Tyranny

I suspect many of you, like DZ have been noticing with stunned amazement the extraordinary and bizarre goings on across the Atlantic. Not content with electing a President who is clearly intellectually subnormal, dangerous and deranged, they have an entire political party that seems to have lost it's collective mind, morals and shame. Add to that the fact that about a third of the population seems to be perfectly happy with living in this asylum.

Encouraged by this dysfunctional environment the religious right, loons to a man are, frantically trying to alter the country in the most damaging way to it's citizens in a clear attempt at dominionism hoping to take the USA back to the sort of religious fundamental tyranny that their forefathers came to the continent to escape.

Nothing could illustrate this more than the war than seems to be waged against womens' reproductive rights. State after state seems to be passing more and more laws designed to take away, almost overnight the rights that have taken decades to win.

So deranged are some of these laws that those who pass them are clearly lost in their own world of misogynist hateful ignorance that they don't even pause to contemplate whether the laws they are passing are even feasible. My favourite here is the package of laws passed in Ohio, one of which mandates that ectopic pregnancies must be removed from the fallopian tube and REIMPLANTED IN THE UTERUS???!!!. WTFFF? Did it not occur to them to get some advice from the medical profession on this one. The ignorance and stupidity here is beyond comprehension. And these are the people in charge. In a country that has a Constitution that separates church and state.

Fuck me sideways! It puts Brexit into perspective.

Giving to the rich

Now, before I start, don't get me wrong. I think that the burning down of Notre Dame cathedral is a great loss despite my lack of religious gullibility.

But there is one thing that makes me queasy.

I have no idea how much it will cost to rebuild, restore or replace the building. But I note that already a fund raising campaign has been started. And I have no doubt that the French government will pitch in too.

But, correct me if I'm wrong, but the cathedral was(is) the property of the Roman Catholic Church. The total worth of this institution is impossible to calculate, but certainly runs into hundreds of billions of pounds.

So why is an organisation so hypocritically wealthy accepting charitable donations to rebuild something they could easily afford to fund themselves. It's a shame they couldn't have spared a few euros to at least insure the place.

Perhaps I'm being unfair. Maybe they are having to put aside huge sums of cash for other purposes.

Like compensating all the victims of their abuse over the years.

Sorry

OK. I haven't posted anything in six months. Been very distracted by an amazing lady. Remiss of me. Giving it some thought. But I'm still here.

God's loophole

DZ has been very remiss, and hasn't written anything for some time now. Now in (semi) retirement you'd think wouldn't you that time would press heavily and he'd be on here non stop.

None of it. I'm busier now than I ever was when I was employed and can't keep up with everything on my ever expanding "to do" list. Also the appearance in his life of a new lady has been something of a distraction. I didn't see that coming.

So what has dragged him back to the word processor? Has he become deeply concerned about some new absurdity within the NHS? No. Has the GMC once again demonstrated their unfitness for purpose? Almost certainly but not that I've noticed. Brexit? No. Trump? No. Though both would be rich sources of material.

Regular readers here will be aware that I'm not averse to railing about the weird obsessions and control freakery of religions. In particular their obsession with sex. Specifically their consternation about people having it and enjoying it. Particularly women. Religions in general are terrified of female sexuality, and see women as having to be totally controlled in this area. Female genital mutilation is perhaps the most extreme example of how this control is enforced. Lest you think this is about to turn into a tirade against Islam it must be pointed out that John Kellogg (of corn flakes fame) strongly advocated ablation of the clitoris in young girls using phenol, in the USA in the 1880s.

FGM is of course illegal now in the USA, isn't it?  But that doesn't mean that they don't have their own means of trying to suppress sexuality. One of these is the "purity pledge", or "virginity pledge"

But where there's a will there's a way. And youngsters who want sex can find a way to circumvent the spirit of the pledge while technically abiding by the letter. And as this article shows many, including a former president of the USA, take the view that when it comes down to it, only vaginal sex counts as doing the deed. Even the bible seems to support this view.

And so it seems that a proportion of young people have found a loophole that they can exploit. Rather sweetly summed up in this little song.

Keep it in a box

Yesterday's satire.

Today's normality



NHS told: give trans patients equal access to fertility service 

Appraisal, last word.

DZ wasn't going to comment further on appraisal but an article in today's Guardian made him reconsider.

Yet more evidence that standards of care are falling in the NHS has come to light, making very disturbing reading. The report doesn't once mention appraisal, nor is it suggested that the fall in standards is down to poorly performing staff.

Instead what is highlighted is inadequate resources, understaffing, delays in treatment. Hardly a surprise to front line staff. It is estimated that the NHS is short of 10,000 doctors alone.

So when the NHS is so short staffed how can we possibly justify taking what staff we have away from patient care to spend significant amounts of time on a pointless tick boxing and navel gazing exercise. An exercise reviled, ridiculed and regarded with utter contempt by the staff who have to endure it.

Appraisal is a process which achieves nothing whatsoever but to irritate, annoy and demoralise, and is a dubious luxury we can not afford. Without a doubt it has failed utterly in its aim to flag up problematic staff, as detailed here. I'll repeat what I said in my last post. It is a failed experiment.

More appraisal bollocks

One of the frequent excuses behind the imposition of appraisal is that it would "prevent another Shipman", though no evidence exists as to how the process achieves this. It has to be remembered that the medical profession has not supplied the only serial killer in the NHS, and perhaps this is why appraisal is now rolled out to blight the working lives of all healthcare workers.

Well it appears that in this one and possibly only justification it has failed. The news report does not elaborate about what sort of health care worker is involved here, but it is clear that appraisal has not provided the safety net claimed. Another Shipman/Allit has been at work and gone undetected for some time. I don't suppose for a moment that she was exposed by appraisal. Perhaps she should have mentioned it in her personal development plan.

So if, as I said in my last post, it has not demonstrated that it improves standards, and it does not pick up the psycopaths in our ranks, then what is it for?