PASSING LOOP

Passing Loop 

If someone tells me one more secret
I will sink. They are all bad.
The one he kissed. The one he lost. The accusations.
The train flies through the unlit stations.
Were we meant to travel or
Become a tree, heavy with fruit,
Not shrivelled truth, to whisper night
Companionably, with moon-breathed leaf
Beside the platform, drip with light?

Alison Brackenbury

poetry

Cum Laudeus C

I must go up to the C again
To the C and its curve so high.
To the sweep of its cite
And the bent of its height
As it points twice to the words' far lie.

I must go down to the C again
And its soft contoured cry;
Its implored can and could,
To be followed upward, if wooed
Till it crests in a canticled sky.

I must journey forth to the C again,
To its comely, capacious abode
On its wind-swept cape,
Its caprioled fate
A comma, in a cavalier spate.

I must seek out the C again
To drink its near-chronicled fill.
A courtesaned life,
Incomplete but rife,
Open-ended, yet curving toward nil.

Larry Lefkowitz

poetry

Cum Laudeus C

I must go up to the C again
To the C and its curve so high.
To the sweep of its cite
And the bent of its height
As it points twice to the words' far lie.

I must go down to the C again
And its soft contoured cry;
Its implored can and could,
To be followed upward, if wooed
Till it crests in a canticled sky.

I must journey forth to the C again,
To its comely, capacious abode
On its wind-swept cape,
Its caprioled fate
A comma, in a cavalier spate.

I must seek out the C again
To drink its near-chronicled fill.
A courtesaned life,
Incomplete but rife,
Open-ended, yet curving toward nil.

Larry Lefkowitz

BOGUS

The Central London college, i.e. bogus principal, bogus lecturers, has lost government right to recruit. Therefore, my services have been dispensed with and I search for another. The college was improving slightly but I find it difficult to work in such places. I certainly find it difficult to take orders from people I know to be bogus and both the people in management positions in health and social care were bogus. Very frustrating!

living by the sword

Living by the Sword

He had a look of the illicitly serpentine about him

could summon a home like Caligula in Rome,

as he lifted his foot the ground would rise to meet it

and so forth.  Of course,

the pendulum must swing

and the old tree will bear the most rings,

an abstract print

shapes and squares of solid hues

gained ill repute, grey city workers and mud stuck views.

If I had dared to ask,

where he had been, where he was and where he started from

and algebraic conundrum of x to z

a man of education might meet the end

or the beginning.  But not he,

destined to be the alien stray

he’ll always leave but somehow stay

pollen carried on the wind to foreign shores

and many more, a thread through the ages to keep in tune.

Gemma Wildman, Chesham, Bucks

volcano

The drowning man is lost beneath the waves,
the birds picking at his feet
and in the distance
pixelated in greens, yellows and reds
the forbidding slope of
the dormant volcano.

ying cao

Ink and Wash Painting With Cormorants

Ink and Wash Painting With Cormorants

Yangshuo’s mountains protrude

into starless dark

tenebrous tongues

lick the lake

raindrops printing wrinkles

on its leaden skin.

A silhouette poles a bamboo boat

dipping a brush in ink.

Beside the fisherman

seven cormorants in a line

corded necks bent like hoses

wings in dry-brush black

stretched wide

chalky backs

speckled with charcoal.

Pen-nib heads glide

slip into ebony silk

streak apart like water

on a speeding windscreen.

Moments later

each bird surfaces

in a shower of grey pearls

silver fish aslant its beak

eyes glinting like jet

before shadowing down once more.

The old man’s pole collects them

time and again

he grasps each sheened throat

to shimmer its catch into his basket.

At some unseen signal

fishers return to their perch

shake drowned feathers

over the lake mirror

utter harsh cries at the night

until they are fed.

Margaret Eddershaw, Nafplion, Greece

lessons of the war

Lessons of the War:
Going to Vote

Today we are going to vote. Yesterday,
We had party political broadcasts. And tomorrow morning,
We shall have a new government. But today,
Today we are going to vote. Cherry blossom
Blushes pink with modest triumph in all of the neighbouring gardens,
And today we are going to vote.

This is an election leaflet. And this
Is the voting card whose use you will see,
When you go to vote. And this is proportional representation,
Which in your case you have not got. The local branches
Wear their rosettes with silent, eloquent gestures
Which in our case we have not got.

These are the leaked reports, which are always released
In the run up to an election. And please do not let me
See anyone not reading all the press reports. You can do it quite easy
If you have any strength of will. The blossoms
Are fragile and motionless, never letting anyone see
Any of them not reading it all.

And this you can see is the spin doctor’s smile. The purpose of this
Is to close the breach, as you see. He can slide it
Rapidly backwards and forwards: we call this
Winning the votes. And rapidly backwards and forwards
The candidates are harassing and wooing the electorate.
They call it winning the votes.

They call it winning the votes: it is perfectly easy
To resist if you have any strength of will; like the spin doctor’s smile,
And the rosettes and the leaflets and the proportional representation,
Which in our case we have not got; and cherry blossom
Silent in all of the gardens and the bees going backwards and forwards,
For today, we are going to vote.

Eleanor Livingstone

the other end of the day

snakeskin.poetry site

The Other End Of The Day

At the other end of the day
When the sun folds in
And the moon, pale-faced,
Startles a sky bible black
But not starless, I look
Through these windows
Seeing nothing but desire.

Take your finger to my lips -
I will not be disturbed;
Take your mouth to mine -
I will not be disturbed,
Having walked the land
Of the unloved far too long.

And having walked the land
Of the unloved I know
The difference between
The seen and the unseen,
That familiarity of a smile
That has me wanting
Yet gone now as the moon
Disturbs nothing but air

And I, looking through these
Windows see nothing but desire
Undone and restless whilst
Morning happens and I find
Myself disturbed by sudden truths
Like black amnesias of heaven.

Even unseen you are beautiful.

John Cornwall

STORM

The storm soared clashing with the cloud,
breaking upon the earth
destroying towns.

Ying Cao

St Pats

At present I am teaching two classes at St Patricks. One is brilliant, listening to me and doing well. The other, mainly ignaorant, rude and arrogant-not listening to me and probably will fail. Just not very bright or not bright (intelligent) enough.

middlebrow

Eleanor Stewart-Middlebrow.mag

The Grave

My mother lies in the hillside beneath the long grass

Undiscovered, with no mark of the match lit past

Only known by the sheep with the iron-dark eyes

Moving over rough heather and mounds in their tribes.

When she died

No one watched

But the low, ticking clock.

And we all left her bones on the hills

When she died

We walked down to the car park and none of us cried.

How I wish I could rumble with the bracken-burnt sheep

Over scarred earth lain raw like old wounds and old meat

Away from the grave that lies in the heath

To the higher hills where the wind-worn find peace

But mama is always under my feet.

Walkin With the Dead

The stories in Wattpad tend to be derivative, but not of other books or other writing, but of TV programmes or films.

For example: Walking With the Dead, the various Vampire films. The narrative is already supplied. In Zombie ones it always involves a journey/and/or/a siege. Vampire ones are about love or lust, where in both cases the monsters represent diseases or the 'other', the alien or foreigner.

The writing is often in short paragraphs and are concerned, like films, with action.

wattpad

Although there are any number of reviews for printed books, there are few if any for internet published works. I intend to produce critiques of these whenever I can.


A good example of an internet publisher is Wattpad, where, unlike a number of present and earlier examples, good work is routinely published, producing a distinctive and often successful method and style of writing. Wattpad usually contains imitations of successful TV or film productions, which elicit high levels of readership, but also, on occasion, original work.

The Rich

Lacking humility, the rich
believe their temporary dominance
is everything.
The poor, without power or influence,
their lives dwindling to insignificance,
look upon them and wonder:
'Are they wrong?'

Yin Cao

teaching

I have great hopes for the present intake but unfortunately in one class there are still a small number of rough, pointless types whose ignorance is matched only by their egos.

GHOSTS

Taken from Middlebrow online magazine

Ghosts of Haworth

Vivid autumn courses, bringing unwelcome news
of unknown but compelling forces
shrouded in time and season,
a world where myth and reason collide,
the magnetic pull of frost and fog,
bleak landscapes where gothic heroes speak.

A timeworn house and desolate downs, set amid
the rushing and moaning of the wind,
hear tortured souls howling from parchment pages.
November bites, draws in the chill of winter,
overnight frost and snow settle and fall,
thoughts and feelings call and clash along the way.

Those most encumbered ones of Haworth,
all slumbered before their thirty-eighth summer,
unconventional, unwell, grave and quiet,
living in a limbo close to hell, clinging to one other,
happiness not brought about by change
on the bleak moors of Yorkshire.

Walk in the wilderness, the featureless and solitary
that haunts with hints of the extraordinary.
Pictures frozen in time, every twist having a turn,
each hillock of heather with scent sublime,
like elusive thoughts during sleep.
Those coldest pine for Haworth’s beloved heath.

Snowdrops and Secrets               

Waxen woodland strata,

born before the typical time,

anxious blossoms can’t wait for the melt,

thriving beneath a February cover,

waking early from a lovers’ sleep.

Wintery secrets rise up when snows thaw,

emerging like corpses buried shallow.

About the Author

Patricia Williams
I write poems on a variety of topics and have recently had several of them published. I earned my PhD from Leeds University, England, in Textile Design Studies. My Bachelor and Master degrees were earned in art and design at the University of Wisconsin – Stevens Point, USA. I retired from the University of Wisconsin as a Professor Emerita after 27 years of teaching culture and design and live with my husband in the Wisconsin countryside.

Silence

Taken from Pulsar Poems.

Worlds of Silence

There’s a world in silence,

like that of a poem

insistent upon a page.

The silence of a dictionary

that flirts with anyone.

The silence of a question

from yesterday’s photograph.

The persuasive silence

of dust in an empty house.

The desperate silence

from a mirror’s truth.

The expressive silence

that could be the voices

of you and me.

Gordon Scapens

Penwortham, Preston

LION

The lion remains barbaric even in play
because the lion kills-
it does not negotiate nor establish treaties
or seek to rule except over
any area that includes
female lions and plenty of substantial prey.
like humankind it desires sex and food.
We are different only
in that we need a place to stay, walls and roof,
and an oven.

Ying Cao

dog

The dog is at the bottom;
snivelling, crawling, the last in the pack
watching the new born child,
the runt it can sink its teeth into.


ying cao

CAT

The cat sits by the window
watching the wind,
barely making a sound
peaceful, at ease with itself,
while in the garden
are ravaged birds.
The cats does what it's nature demands
and has no conscience or thought.
The cat kills.


Ying Cao

ethnicity

The head of my department, although previously in Cumbian University admin., appears unwilling to acknowledge the reality of the college. On the one hand she acts as if everything was above board, referring constantly to the bogus principal as professor, supporting her immedioate, incompetent unqualified staff, while on the other hand attacks and patronises genuine staff members. In these private colleges it is not unusual for properly trained and qualified staff to be marginalised.

I want to view another matter that is considered sensitive and difficult to highlight. The Academic Head of the college appears not to have sufficient experience or qualifications to warrant that position, only he shares ethnicity with the owners. All or the majority of senior academic positions also have been apparently awarded as a consequence of ethnicity not qualifications. This is common!

Patronise

A colleague is considering giving in his notice at the college I am working in. He spoke to the Head of Department concerning low standards only to be patronised. This is what they do and its infuriating. To be patronised by someone with poor or bogus qualifications lives qualified people in an apoletic state. Do they genuinely feel they're the real thing? Horrors. Do this bunch of unintelligent opportunists really belive they are academic?

Ying Cao

Watching the sea, fixated on waves
Touched by its beauty
The tsunami overwhelmed the land:
Consumed me.

Ying Cao

Achievement

I am pleased to report that many of the present students, not undermined by the appalling behaviour of many of their peers, such as the previous group, and by some barely qualified tutor, are doing extremely well and I hope that at least 7 will achieve distinctions.

BASKET CASE

It was a hazy day
under a fierce sun
when she passed my way
carrying a gun.

i loved her from the moment she shot
her old colleagues in the supermarket
i knew then she was not
the complete basket.

i followed her proclaiming my love.
with blood-soaked hands she nodded
I revered her like a god above
well and truly besotted.

She smiled at last and kissed my lips
I gave her an embrace
She said: "How I admire your quips".
And shot me in the face.

Joe Haines

How do people like the aforementioned principal get away with it? This man was awarded an OBE! Crazy! In his job in Grimsby there seems to be allegations of fraud, which I daresay may have had substance. When he left the college, under a cloud, apparently all the small companies he set up to exploit the college's provisions and reputation collasped and the college, as a consequence, then owed £250000.

August principal

Ah the principal of this college! Our esteemed professor! I have researched and researched him but I cannot find which university he attended. How strange. it seems possible that our august leader has only an ACCA to his name. He has done remarkably well with such limited qualifications, pulling the wool over the eyes of one organisation after another.

The Highly Educated Programme Manager

The programme manager, who wrote this, claims to have an MBA. If he does so, he didn't write the essays himself.  

Case Study 1

Mr A is a young man of 25 years old in ABC Care Home. He was admitted in(this is not right! Surely into) this care home following an assessment by the manager at (not right again! ‘Of’.) the (no 'the'. This does not require an article)Kingston Hospital in the presence of the doctors, nurses, social worker and next of kin. Mr A has had an accident by (by isn’t needed and this is past not perfect tense) falling off a ladder while performing the task of window cleaning. He has his skull almost half damaged (My ten year old could do better! Past tense not present perfect. You cannot have something half damaged) , cannot speak, but can still understand and communicate by using sign and symbol and the assistive speaking keyboard and other devices. He has broken legs (his legs are broken) and needs to be transferred onto his armchair, electric wheelchair and bed using the transferring equipment. He has food intake problem (s) and is on peg feed. However, he needs drinking using thickener (Is this written by a child? Anyway if he’s on peg feed, he can’t drink). He needs to have(wrong tense again!) clinical care with change of dressing and medication as prescribed by the doctor.

Case Study 2

Ms R is a young lady of 30 years with learning difficulties and has been admitted in (to) ABC Care Home on the first floor in the Young Physically and Mentally Disabled unit of the care home for rehabilitation. She never likes to have (wrong tense again!) personal hygiene and wanders throughout the home thereby causing discomfort and inconvenience to other service users through her awkward (what do they mean?) clothes and stinking (wow) body. Four staff members are required to use restraint to be able to attend to her (this isn’t English) personal hygiene as she is very much (liable to extreme physical aggression) physically aggressive. 

PASS THEM!

One of my friendly colleagues reported that the new programme manager asked him to check another lecturer's work as they were, in the higher management's view, failing too many students. He asked my friend, who has been with the college a long time, to have a quiet word with her to relax her standards. He refused. The programme manager writes English with all the competence of a pre-GCSE student. Has he actually any standards?

Don't go to private colleges!

The principal of the private college I work at is called 'professor'. He was an accountant who moved into college admin. and then ran a government college to turn it towards a business orientation. This of course does not suggest an academic. And-trumpets, etc-he has only a Master. He says that his professorship came from a Chinese university and therefore is an hononary one for services rendered.

Surprise! Surprise!

Last week the other lecturers told me that the management, including the above professor, had a meeting for all the staff to teach them how to teach. Many of the lecturers are qualified, experienced people. They told me it was very patronising.

The problem with the college is the employment as programme leaders fraudsters like the one whose English is like a child's. The propagation of low standards and too many fraudalent and dubiously qualified teachers like the 'professor'.

Don't go to Private Colleges

Back to teaching-

I was in front of my class lecturing on procedures in health and social care. In this college I cannot write the material myself, as I would normally do.

Half way through my lecture I gave up and told the students the material was rubbish. Which it is! The compiler puts up copy and paste American articles on health matters, apparently unaware that the two systems, British and American (USA) are vastly different. Worse he provided case studies for the students. The English in each one was pre-GCSE. On the level of a 12 year old. I felt embaressed and ashamed. My students began to laugh.

The writer is supposed to have an MBA. What can I say? -Buying essays and presenting them as his own in order to achieve a high level qualification?

That afternoon I went to a teacher's meeting to discover that the compiler of the above said barely literate material had recently been made programme manager! Don't go to private colleges unless you check them first!

psychotherapist

After a few weeks I realised all the other students had problems of various kinds. Some were clearly depressive, others recovering from abusive childhoods. But one, a woman of 60, stood out. Judgemental, egotistic, unbalanced. These were her good points. Having psychotherapy with her was like having a cuddle with a rattlesnake.

psychotherapy1111

I was offered an interview, which was to be in Ipswich. It was for a degree course under the indirect auspices of Midddlesex University. I was more concerned then about cost.

The gentleman interviewing me suggested we meet first on Ipswich Rail Station. I agreed arriving there about 4 pm. I expected to go to their facility for the interview but instead was interviewed in the eatery on the platform. WARNING! WARNING!

The gentleman wore the obligatory earrings although he must have been about 50. He was a bit of an aging hippy. I went along with the whole charade convinced that this was for me.

psychoanalysis

A few years ago I decided to train in psychotherapy. Mistakenly, I chose not to do this at a university as getting on to a course I knew would take time, perhaps as much as a year. I therefore looked at alternatives. I found one based in East Anglia which was both cheap and accessible. A huge mistake, but an interesting one.

PSYCHOTHERAPY

In the coming blogs I will detail my experiences training in and acting as a psychotherapist.

Ying CAO

Falling rain covers
animal and plant
both distracting and invigorating,
warm, cold
providing life and sickness
for all.
Both beneficient and cruel
rain replenishes
rain destroys.

YING CAO

searching

The term King of Kings was associated with the Persian Emperors. Later with Christ and Allah.

When the Babylonian Hebrews (Jews) returned to the Jerusalem area in the 5th century BCE they returned as agents of the Persian king to ensure that the inhabitants of Palestine behaved themselves. They introduced their own version of the Hebrew religion, Judaism, the main point of which was to enforce control over the locals through a number of religious strictures.

searching for god and power

The Hebrew or Jewish commentators of the 5th century BCE constructed a god from the ruling political system, the Persian Empire. Such systems by tradition accorded peace and prosperity.

In Job, an extremely interesting document, god resides in a court surrounded by acolytes. God and Satan discuss the faithfulness or holiness of Job, the most holy and faithful of humans. They have a bet to see how faithful to god Job actually is and Job is then afflicted by all manner of disasters. He asks advice of a series of acquaintences who provide various theories for his misfortunes, including of course that he must have sinned (disobeyed god) at some point. These learned men meet with swift ends. This god does not like men to think, in the same way that autocrates disapprove of ideas. Now throughout this story god's nature changes, clearly the result of more than one writer.

The story ends frightenly with god declaring that reason is useless in trying to understand his actions. God is power, and that is it. God does things through whim like any ancient or modern potentate. God in fact is little more than a spoilt child.

'That is all ye know, and all ye need to know.'

GOD

I have written in my book Myth of Mind on this issue at length, but the early Judaic concept of an omnipresent god appears based upon the developing monarchy of Persia, which had an empire that stretched from present day Pakistan to the Mediterranean. The Persian king employed spies to ensure order in his vast kingdom, spying not only on the conquered populations but also on his satraps or administrators. From this political development we have a concept of an all-powerful deity. This can be seen in the changing nature of the Hebrew god particularly with the return of the exiles from Babylon, an intellectual, administrative elite. It is my contention that versions of god, most certainly that of the Near Eastern Book religions-Judaism, Christianity and Islam-represent fossilised political developments of a period centuries or millennium ago.

god

I have written in my book Myth of Mind on this issue at length, but the early Judaic concept of an omnipresent god appears based upon the developing monarchy of Persia, which had an empire that stretched from present day Pakistan to the Mediterranean. The Persian king employed spies to ensure order in his vast kingdom, spying not only on the conquered populations but also on his satraps or administrators. From this political development we have a concept of an all-powerful deity. This can be seen in the changing nature of the Hebrew god.

TEACHING

Ref. College where I freelance:

We had a meeting a few weeks ago during which the subject of standards and student attainment came up. The Head of Department spoke about management fears on the lack of numbers of students passing, without of course alluding to the management's shameless, irresponsible recruitment practices. One of the lecturers suggested that perhaps we should allow those students who lacked language skills, that is most, to cut and paste as even if their English was poor they still understood the material.


I wondered: did he obtain his own qualifications in that manner? Was he used to his students producing such efforts? What was his own marking like?

I immediately recalled an Asian lecturer from a previous, defunct college who gave distinction to student's efforts that were clearly copy and paste. One student, a lovely man but with quite a low intelligence, produced for him a wonderfully academic piece of work that he similarly marked. I discovered the piece on the internet. This lecturer no doubt acquired his own qualifications in the same fashion. I took over his students when he left and referred most.

teaching again

On Friday, next door's class erupted into a fight, which spilled out into the corridor. I was just glad that I wasn't the teacher this time on the basis I suppose of mere survival. Bear in mind nevertheless that many if not most of the students are genuine and hard working. Three of my students produced excellent work last week. I have now some ten potential merits.

teaching

At present I am teaching a Principles in Health and Social Care course on a freelance basis and therefore I do not write the courses. The actual compiler constantly employs cut and paste pieces from American online journals to reference health admin. problems that have nothing to do with British health and social care. The two systems are radically different. What idiots! Is this stupidity or laziness? Poor spelling, American vocabulary! I am ashamed to teach it!

R/T

It is extraordinary for anyone to declare that they know what god or a god thinks, that a god's internal manifestations are known to them and equally extraordinary that such an extreme deity would concern themselves with the humdrum of dietry matters, sexual matters and clothing.

R/P

Christianity proposes passivity and the aggression Christian countries have habitually displayed is a consequence of, where it depends at all on religious text, the Old Testament, the Torah of the Hebrews. 'Eye for an Eye', etc, which permeates Sharia law. Jesus's viewpoint insisted on the reverse, based upon forgiveness. But like most religious ideas this appears to be based on historically-rooted practicalities, the motivation for which has been lost. Where Hebrew cogitations on the nature of god were rooted in 5th century BCE political affairs concerning nationhood and kingship, and Islam in the political events of the 5th and 6th century AD, Christian ideas of forgiveness and passivity are rooted in the consequences of a small nation/religious group confronted by Rome's military expertise. Rebellion against Rome brought with it the genuine prospect of annihilation and even personal responses to Roman oppression could result in immediate beheading. A different strategy had to be formed therefore that did not entail resistance.

Islam is a completely different religion from the above in that it proposes resistance and aggressive evangelisation, although many Moslems insist on the peaceable nature of the religion. Still, it is the only global religion that fetishes violence to others to any extent, the sadism to Christian masochism. Islam insists on shared brotherhood, based upon an acceptance of unfettered, un-decorated monotheism which it shared with early Christian communal beliefs. In the case of the latter, this constituted, in its earliest days, a rejection of gender. Men and women were equal and the same.

Religion/politics

Tom Holland, writing in In the Shadow of the Sword, suggests that Mohammed was reacting to the monotheistic ideas that may have prevailed in the borders between Arabia and Christiandom. This seems to accord with Mohammed's understanding of religious views of his time. He may have erroneously believed that Christianity had a female deity. Holland believes that Mohammed was influenced by gnostic gospels and that accounts for the story within the Qur'an of Christ's survival on the cross and later life, first found in one of the former works. I've always held that this inclusion within the Qur'an throws no credit on its compilers and provides sufficient evidence by itself for its man-made roots.

Religion/politics

These books, Talmud, New Testament, and Qur'an were written by men (not probably by women) because that is exactly what  appears to be the case. For example: The Book of Job appears, in a number of its passages, to predate or come from another source other than Hebrew thought and philosophy. It seems to emerge from an intellectual climate beyond the Near East. It is certainly close to Islam in its emphasis on the power rather than love of god. All you need to do is obey, not question. Questioning is arrogance.

In Judaism and Christianity lose of faith is an essential component, as each contains a belief in continuous development, whereas Islam revokes the right to challenge.

Christianity contains philosophical concerns that are not within the teaching of the Christ figure. The gospels are notoriously written in poor Greek. Translation has transformed them. The Christ figure was one of several messianic figures of the period who initiated personal teachings related to cult practices.

Although the Hebrew texts contain dubious historical detail, there is much that can be verified. Islam is more universal in its approach but where historical detail is available within its text it appears localised in time and geography, that is to the decades of war between Iranshar and Eastern Rome. The Qur'an's internal/external religious debates seem to be confused and not connected with confirmed Christian or Zoroastrian beliefs. As many scholars have pointed out it references fields and cattle, elements of the natural world not visible in Arabia. Also, it is difficult apparently to find mentions of Mecca or Medina in historical texts of the period, even though the Qur'an indicates each was a bustling metropolis. This seems highly unlikely as each city was in barren desert far from trading routes.

Early next week I will have an interview at a private college with two of its management. One of these, an arrogant sort I've met already, appears to have dubious qualifications no doubt acquired through a private college. Google provides the tools to search everyone. Again, I note the convergence of arrogance and limited ability.

Religion/Politics

On the one hand, it is difficult for me to understand how religious books carry conviction, except within the theatre of group and personalised threats, through the indirect or direct theatres of power and authority, as the material each contains is often temporal and malicious.

I certainly think that belief in these books has much to do with the human conviction of our specialness. We are the only remaining Homo specie left, all the others died off, and our nearest relatives, chimpanzees, are sufficiently unlike us to be ignored. We look around and believe we stand alone. Therefore we require a relationship elsewhere, finding that relationship with a god.

Religion/Politics

In the next few blogs I wish to consider more weighty issues of a political nature, all under Religion/Politics. But first I must state my position as to the former of the above states.

I am not religious and find the return to irrational religious belief worrying and distressing as if all the scientific discoveries, historical research and profound reasoning of the last two centuries have come to nothing. For me, it is as if the political and social ideologies of the 1930s have been rehashed and once again hatred, fear and uncertainty are guiding people's lives.

An Unusual Power

An Unusual Power: The rise and influence of medical doctors.

How the medical profession affects modern perceptions, looking at the extraordinary power they wield in western societies. 


Academia.Edu

Al/El

Malaysian judges under pressure from religious groups have stopped Christians from using the term Allah to describe their slightly different god. While this appears to reflect political and social difference, the term comes from ancient Canaan several thousand years ago and was used for the prominent deity.  The original Hebrew god probably went under the name as of course did the chief god of the time BAAL. It was it seems a common term for a leading god.

It seems likely that the god/s of the present day had their beginnings in c1550 BCE, in religious and political ideas of present day Syrian and Lebanon, based upon or in the locality of Ugarit, an ancient city. In the early El/Al religions women were extremely prominent if not equal to the leading god, who was a god of war in some form or another. This role some might say El/Al still has.

Joseph Haines

How dark the end was without stars, without tears,
Surrounded by meditation
In a vast sea of unexpressed fears
A sharing of thoughts in an unavoidable situation.
We waited as the universe contracted
Our thoughts in extremis extracted.

In the end we did not pray
Or wonder about our continued existence
No one had anything wise to say
In the inevitable, unchanging sequence.
There was nothing we could do as the earth
Broke apart, but accept oncoming death

It crushed us in a second,
Rent limbs, leaving only dust,
The sun imploded
The planets went bust
And no memory remained of our history
Our passing unnoticed, unscrutinised sophistry.

Our philosophies, science, churches,and mosques un-constructed
In the flickering retreating waves of relative time,
All hot air. Our great ancestors un-created
Like this unwritten unpublished rhyme.
Our shared un-lived existence
Without precedence or consequence.




.

Joseph Haines

Ying Cao

It's not the night that frightens us
the unknown and unseen
it is the night within
that makes us tremble
the nightmares and the guilt.

Court

A recently retired Family Court judge has called for the system to be revamped as it does not reflect modern society. The Court's decisions affect society and can because of its prejudice against fathers  be held responsible for feral children and adults.

If a case reaches the Court one certain rule applies. A father will only be able to see his child once a fortnight unless the mother agrees to another arrangement. That rule applies even if the father was the main carer. Who suffers? Of course the father and the child.

Online magazines are a brilliant innovation except where, like Aphelion and a number of others, they decide they know what is and is not good literature or stories. One magazine owner, on rejecting one of my stories (immediately accepted elsewhere), lectured me on how short stories should be constructed. My mind drifted off to Hemingway, Cheever and other 'failures' who wrote work that did not conform to this gentleman's narrow, semi-literate understanding.

I certainly do not understand mags such as Aphelion who apparently utilise their friends to comment on matters they have neither skill nor judgement to comment on. Just be a magazine, please don't try to be experts!

Government colleges and private colleges.

I've just left an interview with a large government run college in North London and after a while the interviewer and I discussed standards in private colleges. She was shocked to learn of the delivery methods, the question and answer approach I've earlier discussed. You have therefore different standards at work-private colleges with lecturers who often have few genuine qualifications, who can barely construct a paragraph of correct English,  and government colleges with continually assessed teachers who know how to teach. OK its not quite so black and white, but in private colleges delivery and grading is fraudulent while at least the government colleges have some standards.

Aphelion

Aphelion is an American sci-fi webzine which publishes a number of good if not brilliant stories. But it is one of those sites that takes itself far too seriously. It reviews writers, or, at least, has a troupe of critics on hand to give their considered opinions. Arrogance and pomposity unbounded!

Unless you feel your work needs to be developed, avoid these kind of sites. Amateurs deciding on what writing is or is not. They cannot genuinely help aspiring writers and in fact can instead nip good ones in the bud. AVOID!

STORM

Dull pattering through agonised woods
fumbling winds, serrating storms
animals vanishing into the undergrowth
scurrying beneath the ground
birds huddling under leaves.
The river breaks its bank
water spreading out like vomit
villages swamped with infestation.
The storm batters and bruises,
bellowing through the night like a troubled god.

A. Dupois

Drugs

Is depression truly helped by drugs that merely squash feelings and memories? Is it so reprehensible to live with negativity? Do we always have to be positive?

A population fed with drugs is one that does not rebel. The triumvirate of drug-companies, medical profession and government is benefiting from this smothering of thought and action.

Ying Cao

When the sun falls and night appears
light is not lost, but renewed;
the day's warmth is paused
not removed. Goodness revolves,
and the light returns.

Yin Cao 10

In my garden, by the wall,
the dog peed.
The urine stain spread and
cleansed the age-stained brick
leaving it fresh and new.

Yin Cao

FAMILY COURT 2

Any discussion of the Family Court is illegal. A preposterous regulation.

After the breakup of my relationship with my son's mother, because of her manipulative tendencies , and her resorting to lies when faced with difficult situations, I chose not to talk with her but to concentrate solely on my son. Nevertheless, the court said that she had to confer with me as to any decisions related to my son. When I attempted to enforce this, she used an admiral, successful strategy. She would arrive at court an hour before the case came up and approach all senior people sobbing, wringing her hands and telling god knows what stories. She did this every time. Once outside the court all tears miraculously dried and her drama subsided.

When he was eleven she put my son into one of the worst local schools. My son is very intelligent and then was very frail. I was mortified and began court proceedings. I arranged for my son to have an interview with the top school in London. She arrived in court an hour early as usual and began, as far as I'm aware, her little games. When I arrived my name was mud and my intentions suspect. I found myself in a room with seven or eight women officers and a security guard. My son was hardly spoken of and, when the matter of my son's schooling was brought up,  the women officers sided with his mother. Another meeting was arranged.

Angry, I wrote a letter to head of court telling what the women officers had done and predicting how my ex would act in court immediately before the next meeting. She did exactly as I described. I went to the court with a local councillor as a witness. She recorded my ex's activity.

Unfortunately, as a consequence of the court my son lost his chance at the school and stayed at the awful one. I became involved with the school to ensure he thrived. He is now studying law at university but he should be studying at a topmost university and not the one he is at.

The court acted upon anecdotal evidence, and from what I saw, usually does. It checks nothing out. It doesn't have to because it is secret and no other body can review its activities. The court acted with discrimination and prejudice and harmed my son. They certainly did not put his needs first.

FAMILY COURT

The Family Court is the only court within Britain in which all matters are done in secret. While the rationale behind this unusual practice in a country that prides itself on openness is the protection of children it merely protects the discriminatory practices of the court and gives its members immense power.

Originally the Parliamentary Act that formed these courts ensured that the children's needs were paramount, court precedent afterwards reconstructed the Act's intentions by connecting children's needs with mother's needs. The court is often a place therefore manipulated by mothers, with the collusion of court members.

Education 10

Concepts of intelligence were previously fashioned by the elite. Two centuries ago those who went to university were from the landed rich and invariably took over the running of the country. They became politicians, and since their deaths have passed into the obscurity they deserved. Those who offered ideas and innovation usually did not receive a university education.

Of the poets, Shelly and Byron went to university, Keats did not. Of writers of the period, the majority did not attend university.

Since Thatcher and Blair, higher education has become democratised but does that mean lower standards? When I went to university, one of the highest ranked, as a mature student I quickly noticed sanobbish and tribal behaviour coming from both students and staff, especially the staff who strongly believed themselves to be members of a, largely self-selected, elite who represented the finest minds of their time. Limited in intellectual scope with little knowledge outside their chosen fields, I doubted that.

TONY BLAIR

His first education reforms in higher education resulted in increased funding for universities and a comparatively large increase in access to university education. This was controversial. Critics on the left objected to the introduction for the first time of student fees to pay part of the cost of higher education. Critics on the right argued that the increase in student numbers implied a lowering of educational standards. In 1998, one of Mr Blair’s first and most radical education reforms came in the form of means testing, and many university students in the U.K. paid tuition fees for the first time. 


My concern here is with the increase in student numbers, facilitated by colleges becoming universities. Did this actually lower standards in order that more people should acquire higher qualifications?

A Continuing debate:

bad, bad, bad

The arrogance of these students is simply a characteristics of their sub-culture in which to be modest is to be a victim. It appears to be a culture based upon power/victim dichotomy. In my class, their destructiveness was a means of controlling the class.

bad, bad, again

The vociferous and destructive students from last term did not of course produce any work, well not individually. I received one set of assignments that I believe was concocted by them all. One was clearly meant as a joke but the remainder was not very, very bad. They were only in the classroom to disrupt. What were they disrupting? Other people's chances? Their lives are probably very different and there, between young children and anarchic boyfriends, education plays little part, coming way down in a list topped by cunning. Their views reside in a past of troubled schools where teachers were authority figures, redundant with middle-class values. We are the people who once, they believe, controlled their lives.

Although they lack respect for others, they are immensely arrogant about themselves.

Education:2

In the colleges in which I occasionally work, many of which are grocery stores, that is you pay your money and select a qualification, students demand a qualification whether the do the work or not. For many, there is no concept of their actually being eligible for awards. They see others with certificates therefore they have a right to the same.

But many colleges work on the same principle. Students, whatever their ability, must be helped through courses. Failure is not an option.

Is this a good or bad thing?

Is it fraud?

I had a response in History Today-see earlier blog-in which the writer accused me of an irresponsible, dismissive approach towards sufferers of mental illness. Of course I was attacking the construction of mental illness by the medical profession and our willingness in general to accept their largely self-serving position. This is my reply:

I feel Mr Roberts has not actually dealt with the matters I raised but nevertheless his arguments require a response. First, I have to take issue with his recommendation of drug treatment for those experiencing grief as not only are such drugs wholly unsuitable but also likely to cause long term harm. Even British psychiatrists have strongly criticised such practices. The evidence that mental health services have successfully cured anorexia is very debatable, as much of the present decline may be due to changes in the media, which probably initiated the problem with its obsession with female bodies. This may be an instance of the inevitable NHS propaganda whenever the potency of different illnesses fades. NHS websites display a flawless service, with no mention of recent disasters and scandals. Mr Roberts has simply reasserted the medical model.

     My argument concerns the ideas behind the concept of mental illness, methods of treatment and diagnostic processes.  I will begin by pointing out that prevailing notions on mental health/illness have been historically constructed by the medical profession, an autonomous, powerful elite body, at present symbiotically connected to the pharmaceutical companies, without reference to public debate. These notions are rarely critiqued by other bodies, but simply accepted as true. Any medical history, such as those written by Roy Porter or Paul Starr in his Social Transformation of American Medicine, adequately testifies to this disconcerting development. Mental health professionals have, in the process, excluded better, more sophisticated ideas on human mind and personality from public health and public consciousness. Although I believe mental illness exists, I suggest it represents a small percentage of those diagnosed and that the lack of accountability of mental health professionals, particularly psychiatrists, who normally have no knowledge of psychotherapy, counselling, family or interpersonal interactions, leads to arbitrary and subjective decisions.

     The rare instances of independent research into the neurobiological approach of the profession tend not to confirm its validity. Recent research for example, indicates that psychotropic drugs, such as valium and anti-depressants, in 75% of cases have only a placebo effect.  The remaining 25% can be ascribed to falsification. Psychotropic drugs contain and control individuals and, of course, are highly addictive with damaging psychological side effects. Precisely why they should not be given to those who have recently experienced bereavement. Here, the real success story is bereavement centres, not GPs. The above evidence, not produced by the medical profession or pharmaceutical companies, concludes that patient trust and belief in the treatment process provides any beneficial effects.  Ben Goldacre in his recent book Bad Pharma deals with these matters at length, itemising missing or adjusted data.

    Mr Roberts argues that modern life presents different challenges, causing the enormous increase in mental illness. I have come across this argument before but it is rarely followed up with reasons as to why modern life can have this affect. It is merely, it seems, an assumption based upon feelings of regret and nostalgia. Let me again present an alternative view backed up by recent independent research.

     There are now far more mental health professionals, many of which can diagnose mental illness in others. Add to these GPs, and the number is considerable and growing. Once an individual is thus labelled, both the diagnosis and prognosis is fixed. A patient might have for example just been made bankrupt, feeling their life is spiralling out of control, and go to their GP, the only source they are told that will help them, to be instantly prescribed psychotropic drugs. In the statistics, they are now part of the growing body of mentally ill. Since the last World War, GPs have taken on roles once assumed by kin, communities, and religious representatives. Not only that, but many other groups offering help, such as SANE and MIND, propagate the medical model. They do not tend to challenge its basic paradigms.  Outside of the medicalisation process, it is difficult to find other forms of help for life’s difficulties. With the influx of Moslems and those with other cultures and beliefs, it will be interesting to see if this process continues and if instead people learn once again to seek advice and help within the community, bypassing the medical profession when confronted by misfortune.

     Dr Peter Breggin, an American psychiatrist, decades ago suggested that prescribed drugs actually caused the strange behaviour of those labelled mentally ill. Jeremy Reed’s Bitter Blue confirms the nightmare effects of tranquillisers. It is therefore highly likely that many people with short or long term periods of mental instability are affected by psychotropic drugs given by GPs for all kinds of social and emotional upsets.

     Let me now throw anecdotal evidence into this discussion. A fellow lecturer of mine, who also has worked and works within the mental health field, confided to me, without prior knowledge of my own conclusions on the subject, that mental health treatment appeared to be an attack on creativity. Her words not mine. She also noted how professionals identified themselves as normal and their patients as abnormal, and the importance of this artificial division to the former. For them, their patients were substantially different. Another, much older, colleague of mine confided in me about the entire (probably an exaggeration) occupants of a housing estate prescribed psychotropic drugs in the 1980s during a period of mass unemployment. She surmised if this was treatment or a strategy to prevent social unrest. Last year, a student of mine lost her sister. In her distress, she went to her GP who prescribed anti-depressives. My colleagues and I directed her instead to a bereavement centre and by doing saved her sanity.

     Mr Roberts scolds me for being offensive to patients and service providers in my short review. Let me counterbalance this complaint with an examination of recent behaviour of GPs and the NHS in this area.

    For several generations, GPs have prescribed the aforementioned dangerous psychotropic drugs, such as valium and ativan, to their patients for a variety of reasons. Over this period of time they failed to notice the addictive and psychological effects they had on their patients. When the alarm was raised by outside groups, neither GPs, nor the NHS as a whole, made any attempt to wean patients off their addiction. No facilities were set up for that purpose. When confronted, they blamed their patients. The government of the time stopped court action, claiming the payouts would cost the state too much in view of the number of claimants. Was this because the medical profession is such a powerful, independent group or because many claimants were from the lower sections of society and largely powerless within our society? You will not find any reference to medical drug addiction on NHS web sites, or, to be fair anything there that reflects negatively on the profession at all.

     To conclude: as can be seen in the works of Roy Porter, ideas of mental illness have been formed by an autonomous assembly in concert with its own development as a powerful, elite group during a period of scientific and medical professional triumphalism: the ideas of this group are rooted in 18^th century notions of rationality, which requires those deemed irrational to be contained and controlled: in the present day drugs are the most effective way of doing this: as the experience and evidence of the efficiency of taking  drugs is controlled by pharmaceutical companies and the medical profession, the drugs employed may be causing inestimable long term harm.

Education

Adult education today is made up of two different viewpoints. On the one hand are the traditional colleges and universities which hold that students earn their degrees and that some people have less ability than others, on the other hand are the private colleges, government colleges, minor universities which take a more democratic approach, believing higher education is for all.

This weekend I marked over two hundred course papers. Exhausting, labourious and boring work. Nowadays, all papers look the same, or the majority do. There seem no original ideas now and no doubt if there were the clever students who produced them would be penalised. Everything and everyone is becoming homogeneous. The same thoughts are constantly reproduced and only style and skilled use of format distinguish one from the other.

business types and intelligence

Having met and known a number of businessmen throughout my life, I am usually bothered by one observation general in its attribution. Without fail, they seem to lack intelligence. I do not believe this is the case with all businessmen, and that some may be of very high intelligence, but of most. Am I misjudging things, misunderstanding bad manners and offensive attitudes as some kind of uncontrollable idiocy? Surely, to run a large company requires above average abilities? Except that viewpoint does not necessarily reflect reality as so many business people I know have acquired their money in a multitude of unethical ways that only the very stupid could engage in. Success in business seems not to require intelligence but other aptitudes.

Follow learning outcomes

I am marking Edexcel papers but this exam is quite simple to pass. It has sets of learning outcomes and the student needs to meet each. But in fact, it is very easy to get a merit as well if you implicitly follow the outcomes.

How to write essays

All essays can be written to a formula, acquired from lecturer or course material. Most academic and vocational courses are clear about what they require from the student.

One: You read the books you are given to read and use them to construct your essay. Originality is not expected of you, nor thinking. The essay assignment brief will give you all you need to work on. Do not attempt to think outside the box or take the essay into un-prescribed areas.

More later:

trouble

We left Lagos and its overcrowded, dangerous streets as night fell to avoid the life-destroying congestion. We headed out towards the Benin Republic on the single, if well-maintained, highway. The car was packed for safety. After we crossed into Benin, we were stopped every mile by menacing police and military carrying obsolete weapons. My companions thought that word had reached them that a European was travelling through the country.

The border crossing was an arrangement of huts and bungalows. When we arrived most of the officials were asleep. It had the disquieting atmosphere that bleakness gives to dawn in some parts of the world. We hung around, showing documents, providing bribes for an hour or two. Then we passed through into Togo. My companions went back to sleep as the car sped along. I stayed awake, squashed and uncomfortable. My back hurt squeezed up and in a fixed position.

As daylight emerged in full fury the highway became crowded with sellers. They were young and old, offering cartoons of raisons, bottles of water, orange juice, phone cards, fruit, and rice. They ran alongside the assortment of motorbikes, scooters, vans, lorries, trucks and cars. They were constitutionally and habitually unbothered by the increasing heat.

Eventually we reached Lome, Togo’s capital city situated on the Gulf of Guinea. It has something of paradise about it.  The city is built on red soil that emerges from the sea and rolls inland. Scattered around are isolated palm trees. The city is only a few yards from the sea. The beach is a strip of white sand that straddles the entire coast like a beautiful necklace. Squat off-white buildings boasting wide, ragged, brightly coloured canopies. The dust rises as the day progresses. The sun pours down its light and heat, growing fiercer by midday.

We got a cab into the city centre, a wide sandy boulevard. The redness prevails. From a distance it looks like a huge open wound. It has an astonishing beauty.

Gabriel buys a melon from a stall. Everywhere there are men, but few women. They look hard but happy enough. They scrutinise me as a walk around, taking in the flavour of the place, scolded by the heat. I am the only white man around. I guess they are curious as to why I am there. Gabriel keeps a practised eye out for trouble.

We get another taxi for the embassy. The city’s dirt roads are full of holes. We have a bumpy ride as the car sinks into the road, groans, and speeds upward again from some deep rupture. The car jerks sideways and to our surprise and joy the road disappears. We get out. The road seems to continue again ten feet below. The cab driver smiles and shrugs. I smile and shrug. It’s different. Its fun all this disorder and disruption. Everywhere are herds of goats. Chicken appear from every shadow. Swift lizards scurry across walls.

The embassy is a two storey bright gleaming white building full of plants and flowers. We purchase a visa into Ghana. It costs us a small bribe. Bribes are cheap here. Afterwards we head further into the city. The heat isn’t uncomfortable. I’m enjoying it after the miserable months of northern climates, rain, wind and cold.

The café was on the main thoroughfare. Gabriel ordered rice, peas and chicken. I had spicy chicken. We ordered mango juice each. The food was delicious. I ordered more feeling like an over aged Oliver Twist with freedom of choice. Compared to many African countries, there were few people around. Those that were, were not rich. There were few cars around. Fewer trucks. The men wore robes. The women wore cotton headscarves and plain pinafores. There was something relaxed and genial about the city, something wholly enticing.

We stayed there only one day, but I wished it had been longer. In late afternoon we crossed through into Ghana.

While I relaxed in the back, Gabriel drove. I looked out. We were racing along a narrow slip of road. On one side was a calm, flat lagoon. On the other was the ocean, rolling away towards and over the horizon. The road was red. It was a red gash running across the disunited water. On the other side was a line of dark green trees, hiding the land beyond. I already missed Togo.

NEVER MORE

Walking over the moor on a sunny day, the wind at my back,

I saw before me a woman over-burdened by a voluminous rucksack

She trudged along face against the wind

Reached a gulley filled with bramble bushes and turned around a bend.

I looked for her when I reached her point of departure

But could see nothing. In fact as I looked I became increasingly unsure

That I seen her that day. The moor was full of mist,

And in truth, I was fairly pist. 

Walking over the moor the following day

I searched the land for the best possible way

To reach Croven, a village first settled by the ancient Brits,
Whom the Romans had routinely cut to bits,

Where I had left my wife and car.

Going around in circles, up and down, lost in the mire

Of marsh and bog, the mists kept descending

And my return to Groven, wife and car, seemed never-ending

When I saw the woman approach me again

The rucksack straddling her back like a fin

I called out in a tired and plaintive voice

She walked through me over the purple grass in a trice

Stopped, looked back, noticed my agonised expression of a man completely lost,

Squealed, dropped the rucksack and began screaming about a ghost

I did the same belting headlong into the marsh

Dying swiftly there, which I thought was kinda harsh!

I still see the woman when I trudge a sad spectre through the moor

But we greet each other now, knowing each is Nevermore.

 Rod Simon

Medical Profession

I am at present writing what will hopefully be an extensive piece of work on the medical profession, its origins and how it has manifested itself into self a powerful group. Many reading this will say, of course because they save lives and are essential to our continued well-being. But is their influence and power a necessary part of their benevolent function in modern society? Most people do not know how powerful the medical profession is and so ignore these factors. Are we perhaps, by and large, blinded by sentimentality? What is the reality of the triumph of modern medicine? Hopefully I will answer some of these questions.

Agony

As this week I have been marking, I have been thrust amongst my fellow lecturers more and therefore face to face with their sheer lack of genuine intelligence and ability. A sympathetic lecturer informed me that many of the younger ones were students at the college, who were then hired to lecture. It doesn't surprise me. Forgive my laspse here-but they are sooo thick!!! Its an agony to work alongside them.

GOLD DUST

Gold Dust is an online and printed magazine that offers literary work, or purports to. It has a readership of approximately 5000. Its presentation values are very high although I've seen the web setup it employs elsewhere. It has the advantage of having different editors, for example, one for poetry and another for short stories.

Both poetry and short story sections are good, but conventional in tone. None of the published pieces would create a wave in the general literary world as they lack adventure. Summing up: good, efficient work but not brilliant. The poems appear to be chosen for wordiness and ubiquitous pronouncements. Still, well worth a buy.

Sun sets

When the sun sets
the snow rises
When the moon descends
flowers grow
As a man dies
A child is born
As a man dies
A baby cries


Ying Cao

DRUGS

Is depression truly helped by drugs that merely squash feelings and memories? Is it so reprehensible to live with negativity? Do we always have to be positive?

A population fed with drugs is one that does not rebel. The triumvirate of drug-companies, medical profession and government is benefiting from this smothering of thought and action.

history today-earlier this year

Letter, posted in History Today: Comments welcome

I was very interested in your article of February 2013, volume 63 issue 2, A Curse and a Blessing. May I put a slightly different twist on the matter? As someone who has worked in mental health for a number of years, occasionally lectures in the field, and has history degrees, I see the matter from a slightly different perspective.

Since the Second World War, in part the result of the growth of the NHS, there has been a growing medicalization of human nature. Much of that process has been in the area of mental health and this has increased over the past twenty years. Now almost every façade of human behaviour is subject to labelling. For example, if you constantly work you are considered, or likely to be considered, as suffering from some kind of disorder. If you don’t work, your behaviour is labelled as a different, if connected disorder. Grief, part of the natural human experience, is treated with drugs and considered yet another disorder. Each condition is accompanied by an expert sooner or later. All human behaviour is now subject to medical analysis. The treatment invariably involves drugs.

May I suggest that not only is this process colonising the present, it is also now colonising the past. Although neither the writers of the book under review nor your reviewer intended it, it conveys the notion that Churchill’s immense character traits were the product of a bipolar condition. I would firstly strongly contest that he had such a condition but also point out that this is how the medicalization juggernaut works. Now, Churchill’s exceptional qualities are subject to medical scrutiny. Also, although Lincoln’s wife was difficult and neurotic, there is no evidence she suffered from schizophrenia, an illness with clear symptoms. This juggernaut seeks to reconstitute exceptional behaviour and ability into mental health issues, imposing increasing conformity.

What would have been the fate of these exceptional people had they lived in the present day? They would have been classified, prescribed highly addictive drugs which would have altered their behaviour and swamped their judgement and creativity. I’m afraid like everything else stigma against mental illness is there for a reason; to provide credibility and greater influence for the medical profession and more money for the pharmaceutical companies. I have worked in the psychiatric field for over twenty years and I strongly hold that it is 80% charlantanism, based mainly on the acquisition of professional power, prestige, status and money.

jupiter

Although Jupiter Mag, a sci-fi webzine and printed magazine, was recently slated for a certain amateurishness as it is run by one person, this is not the case. The stories it publishes are excellent examples of the genre, well written and accomplished and bear comparison with many other more esteemed sites. The stories are often original and thought provoking.

See what I mean.....

Circadian Schism

So there we are down by the old canal
Me, Jonesy, Rodent Matt, lost in banal
Contemplation, the kind that always comes
From smoking too much white. Not so much dumb
As deadened, quite detached, though erudite
Enough to stall the ever-present shite
Spilling from the gutters as stars vomit
Their message on the sky – I need a hit.

Rodent Matt is looking awfully ill
Today. I think I blame the dodgy pills
We nicked from that old pikey in the park,
Spesh in hand and piss down his trousers. Dark
Pits for eyes and a dribble for a smile.
He won’t miss them, he’s only got a while
Left I think. It’s cirrhosis of the soul,
The creeping rot that turns a heart to coal.

Back to the point, in case you’re wondering
How Rodent got his name, now here’s the thing:
He’s terrified of rats, petrified stiff
Of their furry bodies. Just one small sniff
Is enough to make him roll up and cry.
Maybe in a past life he was mugged by
A gang of them. Nothing surprises you
In London. I swear it’s usually true.

I have only reproduced a portion of this long poem by Ben Powers, which can be found on Middlebrowmagazine, an online literary mag. Although composed in unfashionable couplets it displays an originality of metre and of subject matter that can stand beside many more revered pieces. The conversational style, of someone talking to reader or an acquaintance-with the reader evesdropping-is excellent. Look carefully at the lines-It's cirrhosis of the soul/The creeping rot that turns a heart to coal- combining wit with everyday references.