Tag: news

It’s A Very, Very Mad World

~ Sue ~ Leave a comment

The world is a wide and varied place. It is filled with people, trying to make things better for their fellow man. However, there is also a lot of utter bastards to counter the good. Sometimes, it feels like all we see is the bad.

Sometimes it’s easy to be overwhelmed in the tragedies that unfold every day around the world. Innocent people dying in the cruelest ways. School buses blown up in Syria, a music concert in the UK, hospitals in Indonesia, lone women in India, gay people in Chechnya… The list is endless. Most of this hatred is brought on by a sense of entitlement and an intolerance of others. And it is horrible. What is a normal person to do? How are we supposed to feel when others act so horrifically?

I don’t think there is an answer. A lot of the time all we can do is watch the news reports and read articles online. You may sign a petition, or donate to a foundation just to help. To get a sense you are doing something. Anything.

You may be unable to do anything about events in any of the headlines you will read today, tomorrow or any day to come. The world feels cold and dark. But, you can try and take that darkness away. Even just for those around you. Call a friend you haven’t spoken to in a while. Introduce yourself to your next door neighbour, or invite a lonely neighbour round for tea. Go visit relatives. Use social media to send good wishes to those who you might not talk to very much. Smile at the person who serves you your morning coffee.

As clawing as negativity can be, positivity is contagious. I know not everything will be sunshine and rainbows, but a lot of people are emotionally struggling in life. It shouldn’t take tragedy to bring people together, but it also doesn’t mean we shouldn’t. Terrorism is something which wants to tear people apart. To split society into fractions, fractions that disagree and fight amongst themselves.

Let’s not let that happen. Let’s share love and togetherness instead of hate and intolerance. ❤️

Lost In It All

~ Sue ~ 1 Comment

Just looking at the Internet today, not searching for anything in particular, just looking. Something that I don’t do very often. I am good at commenting on everything, and putting in my two cents on whatever is going on. 

Sometimes, I think we get too much information thrown at us, mostly by the Internet. It gets a bit hard to process it all. It is also hard to distinguish what is important, particularly on social media. Twitter and Facebook have a habit of promoting the useless twaddle that fills up the gossip sites. If you like that kind of thing, it’s okay, nothing wrong with it. But how can you tell what’s important when the going-ones in I’m A Celebrity is given more promotion than the story about Parliment voting to bomb Syria? 

It just gets a bit overwhelming at times. Like information overload. The press has always had the finger pointed at it for over-hyping one story, to mask over another one. A way of attempting to pull the wool over the public’s eyes. And that made a lot of people bored with the press, and turn to sides like Twitter and Reddit for more direct news. But when companies can pay for an allocated number of retweets, how honest is what we actually see? 

That’s what I sometimes think about, and to be honest it freaks me out sometimes. There are so many different ways to get information these days, and a lot of the time, every take is slightly different. So what has been added for effect. Is that ‘first hand source’ really telling a true story. You never know. 

As good as the Internet is for finding out information about the world we live in, sometimes I think it would be easier if all the web was used for was Netflix.

Hide From Headlines

~ Sue ~ Leave a comment

Living in a world where the news is available 24 hours a days. A lot of the news reported is depressing. Now whilst this sounds quite selfish, I can only speak from personal experience. When I was younger I feel that what happened in the news had more impact, that I thought about things more. I was able to read through the newspaper once a day, or watch the 10 o’clock news. Get a review of the daily news, and then if you wanted, you could look into it more. Research what has happened.

Now, the news channels constantly roll the same news. Finding different angles, different specialists, but still repeating the news stories continuously. This makes the news become flat. It can sometimes become a bit monotonous, and the news that would have caught ones attention years ago, just all blends into one another.

As people become more apathetic with the news, networks and publications do more to make themselves stand out, to retain their audience. They want to be the first to break news, whether the ‘news’ be true or not. American news network, Fox News, recently responded to the Paris terrorist attack by saying Islamic extremism was accepted in areas in Europe. To try and prove a point, the commentator stated that cities like Birmingham exist, where the city is a no-go for non-Muslims. This is entirely wrong, as it estimated that 21% of Birmingham is actually Muslim. This is Islamophobic fear mongering. It is just nonsense, but shows how far agencies are willing to go to try and gain an audience.

Personally, anyone who uses a genuine story where people have died, to make up lies to reinforce the ‘fear factor’ shouldn’t be reporting news. How can people judge what they do see on these networks and in the papers, if some use it to back people into a corner? To make them fear for their lives?

So maybe, it’s a good idea not to absorb the constant news coverage. Yes, educate yourself on what is happening in the world, but don’t let yourself becoming overwhelmed. Because the stuff that is happening in the world is scary, it is big, but you should know the truth. So read from varied sources, small bits, so you can get the facts, and not get beaten down by a specific parties lies and exaggerations.
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Hope that made a little sense. I don’t trust the news I watch, with papers having political alliances and ‘specialists’ reporting lies. And I don’t know if other people find the same issue.

Hello Kitty, Kitty

~ Sue ~ Leave a comment

Music sites across the internet are awash with criticism towards, Canadian pop rocker, Avril Lavigne’s latest video Hello Kitty. As a fan of Avril’s previous music, I thought I’d take a wee look. Have a look for yourself, below.

First thing I’d say, is that it is dang catchy, very cutesy pop music. Which is fine. But, I feel that there is a section of the music buying public, who liked the Avril who sang Sk8tr Boy, not this perky, girly nonsense. Those people need to understand that a music artist, be it Cradle of Filth or One Direction, they will not recycle the same music album after album. They will progress, change their sound to get more sales or keep with their own tastes. Music is something artistic, and art is influenced by what goes on around you. As a result, as a person’s life changes, the music that they wish to create may also change. You can argue about it being marketed as the Hello Kitty song, and being appealing to young children. Sitting here on a Hello Kitty bed, with a Hello Kitty plush beside me, actually makes me think this song is marketed at me, actually. Yeah. Awesome.

The video is set in Japan, with cute Japanese girls as backing dancers, as Avril sings about a pre-teen slumber party. Or that is what it sounds like to me. There have been cries that this video is racist, particularly to the blank expressions and dance routine of the backing dancers.

“I love Japanese culture and I spend half of my time in Japan. I flew to Tokyo to shoot this video specifically for my Japanese fans, WITH my Japanese label, Japanese choreographers AND a Japanese director IN Japan.”-Avril Lavigne

Fair enough comment to make, right? Except, it feels a bit like when a racist person says they have a ‘black friend’ as if that proves they aren’t racist. I don’t think that is the intention at all, but I can’t help shake that thought out of my head. But, what she is saying is true. Avril is very popular in Japan, so has ended up doing a video that may appear similar to other Japanese pop videos, in a manner of it’s styling. Possibly paying homage to the music scene that has made her feel accepted. Looking back at Qwen Steffani’s LAMB dancers, I find that more offensive. Love, Angel, Music and Baby were 4 Japanese dancers that followed Gwen around like puppies, in many music videos and tours. These people didn’t have a voice, but became a big part of Gwen’s act. Maybe I wasn’t aware of it, but I didn’t see such a negative reaction for that. And that act actually did make me feel strange seeing it.

In this world, where cultural appropriation is becoming a majorly debated topic, people call foul of any person seen not respecting other cultures. Some people don’t have the capacity to believe that they could disrespect something just by wearing an item of clothing, for example. If something looks cool and interesting, some people want to be a part of it. They maybe don’t know the intricacies of the culture, but that doesn’t mean they disrespect it. However, if someone from the culture, which you are borrowing from, does get offended, they should be listened to. If what you are wearing is from another culture, it is not your voice that matters when someone from that culture is offended. There is a belief that is instilled in some ‘white’ people, that they have the right to anything. This is not true, and people should respect one another, no matter their colour or heritage.

Do I think the video is offensive? It’s more rubbish, than racist, in my opinion. BUT, racism isn’t something that I have experience in, so I don’t feel qualified to base a decision on it. Qwen Steffani’s Japanese phase made me feel a lot more uncomfortable than Avril Lavigne’s one. The crass advertising of a children’s product is what turns my stomach more than the Japanese theming.

Come On DA

~ Sue ~ Leave a comment

I really enjoy watching sport, and can sit through most, but football is my favourite. Soccer to some, football to most, it is the sport that I grew up watching. So when my local, and favourite, team Dunfermline Athletic started having financial problems last season, I became concerned. Then when the club was given a wind-up order over an unpaid tax bill, and entered administration, it would not be melodramatic to say that my heart broke. This big feature of my hometown could be gone, 128 years of history gone because a few people mis-managed the club.

Over the last few months, a consortium of Pars fans and local business professionals formed a group called Pars United. The aim of this group was to bring the club back into the care of the community, so that the club could be run open and honestly, instead of directors and chairmen hiding behind closed doors. Pars United raised funds from local businesses, Pars fans and the community of West Fife, to help run the club, and try to gather a bid to take over. At the start of the summer, Dunfermline’s administrator, BDO, announced Pars United as the preferred bidder for the club. The next thing to do was to make an arrangement to who the club owed moneys of around £10 million to.

To do this a Company Voluntary Agreement (CVA) was to be created, and pitched to the clubs creditors. This would be an agreement that the club would pay a certain amount of the money back, rather than the full amount ( such as 1p in the £). For the CVA to pass, and for Pars United to start managing the club, 75% of the creditors had to agree to the CVA on Tuesday 30th July 2013.

Now whilst the actual voting is not been made public, the vote in agreement for the CVA was ‘overwhelming’. Meaning the club won’t get liquidated, and that the players and the club has a way forward, and are a step closer to being out of administration. Whilst it is great news for the club, it has been a big action by all the business effected by the clubs debt. A lot of local businesses lost out on a lot of money. But they agreed that the possible income brought about by having a football club in Dunfermline was of greater importance. And I, and every other Dunfermline fan, do not have the words to say how grateful we are that these people helped our club secure a future.

A lot of things had been put on hold whilst the CVA was sorted out. Namely the squad line-up and pictures, seemingly menial things the club would have normally done over the summer break. So Tuesday afternoon, after the CVA vote announcement, the squad had a picture day, and the offical squad list was released.  The picture of the squad is below, and you can sense the joy of the boys that have a season to look forward to.

dafc201314

The 2013/14 squad are Alex Whittle (Midfielder)
Allan Smith (Striker)
Andrew Geggan (Midfielder)
Blair Henderson (Striker)
Callum Morris (Defender)
Christopher Kane (Midfielder)
Craig Dargo (Striker)
Declan O’Kane
Faissal El Bakhtaoui (Striker)
Ivan D’Angelo (Midfielder)
John Potter (Defender)
Joshua Falkingham (Midfielder)
Kerr Young (Defender)
Lewis Spence (Midfielder)
Lewis Martin (Defender)
Michal Hrivnak (Goalkeeper)
Ross Drummond (Defender)
Ross Millen (Defender)
Ryan Goodfellow (Goalkeeper)
Ryan Ferguson
Ryan Scully (Goalkeeper)–on loan from Partick Thistle
Ryan Thomson (Midfielder)
Ryan Wallace (Midfielder)
Ryan Williamson
Shaun Byrne (Midfielder)
Stephen Husband (Midfielder)
*Now the clubs future is secured, there are reports of players getting added via loans from other clubs*

If you can’t tell, I am over the moon. It has been the hardest year I have ever had as a sports fan, and would not wish this on anyone. Dunfermline would not be the same without the Pars, so thank you to everyone who helped this club work towards its 129th year.

Triggered

~ Sue ~ 1 Comment

Recently, popular British entertainer, Stephen Fry mentioned during a podcast that he had tried to kill himself last year. The actor, writer and comedian suffers from bi-polar, and is president of mental health charity, Mind.

This is a brave thing for anyone to admit, and is proof that mental health issues aren’t restricted to any particular type of person. A big problem with mental illness is that it is not something that can be cured, or will simply go away. It is something that sufferers have to live with and adapt to. People who have never suffered from mental illness, will comment that a suicide attempt is ‘selfish’ or want to know the reasons behind it. All that this shows is a mis-understanding of mental health problems.

The admission of having problems, by Mr Fry, is something courageous and helpful to so many people. Sometimes, it is hard to picture yourself as a success, if you suffer from any mental illness, because it can be hard to predict how you are going to feel and act on any given day. So the idea that someone very successful in their chosen field whilst having a mental illness is very comforting.

What isn’t comforting is the negative commentary. People who have never suffered saying it is irresponsible to talk about suicide. But speaking about suicide is not a trigger to a lot of people. Speaking negatively and frowning upon it can be. As a person who has both self-harm and considered suicide, if I hear people telling that what I am feeling is wrong, I punish myself more. I don’t know why I feel what I feel, and I can’t explain it. So to have someone marking me down because they feel negatively towards me because I once tried to overdose (I passed out for a few hours). The feeling that I felt after waking up, will stay with me forever.

I think that anything that can bring mental health into a forum for discussion is great. I do think that people need to think about commenting negatively about such a topic, though. I know that if I read someone bad mouthing depression, it can trigger my own feelings. I believe the negative comments, that I have a lot in my life, why should I feel bad? In honesty what a person owns, has nothing to do with it. But I go through the tiring process of hating myself, because my depression and anxiety seems so falsified, because others have it so much worse than me. When I get in that frame of mind, I could cry, I could scratch myself raw or cut myself. Because it punishes me for being so privileged and having the stupidity to be depressed. I deserve to be punished for ‘choosing’ to be a burden.

In all honesty, if I had a way to choose the way I was, I assure you that I wouldn’t feel this. And that is what non-sufferers need to understand. It is not a choice, it is not based on anything in life, people suffer mental health issues, because it is an illness. There may be a chemical imbalance in their brain, or something scarred them as a kid, it could even be passed down from relatives. It could be anything, and can happen to anyone. As a person who sees negative commentary as triggers, I find those who demean Mr Fry’s admission as thoughtless cowards.

I know it is the internet, but it doesn’t mean that we shouldn’t hold a certain level of respect for one another.

Initial Aspirations

~ Sue ~ Leave a comment

When I started this blog, I had many ideas and thoughts of what I would use it for. It would be a creative blog, where I would post images of what I had made, and use it as a promotional tour for my business. In retrospect, I think I aimed a little high.

Firstly because being at college, and struggling through a few years of forced creativity, has lead to me going from one artistic mental block, to another. Secondly, I just am far too scatter brained to make my blog about one thing. I maybe should organise it better, but nothing in my life is very organised, so it maybe wouldn’t reflect ME if it wasn’t a bit of a mess. Some excuse, right?

I have always been an over thinker. A person who seeks importance in the most stupid and trivial things. My interests in things can get intense, but will also suddenly wane after a short period of time. I want to express my love and experience so many different things, that I always find myself looking for ‘something else’. Whilst some things such as favourite bands, movies and books will stay with me, I can’t exclusively care about a favourite thing. I think that liking new things can be a challenge, a challenge that should be welcomed.

Because I try to be interested in so many different things, I find that what I want to talk about changes every day. One day I will want to talk about Benji Madden sneaking into Scotland without my knowledge, the next day I’ll be talking about some political land mine. Whilst this leads to me being very sporadic, I like the idea that I have a place to express my thoughts in a accessible manner.

So whilst my initial plans for this blog haven’t come true, I still am happy with it. I have made this blog my online ‘home’ for the last few years, and I have become very attached to it. I find that WordPress is a great blog host, and find that is the best managed blogging site on the net. Trust me, I have tried almost every blogging site going. I like everything from the multiple platforms you can blog from, to the twitter feed. I think that the simplicity of using the service, has been crucial for me staying here for so long.

I guess I am feeling very retrospective. Whilst the majority of people I know say I waste my time writing a blog, I will always scoff in their faces. If a person has the freedom to express themselves without fear, no matter how they do it, they will never waste their time.

Hating the Beautiful?

~ Sue ~ Leave a comment

Yesterday an uproar was caused by yet another Daily Mail article. This time, 41 year old, Samantha Brick, complains the trials and tribulations about being beautiful. She claims other women hate her because of it, but she gets what ever she wants and people should be happy for her. That is a pretty vague idea, but to read the article, just employ Google to search for the article in question.

Now I do not think for a second that Ms Brick is a bad person, just a little shallow. She has today posted an article where she doesn’t understand why people are hating her and calling her ugly. If you are going to write a couple hundred words on how pretty you are, then it doesn’t take much brain power that people will call you ugly. It is trolling on the Internet, it is what happens when people can hide anonymously and give out hate. To post opinions anywhere, you need to have a thick skin, because people will attack what you say. And the reaction given by Ms Brick, to say that she has been proven right, is not dealing with trolls, but feeding them.

People are annoyed because pretty people can flirt their way through anything, it seems. And that is the picture Ms Brick paints of herself. She gets free meals, free drinks, free everything, something that if she was just getting on with her day, wouldn’t happen. To anyone. But she flirts her way through life, where others have to work to get what they want. People who pay for every drink, are nice to everyone but get nowhere. In walks a long legged blonde, who whispers in the bosses ear and gets a promotion. THAT is the world most women live in. That is why people can’t feel sorry for Ms Brick. I mean, no paper would publish a story by a banker who says he has too much money would they? It would cause a riot because so many people live month to month on nothing.

As a girl who has worked extremely hard for everything I have, it does grate on me when people moan about getting things for free. And more people are in the same situation than me, than are in one as Ms Brick. Which is why people feel the need to lash out, for making it seem that hard working normality is wrong. It puts woman’s rights back several decades, when someone gets treated like she’s special, just because of a pretty face. And because of all this, I am not surprised that Ms Brick gets met with hostility.

There are plenty of people like Ms Brick, and they aren’t bad people. The bad people are the ones who allowed the story go to press. The headline chasing Daily Mail does this a lot. Uses writers to whip up a storm, and provide cheap promotion. She is just a tool, something that the mail will throw to the side once the drama dies down. The have got an article and a front page story out of the self centred rambling, which would have a better place in a private blog. The Daily Mail KNEW Ms Brick would be lynched for what she wrote, and they published it anyway. The Daily Mail is a worse publication than the Daily Star. At least the Star is knowingly filled with rubbish, the Mail seems to be sensationalist rubbish, pretending to be a proper paper.

I hope Ms Brick realises she was set up, and gains some perspective on what has happened. She will lose her looks, but her bad attitude will stay.

Purpose of Media

~ Sue ~ Leave a comment

As I sat in front of my TV watching the tenth documentary show this week (yes, I keep count), I had a think about the purpose of media in society.  As much as we use various types of media on a daily basis, not much thought is put into it’s actual purpose.

Most of the forms of media that we use regular (television, radio, internet, newspapers, etc) were originally created to be a way of telling people information. It was to educate people about things like news-worthy events, or to get messages to other people. But somewhere along the line, media became less about communicating messages, and more about entertaining the masses.  The dictionary definition of media is-

‘The storage and transmission channels or tools used to store and deliver information or data. It is often referred to as synonymous with mass media or news media, but may refer to a single medium used to communicate any data for any purpose’

It is a way of communicating which comes from cave paintings created by cavemen. And postal services started from as early as 500BC, and became a crucial way of communications in the Persian and Roman Empires.

Times have changed, but still people feel the need to communicate to one another, now with the help of technology it is easier than ever. Rather than send a letter to loved ones and wait weeks for it to arrive, you can send them an email or call them on the other side of the world in seconds. These advances have mostly come within the last 50 years, and the world is better for it. When a news breaks, it would sometimes take days to get to all corners of the world. Now, within 30 minutes, newsrooms all over the world can be reporting on the same story. The rolling news networks (Sky News, Fox News, BBC News 24) are probably the best examples of media in it’s current form. No matter what time of day, news is constantly being reported, and it never stops. There is always something happening somewhere, and media helps a normal person see what is happening outside the borders to their country. Media doesn’t stop anymore. Rather than  waiting to buy your newspaper in the morning to get updated in current affairs, you can flick onto a TV channel or switch on a computer. Everything is online. And online services really can be updated at any time of the day. Everything is posted as it happens.

And whilst you would think this would empower people as they have a wider scope of knowlege in front of them, it doesn’t. Rolling news hasn’t had the effect one would think. People are constantly feeling the need to switch off from their lives, and now use media to escape. If they have worked hard, they don’t want to be ‘snowed under’ with the rest of the world’s problems. So rather than watch the news or documentaries, many more watch TV talent shows or play computer games.

And working for a media company, I feel I notice this more. You can see the things that people want to spend their money on, and it isn’t news or documentaries, it’s movies and sport. The leading methods of escapism. Something where you can shift your focus away from what seems ordinary, and fixate your attention on something else. As nice as it is that people around the world can see whether Manchester United or Chelsea win the Premiership trophy, I find it unsettling that people would rather watch that, than be educated. I touched on education a few days ago, and I feel that is the most important resource we have. To learn how things work, and what happened on this earth before us. To learn how countries were formed and fought for. To me, that is exciting, that is what media is about. It is about being educated, not just in formal documentary format, but to educate on how others around the world live. Is that not the biggest selling point of the World Wide Web, that it connects the world and shows how other people live?

Or maybe it isn’t. Maybe the purpose of the media is to give deluded writers a forum to express their mislead views and opinions? I don’t know really. I like to think that all this technology has a higher worth than football and computer games. But, I guess that’s me. That is what I want to take from the media that surrounds me. Not everyone is like that.

The Unpopular Opinion

~ Sue ~ Leave a comment

I am preparing myself for a lynch mob over this, but I need to say something.

This morning I woke up to the news that Osama Bin Laden had been killed. The target for the Allied forces, their goal, had been achieved. The world’s most wanted man is dead. The news resulted in images broadcast around the world of people celebrating. And that unsettled me.

Why would the death of a mass-murder upset me? Well, at the end of the day, no matter how messed up he was, he was still a man. Still someone’s son. Still someone’s father. Still a human being. I’m sure all of us sitting in the Western world, like to think we are more civilised than the Taliban or whatever, but are we really? Our troups killed THOUSANDS of innocents just to get to one man. Hundreds of our own countrymen were killed trying to get this one man. Does that sound civilised to you? Are we really the ‘good side’?

It is easy to paint the West as the bad side, because, to be honest we seem to do a good job of it ourselves. The leaders spout that this is for the good of the world, that we are closer to having peace. No! We are nowhere near fixing anything. As long as the human race believes in ‘getting their own back’ on others, then no, there will never be peace. You blow up two office buildings in America, we will destroy entire towns with our bombs. That is not how you bring about peace.

To be honest, it really got to me, to see people celebrate the death of a man. Are people really that stupid? I don’t care who it was, or what he did, but having a party because someone died is disgusting. It makes you no better than them who have parties because their bomb plot was a success. It makes the West NO DIFFERENT to the Middle East. We enjoy the death of our enemies. Don’t deny it, because it’s the truth.

It started with Saddam Hussein, where his death was as praised as the recent Royal Wedding. And people celebrated because our armed forces killed a man. And since then, the target was Bin Laden, and people have waited for the day he’d be another trophy of oil-hungry war. And now he is, except this trophy is at the bottom of the ocean. To stop people using Bin Laden’s body as a shrine.

And now, we are about to get the aftermath. You killed your target, now deal with the consequences. Every Westerner is at risk, because we all represent the world that praised the death of Bin Laden. The man who wanted his own people to stand up and be counted. The man who wanted Western oil companies to give the land back to the natives. It doesn’t sound so foreign, so evil, when you look at it away from the misguidance of the press. The press has a duty, as propaganda for whatever the government in power decides to do. The UK press, although showed Bin Laden, were not as jubilant as they were with Hussein. It is maybe because they know, the ball is no longer in our court. This is going to lead to some serious retaliation. This is going to lead to the death of more innocents. The UK press seemed to meet the issue of Bin Laden’s death in a sombre fashion. As if, everyone is thinking ‘what now’.

For the record, I don’t blame troups. I have a brother in the army, and I know that if he were to go to war, they go to help people. They go with the idea to make things better. It is the men in power who send our troups over, to do their dealings. The army should be used to protect its perspective country, not start endless wars in other countries. *sigh*

This has come out as a muddle, but I have said what I wanted to say. I don’t EVER think a death should be celebrated, I don’t give a fuck who it is.

“People who fight fire with fire usually end up with ashes.”- Abigail Van Buren