sjdean on the blog

I don't understand feminism. I simply don't. I learned yesterday that History is a mostly male dominated thing. Written by men, about men, for men! Chauvenistic pigs. How dare they have a primitive culture to us! But feminists seem to applaud anything to do with female and femininity, anything vaguely woman related, we should push for. Which always comes across to me as positive discrimination. To me it's a huge turn off. So when we use the criteria of gender and power to determine whether we should watch a film, or read a book, I do question whether "feminism" is the model of equality or equity with which we laud it. I've been trying to brush up on what exactly feminism is. They say it is about equality first off, as a loose sort of definition. But why call it feminism? Why not humanism? "Fem" = Female = Woman. So already it sets a distinction and puts women apart. Men can be feminists we're told, feminism is all encompassing, but femi...

One of my pet hates, is when someone says "Im Busy" when trying to organise something. I don't discredit the fact that someone is genuinely doing something, but it doesn't seem that difficult to look through your calendar and find a mutual date and time that works for both. Yes I realise that it can happen that you may actually have a full calendar, but saying "Im busy" to me, is just saying "You're such a low priority in my life, Im not going to even look at my calendar". I do get the impression though from time to time that some other people, mainly those with children, families, partners - seem to think that us single people, have a load of expendable time. Just because we don't have a family to spend time on, doesn't mean we're not busy ourselves. Some of us may work two jobs, volunteer, they might have to work longer hours, train for their job. We have no one to share the burden with, we have no one to do our cooking, sho...

Well I've been running Fedora on my works laptop for a few years. I actually found it quicker to install Linux and install Windows 7 inside a KVM/QEMU (Virtual) system than to install Windows 7 and install VirtualBox and Fedora under that! Linux has been stable, reliable, it's allowed me to be king of domains and DNS lookups with the dig command. It's been fantastic. But, and here is where I must point out my current wishlist. Even at Fedora 22, it creaks in the following areas which has now made it unsuitable for work. 1) QXLDOD - the WDDM Video Driver needed for Windows 8 and above. Windows 8 changed the driver technology, and there was no stable driver for Windows 8 unless you wanted a fixed size VGA screen. Finally QXLDOD is available which provides some functionality, but it's still nowhere near being as good as the QXL driver that was available for Windows 7. The old QXL driver would resize the Virtual Guest Screen in accordance with the Virtual Guest Window...

I used to think that one of the greatest evils, was homogenisation. I could sense that we were being homogenised in society to think the same, act the same, look and talk the same through laws and even human rights. If someone had a different view to the left, then you're a bigot. Quite frankly, I like the fact that we're all different, with different skills. I like going to different parts of the world and experiencing a different culture. We are one body, with different functions. Wouldn't things be boring if we were all the same! However, as a Christian, I am beginning to sense that a bigger problem, is fragmentation. There is the attitude often given, that you don't need to go to Church to be a Christian and you certainly don't need to be there every Sunday. You can be the salt and light where you are. There are alternative services during the week, so why is Sunday so important? Are you separate from the body if you don't go to Church on a Sunday? I...

One of the most intriguing things that has grasped my attention recently in my Christian faith, is the concept and important of Community. As a single person, it gives me a unique experience into the struggles people can have, and without my singleness, I would not have found other voice who feel lonely and isolated yet welcomed and accepted by their Church. My bible study and reading over the years has given me a model of Christian living that is rich in community, showing itself in fellowship, support, care and love for on another, in strong bonds of friendship that should be some of the closest we have in our lives. We have a relationship with God through the power of the Holy Spirit. We are reconciled to him, therefore, as I've said a few times before, we should be reconciled to each other. We are interconnected as one body, there is neither Jew nor Gentile, we are the same in Christ, no division, no barriers. If one of us hurts, we all hurt! As Jesus said, a new command...

It is starting to drive me mad everytime I see a Facebook post talking about what the Conservatives are doing to the NHS by signing the biggest privatisation deals in history. Well no. Not really. Its a collection of 11 deals with the biggest one at £240 million, at only half of the cost of the £500 million Virgin Care service. And the deal only brings in outside contractors. It does not privatise any section of the NHS. It is not being sold off. Of course, total all the PFI contracts for hospital building signed under the previous Labour government, where were the complainers then? Where were these liberals complaining about privatisation? " The high cost of hospitals built under PFI is forcing service cuts at neighbouring hospitals built with public money. For example, overspending at the PFI-funded Worcestershire Royal Hospital has put a question mark over services at neighbouring hospitals" Anyhow. Until these people agree that there are savings to be made in th...

I was going to label this post, "Equality", but how about All Inclusiveness instead. I've been reading this week on Feminism jargon from the likes of Emma Watson and something about Iceland and equal rights. There's a lot going on there, but there's still something that rubs me up the wrong way. In the name of equality, we ascribe labels to groups and talk about what they do and do not have and what we must do to get that group equality. But then we splinter this group even further when part of that group doesn't agree with the nuances of the other part of the group. It's quite amusing as a man seeing a group of women bickering amongst themselves about how feminism should work and calling each other names! It's actually not amusing at all, it's quite sad. At Church, it sometimes saddens me when I hear about all the different groups and activities for the different sections of community, There are groups targeted for children, for families...