On World Mental Health Day

Last year on World Mental Health Day, nearly a year after my mother's death, I wrote a letter of protest to the Deans at Plymouth University which was also a request for help.

Why Whistleblowing Sucks

A chat on Twitter this morning prompted me to jot down a few of my thoughts and experiences in case it's helpful to others trying to define whistleblowing.  There seems to be a lot of back and forth on Twitter about, "oh everyone is a whistleblower now", etc., this is often said in such a way as to disparage someone for looking as if they are seeking to portray themselves as whistleblowing when they are "just" raising concerns, as if whistleblowing is an entertaining new craze.

Comments for the "Skeptical Dilutions" ANM Article

You're welcome to leave polite, factual comments here about the ANM article "Skeptical Dilutions".

Comments containing the kind of un-evidenced vitriol mentioned in the article, will not be hosted.

Comments for the "Can You Spot the Difference" ANM Article

You're welcome to leave polite, factual comments here about the ANM article "Can You Spot the Difference".

Comments containing the kind of un-evidenced vitriol mentioned in the article, will not be hosted.

A Good Fit

The phrase "not a good fit" actually means
 "we expect collateral damage".

A reader of the Stroud News and Journal has asked for my opinion of the building of a new Steiner School for 600 pupils under the free-school scheme.  I wasn't sure my detailed answer would fit into a comment sized chunk I've written my response here.

Comment Massagement

Me, Pat and Steve on 25/09/11
Mum died on 21/10/11.

It's a long while since I've had any time for blogging.  Moving across the world gets you like that but I'm here to post a comment that was left on a blog that claims to be about humanism, although it's hard, given the vitriol and closed-mindedness in evidence there, so see what that might be that is of any use to anyone. I'm posting the comment here simply because three quarters of it was deleted, with the express intention of reputation destruction. (My comment policy is at the end of this post).

Schoolyard Critics

This post is a footnote to my review of Eugene Schwartz' short movie "Recessitation: Bullying in the Waldorf School", which inverts both joke mechanisms and definitions of play and bullying to ridicule the notion of both.

I've reviewed the movie on ANM, because it provides a lot of useful (if inverted) information about Steiner education, and this addendum examines how, in their own critiques of this movie the Steiner critics have continued and extended the inversions used by Schwartz, by which actions they reveal not only a singular lack of ability to self-scrutinise, but also a dangerous lack of awareness of the similarity of their position to the one that they are criticising.

Free Speech vs Hate Speech

Alicia's hateful speech with no right of reply

I've been re-examining my attitude to free-speech in the light of recent court rulings regarding very offensive statements in the public eye.

Whilst fighting a battle to get the recognition of discrimination in the expulsion of my kids from a dratted Steiner School, the opposite critics have turned on us and mauled us savagely on several occasions.  This arose simply from one person, Melanie Byng proposing initiatives that she was unable to take responsibility for and she has then allowed those personal things to bleed into the area of "Steiner criticism", using the social confirmation bias of her friends, to our detriment and also noticably to the detriment of the British campaign to halt State-funding.