Friday 25 November 2016

Women and children first


Weave's post of yesterday was, 'Rudness, and how do you deal with it?" I so wanted to reply, "Mind your own ****ing business," but I didn't want to be taken seriously, so stopped myself.

Rachel seems to have disappeared again, but has still managed to comment with restraint on Weave's post, so maybe she is not lost in the new blogging system after all. I say that if she does not come out in the next 24 hours, we send someone in to look for her. I was about to suggest that the volunteer should be over child-bearing age and not have most of their lives to look forward to, then I realised that this applies to most of us anyway.

It has recently emerged that Jo Cox, the poor MP who was brutally murdered by a maniac fascist on the steps of her surgery office, shouted to her two assistants to get away from her and let him hurt her only. These were her last words, I think.

The more I hear about her, the more I think I would have liked and admired her. It seems as though the stories about her life of self-sacrifice are not just made up following her death, and it also seems that she was universally loved by all but the most inhuman of people she came across. Everyone in Parliament vowed to adhere (or revert) to the principles which governed her short life in politics, but - guess what? - a few days later it was business as usual and we voted for Brexit.

None of us know how we will/would react in a life-threatening situation amongst others and most will never have to. I wonder if I would trample on the heads of women and children to get to the life-boat first? I hope not, and I hope I am never put to the test.


36 comments:

  1. I thought I was the only one having problems getting to Rachel's blog. I hope she is only taking a break and will soon be back.
    Your post is so well timed; today is "Red Shoes" awareness day in Italy; silent protest against femicide. Red shoes are brought to towns' squares in memory.
    Greeting Maria x

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    1. Oh, I didn't know that. There's a lot of it about, it seems - and the rest of the 'cides.

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  2. I presume her killer was simply MAD. What possible good could have come from her murder; even in the mind of a loony.

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    1. That is still no excuse, I think. I think I heard that his mother abandoned him for a mixed race lover and he thought he was about to be evicted from his council house so that immigrants could move in. That doesn't explain all the nazi memorablia though.

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  3. There never will be any explaining the motivation behind folk like this man, who seemed to fester his hatred until he could choose an innocent and fairly defenceless woman to kill - and to deprive her husband and children of a wife and mother. I think he got the correct sentence, but that won't bring her back will it? And what is more, I am pretty sure that he will never reach a point where he regrets what he did. If some good comes out of it all - as her much to be admired husband said - it is that folk will be inspired by her behaviour. And as to what we would do - none of us know until we are presented with a situation - and please God we never will be in that position.

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    1. Her husband has been transifured into a saint by default. It wasn't his fault at any rate.

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  4. I think most of those we know would behave as did Jo. But I don't know about the rest of us. Mad men have been among the population since the beginning, and found a way to kill. Caesar, McKinley, Kennedy....

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    1. Not just the big names, for Christ's sake - they are killing men, women and children by the thousands right now. To hell with the celebrities.

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  5. The survival instinct is an interesting theory. Humans have it in varying degrees. Some dont seem to have it at all. Survivors of the Manchester Airport plane fire in the early 1980s spoke of people in their seats still awaiting instrucions while the plane burned around them. They perished. Similarly with the Estonian Ferry disaster in the Baltic. Those who have any chance of survival react and look after themselves. In my daily life even though I have not been faced with life or death situations I am able to identify into what category people fall. Me, in case you are wondering? I'm a survivor.

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    1. Good point...I always think about this when I fly....I have also read that people who do nothing tend to die.....this is supported by the purser in the Poseidon Adventure, who told the survivors to stay in the upside down dining room ..they all died

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    2. Behaviour of my fellow human beings interests me a lot

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    3. I like the idea of giving in to a plane crash. Like changing deck-chairs on the Titanic, what would be the point of having a front seat or a back one, if the plane is only going to land halfway up the Twin Towers?

      I have thought about this a lot, I am a survivor by instinct, but not in a hospital ward. This is why I a totally relaxed on planes, motorcycles, runaway trains - where ever. I really mean that.

      I think that in most of my nocturnal states of mind, I f I came upon a gunman pointing one at me, I would not look forward to the impact, but the result of it would suit me fine.

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    4. I am not sure if you are taking the piss or not but I was totally serious

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    5. So am I - more than you purport to be, I suspect.

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    6. What is the matter with you, dearest?

      You are fucking ace at dishing it out, but not so good on the receiving end, eh?

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    7. Ha ha very funny you will have friends for life

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    8. If you ever dare to talk to me like that again, I will block you. How dare you call me a cunt, when I would never call a woman that?

      You are a fucking disgrace.

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    9. Do you think that you can get away with this foul-mouthed abuse and Ursula cannot? What kind of a mean-minded and self-obsessed world do you live in?

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    10. I'd rather be a cunt than patronizing and condescending and butter wouldn't melt in the mouth.

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    11. And you haven't got a clue why I deleted the blog or what my last post was about because you couldn't workout the new dashboard. Remember?

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    12. No I don't, actually. I spent about 3 minutes working out how the new dashboard works - remember?

      Anyway, I am fucking bored with this conversation and the previous warnings from me still stand.

      Be nice, or just go away.

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    13. Aw. Mommy and Daddy are speaking again - albeit in private, as they speak to me about each other.

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    14. I feel the c word coming on again. Just as well I'm asleep.

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  6. How are we ever to understand the madness that made him kill her? people are so very very strange. All of us would like to think we could step up to the plate in the necessary circumstances but I'm not sure I could...and perhaps nobody is ever sure about that...and of course none of us want to be put to the test. The older I get the more I think that prison is not the way...a quick painless injection to the likes of him and the unscrupulous people traffickers etc and the world would surely be a better place.
    I have never doubted that you would help any and all that needed it Tom and I have never doubted that Rachel is indeed a survivor.

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    1. I hate the idea of being executed by the State, because the cruelest part of that is the hope - right to the last second - that there will be a reprieve - they will not do it, someone or something will step in and stop it.

      The worst thing is hope. I would much rather face the innevitability of death, and be pleasantly suprised. It gives you time to sort your head out, and that only takes half a second.

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  7. Tom, I like the picture. What is it?

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    1. I don't know - I typed in something like (I forget the exact wording) disaster, and it came up. I didn't even bother to find out where it came from.

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  8. Tom, I know myself, and although I hold the view that some people should just be quietly put to sleep, I am fickle - I couldn't vote for the introduction of capital punishment when push came to shove, as I agree with you re hope (and of course the chance of killing an innocent person).

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    1. Me too, but it is difficult to know what to do with some monsters.

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