Not quite Independence Day
Last week I read about two separate distressing incidents that underline the need for support for people with disabilities to remain living with their families if that is at all possible. The first happened...
Indigo Jo Blogs Blog
No, Andy Murray doesn’t deserve a knighthood (yet)
Sir Andy Murray? David Cameron backs knighthood | Sport | guardian.co.uk So, Andy Murray finally won his first Wimbledon title, and Britain’s first men’s singles Wimbledon title since 1936 (as has been widely pointed...
Is Scotland really full of sexist Neanderthals?
Scotland's handicap? Sexist golf clubs | Kevin McKenna | Comment is free | The Observer There seems to be a trend recently with Kevin McKenna's articles in the Observer, which is to depict Scotland...
Korora 19: not a great advance on Fedora
In my review of Fedora 19 (in the last entry), I noted that I thought Fedora had abandoned the idea of end-users using Fedora and were targeting distro developers instead. There is a Fedora...
Fedora 19: clearly not for end users
A few months ago I published a scathing review of Fedora 18, the last release of the Linux distribution which started life as Red Hat Linux, once the version of Linux that everyone who...
TV adhan: media attack Muslim visibility
Yesterday, the Sun led with a headline “Ramadan-a-Ding-Dong”, a reference to Channel 4’s decision to air the Muslim call to prayer at different times of day during Ramadan. Their article includes an endorsement from...
Jeremy Forrest: what’s the meaning of abuse?
The week before last (I have only just had the opportunity to write about it due to work), a teacher from Kent called Jeremy Forrest was jailed for five and a half years for...
What’s the point of ‘care’?
The other night I saw a Panorama documentary which covered the issue of children going missing from the care system in the UK. I had been expecting this to be about children who were...
Mark Littlewood: making the War on Welfare personal
Today the Daily Mail published a quite astonishing and appalling article by Mark Littlewood of the Institute of Economic Affairs (and former spokesman for the Liberal Democrats, the Pro-Euro Conservative Party and NO2ID) calling...
People’s Assembly: a review
Yesterday the People's Assembly Against Austerity, which has been holding "rallies" (I'd call them meetings, rather than rallies which I always thought were held in the street or at least in the open) around...
Alex Spourdalakis: an atrocity, not a tragedy
Last week I heard the news that a 14-year-old boy with severe autism, Alex Spourdalakis, had been murdered by his mother and another female carer in a suburban area near Chicago after they had...
EDL versus Muslim extremists: Moore’s double standards
Woolwich outrage: we are too weak to face up to the extremism in our midst – Telegraph The above bit of EDL apologism by Charles Moore appeared in yesterday's Daily Telegraph, and it also...
Graffiti and the brutal conformity of the gang
Laurie Penny has an article in the latest New Statesman (not online yet) in which she bemoans the lack of graffiti on the trains and buses in London, which she says is ubiquitous on...
Let’s get the EDL banned
Proscribe English Defence League (EDL) – e-petitions This is a petition to proscribe the English Defence League. This will not force the EDL out of existence, of course, but it will mean no more...
Huge impact? Hardly.
Yesterday a 21-year-old Somali woman from London was given a community service order for posting an offensive tweet about the soldier Lee Rigby after his stabbing last month (but before the full facts about...
London Bravanese mosque firebombed
Police probe mosque blaze amid fears 'firebomb attack' is Woolwich revenge – London Evening Standard Last night a mosque in Muswell Hill, north London, was firebombed and the letters "EDL" were spray-painted onto the...
Britain’s mosques are not a ‘swamp’
As the dust settles on the Woolwich murder, so the vultures are starting to circle and the ground is being prepared for generalised attacks on the Muslim community, however much it was made clear...
No, Google can’t censor all the child porn
In the wake of the conviction of Mark Bridger yesterday for killing April Jones, a 5-year-old girl he kidnapped from a green on a housing estate in Machynlleth, mid Wales, last year, the focus...
Anjem Choudary is not Gerry Adams
In the wake of last week's Woolwich stabbing, there have been renewed calls to ban "hate preachers" from appearing on TV, most notably Anjem Choudary, the leader of al-Muhajiroun. Muslims, including myself, have for...
What’s an imam to do?
Last Friday at 1pm, Jeremy Vine had a slot about Islam and Muslims on his talk show on BBC Radio 2 — nice timing. This was, of course, prompted by the brutal murder of...