You could turn your short story into “flash fiction”. They never have endings. Or maybe you could turn it into a French film. They don’t have endings, either! You’ll win prizes at Cannes – it’ll be symbolic, ground-breaking and awesome!
Spike´s last post ..Breakthrough In Cure For Cancer Search

How are things with you? Hope life is treating you more kindly!

It’s SO good to see you back on the wobbly bike (oo-er). We missed you far too much.
Spike´s last post ..Breakthrough In Cure For Cancer Search

In a British context, traditionally the Labour party have been to the left, and the Conservative party to the right. Over the last 30 years the divisions have become somewhat blurred, some elements of Labour have moved to the right, while some elements of the Conservatives have moved to the left. There are also the LibDems who used to be in the middle, but now seem to agree with anyone who’ll give them a sniff of power. There are also still politicians such as Tebbitt (who I mentioned above) who still occupy the traditional right, and Dennis Skinner who occupy the traditional left. There are also a range of smaller parties, some to the left, some to the right, some in the middle, and some which are a mix of left and right. The terms left and right usually apply to the core support of the party. Left-wing parties tend to affiliate themselves with the working classes, while right-wing parties tend to attract voters from the upper-middle and upper classes. However, there are exceptions to this. This is pretty similar to the left/right split in the rest of Europe.

Yes, her columns must go through some kind of editorial process, but I’m not convinced that is particularly stringent at the Daily Mail for a variety of reasons. They do have a long track record of publishing unsubstantiated articles containing defamatory comments – only yesterday they were fined for the reports they published about the landlord of a murder victim which insinuated he was responsible for her death. He wasn’t.

Ms Phillips wasn’t singled out. When I first heard about the list of people Breivik had quoted I just thought it seemed pretty eclectic and moved on. But this morning when I read her ‘defence’ I found it outrageous that she could firstly claim she has no responsibility for what she writes, and then suggest that she is a victim. Of course, she isn’t responsible for what he did, but she is responsible for what she writes, and words can be very powerful! One of the other people Breivik quoted was Winston Churchill. Churchill knew the power of words, that’s why he made all those motivational speeches during WW2, if words had no power he wouldn’t have bothered. Similarly, his opponent, Hitler, used words to influence people but for very different reasons. For several years now Melanie Phillips has built a career around belittling and demonising anyone who isn’t white, middle class, middle-aged and British. She does this by making sweeping statements about anyone she perceives to be ‘other’. She is allowed to do this because she writes for a tabloid which appeals to the lowest common denominator, it is not good journalism, in fact, it’s not journalism, it’s just muck-raking. A more responsible editor would insist she uses context and backs her statements up with evidence, as it is, she does neither of these things. So, no, she isn’t responsible for the actions of others, but she is responsible for what she says and she is naive if she believes that spouting hatred will not influence less rational people. She is also reprehensible to try to make herself into the victim of a situation in which so many people – mostly very young – died.