“Mugged”

I know it’s a term that has entered into our vocabulary meaning to be attacked or threatened in the street and having your valuables stolen, but isn’t it victim shaming.

Are you the mug to have been” mugged”. I mean you may not have been holding your phone in the air to be stolen. You may, rightly so, have wanted to go for a walk in the park after dark. It doesn’t mean you are a mug does it?

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#HeadlineTherapy Blind refugee found dead in New York after being released by immigration authorities.

Thanks to Ana Faguy and BBC News for the Headline.

A 56 year old man who had lived in Myanamar(formerly Burma) and had to leave due to ethnic violence has died on the streets of New York having been arrested, detained and then left at a coffee shop some miles from his or his families residence. The authorities had investigated his right to be in New York and had ascertained they were valid. This was despite the fact the man, Nurul Amin Shah Alam was blind and did not speak any English.

In the article the Border Authorities implied it was kinder to drop him off somewhere warm and comforting like a coffee shop , rather than just kick him out of their premises after interrogating him. This argument fails miserably when it turned out that the coffee shop was closed. Somewhat worse was that the Homeland Security Department wrote a summary of what happened saying that he “showed no sign of distress or disability requiring special assistance.” The man was blind.

The temperatures in New York after dark were heading into minus figures, having probably never risen above 1-2 degrees the whole day. The people who left Shah Alam didn’t care , they just wanted their burden removed.

What is even more infuriating is that Shah Alam had the right to stay, otherwise they would have sent him to one of their holding areas where he would have been at least safe and warm even if the conditions may have been overcrowded.

Instead despite establishing that he had been given sanctuary in America, he was abused by a system which clearly has no respect for humanity.

There will be an investigation but the fact remains, Shah Alam had family in New York who could have been contacted and would have looked after him. It was pure cruelty to leave him on the freezing streets.

It was a random woman who had seen him lying down and” moving a bit” (three hours previous) to her report to the Police that she had seen him lying down and not moving. On the arrival of the Police he was discovered to have passed away, having presumably died of the cold and neglect.

This is an absolutely tragic story of human indifference.

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Planets and Stars are predictable

Daily writing prompt
Do you believe in fate/destiny?

With all the space ships and satellites moving around Earth and attempting to get to other planets and the possibility of man made collisions and pollution. Fate or Destiny is unlikely, man is a driven creature who likes to decide things and very rarely thinks things through. Our efforts seem so poor in comparison to the World we continuously want to explore and use .

Nature on the other hand accepts things and devises work arounds, where necessary but on the whole is predictable. Nature accepts that things happen even it didn’t anticipate the event; and decides on a path that man may not comprehend. It may be necessary that all good things come to an end. Death and rebirth might be part of survival in the long run.

I see a pattern not a fate and I trust in Nature more than I trust in man made decisions or angst or the wish to predict or run the future. Or indeed blow it up with man made devices.

Namaste and Thank You for Reading.πŸ™

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#HeadlineTherapy Major bank faces Β£600 million hit after UK mortgage lender collapses.

Thanks to Temie Laleye and GB News for the Headline

The bank in question is Barclays who appear to have been duped into lending to an unscrupulous UK mortgage lender “Market Financial Solutions”.

It’s all in the administrators hands now. The evidence shows that multiple loans were improperly secured for a number of single properties, leaving a massive shortfall in the loan to asset ration and leaving lenders exposed to losses.

There is worse news , according to Bloomberg more than Β£2 billion ( I assume the figure is correct and isn’t $) in loans to the bridging loan and buy to let mortgage provider (Market Financial Solutions) were provided by Wall Street Firms.

Pretty scary stuff, money chasing money and a House of Cards Scenario. Let’s hope it’s not the World that catches the cold from the plague of financial services double dealing.

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#HeadlineTherapy The family-owned soda firm that still uses returnable glass bottles.

Thank you to Gemma Handy and BBC News Online for the Headline

Twig’s Beverage in Shawano County in Wisconsin continue to use glass refillable bottles to provide their customers with their well known soft drinks which are made with sugar and not high fructose corn syrup.

There most well known product is “Sun Drop” a citrus-flavoured soft drink developed in the 1940’s.Today the brand is owned by US drinks giant Keurig Dr Pepper, but Twig’s continues to make their drinks under license for sale in Wisconsin and remains an independent family run Company.

Some of the refillable glass bottles are as old as 60 years old and are still going strong. This is truly an amazing business model which with an estimated 127 billion plastic bottles purchased every year in the United States Twig’s is a beacon of hope to everyone that there is a better way of providing for the consumer.

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Nostalgia

Daily writing prompt
Describe a phase in life that was difficult to say goodbye to.

It is difficult not to be nostalgic , but where does it get you? Nowhere, so in truth I have nothing to say goodbye to , only lots of things to wonder at.

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#HeadlineTherapy “Dog ambassadors” to be deployed at beauty spot.

Thanks to Sarah Turnidge and BBC Online News for the Headline.

The beauty spot is near Stroud and is a common where free roaming Cattle can be grazed by ancient right and is managed by the National Trust.

A suggestion has been made to have volunteer “dog ambassadors” to encourage people to do what they should be doing ie. dispose of dog waste safely and also to be aware of the danger to livestock of dogs that are out of control and that are a danger to themselves and others.

I do think it could be a voluntary role that would be helpful Nationally. There is such a strong ethic among dog owners that they know what is best , that I think it would be a difficult but a worthwhile task.

We all need sometimes to be reminded what is appropriate and I do like the idea that a ” Dog Ambassador” is making sure that the dog is being looked after by the owner, the dogs need to be protected from us , just as much as we need to be protected from bad behaviour from owners.

It’s the first time I’ve heard of this and it does seem a good idea.

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The Princess Question

Daily writing prompt
If you could be someone else for a day, who would you be, and why?

Well I can’t,so pointless question.

Nevertheless there’s those who will tempt small children into imagining that they can be Prince and Princesses. A dream or a nightmare perhaps, or is it just part of play time, a harmless pass time where the weird kid in the playground says she wants to be Einstein and everyone laughs. Who would want to be a funny old man with uncontrollable hair, did he discover or did he invent? Who cares? The kid who wants to be Buzz Lightyear, he’s cool. Everyone wants to play with him and most of the girls want to be Princess Leia

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#HeadlineTherapy Ex-MP main beneficiary of Covid fraud , court told

Thanks to Steve Jones, Bradford Crown Court and BBC News Online for the Headline

In a Crown Court in Bradford a Court Case is in progress where an ex Government Justice Minister appointed by Gordon Brown is on trial along with several others for basically saying they were running a Covid Testing facility and in actual fact they were giving out false results or no results at all to an unsuspecting population and getting a Government handout for doing so . It’s estimated that they made Β£6 million in 31 days.

Thankfully we are seeing some of these cases come to fruition, the five people involved who are on trial are charged with fraudulent trading, causing a public nuisance and money laundering.

Remembering back to those times and the fear that overcame us all with the situations that arose where normal social interactions ground to a halt and suddenly we were separated from loved ones at key times in their and our lives. We couldn’t see them in hospital or attend funerals for the sake of protecting everyone from infection. The charge of causing “a public nuisance” seems to me an understatement.

However it is a relief to see justice in action, it is horrific that all this money has been wasted and that no one in Government was qualified to say that these people were charlatan’s and should never have been put in the position they were. Justice Minister indeed!

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The imagination is so much better than the reality

Daily writing prompt
Describe the most ambitious DIY project you’ve ever taken on.

Oh the plans I have, the solutions to everyday domestic inconveniences. The perfect kitchen,living room bathroom and bedroom. They never work out. Why?

I’m not really sure, lack of planning or lack of money, the interest is there but perhaps I’m a DIY failure. I’m good at demolishing and not good at building, so perhaps I’ve learnt best not to start a project.

I’ve recently noted that the overhead lights in the kitchen are useless when you are trying to chop up vegetables in the kitchen after dark. They point in the wrong direction even though they are adjustable. I have my back to the light and basically my head casts a shadow on where I’m trying to cut neat little cubes of vegetables. It’s very frustrating, particularly when I move to the left and the light shines on my not so neatly cut vegetables.

Still I always say to myself ” there’s more important things in life”. I suppose there are, but at that particular moment of not being able to see what I’m doing, I really am apoplectic and it seems that the World is so unfair.

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