Organic-Ally

This election has been so lacking in ideology. Max Hastings calls this the "ostrich election" as politicians and voters alike bury their heads in sand and hope that the real problems we face would just go away. It is like a toddler putting his little hands on his eyes and saying, "You can't see me now." Then toddlers grow up and realize, hey, other people can still see them even when they covered their eyes. So, too, we must grow up. None of the major parties seem to have any undergirding ideology in the recent years. There is no real 'vision' for this society. Everywhere there is just a bit of tinkering here, a bit of polyfiller there. Meanwhile the voters want lower taxes, higher benefits, higher pensions, better schools, better health care, better transport, but how do we pay for that? Many taxpayers (of which I'm one, just as women, of which I'm one) do not mind paying taxes to help those most in need. We don't even mind helping those wh...

In the parent-and-toddler group I help to run we have two fathers from Croatia who bring their daughters. They often chat loudly together during singing time. The lady in charge is afraid to tell them off because it could be viewed as racism. I spoke firmly to these fathers and immediately instead of talking between themselves they sat down with their daughters and did "Row, row, row your boats" etc with them. The young girls were delighted. I can get away with telling these parents most things because I am not-white. So I'm glad that there are people like Mr Sewell who dares tell it as it is: (black) boys need fathers . Check out also earlier post here .

Found ourselves reading this comment in the papers: Schools are churning out the unemployable and nodding our heads in agreement. Husband gets sent lots of CVs whether or not he is recruiting. Most of these go straight into the bin. If it's not Oxford, Cambridge or one or two from London University, he does not even bother to look. This article tells us how schools or rather teachers seem fearful to teach. They "facilitate". This morning I heard a trailer on radio of how a young man believes that while in the past teachers were respected purely because they were teachers, these days teachers have to "earn their respect". I'm afraid the schools must have had the management consultants in, paid them a lot of dosh, and then decided to "facilitate". As a former management consultant, I can tell you we are very good at teaching clients how to "facilitate" in the work environment. Assuming that grown-up workers have a basic knowledge, we teach...

Recently I came across posts which seem to be coming down hard on Christians in Singapore. One that caught my eye was the displeasure voiced by netizens on the suitability of the principal of a church-based junior college, Mrs Belinda Charles, to speak at a Christian conference. It touched me because though Mrs Charles never actually taught me, she was the person who handed me my 'A' Level results many, many years ago. I don't recall her trying to convert anyone to any faith. I penned the following letter to Straits Times , but it was never published. So I am reproducing the contents of the letter here. =============== (Untitled) My Dutch friend Sheila once said, "Only in my car do I feel safe. Then I have the freedom to go any where." Sheila’s freedom comes from all motorists, including herself, obeying the Highway Code, a set of rules. Imagine someone insisting on driving on the wrong side of the road "because it is my right". Likewise when whole commu...

Oooh ah! Harrow boy Michael Portillo has something interesting to say here in: Idle young should be entitled to nothing "In Britain — maybe throughout western Europe — belief in work, vocation, community, family and God have declined together. " He who has been stealing must steal no longer, but must work, doing something useful with his own hands, that he may have something to share with those in need. (Ephesians 4:28) Back to Organic-Ally . Become our fan on Facebook .

The relevant link from the Telegraph : Ben Kinsella murder: why gang members choose loyalty to each other over family Allow me to highlight a few extracts. The emphases are mine: ''Members are usually from dysfunctional families and broken homes,'' he says. They are failures at school who end up playing truant at an early age and joining groups. From around 11 they join gangs and these become alternative families. But they are ruled by brutal discipline that spills over into extreme violence.'' ''The majority, like Michael Alleyne, come from wildly fractured families - often they are the offspring of single mothers - for whom the gang becomes a surrogate family,'' believes Peter Andrews, author of ''Britain's Gang Culture.'' Often membership, he explains, grants status. ''But it's more than that. It offers an extended family with all the fierce, loyal protection that exists within blood families - something few...

OK, I must confess I am a Strictly Come Dancing fan. As I started this post I thought of Heather Small because I could hear her song, "What have you done today to make you feel proud?" Or something like that. Our freezer continues to be rather bare and we are wasting much less food than we used to. Amongst other things I learned that though sliced bread is convenient a whole loaf of bread keeps better. Like many people I know I am hopeless at slicing bread. It usually looks OK when I start at the top but 'it' usually disappears before the knife gets to the bottom of the loaf and I'd have a slice of bread with no crust on the bottom half. Not any good for toasting as it would burn. It was interesting then to hear mum-in-law congratulate herself on being able to slice bread quite well when she was over to mind our child over a weekend. "Your bread knife is nice and heavy and it goes straight down." Even mum-in-law who had difficulty slicing bread found it ...

One of my most indelible memories of my Sociology Honours Class was a statement made by SH Heng. We talked about hairstyles and were possibly looking at magazines. Then she said, "When we asked the hairdresser to 'perm that hair-style', we really mean to 'perm that face'." Let me explain. Us Chinese girls in Singapore normally have straight, straight hair. We spend hideous amounts of money to have our hair 'permed' into all sorts of curly styles. Or we have a 'body perm' after which the hairdresser teases our hair into a shape similar to the picture we'd shown him/her. However, our hair never looks like the way we walked out of the hairdressing salon again. No amount of gooey hair product and hair-dryer would get it back to the shape at the hairdresser. SH hit the nail on the head though with her shrewd observation that we really want to have not just the hairstyle, but the face (and figure) of the model we were staring at. Fast forward to ...

At one point I was hoping to make my name as the social anthropologist to make the study of 'anthropology of junk' fashionable. Yes, people will say at my funeral, 'She will be remembered for her rubbish.' As a mother, though, how does one respond to a six-year-old who is convinced that he is 'rubbish'? Son was clearly distressed when I picked him up yesterday. The Form was preparing for a football match against another school. My son isn't any good at kicking a ball. Offers to start him on lessons (like many of his classmates have done) were turned down. He was just not keen on football. The school requires him not only to play football, but in inter-school matches as well. He was not a happy bunny. Today they were supposed to have a first football lesson with the Games Master (or whatever his title should be). I was dreading the tears that would greet me at the school gates. We did think perhaps he should impress on the Games Master that he is utter rubbis...