This is shit: Britain’s pollution crisis – New Statesman

https://www.newstatesman.com/environment/2024/05/great-stink-britain-pollution-crisis-sewage-thames-water

systemic fuckwittery for pain and profit…They Bought Tablets in Prison—and Found a Broken Promise | WIRED

https://www.wired.com/story/electronic-tablets-in-federal-prisons-chat-apps-disabled/

Bifurcation. Planned system failure

https://www.theguardian.com/society/2023/dec/16/legal-aid-cuts-britain-housing-crisis-county-court-tenants-homes-lawyers

I’m utterly disgusted with this government.

I could explain my title, but I don’t wanna.

If you really want to know what my title means, you can ask me ..

and I’ll wibble on about autopoietic wossname and emergent thingy and complex adaptive doobries

Seriously, anyone reading this article and my words, gets one free question to the acclaimed author of the 1999 bestseller Navigating Complexity, that’s moi, btw.

Merry Christmas.

Does Ofsted have a mechanism by which it can learn from its many catastrophic failures, of which Ruth Perry is only the latest victim

https://www.theguardian.com/education/2023/dec/12/ofsted-has-much-to-learn-after-the-ruth-perry-inquest

I doubt very much that they do.

Our inspecting agencies seem only able to transmit, like a broken radio in a battlefield, under constant fire.

Transmit an assessment at the victim, then move on to the next target. They didn’t sound like an organisation that learns, they sound like a hunter-killer black ops team.

I bet Michael Give loves it, I can just picture him masturbating over a stack of gradgrindian Ofsted statistics…

Ugh.

I apologise, dear reader, I hope the mindbleach is near to hand.

Zen & the Art of Living Deeply

“With traditional arts in Asia much emphasis is put on long-term practice and effort, so as to reach continuously higher levels of skill development. There is a deeper character training happening as well, to reduce the ego’s voice, let go of fears, cultivate mindfulness, increase gratitude and live more fully in the present moment.” ~Christopher […]
Zen & the Art of Living Deeply

Good advice, so difficult to achieve…

Neuroscientists Make ‘Unexpected’ Discovery Over Cause of Childhood Autism

https://www.newsweek.com/neuroscientists-unexpected-discovery-cause-childhood-autism-1833918

What isn’t unexpected is that medical researchers, egged on by fretting parents, still believe that autism isn’t an aspect of normal development, but is more likely something bad that is not be tolerated nor understood by our sociomedical and education systems.

Aaargh

Gradgrind them until we lernz em to sit still and salute and be punctual … the birth of presenteeism in the workplace

ShitFoodSyndrome

We’ve all heard of the naughty GP’s acronyms like NFN and SLS ( Normal For Norfolk and Shit Life Syndrome, let me share a new one: Shit Food Syndrome, food for people who can’t afford anything better, poor people yada yada.

Here’s what it does to people… Spoiler alert: it’s not good.

https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2023/oct/09/free-food-pantry-junk-food-kim-foster-meth-lunches

This is not just play, this is Summerhill play…

I stole this from their Summerhill Facepuke page

🤩 PLAY 🤩

At Summerhill, play belongs to the child. We do not dress up learning situations so that the play will be “productive”, we do not look on and evaluate what they might learn form this or that game. Our children just play — and they can do it pretty well all day if they want to.

Of course sometimes things go wrong during play. Sometimes people get into conflict. This is part of being a child. There are structures in place that protect the rights of each of us and there are big kids or adults who can help you out if needed. You are also encouraged to deal with a lot of it yourself. You cannot always have a ‘nanny’ to look after you and solve your problems in life.

Sometimes play can lead to other interests. You might start off by making a sword in the woodwork and then decide you want to make something more… you may mess around on the old school piano and then find that you want to make music… you might help out with the class 1 shop and find that you want to learn more Maths, or make a big bang in Science and then sign up for Biology. There are so many areas for inspiration and enjoyment.

That enjoyment will last you a lifetime — if you have never had bad experiences of learning, then you will become a life long learner and take joy in what you do.

Whichever way you look at it – at Summerhill, play means play and belongs entirely to you.

#asneillsummerhill #asneill #play #freeplay #freerangekidsuk #school #summerhill #summerhillschool

Playworker nudges #1

GBS, clever bloke. Easily the rival of Oscar Wilde or GK Chesterton (who we’re told to cancel coz he was racist, or rather he lived in racist times, eh Wendy Russell).

So anyway he said this….

Now, we are told that children have a right to play and we’re told that they need play, blublah, but consider this…

I noticed in my playwork that some kids want to help. They want to do jobs. You must’ve seen that.

Children like work!

I’ll never forget a little shit called Sean, aged 6 manfully (oo sexist) helping his dad ( who just turned up one day to help the ‘Vencha’) do hard physical work, specifically digging foundations and mixing concrete by hand for our new hut. Then he got bored and defaulted to throwing stones at things, mainly humans, big and small. His dad’s suggestion that I box his ears was not helpful. Whereas his older brother, aged 8, was like a pack horse, carrying huge concrete brick thingies all day, and genuinely assisting the building (Where is Channel 4’s Kevin Wossname when you need him?We shudov been featured on Grand Designs. I digress.)

Children like work!

They like achieving things. Sometimes gluing macaroni to sugar paper isn’t enough, FFS.

Comments please!

A very sad story of community under capitalism.

http://wired.com/story/the-battle-for-buy-nothing?utm_source=pocket_mylist

“A childless couple who, after multiple miscarriages, finally gave away their unused baby items. The recipient, collecting this on behalf of a pregnant friend, mentioned that the friend was thinking about putting her child up for adoption. One thing led to another, and soon the couple became the infant’s adoptive parents.

This always happens.

Things turn sour.

Is it available? yes

But first you have to realise that Facebook will enshitten anything you try to achieve on it, and, under capitalism, there is no alternative to Facebook.

Unless you, dear reader, know of one