Suffering..
British pensioner dumped by family left in council's care
LONDON (AFP) - A British council home which has taken in an abandoned 82-year-old man appealed on Friday to his family to come forward, a day after they dumped him at an eastern English hospital.
The pensioner's family drove up from their home in southeastern Spanish resort town of Alicante, and dropped him off at the Oldchurch Hospital in Essex along with his birth certificate and a letter appealing for aid.
In it, his wife detailed the strain of looking after the pensioner, who suffers from Alzheimer's, saying it almost drove her to a nervous breakdown.
"I am leaving him in very good care because I am no longer able to cope with looking after him," she wrote.
The man's family are believed to have returned to their home in Spain.
The case has raised concern over the support and help available to relatives of the mentally handicapped.
In an interview with BBC Radio 4 programme Friday, Health Minister Stephen Ladyman expressed concern that the family was pushed to such drastic measures.
"They shouldn't have been allowed to get into the state where they are desperate," he said, arguing that local government officials or doctors could have provided assistance.
However, Clive Evers, director of information and education at the Alzheimer's Society, said that people with dementia and their carers often receive support only when they have reached a crisis point.
A survey carried out in June last year by British learning disability charity Mencap revealed that 60 percent of Britain's six million unpaid carers and family members do not get any extra support or even the chance of taking regular short breaks during the day, even though they provide most of the care for people with dementia.
Jo Williams, chief executive of the charity, condemned the case as a "shocking example of how society is failing to care for the most vulnerable people".
The pensioner's case follows a number of drastic cries for help.
In October, an elderly couple from Merseyside, in northern England, made a suicide pact, claiming they could no longer cope with caring for their 33-year-old autistic daughter. The father died but the mother survived after they both took a cocktail of drugs and walked into the sea.
This is a result of the British Social services who time after time and year after year let people suffer just so they can rush in at the last minute and save the day just to get a promotion. This organization is a god-damned disgrace and they should take out the social workers that fail and publicly horse-whip each and every one of them. Well apart from Cafcass who they should just put a bullet straight in to their heads. I've never seen a good report about British social Services and more and more of these stories appear every day yet the people at the head of this organization still do nothing. How the hell can these people sleep at night knowing they bring so much suffering to so many families i will never know!
Catholics..
Again I see in the news that the Catholic church slips farther and farther away from reality. In a visit to Portugual the Pope apparently has decided that this country is a sort of shining beacon for the rest of the world, Yeah right in our dreams. its funny how the Catholic Church always wants to tell everyone how to do things but they never seem to put their own house in order first. some quotes from the report:
"The world continues to look to Portugal with hope, especially in terms of becoming aware of the grave crisis of values in modern society, ever more insecure in the face of fundamental ethical decisions for the future path of humanity," the pope told visiting President Jorge Sampaio at the Vatican.
The pope mentioned no specific ethical questions in his speech to Sampaio, but in another address Friday, to a group of health care professionals who work with chronic pain suffers and the dying, he reiterated the church's teaching against euthanasia.
Calling euthanasia "one of those dramas caused by an ethic which seeks to establish who can live and who must die," John Paul said the practice, "instead of redeeming the person from suffering, suppresses."
In his meeting with Sampaio, John Paul noted that a special agreement governing church-state relations, called a concordat, will take effect in a few days between Portugal and the Holy See.
"The formation of a critical conscience in order to discern the meaning of life and of history is the greatest cultural challenge of our times, something which the church in Portugal wants to confront through its collaboration," as demonstrated by the concordat, John Paul told the president.
My God, where do these people get off? After they allow millions of people to become infected with Aids and HIV in Africa with their bullshit no condoms rules and letting loose their pervert child-molesting priests on young children and many other crimes they still decide to try to tell people what to do. Maybe they should take a look at themselves and make a few new ground rules for their religion:
1- Publish the real bible instead of their edited and re-edited version of what the bible really says. do they really think that we dont know that the bible has been altered over the years to make their message bring in more money instead of telling the real truth?
2- The withdrawal of Catholic Priests from poor third-world countries to be replaced by people who actually give a shit about the suffering in countries like Africa and Brasil etc. Flogging of priests identified as making money from misery for the church, after all it was good enough for the son of man so they should look upon this punishment with joy and happiness right?
3- The immediate castration of all Catholic priests found guilty of abusing children and then put them into a prison population where they can be given special justice treatment by the other inmates. Also increase the payments of compensation to all abused children to help them try to get back their lives after they were stolen by some sick pervert in a cloth robe.
4- Catholic churches to be eventually turned over to people like Bhuddists who only want love and peace for the world and dont wanna exploit everything to put more money into the Vatican Bank.
5- Letting people with gluten problems use a wafer that doesnt kill the person taking it, We all read that story about the little girl in America.
6- Control of choosing a Pope to be given to an independant body that can choose Popes that are younger and more in touch with the real world, no more cronyism from the old priests network to keep their little money making empire ticking over.
The list could go on and on couldnt it? We could just bring back flogging and then people could get satisfaction watching people who took their hopes and dreams for cash getting their just deserts. Still with the Islamic religion the fastest growing religion in Europe now it will only be a matter of time i guess before this terrible cult religion will be wiped to far and dusty corners of the globe where it can slowly fade from existence.
Ripoff..
Well it has to be said that when it comes to making money from foreigners brasil must rank at close to the top of the list. I had to pay R$180 for a new id card here at the policia federal when most Brasilians i was told pay just R$25. I probably paid for a few drinks there at the bar for those guys, still if thats how they make their money then good luck to them. Plus i have to wait three months for my new card too. The real piss take was when they told me i needed to write a declaration saying i hadnt left Brasil in the last 2 years but that i had to go buy a sheet of paper as they didnt have any blank paper available. Can you believe this shit? Sometimes you have to imagine yourself dealing with a child or something that doesnt wanna share its chocolate. Even after paying close on R$200 i had to get photocopies of my passport too because they said it wasnt possible to have this done in a building full of administration people. what a crock of shit! In the end they had to give me a sheet of paper but i was there over 5 hours just for a couple of sheets of paper and a set of fingerprints. Its no wonder Brasil struggles all of the time against red tape when just to get something as simple as this takes most of a day. Plus another thing that really pisses me off is that although its the department for foreigners and everyone knows the people working there speak several languages how they pretend they only speak portugues, childish aint it? Its nice to see how the tax money i pay here gets used.
On a good note though i just found out that i dont have to work Monday as its a holiday. That means i get to spend more time at the farm or doing something other than being stuck correcting exercises lol. Also i got to see my evaluation from the CCAA Rio guy and apart from a couple of small things (Forgetting to write the date on the board was one) i guess i did well. I wonder if i can use that as an excuse to get a wage rise? hahaha!!
I see Arafat finally kicked the bucket too, not that it'll make any difference. Lets face it he just wanted to slaughter people and so did the other side and they arent going to stop anything for long. After all killing is all these people know, if they really wanted peace they would make it work but they just wanna wave their flags and let suicide bombers blow up families and children. Maybe we could just use something like thermonuclear sterilization to wipe them off the face of the earth and then just let nature start again.
Tarantino..
I just got given a copy of the film Kill Bill to watch. Tarantino's films are some of the best ive seen. it doesnt matter if its Pulp fiction or Dusk till Dawn, every film this guy makes is just class. I havent seen kill bill 2 yet but will try to get to see it as soon as possible. The problem is that they are only showing it in one cinema here and its miles from the center of town and i dont wanna spend hours travelling just to see a film that sooner or later someone will get on pirate hehehe!
The observation was just a waste of time too, we were at the stage of the class where we had just conversation so the guy didnt really get to see alot apart from me and the students talking about god knows what lol. I wonder if we will get to see all that crap he writes down about us all in those reports? I wouldnt think so but who cares anyway? haha.
I'm reading here that apparently beckham is going to become and I quote "A film-star". What the hell is this? hahaha!! what sort of films are we talking about here? Well judging by his wifes failing music career i guess she could go into some sort of low grade, low quality porn flicks but what about beckham? He'd have been better off applying to be in the world Transvestite beauty festival. Just because someone made a film with his name in it (Bend it like Beckham) doesnt mean that he can just jump into a movie career too, well not unless hes thinking of starring in some low grade, low quality gay porn flicks. Still i guess some Manu fans would probably go and perverts that follow Beckhams half-starved wife around, mind you we're talking about people here who need some serious therapy, right?
I wonder what this film The Grudge is all about. I'd like to see The Forgotten this weekend with Roberta. It looks an excellent film. Maybe we will get to see both of them, it'll depend whats happening Sunday afternoon as i think we're going to the farm. Waiting for the Yahoo movies site to load is like watching paint dry, man its terrible since they changed the homepage. I'll have to look tomorrow as my students just arrived..
Tourism..
There has been quite a bit of buzz here the last few days about the American state Dept website as they have information for US citizens travelling to other countries and the webpage for Brasil has some interesting reading. If you wanna read it you can go here, it has alot of stuff there. When u came here the travel agency warned me about Rio and also São Paulo too but i see that Brasilia is also getting a mention as well. My god, they would need two sites to mention all the warning about Planaltina DF, it's rated as the second most violent city in District federal, well maybe its the most violent now if its overtaken Ceilandia. There were just a couple of deaths between both cities last time it was mentioned in the newspapers, not exactly something people would wanna brag about i guess. Anyway heres a few quotes from the webpage:
Gestures - In the first six weeks of 2004, two U.S. citizens were fined (an average $15,000 each) for making obscene gestures while being photographed at a Brazilian port of entry. Travelers are reminded that they are subject to local law, and that showing contempt to a government official is a serious offence in Brazil. ( Fines for such offenses are based on the offender ’s claimed income.)
Buses - Incidents of theft on city buses are frequent, and such transportation should be avoided. Several Brazilian cities have established specialized tourist police units to patrol areas frequented by tourists. Recently, there has been a marked increase in crime in the capital, Brasilia. Passenger-bus hijacking, usually non-violent, occurs at random, most commonly in the Sao Paulo and Rio de Janeiro metropolitan areas
Favelas - Very poor neighborhoods known as "favelas," often located on steep hillsides in Rio de Janeiro, are found throughout Brazil. These areas are sites of uncontrolled criminal activity, and are often not patrolled by police. U.S. citizens are advised to avoid these unsafe areas.
Girls - There are regular reports of young women known as "Mickey Finn girls" slipping knock-out drops in men's drinks and robbing them of all their belongings while they are unconscious
Rio - Recent efforts of incarcerated drug lords to exert their power outside of their jail cells have resulted in serious disruptions in the city.
Roads - Brazil's inter-city roads are widely recognized as among the most dangerous in the world. The Federal Highway Police reported 120,000 accidents in 1998, but this is believed to be a very conservative figure
Crossings - pedestrian "zebra" crossings are strictly observed in some places (e.g., Brasilia ) and ignored most everywhere else
Biopiracy - In the Amazon region, there is a special concern for the export of biological material, which could have genetic value. People propagating or exporting biological material without proper permits run the risk of being accused of “biopiracy,” a serious offence in Brazil
Theres quite a lot of stuff to read there, some of it though is a little inaccurate to me but maybe that is because i live here. Let me touch on a few things:
The buses tend to be varied, in cost and also in their schedules. for instance its common for buses not to arrive and the other drivers will cover for their collegues if you complain saying that the bus came and that you must have missed it or some other bullshit story lol. Its advisable in some places to carry a cloth to dust off the seats in rural areas.
Its not just in the Favelas that you find violence, here they will rob anyone anywhere for just the sandals from your feet. This is common with drugged up teenagers looking for more money to buy drugs and drink. Companies like Skol openly market their products to teenagers and sell their products in places such as gas stations encouraging drink driving knowing that they can basically kill people with their beers just to turn a profit.
The roads are terrible just about everywhere near my city. they hasve no idea how to construct roads here, they just slap down asphalt and bless it with holy water hoping that it will hold together - I'm serious about the blessing part too, they showed it in one of the papers once hehehe. Flooding of roads is common with just the slightest amount of rain, drainage here hasnt been thought of and its common to see feet of water on the roads sometimes. The amount of accidents a year is a lot higher than they report, everyday i see cars wrecked on the roadsides. People here have no basic idea of road safety and you can buy a drivers licence for more or less R$1000.
Crossing roads is a death wish here in Brasil. People have no idea how to drive anyway but crossings are best to be avoided. To be honest old people and women tend to be the worst as even if you are in the middle of the crossing they will try to drive through you or around you even mounting the pavements to get past the few drivers that stop to let you cross. Sorry but the part about women is true. Its better to just find a place that looks quiet or where there are policemen and cross there as most people dont have the proper documents for their cars and will stop just to make sure that they dont draw police attention to themselves.
Anyway you guys take a read and see what you think. Its a shame i dont have a digital camera so i can take a few photos for these things for you, it'd be a real eye-opener.
Yahoo..
Man, what is it with Yahoo recently? Everytime i try to access pages they seem to take ages to load or they dont exist. Its not just the US or UK ones either. I guess they must have some sort of widespread problem with their pages or something. Perhaps its their new homepage, not that I like it all that much. Before you could select from the homepage any other Yahoo page in another country but now you have to go through another load of screens. It looks like I'll be using Google more and more for searching as for me Yahoo took two steps back with their new homepages.
So today we have some guy here from Rio to observe the school, you can imagine how exciting today is going to be now, cant you? hehehe! I'm sure that one or more of my groups will get observed as I'm British. Sad really as my groups tend to be mostly MEC so today I saved alot of lcps and stuff to do that will take most of the classes to finish hahaha! For three days he is here, for three days i can find lcps to do too as I cant stand this looking over peoples shoulder type of observing. The teachers and students at Casa Thomas Jefferson get this three times a semester but for me this is just a sham way of doing things. Luckily though this doesnt happen very often here, I think its better to concentrate on some good teachers training instead with lots of interesting ways we can use the methodology to get the message across to the students. Perhaps I should play I-spy in my class hahaha!! I have some lyrics stuff prepared anyway for my groups, i ran some up yesterday but today need some stuff thats a little easier for my OM1, somehow i dont think Whitesnake is going to be easy for them to listen to while they play the game lol. I'll modify some Britney or Evanesence for them. I think music has to be one of the best activities for my groups, especially my MEC ones as they love to do anything that helps them to practice their English skills.
I was hoping that my stuff would have arrived from the UK by now. To be honest i think that someone from the post office here dips their hands into the post from other countries and just steals whatever they like. After all none of my packages from the UK have arrived for months. Shows just what sort of cheap bastards they have working in the sorting offices here right? I'll get my brother to send a big lump of dogshit next time and see how the post office here likes that!!
I'm listening to Accuradio, i usually like listening to the Flock of eighties channel. you can click Here if you wanna give it a try. They are playing Don't you forget about me From The breakfast Club soundtrack. This film is one of my favorites, Molly Ringwold, Judd Nelson, Emilio Estevez, and a classic soundtrack too. Has some really funny quotes in the film too. For example:
Vernon: Questions?
Bender: Yeah, I've got a question. Does Barry Manilow know that you raid his wardrobe?
Vernon: I'll give you the answer to that question, Mr.Bender, next Saturday. Dont mess with the bull young man, you'll get the horns.
Bender: That man is a brownie-hound.
Bender: A naked blonde walks into a bar with a poodle under one arm and a two foot salami under the other. She lays the poodle on the table. Bartender says, 'I suppose you won't be needing a drink.' Naked lady says-- "OOHHHH Shiit!!"
((Ruckus))
Vernon: Jesus Christ Almighty!
Bender: Forgot my pencil.
Alison: I'll do anything sexual and I don't need a million dollars to do it either.
Claire: You're lying.
Alison: I already have. I've done just about everything there is except a few things that are illegal. I'm a nymphomaniac.
Claire: Lie.
Brian: Are your parents aware of this?
Alison: The only person I told was my shrink.
Andrew: And what did he do when you told him?
Alison: He nailed me.
This film was just so crazy when they released it in 1985, how old was I then? wow a very young 19. I was just married to my first wife in the Uk then hahaha. If you didnt see this film then you should check it out. Get Kazaa and download my friends!
Time to get some coffee and get to the copy shop i guess..
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