Saffron

lucyA1308 Wrote: ------------------------------------------------------- > www.thebedlambunch.co.uk Another vote for the Bedlam Bunch. They're superb!

Regarding diversity and integration so far as it applies to the OP's broader topic, there may not be specific demographic studies on interracial friendships, but there is a wealth of sociological and psychological research on interracial friendships and cross-groups friendships. There's quite an interesting meta-analysis from Davies et al 2011 (DOI: 10.1177/1088868311411103), who concluded that cross-groups friendship with behavioural engagement had the most affect on attitudes. It's a bit of a technical read, but quite interesting. There's a less technical read here: http://socialintegrationcommission.org.uk/SIC_Report_WEB.pdf This piece specifically considers the case for London. Although it's a few years old, they observed that BUT, Their research concluded, Number 1 is not surprising, in light of implicit associations research on unconscious bias in urban environments. However, linking back to the discussion bit on social media, I though point 4 was interesting. I wonder how that age group correlates to social media usage?

> We clearly live wildly different experiences and > have very different types of friends and friend > groups and see very different racial profiles even > in SE22. That observation in itself nicely illustrates how difficult it is to assess integration relative to diversity and bias, in the context of offense, racism or other prejudice. People can have very different experiences, even in highly diverse environments, because there are significant pockets of non-integration. Somewhat counterintuitively, diversity itself does not ensure integration. With regards to what we do/don't find consciously offensive, even in a diverse environment, a person can be highly biased and prone to taking arbitrary offensive therein (and/or causing arbitrary offense) as a kind of cultural buffer gone out of logical control.

London may be an exception, I'm not sure... however, in general implicit association testing has shown that unconscious bias is higher in urban areas, despite being more racially/culturally mixed. This is understood to demonstrate the way people cluster into familiar groups, and also shows that diversity is not the same as integration. As far as the observation on US/UK culture differences, that is true to an extent, but it only fits where it touches. There are enormous subcultures and cultures within cultures etc in both these countries, that don't identify with either class(education) or job status as a marker of social standing.

Is there a product that does both, or can you use them together? I'm thinking of our drafty window over the stairs. I don't want a curtain because I like the light, but frosting the bottom might be useful.

I'm not even sure I know my OWN mind sometimes.

HopOne Wrote: ------------------------------------------------------- > "On Halloween, my neighbour said some guy caught > his own motorcycle on fire riding around Hilly > Fields letting off fireworks" > > This guy? > https://twitter.com/TheoTGH/status/660534945035759 > 617 That looks like it. We saw the fireworks from Ladywell, but didn't realise it was related to the motorcycles. I don't think they came through Ladywell, since the eastbound traffic through Ladywell tends to hit a bottle neck at Lewisham High St. We saw a few on Lewisham High St heading towards Catford on our way home. I guess they were stragglers by that time. I'm sure my daughter would have been terrified if they had come through the neighbourhoods. However, don't be under any illusion that would have stopped her trick-or-treating. The power of free sugar over children is QUITE persuasive!

The thing I find the most tiring sadly, is that even though we're both working FT, I'm still the one doing most of the meal planning and grocery shopping. :-/

Otta Wrote: ------------------------------------------------------- > Yes interesting post admin, thanks. > > Personally I really don't think people should be > reporting things on the off chance that someone > else might find it offensive. I agree. I think I would be more inclined to follow up on the actual comment better to understand the context, or to refute it's nature. That would seem more intuitive to me. On the subject of whether people choose to be arbitrarily offended*, I have often wondered if it's a default position to be offended by things which are different? It's the subtle placing of negative value judgements, which on closer inspection have no merit in reality, that can form the basis of unconscious bias and prejudice/racism. So in that light, it's not so much that people are arbitrarily offended, as rather that they actively fail to question what values underpin their feelings of offense. Some things are truly offensive, and cannot be made otherwise, but they can and should be open to frank discussion in ways that don't offend, e.g. discussion of racism, genderism, abuse, war, etc. *HaHA, I initially typed 'offensive' there on mistake... that could have been a whole other thread!

Sometimes I do 'half-batch' cooking. Basically, what I make one night, we have a variation on the next night (or later in the week). So if we have red beans & rice one night (kidney beans, glazed onions, celery, carrots, tomatoes, bay leaf, salt, pinch of pepper, mild paprika, splash of Worcester sauce; simmer while rice is cooking), then I cook twice as much. The 'leftover' half get added mince beef (or veggie substitute), red pepper, and cumin and for chili con carne. You can pretty much sub in/out most the ingredients to taste. Also, sometimes I cook tomorrow's dinner after we eat, eg jacket potatoes, stewed meat, bean & barley soup. Then it can sit happily overnight and only needs to be reheated quickly. I don't think it matters if you re-run the same stuff a lot, as long as you're regularly offering something different along side it. So, if you regularly offer cheese and potatoes with sweet corn, try offering some different veg over the season with the sweet corn. For fussy eating I just keep offering the 'likes' with the 'dislikes'. It can take anywhere from 6 months to 1-2 years for a child to build up their taste. I don't mind cheating a bit too, and we have oven chips and pre-packaged soup sometimes. But if you have a good food processor, veggie soups are really easy to make from scratch. Soup with baked brie and breadsticks or garlic bread is also quick. Serve with carrot sticks and baby corn, or tomato and baby spinach salad... easy finger food, less to load in the dishwasher. We also occasionally have cereal and fresh fruit in the evening when everyone is too tired for anything else (or too skint for takeaway). My daughter calls this dinner-breakfast and thinks it's really special. Go figure! xx

Thanks for the humour Admin, and the clarification. Interesting thread.

Committing suicide is not proof that someone shoplifted for kicks. Suicide suggests that there were deeper psychological issues contributing to the situation. xx

Otta Wrote: ------------------------------------------------------- > Yep it's been going on a while (although not on > this scale). Bunch of stupid spoilt little @#$%&. > > Frankly if one of them came off his bike in front > of me I'd be laughing as I called the ambulance. I've regularly seen groups on Lewisham Way / Loampit Vale the last few weeks. On Halloween, my neighbour said some guy caught his own motorcycle on fire riding around Hilly Fields letting off fireworks (I didn't see it, as we were at a party in Ladywell). Funnily enough, she didn't mention anyone calling an ambulance. I guess he was ok?! :-0 I wonder if anyone turned up at Lewisham A&E with a burnt bottom??? Good luck explaining that to the night staff.

Blah Blah Wrote: ------------------------------------------------------- > I agree the Police response is pathetic (which is > why I said it might take a tragic incident to > force them to act) but what can they realistically > do against 100 moped/ bike riders? At best they > can catch and prosecute one or two for traffic > offences. That will hardly stop similar events > from happening will it? I was wondering the same thing. Once the event is underway, I think it becomes very hard to police. However, didn't the same event happen in S London last year? And wasn't this year's event coordinated via social media in advance? So if the Met pulls their finger out, they could have better policing in place next year to keep it from reaching critical mass (maybe)? I'm not opposed to riding out and having a laugh, but on the pavements and doing stupid illegal stuff is going to end in tears.

Blah Blah Wrote: ------------------------------------------------------- > Saffron is correct. Bedbug bites can be any size > depending on the level of reaction to them. And > they are difficult to get rid of because of their > feeding and breeding cycles. Indeed, and I was surprised when I learned this as well, because the 'classic' bb bite is the big, sort of weepy one. Ewww. But people do react very differently to them, so I've read. I looked into this a while back when little Saff and I were getting bitten by something. It wasn't bbs in the end, as the problem didn't worsen and eventually cleared over a couple of weeks never to return. We suspected blandford flies (as it was spring/summer) but never saw them. I think the key is the feeding/breeding cycles with bbs. With cluster bites that are recurrent over weeks or months bbs would unfortunately be a likely candidate. :-( Spiders would also leave a double 'bite', but spiders wouldn't bite you repeatedly. If you've been bitten at night by a spider, it would have been an accidental and traumatic encounter for the spider too. We're not their food. We're all the wrong size, and probably not tasty. For bbs, however, we're quite a feast.

It sounds like totally normal behaviour for the age to me. With such a small age gap, as others suggest, I think things will improve as soon as your baby is a little older (walking, talking, poking back!). However, just to add that if things really get worse or don't improve, you may want to look for more substantial help. My brother is ~5 years older than I am, and he has been negative towards me from the earliest days. Possibly because of the age gap, and other problems that he has (ADD, possible autism or oppositional disorder), he never overcame this negativity. I cannot speak to him or be around him at all, even as an adult, because his behaviour instantly becomes quite manipulative and verbally abusive. It's a great sadness that a better, deeper intervention wasn't made with his behaviour in late childhood, before the patterns became ingrained. I think things could have been very different if part of his treatment had included not only supporting his ADD (which my parents did do), but also acknowledging his bully sibling behaviour and consistently intervening to stop/correct it (which my parents didn't do.) The ED Forum is a wealth of knowledge from people with very diverse backgrounds. I hope you find excellent advise and support here. xx

Bed bug bites can be large or small. Some people don't react at all. They often bite in 2 or 3, but can be single bites also. They're extremely hardy and can survive in crevices in the walls/floors. You may need up to 3 treatments from a professional to get rid of them. The best way to confirm would be to catch one, but they can go a week without feeding. So you may find them hard to catch. Worth speaking to a specialist and having the property (re)treated. There's a v interesting bed bug thread on the Forum recently. Apparently the area is prone to them. :-/

miga Wrote: ------------------------------------------------------- > Saffron Wrote: > -------------------------------------------------- > ----- > > miga Wrote: > > > -------------------------------------------------- > > > ----- > > > Saffron Wrote: > > > > > > -------------------------------------------------- > > > There is no nuanced view on FGM. The clue is in > > the name. > > Just because your view on the subject is black and > white doesn't mean that a third, considered view > doesn't exist, or that GG does not hold such a > view. I won't summarise it, it's easy enough to > find, but she is very far from "endorsing FGM"! > I didn't state that a third view did not exist. I stated that there is no nuanced view on FGM, nuanced in this case meaning 'subtle'. Nothing subtle here: GG stated that attempts to legislate against FGM were 'an attack on cultural identity,' and 'One man's beautification is another man's mutilation.' This would of course be true if one believes that the essence of female identity revolves around physicality, and that women are defined only by their past cultural experience not by their personal experience to create culture. Culture doesn't exist timelessly in a vacuum. It is thankfully progressive. Changing a culture for the betterment of individuals' well-being is hardly an 'attack'. It is not seeking to destroy the culture, but to grow the culture in way that improves the welfare of women and their society. Her view on transwomen is as follows: "Governments that consist of very few women have hurried to recognise as women men who believe that they are women and have had themselves castrated to prove it, because they see women not as another sex but as a non-sex. No so-called sex-change has ever begged for a uterus-and-ovaries transplant; if uterus-and-ovaries transplants were made mandatory for wannabe women they would disappear overnight. The insistence that man-made women be accepted as women is the institutional expression of the mistaken conviction that women are defective males." GG herself reduced the matter down to a bit of female plumbing. I would personally be surprised if there are not any transwomen who would desperately love to have a uterus, by the sheer fact that humans are incredibly diverse in their personal desires. Also, this definition would sadly question as non-female, any XX woman born with a defect rendering her not to possess a uterus/ovaries. Her argument lacks logic and is begging the question in the classical rhetorical style. She is a feminist in the sense that she seeks to raise 'women' up, but in so doing she puts down other humans. It's no wonder many young people now see 'feminist' as a tainted word.

miga Wrote: > As for the idea that GG has a purely biological > view of gender, I'm pretty sure she has been > saying something very different for decades. I > think her point was that it's the experiences of > growing up female that make a woman, in addition > to the physiology. And actually, by changing > physiology in the transition, it's the physical > that is mimicked. Something along those lines, and > a whole heap besides. > And here is where we part company, because if 'growing up female' was a necessary and immoveable feature of being a 'women', then women everywhere --all over the world in all societies-- would have to have the same background experience in order to define themselves. Let me put it another way... if the ONLY thing you know about someone is that the person grew up as a woman, can you pre-judge them (positive or negative) based on that alone? If one says that they can be judged on this alone, as women have different experiences to men, this answer would be negated by the fact that we all have different experiences to each other. It also doesn't answer that question of how transmen stop being 'women', if they were raised female. > She is a shit stirrer, I don't agree with a lot of > what she says, but her views have been reduced to > a caricature, which is a shame. Well, she could have defended her views by speaking at the university, but she declined. She's had loads of free publicity in the press, and she can now go home and cry in to her considerable fortune while she continues to sell her books. She has courted the controversy that has made her a caricature. She seems to sleep quite comfy in the bed she made for herself.

miga Wrote: ------------------------------------------------------- > Blah Blah Wrote: > -------------------------------------------------- > ----- > > Didn't she also one time say that rape wasn't > that > > big a deal too? > > I heard she bites off bats' heads like Ozzy > Osbourne, than meets in the forest with her coven > to dance under moonlight. You hear some strange things. Perhaps a visit to an audiologist is in order.

miga Wrote: ------------------------------------------------------- > Saffron Wrote: > -------------------------------------------------- > ----- > > She's previously endorsed FGM. > > Her view on FGM is a lot more nuanced than that. > > > I think it would be a disservice to women > everywhere, to think that it's only 2Xs and some > reproductive plumbing that makes us women! > > I don't think she ever said that. I never stated that she did say that. But consider how transwomen differ from GG's idea of 'real' women. Transwomen may have chromosomal differences, and/or differences in reproductive physiology (etc). So real women, in contrast, must be defined by those things, by her logic. There is no nuanced view on FGM. The clue is in the name.

Doesn't it depend which scheme you're under? There are some legal experts in the lounge who don't post much in the Family Room. Maybe worth posting in the lounge as well. xx

They can live for ages with no food, and they can travel within buildings. They're not attracted to dirt, so not a sign of clean/dirty house. http://www.nhs.uk/conditions/bed-bugs/Pages/Introduction.aspx Tough little blighters!

ourbubbleonline Wrote: ------------------------------------------------------- > If anyone is walking a Pitbull - Well thats > illegal in itself! Not strictly true. If you have been granted a court exemption, you can own and walk a 'banned breed'. xx

Ridgley Wrote: ------------------------------------------------------- > > I don?t think she is being offensive, like I said > she does not have problem with transgender she > just stating a biological fact Gender and (to a relative degree) sex are not so much "biological facts", as a fluid set of postulates governing reproduction, growth, and development, both socially and biologically. Our understanding of the physical production and release of gonadotropins and steroids such as androgens in utero has advanced phenomenally in the last 50 years, along with our understanding of chromosomal irregularities, and the psychological and social constructs of gender. I think it would be a disservice to women everywhere, to think that it's only 2Xs and some reproductive plumbing that makes us women! What about XX women who are born without a uterus? What about XY men who were born without external genitals, then raised female as children... but later returned to male by choice? Can they never stop being women, because they were raised with breasts and oestrogen? > what really get up > my nose is if you don?t have the same opinions > has the majority you get the same can of abuse she > getting on twitter. I agree it's wrong to heap abuse on people. And I also don't think GG is necessarily transphobic. I think she's just an insensitive twit. Just because you CAN express and opinion, doesn't mean you have to do so in a way that's insensitive to others. I also agree it's wrong to stifle the academic exchange of opinions. However, GG could have still given her talk, no? It was her choice not to go. My understanding is that she could have spoken if she wanted to do so. [Just out of curiosity... I'm assuming GG has never given publically the results of any chromosomal testing on herself or her children (if she has them) to verify that (a) she has XX chromosomes, and (b) a uterus? How do we know that she IS a woman? We accept that she is a woman by means of social construct because she conforms to what society accepts as female? Surely this applies to transgendered individuals in their chosen gender identity?] Social media is a modern crucible, and she's not done herself any favours by being controversial... or has she? She's certainly had plenty of free press. She's a provocateur with a back-catalogue of books to sell. She's not an equality feminist. She's previously endorsed FGM. She took the coward's way out of the debate, not a real academic imho.