Hitting your head against a brick wall

There are times when I deapair of the media, not just the Mail and the Express, but all of them, at the ignorance and attitude of them. This morning on Breakfast news I saw a report an effort to get young offenders to join up with the scouts, guides and other uniformed organisations to try and turn their lives around. Now regardless of what you think of the scheme it was impossible to watch the report and not cringe with embarassment, in particular at the idea of using ging gang bloody gooly as the sound track.

Is there any chance at all that the media might actually sit up and take notice that we have modernised, that we may have something a bit more to offer and we do reflect young people of the 21st century and not those of the 1900's. Any chance of that? Maybe? Or are the same old cliches going to be dug out again and again?

That would be the latter then. Yes, I feared as much.

Poor Science Journalism

Although this is about a Daily mail article this is not about the Mail as such, it's simply a small example of the piss poor state of science journalism in this country.

Take a look at this story here

Relatively sensible in how it portrays the research but what is frustrating is its insistence on referring to these people being "immune" to cancer. You can't be immune to cancer, it's impossible. An immune reaction is something that your body produces in response to a foreign body, eg an infecting bacteria or virus. It involves the production of anti bodies, T cells and B cells (both types of white blood cell) in order to destroy that foreign body. Occasionally you can get an auto immune response, a disease where the body's immune system starts attacking parts of the body. eg some types of arthritis.

Cancer is when a cell in your body starts dividing and growing out of control, simple as that (although the causes are very complex). How can you be immune to that?

Now you could argue that in lay mans language "immune" is just taken as meaning that you can't get a certain disease. Fair enough, but surely the press have a duty to try and educate people in science? I don't mean lecturing them but simply ensuring that issues are explained using proper, if slightly simplified at times, scientific terms. Could this story for example have not been told in terms of a certain population having an extremely low rate of cancer and that this appears to be related to the lack of a certain gene that produces this growth hormone? that's quite simple isn't it?

It's a relatively minor example but it is indicative of the poor reporting of science in this country to the point where Jo Public who maybe hasn't been taught any science since they were 16 can be quite justified in not knowing what to think anymore.

This is just a short post as I have things to do but it is a subject that I feel the need to return to in the future. Watch this space.

Cotton Wool kids

Regular readers will be well used to me going off on one about the Mail, Express and occasionally other tabloids but tonight I'm afraid my wrath is going elsewhere. Tonight it is aimed at the Guardian and specifically this article by Maggie Brown

I read this and despair, I really do. So I'm going to dissect this crock of shit bit by bit.

I'm not even sure where to begin. So lets kick off with the very beginning, a very good place to start (according to Mary Poppins).

"Ever since my son became a Scout four years ago"

Right, if her son became a scout 4 years ago then he is presumably 14 and almost certainly a patrol leader. This means that this writer's son has been selected as someone with the maturity and responsibility to look after younger kids both at scouts and on camp. This woman should be proud of her son.

"I have bought the line that this century-old movement is a very good thing for boys,"

The first hints of cynicism here I think, and complete ignorance as well. We've let girls in since 1989 love, or hadn't you noticed? FFS, you would have thought the Guardian of all papers would have been aware of this. Clearly not

"In fact my son's troop is booming so much it has had to move the annual meeting to a bigger venue"

OK Maggie, wakey wakey. Your son's troop is fighting kids of with a stick. Much like groups across the country. Are you aware that there are 80,000 kids on scout and guide waiting lists across the country? Are you? Clearly not. And has it occurred to you why that might be? I'll leave you to think about that one for a while. We'll come back to it later.

"For the second year running I'm starting to question what is character-forming or even much use about spending 10 days under canvas in the middle of boggy fields as the rain pours down relentlessly."

Look Maggie, be honest, do you really think that the deliberate aim of camp is to sit kids in the middle of a muddy field and let them get wet? Really? Are you as dumb as you sound? I bloody well hope not. The point is all about self reliance. It's a point we'll return to.

"The clumps of patrol tents and cooking fires looked like a refugee camp, spread out under a grey sky. Wet clothing fluttered on makeshift bits of string in a vain attempt at getting them dry."

And I suppose that sunny Islington or wherever it is you live looked absolutely spiffing in the rain didn't it? Has it occurred to you to think about what your son is getting out of this? this sense of responsibility not just for himself but for his mates as well? I remember camping in a mud bath, I remember lending my dry kit out to those that had run out. Doesn't it make you proud that your son was probably doing just the same thing? Doesn't it?

"I know, the stock response is that boys like this sort of thing, they don't notice the discomfort, they like being free to roam, build fires, go cycling down exhilarating country lanes with barely a tractor to contend with, and try out activities such as riding and sailing."

Have you wondered why that response might be? Is it because maybe, just maybe, it might be true? Kids love going out and having an adventure, of trying something new, of pushing themselves to their own limits. It is a hell of a lot better than being sat in front of a tv screen, i can guarantee you that. Look at the list you wrote in the sentence, would you rather your son did those or sat at home with his play station. And think carefully before you answer. Please.

" My son, by the way, has just returned with a suitcase of damp clothes, ponging to high heaven. I asked him what it felt like to be home.

"Weird," he replied. "Everything is so easy." With that he went, voluntarily, for a deep bath (leaving it filthy), fell on a roast dinner, collapsed in bed and slept around the clock. "

So your son has worked hard, has appreciated what an easy life he has at home, has looked after himself and others and can physically put up with nasty weather and, it would seem is happy to go back for more, and you're moaning? You seem to want to wrap your son up in cotton wool and stop him learning these lessons. What the fuck are you thinking?

With parents like this then what chance have kids got of growing up with any back bone whatsoever?

Robert Murrat

It's been a few days now since the news that Robert Murrat has accepted £550K in damages from a combination of every British tabloid for the disgraceful stories published about him over the last year or so. And I have spent a few days pondering it. Many bloggers including Obsolete and The Enemies of Reason have welcomed the verdict and indeed the verdict itself must be welcomed. For an ordinary person to win in the libel courts buck a worrying trend whereby the press seem to be able to get away with printing what they want.

However, what are the consequences?

£550K. Between 11 papers. including the Sun, Mirror, Mail and Express. £50k for each of them. That is a piss in the ocean for all of them. It will be of absolutely no consequence. It will be of no deterrent to do it again. The tabloids shifted millions of extra copies over the Madeline McCann affair and continue to do so. The press could do this again and will because they have more to gain then they will ever lose. No one was sacked, no individual was made to stand to account for the damage done to Murat's reputation.

Even now search for him on the daily Mail website and what do you come up with? Not one story about him winning in the libel courts, instead all the smears and lies are dragged up again.

There has been no printed apology in any of these papers, not one, nowhere.

So no consequences for the tabloids, no attempt to put things right in terms of publicly apologising in a form that their readers will see and no deterrent to not do it again.

And yet Murat has allegedly won.

What a total disgrace.

So anyway, I promised and now I will deliver, my views on Fox News.

I had heard about Fox News before going to America, I was fully aware that it was a news channel owned by Rupert Murdoch and that like his news papers (as oposed to his media operations generally) had a right wing bias. So I was not entirely ignorant. I was not quite prepared however for what I actually saw as I watched the news before going to bed.

the main topic being covered was the fall out from the televised debate between the democrats various contenders for next year's presidential elections. The rights and wrongs of the various arguments generally escape me, they're not really relevent to what I need to say. What struck me was the deep seated, and frankly personal, loathing that the presenters clearly had for the whole of the democratic party and, in particular, Hillary Clinton.

I understand why people want to vote for Hillary Clinton, if I was an American I would want to vote for her, hell I'd quite happily have her as the British Prime Minister. She is an articulate, intelligent, well travelled and well respected individual on the world stage yet at the same time has advocated policies that could have a profound effect on the lives of ordinary people, the biggest of these being universal health care. I recognise that many people disagree with her on policy grounds, and that is democracy, that is why we have elections. However what i cant bear is the personal issue that many republicans, backed by Fox News, seem to have with her. It's is a two edged thing, firstly she is a woman, and Fox seems to hate strong women, and secondly she is associated with Bill CLinton who is probably the most universerally liked US president ever.

And Fox news just went for her, it was clear and total loathing of her.

In the UK the news papers have their bias, we all know that, but the braodcast media, including Rupert Murdoch's Sky news, has a pretty neutral tac. Perhaps this is why I was so shocked.

The next issue that really has me foaming at the mouth was the way a court ruling was deliberatly misinterpreted by presenters to savage one of their studio guests. Here's the deal.

In one American state (not sure which, I think it was Idaho, but don't quote me) the police had, as part of a road safety campaign, erected crosses where their had been fatal crashes along a stretch of road. As it happens I think that's quite a good idea, but that's by the by. A number of individuals objected to this on the basis that under the US constitution the state and church are seperated. There is freedom both of and from religion. It may not always seem that way in certain parts, but constitutionally that's the way it is. These objectors said that the use of crosses by the police was effectively the state officially advocating Christianity. The case went to court, and the ruling was interesting. The court allowed the crosses to stay on the basis not that the state was legally allowed to advocate Christianity, but that the cross was so universally recognised as a symbol used as a grave that it was effectively a secular as well as a Christian symbol.

Now I agree with the court. Bear in mind here that I am a Christian myself, yet even I, if I see a cross in the middle of a field, will assume it represents a grave, it doesn't automatically figure in my mind that the inidividual may be Christian or not or even make me think of Jesus. See a cross on a church or a different context and I think of Jesus, not of a grave. It depends on the context.

Fox however took it differently! They twisted the court ruling to categorically state that the state was Christian and that the atheists and secular folks could just fuck right off and leave the rest of the world in peace. Again the attack they launched on the objector who had been called in to be interviewed was vile and personal and frankly outrageous. And lets be honest, what is more interesting? Why were they ebating the rights and wrongs of this? Surely a far more interesting story is how mind sets have changed and why even the likes of me think of the cross differently, is the psychology and symbolism of religion not a more interesting story? I think it is.

Pitty about Fox News though.

Sometimes I wonder why I do it to myself, I really do. I tell myself it’s all about know thy enemy and all that, but in reality I just seem to be winding myself up in the extreme. What I do is that I sometimes read the Daily Mail and the Daily Express, I never buy the things, I read them on line and then inevitably end up reading the comments.

My views on both these publications is well known and I wont repeat them now, however one article really touched a nerve today.

On the Daily Express site there was a debate on the “Have your say” section about giving the vaccination against the Human Papilom virus, which is a major cause of cervical cancer, to girls as young as 12. The introduction written by the paper was as ever as biased as they come, but not in the direction that I expected. I’d expected some rant about encouraging young girls to have sex too early, but actually no, it took another stance typical of the paper along the lines of the health risks that might arise from the vaccination itself. Stats were, as ever, used in a totally distorted manner, it is at times like this that I thank God for my degree in biology in that I can pick out the bad science and bad reporting that often accompanies such scare mongering. That however is even then by the by.

What wound me up the point of distraction was the views of the people contributing to the debate. They tended to come in a number of categories.

First the only one I can see as a valid argument, one I disagree with, but nevertheless is worthy of consideration. That was that a programme costing £300 million would save around 400 lives a year. Now the fact is that you cannot put a price on a human life. Ever. However it is also the fact that the National health service also only has a limited budget per year. Could more lives be saved by spending the money on something else? I honestly don’t have enough knowledge to answer that question and I will admit that it is an argument that scares me on more than one level.

The rest of the arguments varied from the absurd, to the misguided, to the just plane disgusting.

First the argument that it encourages girls to have sex under age. No it doesn’t. Could I just remind everyone that girls are vaccinated against rubella at the age of 11 in order to prevent damage to their un born child should they contract it during pregnancy? Does that encourage under age sex? Of course it doesn’t. So why should this vaccination? What encourages under age sex normally is an absence of education both in terms of sex education and in how to deal with relationships, coupled with under age drinking and the misogynistic attitude often handed down to young male teenagers that women are there to be conquered and another tick on the bed post rather than anyone to have a cherished relationship with.

Education that teaches young people the importance of stable relationships, the importance of self respect and most of all about safe sex is what is needed, but not a totally dogmatic approach. Yes sex in a stable loving relationship may be the best way (you may disagree with me!) but that does not mean that sex outside of this is wrong or shameful.

Next we have this idea, engendered by the intro to the debate, that this is harmful to our children’s health. There will always be risks and side effects with any drugs. Some people are allergic to penicillin, and tragically some people died finding this out. Of course that is a tragedy, but lets face it far more people are alive today because of penicillin than Have been killed by it. The trouble here is the inability for someone to understand the concept of risk. It is the same argument that says because “My Grandad smoked everyday and lived till he was 107 so smoking can’t be harmful”. It’s an absurd argument and so is this. I’ve said it more than once, the standard of education in terms of understanding the risk of such things has got to be sorted out.

Finally, and this took my breath away, I was utterly appalled. Several individuals argued that the problem with sexual health in this country was caused by, and I quote, “filthy immigrants and the germs they carry.” Yes, that’s right, these people were actually arguing that only foreigners have diseases and they should all be sent home.

Where do you even start when dealing with some one like that? I am an unashamed bleeding hearted liberal. I don’t believe in smacking some one round the head with a stick as a punishment, but in cases like this? It leaves me wanting to stand in the street screaming at passers by, words just cannot express how angry and frustrated it makes me feel. And for someone that wants to be a writer that is sickening.

Just how much of a total arsehole, and I mean total human slime of the highest order does someone have to be before you can solemnly swear that you could not stand next to them on any issue?

I ask this because of a conversation I had yesterday with a friend of mine about the one and only Richard Littlejohn.

Mr Littlejohn, as is well known, is a “journalist” who writes (at the moment) a column for the Daily Mail. It is typically full of badly thought out right wing diatribe that at times borders on the racist and is regularly utterly offensive. It is though genius in that it appeals straight to the mob culture that normally only the Sun and the News of the World get anywhere near.

At the end of last year RL wrote a piece in his column that plumbed new depths of utterly offensive crap. It concerned that prostitutes who were being murdered at an alarming rate in Ipswich. He basically said they were of no great loss, no one cared, it was an occupational hazard and that they chose to be there.

It was so utterly vile in its tone that at that moment he passed into that category of people who I utterly loathed, who’s total lack of humanity in receiving money for writing something that offensive sent him of the scale in terms of how much of an utter prick he really is.

Yesterday however I was told that he had made a very well made, sensibly thought out and sensibly reported film on the rise of anti-Semitism in western Europe. He was trying to draw attention to how it was on the rise and no one was challenging it while the likes of the BNP were spreading it.

Now the BNP are an utterly vile organisation, who’s leader Nick Griffin is the very epitome of human slime. He spreads hate, division, racism and homophobia where ever he and his cronies go. And he and Mr Littlejohn have had a very public falling out over the film (not that they got on anyway RL once describing NG as “knuckle scraping scum”).

Now my friend who had similar opinions on RL said that on the basis that my enemy’s enemy is my friend it made RL one of his closest friends.

I could never go that far but it has made me stop and think, how quickly should we push someone away who’s views and actions we may find contemptible when they could be a very useful ally against someone far worse?

I don’t have the answers to that one I’m afraid, but it’s worth sleeping on!

The following is something that I found on Facebook. It expresses some what more eloquantly many of the feelings that I tried to express in an earlier post. You may not like everything it has to say but I personally support every word of it.

Bare in mind that I am a Scout Leader. I love children, I put my heart and soul into trying to make their lives that little bit better. I am just sickened by the way one particular issue has been treated in the media.

As much as everyone is sickened by the fact that a little girl has been kidnapped, I bet that this situation is a newspaper editor’s wet-dream. Everyone is so keen to keep up-to-date on the latest information regarding Madeleine McCann that any paper with her photo on their front page probably boosts sales by a considerable margin. Pretty sick, but probably true.Then there’s the fact that in all the articles we’re told how beautiful she is and how her parents are GPs etc etc. Why the fuck does that matter? Surely the fact that a child has been stolen by a pedophile gang is enough to incite our compassion?I’m told that if I have “any information relating to the case” then I should phone some number to report it, if my information leads to Madeleine’s recovery then I’ll get a million pounds. A million pounds!! Shit. That’s a lot of money. I’m actually quite tempted to call up and say that I saw her somewhere, just on the off chance that it turns out she actually IS there. I’m not really going to call, but it’s a big enough incentive that I can practically guarantee some people will. This mean that as well as wading through the thousands of calls they’re already getting from people thinking they caught a glimpse of Madeleine in John Lewis in Wrexham, the police are having their resources stretched even further by following up bullshit leads from greedy, morally defective pricks. Let the police do their work, don’t drown them with useless information.Another effect this sensationalist media coverage is having is to strike fear into the hearts of young parents at home and abroad. Do you remember when you were a kid and you could stay out and play all day, only going home for dinner when it was too dark to play anymore? Children nowadays won’t remember that; their parents are too scared to let them. The media has made people believe that if you don’t know where your children are, eventually they’ll get raped and probably killed. Yes, sometimes it will happen, but that doesn’t change the fact that it is a VERY RARE crime. Are you going to keep your children inside all day incase they get stolen by a pedo, hit by a car, struck by lightning or blown-up by a terrorist? You can’t live your life in fear of what MIGHT happen. Life’s too shortRight, finally David Beckham’s mumbled plea for her return. What. The. Fuck? On my list of ways not to catch a pedophile, David Beckham asking them to turn themselves in is right at the very top. In what shit-fest of a meeting was that hare-brained scheme hatched?“Well the parent’s emotive request for their return was ignored. What now?”“Well the polls show that people like football”“Excellent! Even rapists like football. Let’s get David Beckham to ask for Madeleine’s return. No one can say no to him”Excellent work media guys. Truly inspired.