AnAppeal/MajiMazuri

http://majimazuri2011.blogspot.com/

A friend from home has set up this blog to raise awareness of the Maji Mazuri project in Kenya. She's hoping to go over there this summer. Like most NGOs/charity work I gather that there's going to be a bit of a helping-people-for-just-a-month-because side to it, but the Cambridge/Maji Mazuri project, from what I gather, hopes to differ in that the aim is to set up a long term link between the two communities, and to promote sustainable development and a refreshing sense of independence. The students going over to Nairobi have all been selected because they're hoping to work with charities in the future, whether through voluntary work, through government/charity projects or by lecturing on and developing the literature as to why we actually have charities in the first place, our attitudes towards them and how communities that are initially established through external charity can become self supporting. It's also a great project in terms of the attitudes it helps foster - in particular work for women's rights and equality of employment, as well as working to prevent disability discrimination and promote tolerance. It makes me wonder about how we form communities, and how communities form attitudes. It should be really interesting, in particular the challenges of forming an 'independent'/'sustainable' economy. That said, they do really need £££ to get over there, and to ensure that the charity is supported at this stage - they're asking for donations of computers, medical equipment and all that jazz. You can check it out at http://majimazuri2011.blogspot.com/ and just clicking that link/clicking the ads on that link will provide them with money. If you do know any big business types, pass it on along with the funding incentives - personally I'd like to see them get funds from the co-operative, small, local and agricultural type businesses that they're trying work with as a model. That or book sellers, books are good...
But yeah, check it out, and post me your thoughts.

UK/Uncut

we can advertise too.

www.ukuncut.org.uk

There is so much wrong with our high streets, the gradual destruction of communities, community centres, small businesses, book stores, independent café's, libraries, anything that isn't a mindless blah of depression in an increasingly soulless pit. The epidemic of tax dodging and fraud revealed by the excesses of the Conservative alliance, the revelation that public services and welfare are being cut for the preservation of big business, for nuclear weaponry, for monarchy, for holidays-on-a-yacht is more than just a finger to point at the wallowing rich - it's a expose that shows a system rotten to its core. The belief that the social good is at the core of our government, that we live in a 'democratic' society, that Britain (amongst other 'developed' nations) intervenes for the welfare of its citizens and aims to preserve fundamental human rights is in shambles. In a system so fully reliant on the suppression of intellectual criticism, on the promotion of hugely damaging commercial, un-ecofriendly, un-humanfriendly corporate interests as 'cool' or desirable or 'cult' as sops to the poor, welfare is not sustainable. Capitalism is not a meritocracy. Capitalism is not compatible with freedom, equality, liberty, charity, environmentalism. It never was. The rich ain't rich unless the poor are poor. Capitalism is kaput. 

Boycott/Topshop

First as Tragedy, Then as Farce

Out with the old/In with the new

Happy New Year! 

What an inspiring beginning. Laurie Penny just about sums it up, as you can see here, I'm looking forwards to writing something myself in the days to come. 

Activism/Tea

I've finally accepted that a cuppa is not wasted if drunk sitting in front of a screen as opposed to at the table getting inky thumbs from paper news and have been making the most of it. That and it's good to read. And anyway, a tea making type of kettle is invariably preferable to a police kettle.
Here's some of what I've been reading...
Bad kettle
http://www.newleftproject.org/index.php/nlpblog/fulltext/kettled_at_westminster/
GAH! KETTLE!
http://www.guardian.co.uk/uk/2010/dec/22/kettling-video-appalling-police-watchdog
Social mobility?
http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2010/dec/28/working-class-social-mobility-education
Cameron kills children??
http://www.guardian.co.uk/politics/2010/dec/16/spending-cuts-rise-absolute-child-poverty
What next?
http://www.newleftproject.org/index.php/site/article_comments/where_next_for_the_students_movement_an_nlp_roundtable/
After all of this (well, to be honest, not after all of this - more like after a steady and well developed tea drinking couple of years) I'm pretty certain that tea is the key to my ability to concentrate. It's also partly the reason I can read most of the above and not break down completely. It's good to be able to justify an addiction, so my final reading for the day is somewhat less political, although written by someone I'm sure would rally the cause were he still around, a good etonian??!!
http://orwell.ru/library/articles/tea/english/e_tea