, and if not why is our whole culture geared towards the notion that "Mum and Dad" are perfect (except when they are not, they are demons for social services to take away). Where is the middle ground? My parents were fine the rest of the time, supportive and encouraged my emotional, physical and intellectual development that made me the person I am today. But I distinctly remember the day I realised they were just human beings. Beautiful, flawed and fucked up human beings like the rest of us. Capable of making mistake and having accidents and being off handedly cruel or insensitive or stupid or insecure too. It wasn't some cheesy american cliché where the boy bests his dad at a sport or girl finds her mother has been passing off store bought cake as her own. It was actually years after I had become an adult, and they divorced and suddenly like St. Paul on the road to Damascus I had a blinding flash of realisation. They were idiots. Just like I was. Just like we all were.

Still though, I promise that as much as possible  I will watch what I say or do to avoid causing unnecessary harm and trauma to my children and, thus, ultimately save on psychiatry/counselling bills. Will you join me?

Hyperloop: Why I wish we were more Victorian

There is much to admire about the Victorian era. Stern but well dressed gentlemen, women fainting at every opportunity, 12 year old's down mines and working in munitions factories and of course rampant racism and of course, Empire! Remember the sun never set on the British Empire...well, until it did.

Seriously though I could get on board with the fashion and the abundance of unhealthy, greasy food without anyone mentioning the words 'fat', 'calories', 'cholesterol'. Those, and the massive structural engineering projects. The Victorian's realised they could connect the cities of Britain by canal or by railway and they did it. Damn the cost. Damn the villages and communities which had to be destroyed in the name of progress and damn the health risks (some people thought travelling by train would cause brain damage) and damn the niggling little structural engineering problems.

Railways were built while giants like Isambard Kingdom Brunell (another thing I can get on board with is the names...do you know how many children were named 'Khaleesi' last year despite that not even being the characters name but title? Like calling your child 'duke' or 'railway maintenance engineer' or 'traffic warden') figured out the minor technical problems like how to get across that river or under that mountain. I mean it wasn't until years after the railways were built that people thought to invent platforms for crying out loud.

What I am saying is we have lost the spirit of engineering, of adventure and any sense of inspiration. The government is ploughing ahead with High Speed 2 railways lines despite only shaving a marginal amount of time off the journey time whereas the Hyperloop could do Scotland to London in less than half an hour. 30 minutes to traverse the entire length of the country! Most Londoners I know have a commute of circa 2 hours to work and back. This would open up the entire nation to being a suburb of London and let us all enjoy in the wealth and the opportunities afforded to those who live in the City without the cramped horrible confines of tiny damp ridden apartments that cost the equivalent to your own private island in the South Pacific just because its 'close to the Northern Line'.

Are there technical problems to be resolved with Hyperloop? Of course there are. No one is saying it is good to go but the amount of scepticism has made me very sad, and nostalgic for a time when cholera rampaged through the streets of our fair capital. Problems can be resolved. After all we (not we, but you know as a species) put a man on the moon! I am sure we can sort out the minor niggles in what could be the best thing since sliced bread and help us regain the edge in transportation when most of the world has left us behind. We invented the railways and yet our antiquated rolling stock and Victorian infrastructure is a laughing stock.

The expense? Spend it. The government has a great excuse here to walk away from its failing austerity plan and behind spending massively on science and infrastructure and construction and get some money pumping through the real economy while bringing an actual economic benefit to the regions of the north and Wales which otherwise languish unloved and uninterested by a London-led coalition only concerned with the problems in the city.

I can see no down sides. None. None at all. So, what are we waiting for? Let's be the first to build the Hyperloop system and show the world what is what once more. But we won't will we? While others are pessimistic about the technology I am pessimistic about our great nation and its spirit of endeavour, and improvement. We would rather sit back and scoff and say 'It will never work' or 'it is too expensive' (how expensive is more motorways+more cars=global warming?) and just wallow. I bet you the Chinese do it first.

Labour losing the plot (even more)

Labour's recent  announcement concerning foreign workers made me sad. Not because Tesco or Next supposedly employ foreign workers over natives, not because of an immigration problem 'out of control' but because I:

a) Could not care less about immigration, and
b) Cements my refusal to not vote labour at the next election.

Throughout the course of the New Labour regime the party crept further and further right until it occupied broadly the same space as the Tory party. Law and Order, Immigration and demonising the poor where the order of the day and there was no one to occupy that vacuum. Unless your Scottish or Welsh as Plaid and the The SNP quite comfortably filled the gap and doomed the concept of Britain to a footnote in the history books. See what I did there, come the break up of the United Kingdom it is not the SNP that will be responsible, not even the Scottish people who, correct me if I am wrong, don't really care that much about independence per se just getting out of under the yoke of the right wing neo-liberal agenda. Can't say I blame them, but it is Labour's fault for giving up on its core values and condemning political discourse in this country to being akin to this Futurama clip. Ok, so the Liberal Party tried to do the same thing - opposing the war, and tuition fee increases and promising free cotton candy to all and sundry but when given a whiff (and that is all they got) of power they traded in their principles and promises for a shot at electoral reform that, frankly, no one else cared about. Except me, I was and am in favour of PR but I was more in favour of not, you know, crippling students with debt levels akin to the average home owner.

So now Labour are in opposition and of course all the Tory niceties (Greenest party ever was it? Fracking is it?) are dispensed with and we are down to business what do the labour party do? Well they complain about foreign workers coming over here and taking our jobs. I recall the brilliant South Park episode where this happened: They took our jobs. They took er jobs. Thtooerjbs!!

See, the thing is, I don't mind if people want to come over here and work. Just as I have the freedom to go elsewhere and work myself. Money can travel across borders freely why can't people? If governments change the regulations to prohibit the worst excesses of capitalism the threat is always that factories will go elsewhere - well, why shouldn't people? I welcome immigration.

I WELCOME IMMIGRATION

God, you don't hear that very often do you? I think it is a good thing to be exposed to different cultures, ways of life, food and music and I think it is also a good thing for people to seek out a better life for themselves and their family. Where it depresses wages and stops 'nationals' working then that is only because wages are too low elsewhere in the world - that is the problem to be fixed - not forcing people to stay in poverty. Not fomenting racism and perpetuating racist discourse.

Humanity is a commonality. We are all one species and national boundaries are an infantile disease, the measles of mankind, and the sooner we grow up and begin to act as one people united under our own faith in ourselves the better. Peace, equality and diversity. And we can explore space together. In the meantime, come the next general election I am left with very little choice ...the puppet on the left, or the puppet on the right? Oh, wait, it is the same guy controlling both puppets...or, at least it will be when labour finally cuts the cord tying it to the unions once and for all and becomes the Tories by any other name.

A homophobic olympics

Russia is due to play host to the Winter Olympics in 2014 but recent crackdowns on civil liberties, the tightening of the political screws moving Russia back to the dark days of totalitarian control have given the world pause for thought.

Stephen Fry recently called for the IOC to move the Olympics to another venue failing Godwin's law for comparing Putin to Hitler in the process. But, he has a point. Putin's regime is growing in confidence and growing in intolerance. The incarceration of Pussy Riot says a lot about the regimes relationship with the concept of free speech and putting a cadaver on trial sends a very clear message that even in death you cannot escape Putin's justice. Political opposition is undermined and foreign NGOs are now considered enemies of the state trying to undermine 'Russian democracy'. The concept of Russian democracy as something fundamentally different is like saying 'Taliban Women's Rights' or 'Tory Welfare State': it is an Oxymoron.

This is the twenty first century though, right? The rest of the world won't stand for this sort of nonsense?President Obama, sensing an opportunity to perhaps score a political point off the Snowden harbouring regime in Russia, said that he 'has no patience ...for countries that try to treat gays or lesbians or transgender persons in a way that intimidate them or are harmful to them'. Well, that is nice but perhaps he might want to look slightly closer to home for examples of intolerance and intimidation towards the LGBT community. Still in 2013 it should be the case that the international community will sit down and quietly point out that its not on. Except that we need Russia on side to keep the Chinese in check and also we need their acquiescence to continue our failed war on terror so, don't expect a large international crackdown especially not when our Prime Minister is too busy playing the diplomatic hard man and taking a stand about a pointless rock.

So, what about the IOC? Surely in light of the threat to civil rights, internal peace and justice the IOC would have concerns. What about the Olympic values of respect and equality? Well the IOC is considering joining  the Russian Government and punishing athletes who use the Olympics to protest against the Russian states homophobic laws will be punished. So much for that. Lord Coe and co. have been clear that there is a long and proud tradition of keeping politics out of sport and that boycotts don't work anyway. In stark contrast to the reality when, as Mr Fry pointed out an Olympics buoyed a dictator and when a boycott contributed to the fall the entire soviet system. And why should athletes stay out of politics? When they are spokespersons for advertisers and merchandisers and the face of government campaigns for healthy living etc sport hardly takes place in a vacuum, and there is a proud tradition of sport and politics being very comfortable within one another. I can think of numerous football teams with proud traditions of political protest (while we are on the subject I think holding the World Cup in Russia is also an epic-fail) and who could forget the 1968 Olympics when Tommie Smith and John Carlos raised their fist on the podium (pictured above) during the Star Spangled Banner while wearing human rights badges on their jackets! But no, sport in general and the Olympics in particular should be apolitical - forgetting of course that the very man, Brundage, who insisted that Smith and Carlos be punished had no problems with the Nazi salute during the '36 games. Well, I guess I fail Godwin's Law too, but I don't care because the point I am making is that supporting the status quo IS political and refusing to allow protest IS political and in threatening to punish athletes for protesting intolerance and injustice is supporting that intolerance and injustice.

I hope that the British Team pulls out, if not that individual athletes refuse to participate and if not, I hope that each athlete in some way violates Putin's laws prohibiting the 'advertising' of homosexuality and stands up for the values of tolerance and equality that our society is supposedly based upon and which we all, apparently, believe.

Belfast, The Orange Order and Islamaphobia

I note with sadness that it seems to all be "kicking off "again in Ulster. I honestly thought, like I suppose many right minded Ulster folk, that the dark days of the "Troubles" [cough] Civil War [cough] were over. I am always optimistic and always disappointed.

Two things about the conflict in Northern Ireland needs to be said (although it shouldn't after all these years) it has nothing, but nothing, to do with Religion. As Mark Steel put it a Protestant kid throwing a brick through a Catholic window is not thinking to himself "Transubstantiation? My arse!" This is about a divided community, two oppositional and antagonistic identities clashing without any hope of unity. What hope I had has disappeared recently as the optimism of the news and documentaries out of Northern Ireland had clearly masked the latent hostility which has erupted into violence again in recent years.

Who is to blame? I think this type of question is  unhelpful. Actually both sides are for fuelling and fanning the conflict. In India during the resistance to British colonialism a peaceful passive resistance was successful with a minimum of innocent casualties. This has to be the bar upon which all conflicts are judged? Given that both sides profess to being Christian I notice there isn't much 'Turning of the Cheek' going on at all. Maybe there has been in the past maybe the Protestant/Catholic [delete as appropriate] have suffered long and hard for their religion, have faced persecution and state sponsored brutality..OK, that is only likely to be the Catholic community but still I am sure both sides have their historic grievances and while I am not a part of either community and don't have a clue what they might be I can point to the fact that whining about the past, and fighting in the present are two strategies unlikely to achieve a positive outcome. Talk, compromise and inter-community and inter-faith connections can surely be the only way out of this mess? Dialogue and understanding? Please, residents of Ulster, feel free to comment and criticise and correct me! What do I know. As an outsider perhaps I am best placed, or worst placed to judge. Let me know.

I think what else needs pointed out is the historical root of this tension and why the marching of the Orange Order is an issue which is so provocative. I am sure the history of Catholic oppression at the hands of the British doesn't need to be said. We can all sympathise with that I am sure. Blowing up royal family members, Tory Party conferences and innocent civilians on the street perhaps less so but we can all agree that the Catholics had a pretty torrid time under the British. All of which brilliantly portrayed by Cillian Murphy in the Ken Loach modern classic 'The Wind That Shakes the Barley'. What isn't well understood is what the Orange Order is, and why these marches are so important.

I won't go into the history of the Order that is easily available on Wikipedia. They are celebrating the battle which defeated the Catholics/Jacobites/French is usually how it is misunderstood by people from different parts of the United Kingdom depending on your level of historical knowledge you might take issue with this fact. Catholics and Protestants fought on both sides during the Battle of the Boyne. What is the real root of this conflict today, as I see it, is in the suspicion of the 'Other'. I won't go all academic and technical on you, but instead point to a modern parallel. Some people in Britain fear the (still proportionately more peaceful) Muslim population since 9/11 and 7/7 because they suspect that a true follower of Islam owes his allegiance not the British state, and its population, but to some foreign power who considers Britain and her state the enemy. The notion that any more than a tiny minority of Muslims in this country value the opinion and interpretation of the Jihadist/Islmamist movement over their own conscience and Imam is frankly ludicrous.  Sure a lot of them might be pissed off with the western countries attitude (and at times indiscriminate bombing) towards the middle east in supporting murderous tin-pot dictators when politically convenient and warring with others or their treatment and racism at the hands of their fellow countrymen in the UK. That is not the same thing however as secretly plotting the downfall of the British state and the establishment of an Islamic state under religious law.

However, this was the exact same fears the protestant community held following the Battle of the Boyne and which was reinforced for centuries. That the Catholic community represented a fifth column who owed their allegiance to the Pope not the King/Queen/Parliament and who would kill and sabotage as necessary for the destruction of the Protestant faith and the re-establishment of a new state under Catholic rule. A real threat at the time, but now? No. In Ireland proper they have a religious state and for better or worse (abortion laws not with standing) protestants (and Muslims, Jews and Pastafarians) are respected to a greater or lesser extent.

No one is secretly plotting to suppress the Protestant faith any more and no one would tolerate not having the freedom to practice you religion freely in this day and age. Though there is the element of wanting to establish a new state with most protestants in Northern Ireland fiercely British and most Catholics expressing a degree of cross-border identity with the state to the South. How to allay those fears, and appease both communities I don't know. Should people in a country wave the flag of a foreign power? Should anyone care? I don't get particularly upset when I see my neighbour (who is French by the way) proudly displaying the Flag of his fatherland so, I am not sure it is a legitimate grounds for grievance. Actively campaigning for the integration of Ulster in the Irish republic, perhaps another story. A Palestinian-esque two state solution? Both Britain and Ireland washing their hands of it all and the creation of a new nation of Ulster? Would that please anyone, I don't know. Certainly the point here is that I don't know what the solution is, and am woefully ignorant as to the situation on the ground and the feelings of the everyday residents or Ulster, and unlike most commentators and know-it-alls/politicians etc. I am happy to say "I don't know" but the historical parallels do concern me regarding the way we treat the Islamic community in the UK.

We must build bridges, be open minded and resist the ghettoisation of the immigrant communities lest we end up with a similar situation in years to come. With entrenched hatred and no easy solutions.

And a belated Eid Mubarak to anyone who was fasting during Ramadan.

Would you buy a used bike?

I was confronted with this question recently while pondering my twin desires to lose weight and get active but also not wanting to spend a few hundred pounds on something that I might never use.

I should get a bike. I hate public transport and I don't drive. My daily commute would double up as exercise, I could feel smug about 'being part of the solution' and annoy car drivers all at the same time. However, I could hardly feel all warm and cosy and green if I knew that about 500 pounds of greenhouse gases are produced in making a bike. And given the typical US diet (which is not the typical worldwide diet but the UK is moving that way...) it would take about 400 miles of cycling to make the bike carbon neutral. They are expensive too, so surely a second hand one is a good bet right?

In the UK alone there are thousands of bikes discarded every year in towns and cities up and down the country. According to one article in the Guardian in Oxford alone almost 600 hundred in one year, and while cycling is popular in Oxford it is by no means unique. So, I thought about the cycle recycling shops as a place to try.

Fortunately some nice folk have compiled this list of places where you can buy a second hand refurbished bike. Trouble is, they are not that much cheaper than a new bike. Ok, so there is the cost of replacement parts, labour, premises and so forth to take care of but really, for a few pounds more I could have a brand new one. So the bargain hunter in me took to Gumtree, Craigslist and other private traders. Then it struck me that while a lot of bikes get abandoned every year by students going home who can't be bothered paying for a removal van (or who are international students, slightly more understandable) many, many more must be stolen. One every minute according to this  introduction from BikeOff. I won't do the annoying Bob Geldoff-esque clicking fingers but that strikes me as a lot. And since hardly any of those are ever returned (The police do their jobs? Reminds me of this clip from the Big Lebowski) how can we trust a private seller? Can we? I suspect not.

So, there we have it. Fleeced by Halfords, overpay for recycled or engage in the illicit black market trade. It seems the consumer is not going to be the winner in this case but I guess the re-cylced option is best because at least if I don't decide to keep cycling I won't be yet another individual who purchased a brand new bike, made in China from metal mined in South America, had it shipped all the way to the UK, only for it to end up as scrap by winter.