miga

I don't think it's that odd that the Spectator would entertain non-intervention. People from a variety of positions (libertarians, socialists, conservatives who like to mind their own business etc.) aren't into intervention.

Maximum of pomp and ceremony for me. Full Orthodox, myhrr, men in dresses with big white beards, ancient incantations, women in black ullulating. Expensive coffin.

Jedward?

Otta Wrote: ------------------------------------------------------- > And you shouldn't use your kid as your personal > @#$%& interpreter!!!!!!!!! Some degree of this is inevitable for ESL kids, as a kid you just absorb a second language, especially idiomatic stuff, much more quickly than grown ups.

I think it must be very limiting, and even a little sad, to not understand the world around you. But there's a difference between acknowledging the lack of fulfillment in such an existence and deporting those who live it because they "ought to this" and "should that".

What level of knowledge would you require Jeremy and would you enforce it in some way, given the chance? I think it's perfectly possible to live a productive life and make a decent contribution to society with only little or no knowledge of the official language of the society you live in. Indeed, many people have done just this in the UK and other Western societies.

ed_pete Wrote: ------------------------------------------------------- > Surely all positive or all negative can't sum to > zero ? Yep, fair enough.

ed_pete: (2 x (2^(n-1)) a.k.a 2^n, and not sure where - 2 comes from, are you maybe forgetting all/no - or all/no +? With no further restrictions, reckon Jeremy's right. There are some vaguely similar counting/summing problems which you can do in order of n steps, but these tend to have a kind of "ordering" implicit in them, such as finding the point in a set which gives two parts, the sums of each respective part giving minimal absolute difference.

DaveR Wrote: ------------------------------------------------------- > choose, whilst ignoring the fact that he says > British troops in Afghanistan (essentially) > deserved to get killed. I just did some googling and couldn't find where he says that - is there a source?

red devil Wrote: ------------------------------------------------------- > Blah Blah Wrote: > -------------------------------------------------- > ----- > > I know the difference ????. Bombing from Nato > > achieved nothing. It took negotiators on the > > ground and a dramatic gain by Croat fighters to > > force a final negotiated solution, negotiations > > that had gone on for a long time with > Milosevic's > > lack of co-operation. When the Croat push came, > > those well developed negotiations gave a way > out. > > Had they not been in place, the Croat offensive > > would have continued. The UN peacekeeping force > > were in, as you rightly point out, the > ridiculous > > situation of having no mandate but to stand by > and > > watch massacre. > > I think what you're describing happened in Bosnia, > not Kosovo, and it happened several years before > NATO began strategically bombing Serb targets in > respect of the Kosovo conflict. This bombing > definitely impacted on the Serbs and brought about > an end to the conflict. Here's a timeline of > events... > > http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/shows/koso > vo/etc/cron.html Good one RD, I was about to stick a kebab skewer into my remaining good eye, but you saved the day. Dayton was 1995, concluding the Bosnian War of 1992-1995, the Kosovo War was 1999.

LondonMix Wrote: ------------------------------------------------------- > I'm not trolling you Miga! OK, good. The reason I asked is that it's a classic trolling technique to misinterpret/misquote/invent your interlocutor's statements repeatedly, then hone in on the newly created arguments. Trolling, of course, is a more flattering interpretation of that behaviour than some alternatives. In any case, you should be able to re-read the first conclusion of the report, then what I said at the top of page 4, and see that they're boringly similar. The first conclusion of the report then further points out that integration in London in particular, and as it relates to ethnicity, but also two other categories, is worse than in the rest of the country. It does so in this bit: "Londoners are proportionally less integrated by social grade, ethnicity and age than the rest of Britain." > I think when you said > diversity doesn't necessarily lead to integration > it suggested that diverse areas like London aren't > integrated. So, as should now be obvious from re-reading, neither I nor the report, the conclusion of which I fairly closely paraphrased, make an absolute claim of that nature. However, a relative claim that London is less integrated than less diverse places is made (and backed up) and that's what's interesting (and you appear to go some way to accepting in later posts, when you talk about why other, less diverse places might be more integrated). The reason I picked up on this is that my experience of living in large multi-cultural cities is one where people of different backgrounds cluster. You yourself have seen this - e.g. in your workplace which (according to you) at 15% of BME vs. 40% BME in general population represents, in my eyes, an example of that lack of integration, or clustering. In this it's not unique, everywhere I've worked in the City has a similar very unrepresentative breakdown. I see it in things like the different racial make up of different neighbourhoods, with e.g. the Catford South ward where I now live having a 45% white population, vs. 70% of ED where I last lived, or 85% of Balham (well off) or Eltham (less so). And there are many ways you can measure (and people really do) the substantially different life experiences of different racial/ethnic groups; education, earnings, health, likelihood of being a victim of crime etc. This is, after all, why there are so many schemes, charities, think tanks grappling with the many issues around very different life outcomes in the different groups. These observations around clustering, different lives in the same city etc. can co-exist with the observations that people intermarry and we all have multiple friends from different backgrounds, or that the UK in general, (admittedly, London a little less so), is further along with integration than some other societies. Perhaps it's wording. When you use the past participle "integrated" - perhaps you mean "a little bit" or "quite a bit" of integration has occurred. I think the process is far from done, especially in London. When I say "not necessarily integrated" or "clustered" you appear to hear me saying "total segregation", "no integration at all" and worry about my life experiences, advancing years and so on, for which thanks. > I'm repeating myself because I said that several days > ago one of my very first posts on the matter so > with that I won't respond to you further as you > seem to find it upsetting. I'm also repeating myself - it's quite dull, isn't it - in my experience, in big multi cultural cities, London included, people tend to cluster according to culture/ethnicity/class. That is reflected in where they live, who they interact with, what kind of jobs they do etc. (some of these things are used in the report to measure integration). It turns out this is a phenomenon that's been studied and there is evidence to back up its existence, for which thanks Saffron. It also gives useful words to express this difference - diversity vs. integration. Thank you, by the way, for your concern about my emotions, but it was sheer frustration rather than upset, admittedly followed by acute physical pain from stabbing myself in the eye with a fork. And with that, I'm now definitely bowing out of this, as I now need my good eye more than ever.

"1. Highly diverse areas are not necessarily integrated. For example, despite socialising more with people of different ethnic groups, Londoners are proportionally less integrated by social grade, ethnicity and age than the rest of Britain." I'm not sure which part of what I wrote directly above you contradicts the first conclusion of the report. I'm not sure if you're trolling me at this point.

Thanks Saffron for the links. I think that's more or less what I was grappling with, a diverse population isn't necessarily an integrated one.

LondonMix Wrote: ------------------------------------------------------- > Miga-- given the intake of Heber is only 500m > around the school 52% white 48% non-white is > indicative who lives near the school. I'm not sure > how you can assert otherwise. Like I said its > probably skewed somewhat but as of 2011, the > non-white population of East Dulwich ward was > circa 30% and has probably shifted upwards as it > has for the country as a whole between now and > then. The problems with projecting who lives around that school from that particular stat are manifold. Catchment areas reduce year on year - when the Y6 cohort started 7 years ago, was the catchment much wider? That seems to be the pattern across London. Some parents around that school might send their kids to a faith school or to a private school. Siblings get priority - this can be a 1/3 to 1/2 kids in a year, so the catchment area of the school from 2-3 years ago is just as relevant. There's also micro-locality; it's well observed that within the same wider locality (like a council/electoral ward) there can be dense social housing estates with often a quite different socio-economic make-up to the neighbouring "period" streets. Finally - with "layering" of different people coming into a neighbourhood in different eras, the younger people who have little kids might not be representative of the demographics of the neighbourhood as a whole. That's why I assert that it's not a good measure. Whatever, I don't think we're really talking about the same thing, and so I'm happy to leave it.

LondonMix Wrote: ------------------------------------------------------- > Its quite obvious why white people are the least > likely to mix. It is because they have the least > people to mix with. Even if everyone wanted marry > outside of their race,statistically, it would be > impossible for white people to mix more than 13% > (the size of the minority population in the UK). I had considered that. Of course it makes sense that the minority mixes into the majority, and in x00 years time it will probably be a historical curio much like tracing your roots back to Vikings, or Saxons or Celts would be now. However - I think the caveats that I was referring to were around the variation within the different groups. Even your article interestingly points out that there is hardly any mixing in e.g. the Bangladeshi and Pakistani groups (fewer than 1 in 10) and that nearly half of Black Caribbean men are in mixed relationships. I guess my overall point is, with regards to marriage or otherwise, yes this is a very tolerant society, but people cluster (some groups more, some groups less) and the process of mixing affects different strata of society at different speeds. > Being of different ages we probably just have very > different experiences of London- mixed race people > are found at the significantly higher > concentrations amongst children than the > population as a whole which suggests the younger > generations are much more racially mixed than the > general population. Like I said, of the 30 or so > people I know in London well enough to know who > their social circle generally includes, I can't > think of a single person that doesn't have > multiple friends that they socialise with outside > of their race (I'm in my early 30s). Equally in > my (relatively young and international office), > the incidence of interracial relationships is very > high. This again could be skewed because I work > in finance which is very expat heavy and perhaps > expats tend to be more internationally minded and > racially open- who knows. It sounds like we work in a very similar kind of office, and aren't too far apart in age. I always found it interesting, actually, how the "mixed" in my office means a lot of Euros, Americans, Antipodeans...the rest (the majority) with only a smattering of anything other than white middle-class British. This lack of "domestic minorities" becomes especially pronounced in the roles that pay more. It's a bit more complex of course, with French Quants, Russian engineers and other curios of background/job, but that is probably more to do with the different education systems. My office (and others similar to it that I'm aware of) is definitely not representative of the wider demographics of London, other than the fact that in its own very shallow way it's "mixed". I don't know - does your office have 30% BME workers? I could just have a really skewed experience. Because my impression, and I could be wrong, is that it seems like a much longer way to travel into the City for a kid of Pakistani background from an estate in East London somewhere, than it did for me from the other side of the World. > However, just walking around London, at a minimum > I think about 20% of young children are mixed > race, which proportionally would make sense given > that most of the UK's minority population is > concentrated in London rather than spread evenly > across Britain. None of that suggests to me a > city where most young people isolate themselves > racially, though perhaps for those 40 plus, the > reality is very different. I don't think it's a (very) conscious process. Perhaps it is just to do with age, and when decisions are made on where to buy the "forever" home, where kids go to school etc. perhaps people revert to type. As far as the train example goes, just as your "20% of kids I see are mixed race" is personal experience, so is mine that most of the white people get off at Denmark Hill and Peckham Rye. Please be my guest, I'd happily pay your fare from Blackfriars to Sevenoaks to observe the phenomenon :-) 52% BME kids is actually not particularly high in London, and you're right, for various reasons, not particularly indicative of who actually lives around that school. I suppose we live in the same city and by the sounds of it have not too dissimilar existences, and yet we come to different conclusions about how fluid/mixed where we live really is. As the narrator would say in In The Night Garden, isn't that a pip.

(In reply to LondonMix) My experience of London, as with other big mixed cities I've lived in, is that ethnic and socioeconomic groups cluster. Perhaps a facile example, but witness the changing of the passenger demographic as the train progresses through the stations on e.g. Thameslink from Denmark Hill to Catford and beyond. Things are in flux in some neighbourhoods, of course, but a simple example of how people's private lives tend to be lived surrounded by people similar to them is where they choose to live. As for the mixed race marriage thing - I agree, younger people (though I wouldn't describe myself as young) seem to be more open minded, and the stats back that up. But look at the caveats: "Overall almost one in 10 people living in Britain is married to or living with someone from outside their own ethnic group, the analysis from the Office for National Statistics shows. But the overall figure conceals wide variations. Only one in 25 white people have settled down with someone from outside their own racial background. By contrast 85 per cent of people from mixed-race families have themselves set up home with someone from another group. People from an African background are five and a half times as likely to be in a mixed relationship as white people, while those of Indian ancestry are three times as likely." From this: http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/politics/10943807/Love-across-the-divide-interracial-relationships-growing-in-Britain.html

Totally agree with second statement Saffron, there are both large parts of society here which couldn't give a hoot about "old" class distinctions, preferring e.g. money as a status indicator, as well as parts of the U.S. society with very clear and entrenched ideas of class in the "old" sense.

People select who they interact with based on class, but I think they also do based on color. Who you interact with at work is one thing, but my impression is that once people are home, the friendship circle tends to be fairly homogenous both racially and with regards to class.

The Excalibur is still sitting untouched a year on after being mostly emptied. Any enquiry about progress ignored by LQ, Council now washed their hands of it. Such a pity to see all that housing sitting unused.

What about front buggering, though, is that OK?

Depends on where you get the Thameslink from. It's fair to say that by Peckham Rye, it's standing room only any time after 7, and after 8, you'll be smelling someone's armpit.

Saffron Wrote: ------------------------------------------------------- > 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. OK - that's at least consistent - if we allow for the fact that everyone has different experiences, and that the physical is not a factor, then it's logical for people to self-categorize as whatever they please. Is that what you're saying? But why then do some men (if that's not too problematic of a term to use) feel the need to become whatever it is they think women are in that case and why does that process revolve precisely around a physical sex change of the type GG describes? Is their idea of what a woman is correct - it seems to be very much about physiology? I think GG's argument is that changing your physiology to mimic a woman's at some point through your life does not fit her (obviously) definition of what a woman is because it's only a physical change (and an incomplete one in most cases), and there must be some other factors that define a woman. I don't think she's saying a more "complete" physical change would do the job. I haven't the foggiest where she stands on the cases of physical androgyny or on trans people in the other direction. > > 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. Who cares how much money she makes? She wouldn't have been able to defend her views because the panel had nothing to do with trans issues.

Saffron Wrote: ------------------------------------------------------- > 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'. OK - but GG also supports the actions of feminists within cultures affected to challenge FGM, so that's already more subtle than "FGM is good" or "FGM is bad". She highlights that there are a whole host of different practices that fall under the umbrella of FGM, not just the most horrific cutting and sewing up people imagine. She further points out that the actions are carried out by women on women, that they see it as an important part of their version of what being a woman is, that more men than women within the societies where the practice exists want it stopped. She further contrasts the practice of FGM to the plastic surgery of genitals in the West which isn't outlawed - a weak argument, but an interesting one given that some women voluntarily undergo FGM later in life, such as the LSE anthropologist Fuambai Ahmadu, much as some women voluntarily get surgeons to cut them. Finally - for context, the quotes you make are taken from her book "The Whole Woman", the full paragraph follows: "Human beings have always modified the external appearance of their bodies in one way or another; one man's beautification is another man's mutilation. Looked at in its full context the criminalization of FGM can be seen to be what African nationalists since Jomo Kenyatta have been calling it, an attack on cultural identity. Any suggestion that male genital mutilation should be outlawed would be understood to be a frontal attack on the cultural identity of Jews and Muslims." Someone put the abridged version of the relevant section online: http://triggeralert.blogspot.co.uk/2011/01/germaine-greer-on-male-female-genital.html Again, I think her view is much more subtle than that she "endorses FGM". She has a view of FGM which is nuanced, including issues such as cultural relativism, the women's right to choose what they do with their bodies, and the possible hypocrisy of what our society condones women do to their bodies and what it wants to disallow in others. > 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. It depends on where the progress comes from and whether it's enforced or self-generated (the latter of which I think GG is fully behind), in my view. And that's exactly what I think she contests - when you "improve" someone else's culture based on your understanding of what's good for them, their "welfare", you're starting from a position of your culture being objectively correct. I think that kind of interventionism is tricky in this instance, because you are saying that all those women who participate in a ritual which they see as key to their identity are suffering from false consciousness.

As a society, we may not know how to build a bridge, a train or a nuclear power station any more, but boy can we think about these processes critically with all our cultural studies degrees....

Penguin68 Wrote: ------------------------------------------------------- > - unlike its proposals about charging for large > item removal - Which they do in Lewisham and it's a disaster, with flytipping rife.