Individual Responsibility

The individual is central to the American system. In the UK, it's the group. Two examples of the power of groups in the UK is the education system and the political system. Being that the general election is tomorrow, I thought I'd explain the way it works for Americans.

Each constituency elects an MP to Parliament in Westminster. It's a standard majority vote, or "first past the post" as it's called here. The MPs then go to Parliament and the political party with the most MPs gets to be the Government and choose the Prime Minister and his cabinet. The other parties get to be "shadow" cabinet members. There are "front bench" and "back bench" MPs; the back bench MPs are considered less important and don't get as much say in things. During speeches in Parliament, it is quite traditional to have the MPs cheer or boo or do that standard RABBLE RABBLE RABBLE thing.

What this system means is that the people do not elect the Prime Minister. They elect a political party, and that party chooses the Prime Minister from their ranks. There are many political parties in the UK, but the biggest are Labour, Conservative (Tory), and Liberal Democrats (Lib Dem). Outside of that are the regional parties of Scottish Nationalist Party (SNP) and the Welsh Plaid Cymru. There are also the Green Party, the UK Independence Party (UKIP), the British Nationalist Party (BNP), the Libertarian Party, the Socialist Unionist or whatever party, and historically the Raving Loony Party. So it's not like the people have no choice in the matter. But this variety has somehow or another led to what is called "strategic voting". As I was told in 2000, "A vote for Nader is a vote for Bush", in the General Election various parties are asking the public to vote strategically. "A vote for Lib Dem is a vote for Labour" or in different constituencies "A vote for Lib Dem is a vote for Tory". They have their safe constituencies much like the Republicans can count on Texas and the Democrats can count on, um, who can the Democrats count on? Washington State? I dunno.

But I reiterate: people do not elect MPs, they elect a party. The MPs have almost no personal responsibility to their constituency: they almost invariably tow the party line. The MP is merely a cog in the big wheel of the party, run by God only knows whom. And so the people have no recourse of action if they think their MP sucks. People must consider the values not of the individual who is running for MP, but only the values of the party they are voting for. And choosing the Prime Minister? Not the public's job. So the debates on TV by the leaders of the big three parties defeated the purpose: while political goals will be the party's line, the personal charisma, integrity, and general bearing of the leader himself may not be the same as the MP the public will elect in that constituency. Thus, the public has no need to vote for an MP with any sort of sense of personal responsibility. For someone to say "I am honest and I will only think of you, my constituency, first" wouldn't work and wouldn't happen.

So personal responsibility is not necessary in UK politics. And then they wonder why there was the big expenses scandal. Be aware, America, if the ridiculous party politics continue, you could go down the British path, leading to people voting for parties not politicians and being unable to hold politicians accountable. Be selfish, be demanding, and ask for congressmen and congresswomen you trust and believe in. Person, not party.

The power of the group also continues into the education system. In the US, in most places, you have primary school, middle school (or junior high), and high school. Once in high school, your transcript for all four years will be considered by colleges and universities, usually in conjunction with a standardized test like the ACT or SAT and probably some essays. But in high school, all four years count. Every class is a piece of the GPA that will let you into some college or university. Sure primary school and middle school aren't as important, but there's always that possibility that if you are exceptionally bright you may be pushed forward or if you're exceptionally not bright, held back a year. Maybe it isn't used often, but it's there. A child is able to fail or succeed, and they hold their future in their four years of high school.

This isn't the case in the UK. The educational system is in two stages: primary school and secondary school. (I've known some Brits to get particularly snippy about referring to college or university as "school".) Some 30 years ago or so, it used to be that there was an exam at age 11 (the end of primary school) that would determine if the child got sent to a grammar school where they would complete O-level exams, or if they would be sent to the lesser state secondary schools. From what I've been told, this single exam at age 11 would decide your fate, as students from the lesser secondary schools would never get the same level of qualification as the students from the grammar schools. Typically this was along class lines: you were more likely to go to a grammar school if you were wealthy and the converse. But there was still a chance that a student could be from a poor background but work really hard and pass the 11+ exam to get into a good grammar school. You could still fail or succeed.

The duel system was done away with in the 70's. There are still "selective" private schools, much like the private schools in the US, which I would assume are likewise quite expensive and usually reserved for the wealthiest of children. Students now take A-levels instead of O-levels. These exams, taken on a number of subjects like the O-levels, are what gets the student into university. A quick look at the University of Edinburgh undergraduate admissions for English Literature shows that the main qualifications needed for getting into the degree are the number of A-levels (or Scottish SQA equivalent) and the score on them. So the classwork doesn't count. Only the exams matter.

This may be the reason that there are even fewer push-forward of hold-backs in the UK than there are in the US. At least anecdotally, it's unheard of to tell a primary student to repeat a grade. Or skip a grade. You progress at the same rate as everyone else, regardless of ability. (Note the case of Alexander Faludy who was the youngest Cambridge undergraduate student in almost 200 years.) But why care? It's not the classes that matter, it's the exams. You could potentially fuck around until the age of 15 but then pass the exams and not worry. Where is the personal responsibility in that? Personal responsibility is just like any other skill: use it or lose it. And regardless of whether you think passing an exam show personal responsibility or not, where is the university consideration of the whole rather than the part? This is, I must say a problem in American higher education with too much  weight being given to the SATs, but at least things aren't so bad that GPA's aren't recognised.

Stay alert, America. Think about the UK, and remember, "there but for the grace of God go I". Learn from the British. We owe them a lot (like our English language!), but we should not duplicate their mistakes.

The NHS, on the other hand, that could use replication.

BNP buys my love

Headline: BNP would offer £50,000 to leave the country. My response: WHERE DO I SIGN UP?!?

I've paid roughly £1000 in visa fees over the past 4 years. (Current Student Visa: £199; Current Post-Study Work (Formerly Fresh Talent Scotland): £315; Spouse visa: £475 by post; TOTAL: £989)

I won't count the taxes I've paid as I've enjoyed the NHS service, and I'd have to pay tax in the US as well.

Petrol prices are about £1.17 per litre, which at 3.78 litres to the US gallon, makes gas £4.42 per gallon, or at today's exchange rate, $6.72 per gallon, or more than twice what it is in the US. Being that (while I don't drive) my husband and I spend roughly £50 per month on petrol alone, and I've been with him for 3 years, divided between the two of us, I've overspent (50*36=£1800/2=) roughly £900 on gas.

Let's look at food.
UK (usually Morrissons): Bread: £0.75-£1.34 ($1.14-$2.04) Milk (2L): ~£1.50 ($2.28)  Eggs (12 large Free-range): £3.99 ($6.06) Butter: £1 (on sale - works out to one cup) ($1.52)
USA (Albertson's online): Bread: $0.99-$3.59 Milk (Half Gallon) $1.79 Eggs (Naturally Nested 12 Grade AA large): $3.29 Butter: (four sticks = four cups) $2.59-$3.49 ($0.64-$0.87 / cup)
Difference: Bread: On average, roughly the same if not better. Milk: UK: $1.14/L US: $0.95/L = 20% increase in the UK. Eggs: Almost twice as expensive in the UK. Butter: Twice as expensive.
So, while food prices vary from slightly less than American prices to twice American prices, we can assume that there is roughly a 50% increase on prices, if not more. So if I'd lived in the US, our grocery bill of £30/week ($45.60/week) would be cut to probably $30/week (£10/week less). So I've overspent in the 3.5 years I've been here some (10*52*3=) £1560 on food.

Visa: £989
Petrol: £900
Food: £1560
Total spent on UK (not including flights): £3449

Out of the £50,000 for leaving the country, I'd re-coup that £3500, spend another £1000 on the flight home and some £1000-2500 moving our things. Leaving £43,000 to buy a house in the US. At today's exchange rate, that's $65,360, which in Oregon would buy a 1 bedroom house in a cheap area or a 2-3 bedroom manufactured home or some acres of land. Not too bad, eh?

Of course, with the UK in its biggest economy crisis in EONS, the big question is: how would you pay for this?

But then, the BNP isn't concerned with practicality, are they?

China, HIV, and Xenophobia

The Guardian reports that China is ending its HIV entry ban. I think this is a good thing, but first some background on the situation.

When I lived in China, I was forced to have my chest x-rayed to make sure I didn't have tuberculosi, had my womb scanned to make sure I wasn't pregnant, and had my blood drawn to make sure I didn't have HIV/Aids. This was in 2004 and 2005. Fortunately for me, this was all paid for by the university I was working for. But it still remains that it was illegal for foreigners in China to have HIV/Aids. During the time I was there, there was even a case where the police were looking for a foreigner who had lied about having HIV and was on the run. They published a description of him and everything. Scary.

But even more frightening than dealing with the Chinese police (one of those fears I try to avoid), was the public opinion of STD such as HIV and Aids.

In China I had a lovely housekeeper named Sunny, who was a local woman who spoke English fairly well and had a knack for getting things done. She'd come in and clean once a week, but even better, it didn't matter what you needed, curtains, a vet, plants, she could find it for you. A clever woman, making her money off of the foriegn teachers at the university, but very genuine and nice. She was no rural bumpkin, nor a bigoted moron.

We were speaking one time about prostitutes in the nearby city. (Can't remember why.) And during the conversation the topic of safe sex came up. I think she had said that the prostitutes use no protection, or maybe I had asked about it. I had said, lord that's just wrong! Cause then these women could get Aids or something and then give it to other men who then take it home and give it to their wives! And this statement came as a surprise to my otherwise-worldly housekeeper. Only foriegners have Aids. I (probably quite angerly) refuted this saying, no, anyone can have Aids. And even if it first came from foreigners, everytime a Chinese man goes to Thailand and sleeps with a prostitute he could brind back Aids to his wife and family and any other prostitutes he sleeps with. I don't think I mentioned drug use or sharing needles, but the flat out denial that Aids (or any STD) shouldn't be a consideration between two Chinese people having unprotected sex simply blew me away.

I think I helped open her eyes about the matter some. But then, like I said, she was sharp. All of her English had been learned on her own by working for foreign teachers. But even this intelligent woman who has worked with foreigners for years still harboured some small xenophobic blame of foreigners for Aids.

Possibly the only other statement to surprise me was from that teacher named Angel from the Phillippines who, when I asked why she thought there were so many hurricanes hitting the Deep South (of the US) replied -- quite seriously -- because they are evil sinners. And here I was thinking about "climate change" or "global warming". But she actually was a loony.

They Taunt Me

 The  Independent taunts my ability to go on holiday.

Dangerous for Women?

In the debate about Primark's padded bras for tweens, the following anecdote was given:

I would have killed for a padded bra when I was in primary school, if only to give an extra boost to the wodges of toilet roll I had already begun to stuff into my crop-top. Like many girls, I was teased mercilessly for my flat chest by boys with undescended testicles who had already discovered that the best way to torture their female classmates was to mock us for not being sexy enough. A DIY Andrex bosom offered some protection; the handful of my schoolmates who had grown real breasts had no such luck, and were groped, harassed and dogged by cries of "slut" and "slag". For young women, sexual shame is learned in the playground, where we are schooled to suppress our authentic bodily appetites and mimic, instead, an adult ideal of erotic capital.

It was promptly mocked by the commentators below the article. Does such bullying and sexism exist? (Or did exist?)

A Daily Mail article on bullying had this to say:

In 1967 I was 5, and viciously beaten up on the way home form school by a 15 year old girl. I was later mugged by her brother. The parents were not informed as they were as bad, and more harm than good would have resulted. They were often there on the way home, being terrified I would panic and hide, if I saw them in time I would change my route.

At senior schooI I suffered 5 years of 'silent bullying' (sniggering behind my back, being left out, dirty looks etc). Trying to make other friends, my nose was broken by a jealous girl who didn't like her friend talking to anyone. During class, chewed gum was thrown into my hair, at breaking point I grabbed a pair of scissors, luckily I was held back by another pupil. I asked the teacher why she ignored this? she replied "what could I do".

I now have severe and enduring mental health problems and cannot work. I take enough medication to knock out a herd of elephants.

On a BBC teenage website, there's a first-person account of being bullied:

I had a dictionary in the back of my art book to explain what words mean and one day I saw that they'd gone to the S's and written my name under the word Slut. I cried for hours after that.
I really enjoy art and I went in to school one day and every page of my art book was covered in brown paint apparently to resemble pooh. It might sound like a stupid thing, but I felt so victimised and so alone.
I would get texts every day telling me I was a bitch and whore. "You think you're so great but you're a nasty little slag and everyone knows it," one text said.

Sounds pretty sexual to me.

On mumsnet, a discussion about 12-year-olds shaving their legs revealed some bullying stories:

I have a dd who is coming up 12. She is always bugging me to let allow her to shave her legs. The answer has been a resounding no.

Don't get me wrong- if he legs were particularly hairy to the point where is was effecting her self esteem, then yes , I'd agree it. In fact, only last week she said some boys had teased her about her 'monobrow' so having had a look at it, I agreed to pluck it for her.

 And this page at Frisky is a goldmine of boob horror stories:

“I was so excited when I left the doctor at age 9 or 10 because he told me that I was growing breast tissue. I couldn’t wait to tell my cousins, but they teased me mercilessly, asking me to bring my Kleenexes whenever they needed a tissue.”

“I had this really cute white, asymmetrical shoulder bathing suit my stylish grandmother bought me. I loved that suit because it had fringe and sequins. I probably liked it a little too much because I wore it for two or three summers in a row. The problem? I had developed small breasts. One day at camp I emerged from the pool and several boys started laughing at me. I didn’t get it and just ignored them. Then my female counselor told me that you should never wear a white bathing suit. You see, once my suit got wet, it became transparent and every saw my budding boobs, which were pretty much all nipple.”

In conclusion, I think that commentators who mocked the author for being teased as a child were simply lucky that they were not the objects of such abuse when they were young. In fact, they almost seem to be perpetrating the cycle, and continuing the bullying, this time for being bullied! Do they mock her because she was bullied? Do they mock her because they think she's lying or exaggerating? Or do they mock her because she's even bringing up the subject?

I do not argue that the US is a dangerous place, but I think that if you're not white middle class and male in the UK, life can be pretty fucking hard.

That's Not Funny.

Britain is a huge comedy heaven. Stand-up comedy is enormously popular, and the British are good at it. American comedians typically go out for more sketch comedy, like in Saturday Night Live. While there are some brilliant American stand-up comics (Bill Hicks, George Carlin, Eddie Murphy, Jeff Foxworthy and co, Richard Pryor, Chris Rock) most of the are either dead or making shit TV sitcoms or movies. (Eddie Murphy, you died to me long time ago.) The pinnacle of success for an American comic is making a movie or having a tv show with your name on it. Thus, most Americans are not exposed to a lot of stand-up comedy, especially if they don't watch Comedy Central late at night. Sketch Comedy is where it's at.

In Britain, however, stand-up comedy has not faded gently into that good night. It is alive and well, as shown by the prevalent TV show format of "quiz-com". These are generally trivia games where the individuals collect points which are dutifully tallied up at the end and winner declared. Americans will most likely relate this to "Whose Line Is It Anyway?" hosted by Drew Carey (another stand-up turned sitcom star turned host) where "the points don't matter". Drew Carey regularly awards a million points to his "contestants" which are really the same three or four people every week. Add to this the British addiction to trivia (witness the ever-popular "Pub Quiz"), and you can see the quiz-com is the bastard child of WLIIA and Jeopardy. (Or, perhaps their parent. I don't know.)

So the quiz-com is the best place on TV to see comedians in Britain. Every city also has their own comedy clubs, and comedians regularly do stand-up shows stadium style, as demonstrated on "Live at the Apollo" and the Edinburgh Festival. But as most people just see the quiz-coms. And it is here that accusations of racism and sexism are most strongly demonstrated.

The Guardian asks "The black comedy circuit is booming, with packed crowds and a host of stars. So why aren't there more on TV or at mainstream venues?" Last year, host of quiz-com "Mock the Week" was forced to say that quiz-coms aren't sexist. Yet when you look, most of these quiz-coms have few ethnic people of any gender and few women whose names don't begin with "Jo" and end with "Brand", as comedienne Victoria Wood said.

To me these are valid observations and valid questions. But I feel the fault lies not with Dara O'Brien (for one) or even the producers of these various shows and formats. It is the British culture itself.

Comedy works best coming from the underdog. Who was the last comedian you say whose act was based on the wealthy, the well-to-do, the posh ones? Perhaps Monty Pythons "Upper Middle Class Twits" sketch, and David Mitchell (Guardian commentator extraordinaire) and Marcus Brigstocke ("Argumental") often base their acts upon their posh upbringing, but by far the most popular character is The Working Man. Example: Al Murray's "Pub Landlord" character who is loud, drunk, sexist, racist, etc. etc. etc. In the US we likewise do not see upper class comedians. Instead, we treasure the black comedians, the blue collar comedians, the anarchist comedians. To be middle class (in the American sense) might be ok, but to be upper class (British: middle class) would mean career death.

But it is the very inequality that gives rise to great comedy. The Guardian comments:

Comedy is, or is perceived to be, an art form rooted in recognition and shared cultural references. Its audiences – far more so than those for music, films or fiction – are wary of artists whose experiences may not resemble their own.

 Britain is a very splintered and schizophrenic nation: it thrives on inequality. Inequality between genders, inequality between races (by which I include all ethnic groups such as "English", "Scottish", "Irish", etc.), but above all, inequality between classes. It is imperative that everyone know their place. Add to this the fact that there really is no middle class the same way that there is in the US, and you have a vast proportion of the population that feels like the underdog. This gives way to reception to comedy. You like comedy more if you feel like the comedian understands what's hard about your life.

And yet, the inequalities are still maintained, not broken. In areas of high unemployment, it's quite common for others to hold you back, discourage success and effort. Parliament still reflects the high and mighty, not the every man. Southern English accents are more common on the news, but broad regional accents (like Yorkshire, Lancashire, Scottish) are more common in commercials (as my husband says, "to inspire trust"). The people in Britain have no desire to lead, "Mary Dejevsky: We already do too much. Don't expect us to govern, too." At best, the British person just wants to be left alone. But that's no revolution. And it isn't equality either.

"Freedom" of Speech

The Huffington Post made the New York Times when it announced it was going to stop allowing anonymous comments. We're all familiar with the phrase "on the internet, no one knows you're a dog". We all have avatars, screen names, and multiple email addresses. But to comment anonymously, is that freedom of speech?

Comments on newspapers here in the UK have been moderated and link to profiles for some time. The Scotsman does not require a full profile, but you need to supply an email address to sign up. Other papers require them as well.

So is it really such a shock that US newspapers are restricting anonymous comments? Is it such a threat to freedom of speech? I don't know.