Also, yesterday:
The Home Office assessment agrees with what neuroscientist Kathleen Taylor wrote in her book “Cruelty”, namely that even the mildest verbal otherization primes people for aggression.
Someone in Bournemouth, England is suggesting that the government is paying him to organize gang-stalking of people and get those others to break into the targets’ homes?
(I suddenly received comments about this on several of my comments and on a video on YouTube.)
Continue readingI made a related video a few years ago. (A few hours later: Except, it appears that there is hackers messing with URLs again so maybe you’re not getting to see that particular video, below. It’s happened before. I’m currently getting some weird messages that I am choosing to ignore and my screen split up all of a sudden.)
This is a case I looked into a few years ago. I read the report and exchanged one or two tweets with her mother. I don’t know why but her case got to me more than others.
Now there is a documentary. The police response at the time was even more lackadaisical than was already known. (I’m still in the middle of watching the documentary at the moment.)
What I remember is that the police didn’t have the IT expertise at hand that would have determined that the other messages were coming from him too.
Her case particularly also is why I feel strongly that cases of stalking and harassment should be dealt with very differently.
(That reminds me. Does anyone know how that big legal action against the police in England is going? It made the news when it was filed but I haven’t seen any more news about it since. I know that a lawsuit can easily take one or more years.)
Lauren’s calls to the police, to me, sound like she was very concerned (afraid), but doing her best to stay above it.
Please note that the date on this post is incorrect. I don’t know why there is an incorrect date on this post.
Watch the damn videos. Both of them.
This is classic sadistic stalking, also known as resentful stalking. It’s intended to make someone’s life a living hell. To control someone else.
It can manifest in various forms.
Be warned. This is not a funny video to watch. Someone died.
The victim in this video relocated several times to try to escape the stalking. In the end, she went to the police. Thankfully, they believed her and set up a trap. When they caught the stalker, the police discovered several other victims, including a colleague of the victim who reported the stalking to the police.
Continue readingI am sure that I am not the only one who sometimes gets really disheartened when efforts and accomplishments clash with the callousness and destructiveness of cold old-fashioned capitalism. If you are feeling at a loss as to how to proceed and feel ready to pack it in, then you may find this Plum Village presentation really helpful.
She’s a former BBC journalist who worked on the politics newsdesk.
That’s good. I must still be alive somewhere under it all.
Also had convictions for animal abuse. Also possibly had Asperger’s? Problems with alcohol. Depression.
Someone who needed to receive medical care rather than to provide it.
Source: NOS
https://nos.nl/artikel/2492220-om-waarschuwde-erasmus-mc-voor-psychotisch-gedrag-en-veroordelingen-l
Continue readingUPDATE:
😍🥰👍
(The future of bioethics: Challenges, Visions and Opportunities)
Also, new president of the Hastings Center.
I love her vision! I so agree!!! Very challenging, sure. “Aspirational and inspirational” as she put it.
I e-mailed her and wrote the following:
Thank you. I am going to mull this over and let it inspire me.
I am a member of the public, have a background in earth and life sciences. I ran into the very first edition of Glenn Cohen’s EDX course and that’s what got me into bioethics.
I love the way – aspirational and inspirational, indeed – you are tackling – or should I say “approaching” – the field. It’s very challenging to take all views and angles into account – but we should, no matter how difficult this is – and I really love the way you fully embrace that. I also think that bioethics cannot keep being mainly restricted to the US and that it needs to go global, even though that is going to be so so challenging.
Having lived in England with its persistent class ideas, maybe I can contribute that housing and homelessness are part of the poverty topic, which is an inequity topic and the result of government policies and decisions. I agree with Philip Alston on that (NYU). 40% of Brits are currently in poverty.
Also, if you haven’t heard of them yet, then the IAPG – international association for the promotion of geoethics – might be useful to know about – connections to mining industry – and, with regard to the havoc that biased algorithms can cause, that’s not restricted to health, but also to tax-related decision-making, which also can have health impacts. In a pretty shocking Dutch childcare tax credit scandal, children were sometimes removed from parents, but I am sure you’ve heard of it.
Enjoy your weekend.
Also, when I wrote my book about “the new eugenics”, I looked for people to send it to and did my best to find scholars in Arabic and African countries too. I really was interested in how Islamic scholars and cultures see these issues.
Speaking of which: https://www.eventbrite.com/e/islam-and-bioethics-what-we-all-need-to-know-registration-713788158597
See also https://sps.columbia.edu/academics/masters/bioethics/events
Shouting match outside, Portsmouth-style. (Well, somewhat.)
I go onto my balcony, wish the guy a good evening, assuming that he just was the target of racism. There’s a little bit of that here locally, I’ve noticed. It’s horrible. Awful, just awful. People whose skin isn’t white and/or who speak a different language.
He shouts back, too angry to listen in detail to what I am saying. Oh, I know what that is like. After years of being showered with blind hate and contempt, you can end up very angry indeed. I know how it goes.
(He wanted to be heard. He was NOT in a mood to listen to me.)
He was merely angry. Controlled. But hurt.
Been there so many times myself in the English enclave of Hatesville. The hate knows no bounds and nobody wants to listen to you, about what is being done to you. I know what that is like. Boy, do I know what that is like.
Next, young women tell me to keep my mouth shut because there are people living here. What am I? A tomato?
Shortly after that, three low-flying helicopters pass, some kind of VIP. (They flew NW-SE. Heading 130, maybe.) I’ve seen something similar when Trump arrived in Portsmouth.
Some young woman under my window starts shouting that these are our liberators, that they’ve been preparing for 80 years. Or was it 60?
I’m so through with the human species.
I hope that the guy got rid of his anger by shouting at me. You can’t keep bottling it up but nobody wants to know about it, so you have no choice but to bottle it up. Every once in a while, it comes out, whether it’s convenient or not. Usually it’s not at all.
Fuck you, Portsmouth with all your hate, your relentless hate. Fuck. You.
That guy’s anger resonated with me.
The owners received a call. “We’ve got your dog Luca here.” They thought it was a joke. “No, no, we’ve just read the data in her chip.” The dog even remembered the owner’s voice. Miracles do happen.
25 September: here we have a missing cat returned after 11 years. The poor thing lived as a stray.
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-wales-66913831
I also read about American birds being blown across the Atlantic by a hurricane (with many more likely having drowned). Here is a photo of one. You can see the hurt, confusion and shock in its eyes. It’s not likely to make it. It feels vulnerable.
For people like me, this means that we can now find ourselves deported as a result of having held up a sign to do with climate change. For example because it inconveniences someone who may now have to walk or drive around you.
Want a comparison of the legal reasoning in this case?
In a trial prosecuting someone who went berserk because he found his wife cheating on him, the latter cannot be mentioned while addressing the jury.
Another example could be that if you chased a burglar with a frying pan and the burglar ended up with a broken wrist and ripped clothes when he climbed your fence to get away, he can now force you to say nothing about the burglar part while addressing the jury in the trial in which you are prosecuted for having clobbered him with the frying pan.
I became curious as to what happened to people who came out of the Nazi concentration camps and how on earth they dealt with having become separated from loved ones, particularly children, and having no idea whether they had been able to survive or what happened to them. This inability to protect your loved ones from harm, particularly one’s children, it’s probably the worst thing that can happen to a human being.
This is what I just found: https://encyclopedia.ushmm.org/content/en/article/the-aftermath-of-the-holocaust
Maybe like this.
This is what the Dutch news looks like this morning and it struck me that the top headlines are about the United States and Canada on the left and California on the right, followed by headlines about Darfur, Ukraine and Russia and the magazine Rolling Stone.
Below that is a headline about Libya, one about Brazil and then finally the first Dutch news, about an explosion in Rotterdam.
Continue readingWhat to do with it, with all those glass-and-steel cubicles? That is what the Dutch “financial times” (FD) is asking. I get its daily emails, in case you have started wondering why I so often refer to it.
Simples.
House England’s homeless. The people whose income is so low that they can’t even get onto that housing ladder.
Who is going to write the proposal that will make it add up financially and approach all relevant parties? I’m sure it can be done. Where there’s a will, there’s a way.
In view of the brilliant inclusive commercials HSBC has had in recent years, for example on a billboard along Lake Road in Portsmouth, certainly HSBC will want to listen and cooperate (unless it has a reason for wanting a PR disaster on its hands).
“Today, shed office. Tomorrow, head office.”
There you go.
(I have not seen that one in person. I remember a few that made me feel supported, as a migrant, however. They had a bold “keep pushing back against hostile Tory and Brexit sentiments, also post-Brexit” feel to them. I photographed at least one of them, possibly the one with the football photo. They gave off a strong message.)
The building is owned by the Quatar Investment Authority (QIA). It has a connection to the Canadian firm Brookfield. The Canary Wharf Group is owned by the QIA and Brookfield.
Who can step up?
Where there’s a will, there’s a way.
/cloudfront-us-east-2.images.arcpublishing.com/reuters/5WRZXEDK6ZI4BPFJCFTNRTWI4Y.jpg)
Here is one of those ads that I saw in Portsmouth pretty recently.
In my inbox, from Abigail Penny, Executive Director of Animal Equality UK:
Hi Angelina,
Last night was BIG.
BBC Countryfile investigated the Scottish salmon industry after Animal Equality shared undercover footage with them showing sick and dead fish.
People all over the country saw the footage supplied by Animal Equality to the BBC, showing the suffering behind the salmon products that they see on supermarket shelves.
And a lot of people have been reacting.
The Sun published an article this morning about the programme titled ‘Countryfile fans left sick to their stomach’.
We also saw comments from fellow animal protection organisations including OneKind, Compassion in World Farming, The Humane League, Animal Aid and more.
And more than 1,500 people have already signed our petition calling for the Scottish salmon industry to be halted from expanding any further!
There’ll be a lot of people thinking very differently about salmon today. I’m sure many have vowed never to eat Scottish salmon again and instead choose plant-based alternatives.
Supporters like you played a big role last night and I’m so thankful for everyone who’s fighting for fish right now.
Together, we’ve just pointed an enormous spotlight onto the Scottish salmon industry. Believe me, they’ll be feeling the pressure today.
But it wasn’t all positive.If you saw Countryfile, I’m sure you saw some of the coverage was not totally in support of fish.The Scottish salmon industry had plenty to say and they tried to play down the millions of deaths happening on its farms.
Angelina, we knew this would happen. We knew they’d try to defend their profits, even though millions of fish continue to suffer because of them.
That’s why I decided to record an interview with fish welfare expert, Professor Jennifer Jacquet, immediately after Countryfile aired.
In the video, we discuss the Countryfile episode and respond to some of the arguments made by the Scottish salmon industry.
I’ve also added this illustrative video below about fish welfare.
I’m currently playing music by another English hate-fueled establishment bastard. Another loser who got lost in the English class system.
Of course, he wrote and played the music before he became part of the same establishment that he apparently used to go on about in those days.
No more time for paupers now.
https://www.bps.org.uk/research-digest/inflammatory-response-may-influence-how-we-see-others
Also, there’s a link between inflammation (which can result after prolonged stress) and how we see others.
Continue readingYour skin doesn’t shape your health but it reflects it.
So if you look much younger than you actually are, you are probably in very good health and likely to live long. That leaves you plenty of time to cath up.
Besides, research has also shown that you are more likely to get hired when you have slightly rosy cheeks. It makes you look healthy. A touch of the blush brush can work wonders for those of you with allergies and other reasons for looking a little sallow (if you’re white).
https://www.bbc.com/future/article/20230823-the-curious-ways-your-skin-shapes-your-health
… I sat in my room one evening and watched a BBC Young Musician final. Headphones on, as always. https://www.bbc.com/news/entertainment-arts-36279467
There was Jess Gillam. I ended up completely in tears – as in “I died and went to heaven” – when she played “Where the bee dances”.
The rest of the world had disappeared. There was just this piece, this performance. Nothing else.
Portsmouth and its relentless ugly hate, greed, utter misery, violence, its stupid glorification of hate, greed, corruption and violence and all the rest of it had disappeared completely and no longer mattered in any form, way or shape. It no longer existed.
And this, this exactly probably is the perfect embodiment of the explanation why Portsmouth and I never got along. Something like this is so many trillion lightyears away from the place, it’s completely irreconcilable.
I don’t know what made that performance so stellar, so immensely moving, but nothing else comes to mind that comes close. She played her heart out, Jess did.
The orchestra outdid itself too, obviously inspired by her.
I can no longer listen to it, and watch it, but some of you can. Nobody in Portsmouth will. That I know.
https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p0443pnj/player
(Jeez, just the memory brings me to tears.)
Continue readingVideo: https://nos.nl/l/2489150
Surely, this counts as torture. A horrific human rights violation.
I’ll ask you one simple question.
Would you like to be in prison for life?
…
Well, then. There you are.
This is a follow-up to my previous post about her, about her possible motive.
We tend to think of such people as clever, scheming and cunning, don’t we? Lucy Letby certainly was scheming, but her notes have revealed how utterly miserable she was, so she wasn’t feeling superior to others. The fact that she’s rotting in prison now tells us that she wasn’t very clever either.
Seriously criminal behavior almost always comes at a great cost to the people who commit these crimes, too. Just consider how this whole thing must have taken over her entire life.
When you think of the victims, you get overwhelmed by their side of the experience and all you see is evil-doing. But what is it, evil?
The people who get fooled by the easy smiles and eager helpfulness of the likes of Lucy Letby have a lot to answer for too.
That not all is well within the NHS at management level has been known for years as well.
Yet calling out things that aren’t right and should be remedied will almost always get you vilified. That’s because it is metabolically costly for the brain to consider opinions that upset one’s firm beliefs, if it’s not political.
Similarly, most of us have the tendency to believe that if a person smiles a lot and appears very eager to help, she must have a matching character.
(I got this latter bit of wisdom from a paper about psychopathy. We tend to associate certain behaviors with certain character traits, but there may be no correlation at all. We are too eager to take things at face value. We also tend to assume that children who smile a lot aren’t being abused at home, for example.)
Anyone seriously interested in the questions that new technologies like CRISPR force us to consider (except those of us who have no conscience and are not capable of remorse) and willing to put their teeth into it may want to dive into the following older publications to start developing a perspective on these issues.
These papers will make you aware of ableist bias and fashion effects as well as legal aspects, whereas scientist and technologists tend to have scientific constraints and consequences on their mind, such as off-target effects.
Cohen, Glenn: https://angelinasouren.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/09/intentionaldiminishment-ssrn-id1330504.pdf
Greely, Henry: https://angelinasouren.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/09/05-greely_remarks_final.pdf
Sandel, Michael: https://angelinasouren.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/09/sandel-the-case-against-perfection.docx
https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2004/04/the-case-against-perfection/302927/
Rabe Smolensky, Kirsten: https://repository.uclawsf.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=3719&context=hastings_law_journal
https://angelinasouren.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/09/rabe-smolensky-ssrn-id1158631.pdf
