Should We Allow Interracial Adoption?
It is being reported that the government is recommending that race play little or no part in adoption and fostering.
My late wife was adopted and always said she was special because she had been chosen by her parents. I’m certain that a lot of adopted people feel that way, but I’ve not knowingly met that many.
Two that I have met, were black and had been adopted by white families.
One was a girl, who used to cut my hair in Bury St. Edmunds some years ago and she told me, that the race difference had not been a problem.
The other was a black girl, who used to baby-sit our three boys, who at the time was being fostered in the village where we lived. Remarkably at eighteen, she liked her foster parents so much, that she effectively applied for her own adoption, so that she could stay. I think it is true to say, that her foster parents would have adopted her earlier, but that they couldn’t afford it. I can remember C coming home from Court one evening and telling me how the Judge had called her in, whilst he officiated in what he said was a rare case, but one that made his job worthwhile!
That last tale says to me, that it’s not the race or sexual orientation of the prospective adoptive parents that matter, but their attitudes and personality.
So in my book, the sooner we relax the rules on adoption, the better. Every child deserves a good home!
I Don’t Like Guns!
Basically, because they kill people, but I do realise that some people need to hold them. In a review on the Derrick Bird killings in Cumbria, changes are recommended to the gun laws.
I feel that we need just one change to the gun laws and that is to make sure that guns are always locked safely away, when they are not in use, under a dual-key system.
My reason is incidents such as those in which Derrick Bird was involved are not that common, but there have been quite a few suicides involving legally-held weapons. There have also been the odd accident, where children have been playing with weapons. Incidentally, in the United States, a lot of minors are killed accidentally by legally-held firearms.
So locking them up securely with two keys held by two responsible people may be a simple measure that could cut a lot of deaths. Imagine a ard-up farmer, who perhaps felt suicide was a good way to go, having to convince, say his wife, that he needed the guns, when he was not in a fit mental state.
I have actually heard the NFU saying that this is a sensible measure.
Best Wishes to Danny!
My best wishes go to Danny Baker, who has been reported as suffering from cancer.
Let’s all hope he makes a swift recovery!
I Don’t Like Gas
There are reports coming in of a gas explosion in Salford. It would appear that people are trapped.
I don’t like gas and when I designed this house, the propane tanks are a long way from the house, the AGA is electric and the boiler is in an outhouse.
My fears stem partly from working in the chemical industry for ICI in the 1960s, when a gas explosion destroyed the reaction vessel and killed two people on Polythene 6 plant. A lot of engineers I worked with didn’t like compressed gas, as only a couple of kilograms have a tremendous explosive force.
My new house in London will probably be heated by gas, but I will make sure that all the safety equipment is installed. I will of course not allow anybody to smoke.
But even with all the checks, I’d much prefer that the only energy we took into our houses and factories was electricity. After all it is probably a lot safer and much easier to distribute!
Should Prisoners Have the Vote?
In my view, yes! Read the arguments on the BBC here.
After all, it might just help some to take some of their responsibilities seriously.
But will it make any difference?
It will to us, in that we won’t have to pay any damages to those who the European Court of Human Rights, think we have wronged.
But I doubt that the number who vote will be high!
But let’s wait until we see the statistics.
I think when we do, that this will be one of those stories that got a lot of people very heated, but in truth it won’t matter!
How To Survive Tragedy – 2
Having lost both my wife and son in recent years, I can sympathise deeply with the Norgroves, who lost their daughter, Linda, in Afghanistan.
But they refuse to apportion blame and just want to celebrate the good times and the work their daughter did.
The Mirror in common with other papers describes their feelings.
There is never any point in apportioning blame, as that gets in the way of trying to make sure that it doesn’t happen again, by changing attitudes and making the world a better and safer place.
This extract shows that they are doing that.
Mrs Norgrove said: “She knew I wasn’t keen on her going back but there was no way as a parent I would stop her doing that. I knew that she’d grown to love Afghanistan and love the people and I knew that that’s where her heart was and she wanted to do humanitarian work there.”
Her husband said his daughter was a “very adventurous girl” and was determined to go to Afghanistan four years ago when she worked for the United Nations.
“At the time I said to her that our worst nightmare was that she might be kidnapped,” he said. “But at the end we had to accept that she’d been adventurous, she’d done risky things before.”
The couple, from Lewis, had just climbed a mountain when they were told she had been abducted while looking into the development of agricultural projects in the east of the country.
The couple have now set up The Linda Norgrove Foundation to promote the causes she supported.
The charity will fund women and family-orientated schemes in the war-ravaged country.
Good luck to them and the Foundation.
A Newspaper for Twenty Pence
I bought i, the cut down Independent today.
It’s an interesting experiment, but it doesn’t have enough puzzles for my liking.
It’s Only a Small Step for Beccles
There was news today, that the government had put forward funding to create a loop at Beccles, so that the frequency of trains between Lowestoft and Ipswich can be doubled.
This is very much to be welcomed and does it mean that we’ll start to see more developments on East Anglian railways.
We also need some new trains, to replace some of the crap.
The Legacy of Piper Alpha
Piper Alpha was a gas rig that blew up in the North Sea killing 167 people. But it does seem that the disaster has brought in a way of working that is safer and less likelt to cause accidents and leaks. As the United States is trying to decide what to do after Deepwater Horizon, read about what we have done and how others have followed the lead in the Los Angeles Times.
America on the Ropes
Read this interesting take on the Death Penalty from David Rothkopf called “America on the ropes: First GM goes bankrupt and now this…”
The Anonymous Widower 