anthropogenic climatological conditions

This week the theNorth of England nearly washed away in a series of floods. A number of people died and the economic damage was huge and is still being counted up.

And, of course, there were endless speculations about whether these June floods were the result of man made global warming. Well, I don’t know about that, but I do yhink that humans have worsened the impact of the heavy rains. And unlike climate change, there are things that we could do to lessen the impact:

• stop building on flood plains – the flood plains are already overbuilt and we’re not helping the situation by building on them more. If you build your house upon the sand, don’t be surprised if it gets washed away.
• stop concreting over everything – every bit of impermeableness placed on the land results in higher levels of run-off during periods of excess precipitation. Basically, the water doesn’t have a chance to seep into the ground naturally – it all builds up and ends up in your living room. It takes a little bit more thought, but we can have more permeable paving or breaks in the paving. We could start by ensuring proper drainage in our own patio gardens. Water used to pool up in our garden until we removed the concrete between the pavers. It seems a small thing, but in terms of run-off every little bit really does help.
• maintain the drainage system. In much of urban England the natural drainage system of creeks and gullies has been replaced by concrete canals. Sure – this contains the water in times of normal precipitation – but chanelised flow means water moves faster – and faster water is more powerful water. The drainage system was built long ago and wasn’t designed to cope with the high levels of run-off from our concrete jungle and sewage and waste water from our developments. The canals are often poorly maintained now, too. Clogged with willows and weeds and shopping carts, the flow isn’t uniformly smooth. And that causes all kinds of problems on its own.

The government is still not taking these factors into account despite numerous warnings. People are more concerned about climate change where the UK government’s actions will have minimal effect at best (even if you believe in the anthropogenic climate change model). But sensible action in flood prevention can save lives and property now.

Good news, bad news

On the upside, a big ol’ car bomb failed to detonate in London.

On the downside – I realize that I was at absolutely no risk of being at a popular London nightclub at 2am on a weekday.

This is your Jerry Springer moment

A couple of years ago the Vol-in-Law and I went to see Jerry Springer, the Opera in the West End. The content was about as blasphemous and offensive as it comes, but all good fun – really. Much more fun than the Jerry Springer episodes currently aired on British cable which all seem to run like this:

Guest 1 tells Jerry and the assembled baying crowd a secret which will upset Guest 2 if Guest 2 has any shred of decency.

Guest 2 comes out on stage bewildered and bemused and bracing for the worst (as one Guest 2 said in a show I recently watched – You didn’t bring me on the Jerry show to tell me good news?)

Guest 1 -suddenly hesitant – reveals all with the encouragement of Jerry.

Guest 2 lets fly with a flury of ineffective punches and security steps in just that little bit too late.

The secret varies – but only slightly – from show to show. Guest 1 is:

• a lesbian sleeping with her cousin
• a boyfriend sleeping with the cross-dressing best friend of his girlfriend
• a bog boned gal is sleeping with anyone who has a six pack and twenty-five dollars cash much to the shock of her husband.

Back to the opera – one of the numbers – which becomes a bit of a leitmotif – was This is Your Jerry Springer Moment – essentially describing that point in time when your life becomes so trashy that your role as Guest 1 or Guest 2 is instantly defined.

I thought about this, because well, I’m watching a lot of daytime tv these days and because of the comments about Australian sex workers on this post – which reminded me of a moment in time when I told a friend “Man, you coulda a been on Jerry Springer with that tale.” Which, in retrospect, may not have been the most supportive thing I could have said.

Turns out this friend of ours – an Australian – had a girlfriend who turned out to be a sex worker. Well, he being the understanding sort who always saw the better side of people he said that while this needn’t be the end of their relationship – she did need to find a new line of employment. Which she did not. And then there was another whole sad sorry tale of a pimping boyfriend and an abortion and a legal consultation – and even though this had happened some time before he related the tale and in a land far away – it was obviously still very painful. And I said “Man, you coulda been on Jerry Springer with that tale.”

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I’ve racked my brain, but I don’t think I’ve ever had a truly Jerry Springer moment. I did have a boyfriend who cheated on me – but she was just a normal girl (hmmmm…as far as I know). Oh, but looking back on it – she did live in a trailer – so maybe it was just a brush with a Jerry Springer moment.

I did meet my husband through the Internet – but that was like sooo mid-90s that it barely attracts comment these days.

Lemon drops

The lilies are in bloom in my garden.

Safer sex work?

Over at Nashville is Talking, the question has been posed: Why isn’t prostitution legal? prompted by this post which speculates that sex workers might be safer if it was. Would that solve all kinds of problems? e.g. lower levels of disease and crimes against the women who engage in prostitution?

Despite the fact that I’m generally in favor of the free market – including the selling of personal services, I’m very dubious indeed about the legalisation of prostitution. Is it for moral reasons? Yes, it is. But it’s not about sex. It’s about the way that we treat workers on the bottom rung of the economic ladder.

Those who favor the legalistation of prostitution and the heavy regulation of the sex workers and their places of work probably have the right idea in principle, but not in practice. Prostitutes are the lowest of the low – they always have been. Legalising the trade has never made that different. I mean how many women who’ve managed to get out of the sex biz now have their time as prostitutes proudly displayed on their resume*? Even in countries where prostitution is legal. (Despite the fact that engaging in this kind of work successfully demands a whole array of marketable skills – flexibility, customer service and a sharp judge of human nature). Sure, a few whores manage to attain some sort of social standing and they’re called courtesans or heterae or geisha and offer companionship as well as sexual services. But these are a rare breed indeed – how many of us could charge just for the pleasure of our company and maybe a little singing or tea pouring?

In countries where prostitution is legal and regulated (e.g. the Netherlands) the sex work force isn’t overwhelmingly happy hookers. No, it’s the foreign sex workers who may or may not be there willingly, the drug addicted and the grossly misfortunate. Regular blood tests don’t change this and the people who manage these workers (pimps, if you will) don’t care about the personal development of their employees. This is a dead end job which usually results in that dead end quite early. And these are workers in a highly regulated, partly socialised economy where there are well-established mechanisms for investigating work place safety. The sex trades in London and Amsterdam and other big cities in Europe are well stocked with sex slaves from Eastern Europe and South East Asia and Africa. Do you really think that people who would enslave young women and boys are into complying with red tape and regulation? These folks are criminal scum and they’ll find ways to get around regulation just as they find ways to get around the existing legislation against prostitution, pimping and slavery.

What about the US? Do you think America is geared up to regulate the sex trade? Under the Bush administration work place safety and regulation has been gutted. And that’s for respectable trades like mining or utility ditch digging or meat packing – not for the morally dubious business of sex for sale. Can you really see the religious right prioritising the physical and mental welfare of prostitutes when the Republican party has resisted supporting workers and maintaining an objective, adult attitude to sex?

No. My reasons for objecting to legalisation of prositution is that I don’t think it will make much, if any, difference to the safety of sex workers and may make it more difficult to pursue the criminals behind the worst practices in the trade.

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*update: – well, here’s one example – but I reckon that’s pretty unusual.

I am not a crook

Cletus is less than four weeks old and already he’ll be on his second Prime Minister. Yes, Tony Blair leaves office today and Gordon Brown takes over.

I guess I can add to the apologias and eulogias by saying, I’ll be sorta sad to see Tony go. But mostly because I hate Gordon Brown – I think he’s sneaky and secretive and less interested in following the rules than even Mr Blair. He never owns up to the damage that he’s done (pensions funding, Private Finance Initiatives, NHS funding). And I have to say, I’ll never forget how comforting Tony Blair was on the afternoon of September 11, 2001. He said just what I wanted to hear in just the right way when George Bush was still taking secret flights or hiding in a bunker or something.

Anyway, the timing of the prime ministerial change made me think…is there an effect on the personality of those born during the reign of this or that political chief. You know, like a horoscope or the Chinese Year of the Pig? Will little Cletus born in the wane of Blair, with Gordon rising have a gift for the glib soundbite (Blair), disregard the importance of process and constitutional tradition (Blair and Brown – and Bush for that matter) and be open about his actions and ambitions to a only a small, personally loyal cabal (Brown and Bush)?

And what about myself? I was born in the midst of the Nixon era. And I have to say, I’ve always had a fondness for the fellow. But what about the effect on my personality? Well, I’m not a crook. Seriously. Though I do have a firm sense that rules are not quite meant for me in the same way that they’re meant for other people.

And what about the Vol-in-Law? He was born during the office of Edward Heath. My knowledge of British politics pre-my-arrival is poor, but Heath strikes me as curmudgeonly and someone will take you into treaties and agreements (European Union) under less than auspicious conditions. Well, the ViL is a bit of a grumpus sometimes…but as far as I know he’s not secretly gay and he did a great job negotiating the installation of our wood floors a number of years ago. So maybe this is just as reliable as the old horoscope.

On the other hand, VolBro was born during the Carter years – and sure enough, he’s a left-wing cracker. A member of that very small bass-fishing, Big Orange loving, poker playing, shit-shooting, Lynyrd Skynyrd listening, Ralph Nader voting faction of the electorate.

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Cletus is not a crook either, he just looks like one.

Fastest milk cart in the [South] West

A reader asks:

Is it fun having a milkman?

Well, it’s not exactly like this. But it’s still pretty cool. I’d resisted getting milk delivered to our door, as it costs nearly twice as much as buying milk at the store. On the other hand, popping in for milk at the local Sainsbury’s always results in additional impulse purchases – so maybe overall it saves us money. And the milk, delivered in glass bottles, is not only environmentally friendly (as the glass bottles are reused) but tastes better, too.

This morning it seemed extra fun – because we got a free sample pint bottle of chocolate milk. A near sinful and unneccessary frivolity – but tasty and delicious all the same. The Vol-in-Law informed me that we could have it delivered every fortnight – meaning it wouldn’t be quite so decadent as frequent delivery. I’m thinking about it.

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I’ve always had a slight fear of glass milk bottles. A little boy who lived on First Street in Lawrenceburg when and where VolMom was growing up, ran out of his house one morning and fell on the glass milk bottles and freakishly cut a major blood vessel and bled to death. This is the dark side of milk delivery. I heard this story several times in my early impressionable years, but no doubt it left a deepr impression still on VolMom – who had known the little boy. VolMom greatly enjoyed our delivered milk – but when the taxi came to take her off to Heathrow for the flight back to America – she pointed to the assembled empies by our front door.

“Did I ever tell you about…?” she started.

“Yes, you did,” I replied.

the lights are going out all over Europe

When I quit smoking last autumn, I promised myself a last smoke in June. See at the end of this month, it’s the end of indoor smoking in England. I thought I’d have about a six week old baby and that I would be pretty much fighting fit again after my lovely tranquil home birth. Not so much. I thought I could sneak off to the pub – swish down a cheeky half and smoke one lovely, last Marlboro Red in salute to the end of public smoking, as we knew it, in England.

I want that last smoke.

But I’m still feeling under the weather. I’m nearly as bad as I was in the days after my release from the hospital. Though better than I was at the weekend. I managed to walk to the drugstore today – accompanied by the Vol-in-Law. And you know, the drugstore is just about the same distance as to my local pub.

Morning baby

Cletus has got an impressive set of lungs. That boy can holler.

But one good thing about him is that he seems to be a morning baby.

After sleeping through much of the night, he wakes up chipper.

He didn’t get that from either of us. In the morning, I just want to be alone. And the Vol-in-Law is even worse.

“Maybe he really is the milkman’s son…” I say “After all the milkman must be a morning person.” Our milk is delivered in the wee small hours, at least it’s always there when I get up.

“Yeah, right.” says the ViL “I can’t see you getting up at 4.45 to have sex with the milkman.”

recovery update

Recovery update:

Turns out – as I suspected – that I’ve been taking antibiotics which don’t actually work in the infection I have. Only through aggressive checking up have I got on the right drugs…hopefully.

And I might be walking too much – but that’s the only way to keep my feet swelling down. They are still uncomfortably large.