The Herald 23 Nov 2009. Excessive salaries in the public sector are wrong and help to exacerbate social problems such as obesity, drug-taking and violent crime, an academic and author has claimed.
Ask children instead of ignoring their feelings, says report. 20 November 2009 – From the Guardian Society Website.
The Guardian – Tuesday 27 October 2009
Is it only one in three teachers who are falsely accused of misconduct, as a survey this week suggests? One might have expected it would be more, children being what they are.
Sportswomen step out with their Hobos – Herald Saturday mag. We all know about the Wags, but what about the men who stand behind successful sportswomen? First there was the unstoppable rise of the Wags, the smart, supportive and often glamorous women behind many a sporting success. But what about their counterparts on the opposite side of the gender divide? Meet the Hobos. Forget the sportsmen – the Wags wield the real power behind the thrones. From Coleen Rooney, the wife of England and Manchester United striker Wayne, or Amy Mickelson, spouse of US golfer Phil, to model Leah Shevlin, the fiancee of Rangers goalkeeper Allan McGregor, the wives and girlfriends often take centre stage.
The Times – October 23, 2009. A couple whose overweight children were taken into care by social workers are to be reunited with their newborn baby this week.
Agnes Houston, nurse-manager of a busy chiropractor’s clinic, lynchpin of her family and carer for her ailing father, thought of herself as the strong person, the one who organised others. Until things started to go wrong.
The Herald – 8 Oct 2009. The Scottish Government needs to find another £15 million a year for the next five years to fund the better management of Alzheimer’s disease, according to a Dementia Manifesto launched by Alzheimer’s Scotland this week. One-quarter of all deaths in Scotland are now due to the condition, which affects 70,000 people and their families – set to almost double in 20 years – and costs the country £1.7 billion a year, according to the charity. Yet it gets only two pence in every pound of medical research funding. One major demand of the manifesto, based on consultations with patients and their families, is for more to be done to help people when they are diagnosed. “No-one should be left to face this on their own,” says the document, which aims to influence Scotland’s first National Strategy on Alzheimer’s due next spring.Also this week, the Scottish government launches a national consultation which will include a face-to-face event to get input from sufferers and carers.
28 September 2009, guardian.co.uk
What would Orwell make of a nation in which mothers are investigated for looking after each other’s children?
When did it happen? When did the English, described by George Orwell in his famous essays, as a byword for tolerance, eternally suspicious of “power worship” and the overweening authoritarian state, turn into people who report their neighbours to the authorities for babysitting each other’s children without permission?
The Herald – 18 September 2009
ALZHEIMER’S is a ‘Cinderella’ condition which is stigmatised and hidden ‘the way cancer was 30 years ago’ according to the author of a report to be launched on World Alzheimer Day on Monday.
Nurses should be given special training to deal with the growing number of people who face a diagnosis of dementia in Scotland, according to nurse consultant Dot Weaks, whose report ‘There is much more to my practice than checking up on tablets’ is to be launched at the University of Abertay, Dundee. She found that nurses who were given training in helping patients to come to terms with the knowledge they have Alzheimer’s were significantly more effective in dealing with patients.
The Guardian – 19 September 2009.
Some people have been so infantilised by our authoritarian state that they can no longer perform basic parenting tasks.
“We only refuse what we notice.” This slogan coined by an absent-minded 12-year-old of my acquaintance, in reference to people stealing his chips, seems an apt one to represent the gradual filching of our freedoms by the state. Absorbed in our own thoughts, when we glance back at our plates we may get a shock at how much has been taken.
Reprinted in The Australian Age, 07/9/09, and the Buffalo News, USA, 03/9/09
Tuesday 1 September 2009
One day recently I heard an unearthly wailing coming from my 11-year-old son’s room. It was like no sound I’d ever heard from him before. He doesn’t normally cry at television or films but, curled up alone in his bed reading, when the fantasy character he identified with met a grim end, vanquished by the forces of darkness, he found it absolutely devastating.
Former Children’s Laureate Anne Fine said that modern stories offered little hope for their protagonists
(Colin Hattersley)
sensitively using aspects of the venue to create a changing dramatic space. The projections on the back wall did things like colour in the organ and draw attention to some…
Don’t use a tumble drier. For a family it can use as much C02 as driving an extra car. Instead get a Mull shieling drier, invented by my friends David and Moira Gracie.
Education Guardian – 3rd August 2009
“When I opened the envelope and saw my results, it was just – disappointment. I felt really, really bad. I threw them on the floor and went to my room in tears.”
An eminent expert witness told Jackie Kemp that paedophile cases in Scotland are being dropped due to flawed interview techniques. This is actually an addition I filed to the piece in the Herald below but it was too late to make the paper.
The celebrated South African judge is still setting liberal precedents with a ruling that parents should not be sent to jail, because of their children’s rights – which, he tells Jackie Kemp, has important lessons for the UK.
Albie Sachs: ‘Judges are the storytellers of the 21st century’. Photograph: Eamonn McCabe
