Tag: Take Part Daily

Marxism 2015 7: Sunday Morning

An account of the first part of Sunday at Marxism 2015 and a fistful of important links.

INTRODUCTION

Welcome to the latest installment in my series of posts about my experiences at Marxism 2015, the five day political festival in central London organised by the Socialist Workers Party. Check out the previous posts in the series. As well as the post itself I have some important links to share – and on the subject of sharing I hope you will be inspired to share this post!

GETTING THERE

The journey in had two variations on previous days – firstly my host was able to give me a lift to Walthamstow Central, saving some money on the Oyster Card, and secondly I decided to change to the Piccadilly line at Finsbury Park because Russell Square is actually the closest station to the Institute of Education. My dislike of lifts reduced the theoretical benefits of saving distance because the only other method of access to street level is via the stairs, of which there are 175.

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These balloon pictures are from the southbound Piccadilly line platform at Finsbury Park.

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The Piccadilly line is currently constituted.
The Piccadilly line is currently constituted.
A new style of schematic diagram now on display at many stations.
A new style of schematic diagram now on display at many stations.

AT THE EVENT

Here is my program of meetings for the day…

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You might not expect a theoretical meeting first thing on a Sunday morning to be lively, but it was. However I will settle for sharing a few photographs…

Speaker Sue Caldwell and chair (and SWP student organiser) Lewis Nielsen before the first meeting of the day.
Speaker Sue Caldwell and chair (and SWP student organiser) Lewis Nielsen before the first meeting of the day.

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Sue during her opening speech.
Sue during her opening speech.
A contributor from the floor during the discussion
A contributor from the floor during the discussion
A close up shot of picture on his t-shirt
A close up shot of picture on his t-shirt
When they contributed from the floor...
When they contributed from the floor…
...I was able to get a picture of the front showing which union it was.
…I was able to get a picture of the front showing which union it was.
This was the back of someone' shirt
This was the back of someone’ shirt

From this meeting I ascended two floors to Nunn Hall for my next meeting, Amy Leather (organiser of the whole event) on fracking. Here are some lowlights associated with fracking…

  • Uses vast quantities of water – millions of gallons per site
  • 2 – 2,500 lorry trips per well required
  • Tap water near fracking sites so polluted that folk can set fire to it
  • and 15 million Americans live within one mile of a fracking site – and it would be worse in this country because we are more densely populated.
  • We are still talking FOSSIL FUELS – every part of the process increases emissions
  • Process leaks methane – which is a much more powerful greenhouse gas than methane

Instead of supporting this means of generating power we should be looking more deeply in renewables (for which Cameron and his cronies have cut funding while they are pushing fracking like billy-ho).

I will end this section with a few more photos…

Amy and chair Dave Gilchrist before the meeting.
Amy and chair Dave Gilchrist before the meeting.
Amy during her opening speech.
Amy during her opening speech.

LINKS

TWO PETITIONS

Each of these petitions comes with two links, the petition itself and a related article. First up, a petition calling on SeaWorld to release Tillikum the orca:

1)The petition

2)An open letter to Harry Styles of One Direction, who recently urged his fans not to go to SeaWorld.

The second petition I am sharing with this post is the one calling on Theresa May to establish a legal exclusionary zone around abortion clinics:

1)The Petition

2)A related article in the Guardian

OTHER LINKS

My penultimate link is to a story on Take Part Daily about how roads could be made from plastic waste.

Last up, a story from Vox Political about the Speaker of the House making some very revealing remarks about the way in which Iain Duncan Smith conducts himself.

A Sharing Post

INTRODUCTION

Although I have been out and about today, and have some good pictures which will feature somewhere, this post is going to be almost entirely given over sharing stuff from other people, as I have some fantastic links and a couple of decent infographics.

VOX POLITICAL AND A VERY IMPORTANT FOI REQUEST

There are a number of links in this subsection, which relates to a long running campaign by Mike Sivier of Vox Political. As well as some stuff from Mike himself, I have a link to a piece about the MP for Newcastle, who has weighed in on our side, and a very important blog post from Jayne Linney which I have already shared with my twitter followers. I hope you will visit all the links below:

1)The Petition – please sign and or share.

2)Vox Political first post – on Downing Street and the deleted emails

3)Vox Political 2nd Post – on DWP continuing dishonesty.

4)Newcastle MP weighs in our side.

5)Jayne Linney blog post “Truth Seekers“.

AUTISM

Two excellent pieces in this section, firstly one of the finest explanations of Asperger’s Syndrome (my particular form of autism) that I have so far come across, courtesy of Durham Regional Autism Services. The second link in this section is to an old favourite, Autism Mom, and her latest post on visiting these shores with the Navigator.

THE ABI LONGFELLOW CASE

Two links here, a Mirror article and a petition:

1)Read the latest article about this case.

2)View, sign and share the petition.

THE LAST FEW LINKS

I have three more links to share with you. First, courtesy of Take Part Daily, a story about the method used by inhabitants of one tiny island to tackle illegal fishing in their protected waters. Second, a piece in the Independent about the disgraceful treatment of Raif Badawi. The links section began with Mike Sivier, and we finish by coming full circle, to his piece about Tories deeming it clever to back Corbyn for Labour Leader.

INFOGRAPHICS

First up in this section is a graphic representation of TTIP…

TTIP

My other infographic, saved on my computer as “Sprawl-mart” concerns a certain US Supermarket and tax havens where it has shell companies but no stores…

Sprawl-mart

ANOTHER EVENT AT KING’S LYNN LIBRARY

Details of an upcoming event at my local library in pictorial form…

The front of the library.
The front of the library.
The event poster.
The event poster.
A combined picture.
A combined picture.

SOME PHOTOS FROM TODAY AND A CLOSING STATEMENT

I hope that you have enjoyed this post, and that you will be encouraged to share it. I finish with a selection of today’s pictures…

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Auction and its Aftermath

INTRODUCTION

This is going to be one of my ‘interesting mixed posts’ as John P Ointon of notesfromthenorth recently described one, featuring my main body piece, links, infographics and photos.

AUCTION AND ITS AFTERMATH

James and Sons had their May auction this Wednesday just gone, at The Maids Head Hotel, Norwich and Thursday was therefore tied up with attending to tasks created by the auction. I made sure that my database was fully updated with details of people who had bid online, produced a word document containing a full list of all of these individuals for our records and also made a start on the press releases.

The auction day was marred by the fact that the venue was far too hot, and for much of the day we could not open any windows due the noise of roadworks going on outside. Nevertheless, there were some good moments, as there should have been given the quality of the stuff we had going under the hammer…

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The dog decides to sample the view from the auctioneers chair!
The dog decides to sample the view from the auctioneers chair!

There were two items which stood above all else, and gave the themes for my press releases, lot 218 a gold $20 coin in a sealed plastic box which having been estimated at £1,000 actually went for £1,800, and lot 251 a Waterloo medal, which was estimated at £1,500-2,000 and went for an eye-popping £4,700.

218 251FC

One the Thursday, while prepping the press releases I assembled a composite of all the images I had of the gold coin, and I will conclude this part of the post bu sharing the full gallery with you…

This is the composite image...
This is the composite image…
While this image and the next five are the component parts of that composite.
While this image and the next five are the component parts of that composite.

218 H2 218 218a 218b 218T

INFOGRAPHICS AND LINKS

First up, my one stand-alone infographic…

Hypocrisy Alert

A POST FROM AUTISM MOM

This wonderful post fully deserves a subsection to itself, and comes with some excellent infographics, which I have included here:

View Full Post

Autistic Learning Barriers Control 2

A WARM WELCOME TO MY LATEST NEW FOLLOWER

I have gained another new follower both for this blog and for my twitter account this morning, and I take this opportunity to share her latest blog post, a wonderful open letter to a fellow parent.

WIND POWER

Take Part Daily provided this superb feature on the possible future of wind power in the United States. As well as links to both the full post and the graphic I include a still of one part of the graphic:

1)The whole post.

2)Graphics

Wind Power

A FEW FINAL LINKS

I have three more links to share. First of all, this one from Vox Political on the DWP’s desperate attempts to avoid revealing what they obviously know will be a devastating truth. From Manchester comes this horrible story of a speeding motorist who killed someone, bragged about his speeding, and still only got sentenced to six years in jail. Finally, an important petition: El Salvador has one river still capable of providing it with clean drinking water, which will soon not be the case if one greedy mining company gets its way. I urge all of you to sign and share this petition.

PHOTOGRAPHS

Just before moving on to my final set of photographs I hope you have enjoyed this post, and if you have I urge you to share it. These last pics are all from a display in Fakenham Library…

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