#HeadlineTherapy Bus drivers will ‘resume strike’ on Friday if ‘serious proposal isn’t met by Isle of Man Government.

Thanks to ITVX News online for the headline.

I’ve always been fond of buses and public transport generally , ever since being driven to work by a bus driver who had to deal with heavy snow, take a diversion and pick up passengers who otherwise would have been stranded. In my mind he was as heroic as Indiana Jones.

So I was saddened to read about the Vannin (in my mind Valiant) Bus Drivers on the Isle of Man having to resort to strike action to achieve equal rights for all drivers whether full-time, part-time or casual. When they are working, whatever hours they are doing they are all doing the same job and should be given the same reward.

The dispute relates to fair , consolidated and pensionable pay and requires fairness to be applied. I really don’t think that the Isle of Man Government and Bus Vannin Management have a leg to stand on.

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Objects

Daily writing prompt
What are three objects you couldn’t live without?

Funny enough, when you have nothing , everything is taken away , you are stripped of the things that you thought important. What is left? Objects, do they matter and could you live without them? Sometimes you have no choice. In the past people have had no choice and have survived by adapting to circumstances or by fortuitous accident or coincidence.

A receptacle to hold water when you have flowing water all around you and without a receptacle you cannot have a drink. ( cupping your hands satisfies a need). You have wood to make a fire but no match, this is hard as suddenly the wood seems useless. Without a match, fire and warmth could you live without them? Perhaps there is a spark somewhere? Finally , nutrients, how would you sustain yourself , you don’t need plates and a knife and fork, but you look for food that you can eat again with your bare hands.

Objects are not what life is about, they do make life’s processes easier however.

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#HeadlineTherapy Waste firm starts turning used nappies into fuel.

Thanks to Hugh Casswell BBC News Online for the Headline

Using four chambers on a new machine that cost Β£1.5million to reduce the amount of waste going to landfill.

The first chamber in the machine will crush the nappy and sanitary waste into a compactable form while the rest of the chambers use aerobic digestion, biology and drying to safely break down the waste and convert it into inert non-organic matter, which can then be burnt and used to create energy. The material that comes out of the process is a kind of floc which can be used as a coal replacement but with a much smaller carbon footprint and of course with no biological nasties.

It sounds a no brainer as the modern nappy and sanitary towel is something that is made not to break down for convenience sake of the user. However, the waste will remain present in landfill for up to 500 years.

It’s estimated that about 400,000 tonnes of nappies are sent to waste every year, heaven knows what the amount of sanitary products are , currently most will end up in landfill.

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Breastfeeding

Daily writing prompt
What experiences in life helped you grow the most?

Breastfeeding.

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“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.

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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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