Out and About the Jersey Blogs

Bob Hill has a new posting on the dual role of the Bailiff
 
http://bobhilljersey.blogspot.com/2014/05/jerseys-bailiff-times-are-changing.html  
 
He makes a good point here:
 
"I listened to parts of the debate and it became evident that sentiment over logic became the order of the day. I heard one Connétable state that if it's not broke why fix it and parishioners were asking why the Bailiff was being kicked out of the States. The comment was certainly an own goal because one the reasons why Connetables claim their role in the States is so important is because they are the direct Parish link to the States. If that is so, how many Connetables arranged Parish meetings to discuss the proposition or other propositions for the matter? I stand to be corrected but I doubt whether any parish meetings were held to discuss the matter."
 
Part of Sir Philip Bailhache's argument for a Referendum was that the people should be consulted. It is amazing that this comes retrospectively, and that no Parish meetings have been called - either by Constables or by Deputies or Senators, for that matter, to discuss the dual role. Senator Bailhache, while winning his amendment for a referendum, has not, as far as I know, actively taken steps himself to address the public in a meeting.
 
In fact, the main activity has been online, where the excellent Change.je website has provided arguments both for and against the role of the Bailiff in the States and as head of the Judiciary. Senator Bailhache's aim was evidently a "spoiler" as his lack of organising public meetings to gauge support demonstrates.
 
It is also notable that while the remit of the Electoral Commission chaired by the Senator was in fact all members of the States, they chose to focus on elected members, and failed to ask for submissions regarding the Bailiff or the Dean. In so doing, they narrowed their focus contrary to their remit, and avoided tackling that within the public forum.
 
My own position, which I have made very clear, is that I have no objection to the Bailiff as Speaker, as long as the pernicious power to block propositions from even being placed before the Assembly is removed. As submissions to Carswell demonstrated, there have been a number of occasions where the a past Bailiff has exercised that undemocratic prerogative. It is high time a proposition removed it, and indeed James Rondel, who argues in favour of retaining the Bailiff, also agrees that it must be rescinded. But no politicians of left or right have tackled that!
 
L'Office Du Jerriais has a brief blog about business cards.
 
http://officedujerriais.blogspot.com/  
 
Apparently, the new Chief Minister of Guernsey has his business cards in the three languages - English, French, and Guernsey French. Something for Senator Gorst to ponder! Although what it does not address is when you use the Guernsey-French cards!
 
The Jersey Way has a few more sound clips from States sittings:
 
http://thejerseyway.blogspot.com/2014/05/questions-without-answers-290414.html  
 
Sam Mezec, Simon Crowcroft and Nick Le Cornu's questions, and questions without notice to Philip Bailhache and Ian Gorst are here. Topics are UK same sex marriages and their validity in Jersey, skateboarding facilities at the Town park, Radon testing, and the basis for charges for patients at Accident and Emergency.
 
This has always been to me an excellent site. Rather than listening to whole debates, this is sharply focused on particular questions, and also allows something that Hansard does not do - the tone of the questions and answers. The written text is useful, but it does not convey the more subtle verbal overtones of speech.
 
Jersey Exposed looks at Social Security secrets.
 
http://jsyexposed.blogspot.com/2014/04/social-security-secrets.html  
 
"A recent public Social Security Appeal hearing was adjourned to allow  the Social Security Department time to produce a copy of the 150 pages of hidden rules and guidelines which Determining Officers use for applications for Income Support and other benefits. "
 
"Previous attempts to disclose these rules have failed as the Social Security Officers claim that only they can understand them. They did offer to produce 3 pages they considered relevant to the case under consideration. However, the claimant argued that the complete 150 pages should be made available and the Tribunal agreed with the claimant."
 
I don't see any reason for disbelieving this story, and I find it rather appalling that there are internal "hidden rules and guidelines" which are not known to the general public. They should be on the Social Security website, and I hope that, one way or another, they find their way to the public domain.
 
I notice that the Irish Independent, back in 2007, noted that their new "Freedom of Information Law" meant that:
 
"Public bodies will have to publish all their hidden rules and guidelines, and these can't be used against you if they haven't been published"
 
Jersey does not yet have a freedom of information law. While tidying up of ancient laws is given priority - the law on treason being a case in point - the freedom of information law is given a lower priority. Around since 2011 in Jersey in draft forms, Jersey's Freedom of Information law should be in force by 2015 after politicians formally agree to the new law. The last set of amendments said "It is anticipated that the Law will come into force on 1st January 2015. " I'd be extremely surprised if that was the case.
 
Voice for Children has a posting which is a link to a September 2009 interview by Trevor Pitman.
 
http://voiceforprotest.blogspot.com/2014/04/voiceforchildren-deputy-trevor-pitman.html  
 
Voice for Jersey has a posting which is a link to a blog posting about the how impartial BBC radio Jersey is; the linked post dates from February 2012.
 
http://voiceforjersey.blogspot.com/2014/04/voiceforchildren-bbc-jersey-impartial.html  

Tom Gruchy (alias Mike Dun) has a posting on housing conditions:
 
http://tomgruchy.blogspot.com/2014/04/sandras-new-flat-jersey-housing.html
 
"As can be seen the latest flat is just simply not suitable for a person with her severe disabilities and as we have already told  Minister  Deputy Green many times before ( and he has personal knowledge of disability in his own family) - standard issue flats are just simply not suitable for this tenant or others with similar needs."
 
There are four short videos which make it very plain that the accommodation being offered to a disabled lady is simply not suitable. Doesn't anyone at Housing actually meet the people, and check these matters out? Something which I hope Deputy Green, the Housing Minister, will answer.
 
"With Andium under the Chair of a UK resident receiving £40,000 for  his 30 hours annual attention to the problems of Sandra and thousands of others with real housing needs and the Health service already reeling from shortages and inadequacies and a similar planned "user pays" policy - the future looks ever more grim for those with specific needs and limited resources of their own...."
 
This is a good blog raising present and future concerns about social housing in Jersey.
 
Rico Sorda's blog is about the Committee of Inquiry into Historical Child Abuse in Jersey.
 
http://ricosorda.blogspot.com/2014/04/committee-of-enquiry-2014-part-3e.html
 
"As you are all well aware the Committee of Enquiry into decades long child abuse in Jersey is starting to get going.  There has been a lot of dialogue with the Lawyers representing the enquiry panel. I must say they have been very good in getting back to us regarding the issues we have had with the protocols. There will be more on this in a later date. I really do hope that as many people as possible will come forward to give their accounts to the enquiry panel."
 
Roger Jones has a blog about local books:
 
https://rogerjonesblog.wordpress.com/2014/04/18/our-new-books/
 
One new book looks very interesting.
 
Roger says that "It is a joint effort by myself and Susan Ilie of Guernsey Ancestry. It is a book based on an item she bought via eBay - the diary of one Andrew Mitchell, a 20 year old Londoner who visited the CIs in 1866. We researched some of the background to things he wrote about and selected a number of contemporary engravings by way of illustration. I designed the book in a small, landscape format, roughly the same size as the original notebook. I think it has turned out rather well."

In Victory, Magnanimity.

"In war, resolution; in defeat, defiance; in victory, magnanimity" (Winston Churchill)
 
"What cheers me up? I suppose mainly gloating over the misfortunes of other people. I guess that has to be it, yeah, mainly crowing over the miseries of others. It doesn't always work, but it never completely fails." (Christopher Hitchens)
 
I was down at the election for Procureur du Bien Public last night to get a photo for La Baguette, the Parish Magazine. I was originally just going to take a photo of the winning candidate, Peter Norman, but my editor very wisely, I think, suggested I took a photo of Peter Norman and John Trafford (the losing candidate) shaking hands. He was quite right, of course.
 
That's an image of victory and magnanimity; it is a sign that whoever wins, this is not a result that should end in bitterness or acrimony. And John Trafford lost, but he was a good loser, which is I suppose what you might expect; he is a very nice man.
 
It's all too easy with elections or other news stories to feed into the modern trend for divisiveness, and gloating. There's a lot of gloating on the misfortunes of other people on Twitter locally.
 
Those doing it will probably be able to justify it to themselves, but what it often comes down to is an excuse for that kind of behaviour was that "they started it first", the kind of excuse that two children fighting give to their parents. But however the other person is behaving, do they really need to react that way? They are surely not children any more; why do they then persist in behaving with such childish patterns of behaviour. Can't they do better than that? Is that really the best that they can be as human beings?
 
I'm not going to name people; they know who they are. This is not about naming and shaming, it is about exploring the psychology of this behaviour, and look at why people behave in this way.
 
Psychiatrist John Birtchnell describes this tendency of some human beings to respond in this way to the misfortune of others. He notes that:
 
"some people are capable of deriving satisfaction from the abuse of their power by showing off to others, intimidating them, bullying them, making fun of them, putting them down, pointing to their deficiencies, causing them embarrassment or distress, gloating over their misfortune, or witnessing their distress or desperation" (1)
 
And he notes that even psychotherapists themselves "are not immune from any of these forms of behaviour, which lie at the very heart of sadism."
 
There is a kind of sea-saw effect at work here, where "reacting to the setbacks and misfortunes of others is gaining upperness as a consequence of others losing it. When someone drops in position, another's position in relation to her/him rises." (2)
 
What cuts against this is compassion, and concern for the plight of the other person. As he comments:
 
"Potentially this is a source of pleasure, but the pleasure can be diminished, or denied altogether, out of concern for the plight of the other person." (2)
 
And a lot of these kinds of behaviours are patterns learned from childhood, which still effect how people behave. They become fixed patterns for reacting, hitting out, and enjoying the misfortune of others. As he notes on "derision":
 
"Children more than adults laugh at the misfortune of others and, in their laughing, experience the state of upperness. In former times, adults would visit lunatic asylums to laugh at the inmates, but nowadays they do not so blatantly enjoy the misfortune of others. Ridicule and mocking are nonetheless ways of experiencing upperness at the expense of others, and many jokes and humorous stories relate accounts of other people in unfortunate circumstances."
 
"Humiliation. There is ample evidence that people derive pleasure from humiliating others, but, as with derision, they are inhibited from doing so by their consciences" (2)
 
We don't visit lunatic asylums now to mock others, but the internet lends itself to a modern equivalent of this kind of behaviour. Ignore that voice of conscience, and it will fade away.
 
And on cruelty, Birchnell again notes the roots in the children's behaviour:
 
"Children, because their socialization process is less complete, are capable of great cruelty under certain circumstances. William Golding's novel Lord of the Flies, though a work of fiction, credibly illustrates this. Bandura et al. (1975) demonstrated that two effective means of making cruelty possible were diffusion of responsibility and dehumanization. They wrote, 'By displacing responsibility elsewhere, people need not hold themselves accountable for what they do and are thus spared self-prohibiting reactions" '(2)
 
Buddhism has a lot to teach us about how these patterns from our past shape our lives, and what we need to do about it. The Buddhist Society for Compassionate Wisdom notes that:
 
"It is conduct unbecoming to a Dharma student to pick on others and blame them in order to build a self-defence or reinforce one's position. It is the downfall of a Dharma student to become jealous of the other people's prosperity and gloat over others' misfortunes." (3)
 
And the Buddhist movement Soka Gakkai International notes that:
 
"Buddhism sheds light on the inner dynamics of human life that lead us to create such an undesirable reality. One of the most pernicious and powerful desires inherent in human life, according to Buddhist thought, is the desire for power over others, the urge to subjugate other people to our will. In this condition, the ego finds its most unrestrained and destructive expression, regarding others simply as a means to satisfy its selfish objectives."
 
"But if human nature is the cause of our most dire global problems, it is also the source of the fundamental solution. The countervailing force to the destructive aspect to human nature and the suffering it engenders is compassion. Compassion, a sense of solidarity with others--with all life--arising from a wish for mutual happiness and growth, is the heart and origin of Buddhism." (4)
 
And Bhikshuni Thubten Chodron comments on why we badly need compassion in political dialogue:
 
"In recent years, national dialogue in the U. S. has deteriorated, with people ranging from politicians to talk show hosts encouraging anger, disrespect, harsh speech, and exaggerated accusations that only stir people up. It seems that rudeness, blame, and demonizing others is passed off as entertainment in the effort to gather votes. ..This lack of basic human manners, petty squabbling, and in some cases outright aggression interferes with finding solutions to very real national and international problems. Compassion helps us be more respectful and considerate so that we work together for the benefit of everyone. "(5)

Compassion is a challenge because it goes against deep rooted behaviours that we learned in childhood, and challenges us to be the best people we can be, not to be stuck in a groove laid down in the past. I'll finish, then, with a quote from a Veteran Western Practitioner of Buddhism:
 
"Compassion does not put others down to make us feel more important. Compassion builds bridges between people instead of erecting walls. Compassion helps to solve problems instead of creating new ones. Compassion agonizes at others' efforts gone wrong instead of gloating over their misfortunes. Compassion practices positive thinking, making others see their potential and helps them to achieve their best." (6)

Links
(1)   "Relating in Psychotherapy: The Application of a New Theory" by John Birtchnell, 1999
(2)   "How Humans Relate: A New Interpersonal Theory." by John Birtchnell, 1993
(3)   http://www.zenbuddhisttemple.org/seminary.html
(4)   http://www.sgi.org/buddhism/buddhist-concepts/compassion-solidarity-of-the-heart.html
(5)   http://www.thubtenchodron.org/CurrentEvents/applications_of_compassion.pdf
(6)   http://www.pureinsight.org/node/2161

Buddhism and Blogging

"Hate groups used to be hard-pressed to get any airtime; now they have a global forum twenty-four hours a day on Web sites and blogs." (David D. Perlmutter, Blogwars)
 
George Orwell, in 1984, had the "Two Minutes Hate" when people chanted away at those declared non-persons, enemies of the State. The internet has democratised the "Two Minutes Hate", and at the same time it dehumanises people. Like the picture on the Televisor Screen, faces are posted to become figures of hate. People are demonised, and those doing this cannot see that they are becoming what they hate.
 
Buddhaghosa said ""By doing this you are like a man who wants to hit another and picks up a burning ember or excrement in his hand and so first burns himself or makes himself stink", and this saying has been paraphrased, rather neatly as:
 
"Holding on to anger is like grasping a hot coal with the intent of throwing it at someone else - you are the one who gets burned."
 
The Dalai Lama has a good deal to say about the negative effects of hate: In his book "Healing Anger", he comments that:
 
"The destructive effects of hatred are very visible, very obvious and immediate. For example, when a strong or forceful thought of hatred arises, at that very instant it overwhelms one totally and destroys one's peace and presence of mind"
 
And he goes on to examine how hatred can arise:
 
"If we examine how anger or hateful thoughts arise in us, we will find that, generally speaking, they arise when we feel hurt, when we feel that we have been unfairly treated by someone against our expectations. If in that instant we examine carefully the way anger arises, there is a sense that it comes as a protector, comes as a friend that would help our battle or in taking revenge against the person who has inflicted harm on us. So the anger or hateful thought that arises appears to come as a shield or a protector. But in reality that is an illusion. It is a very delusory state of mind."
 
Without mindfulness, what starts as a defence can easily become a habit, and the bully is born. The road is one in which the virtues of compassion become lost, swallowed up in vilifying others. The Dalai Lama describes this in terms of:
 
"Only thinking of yourself, having no regard for others, a lack of concern for others' well-being."
 
It is notable that people who direct invective at people from blogs avoid meeting people face to face. As David D. Perlmutter notes in "Blogwars"
 
"Over the years of getting e-hate-mail responding to some of my newspaper op-eds, I have also noted the tendency of people putting the worst invectives and language into an electronic message that, I believe, they would not have expressed similarly in a phone call, in person, or even on paper"
 
There is a disengagement from the other in a blog or social media which can lend itself to very destructive words being used. And the immediacy of it means that there is often a lack of mindfulness. Meeting someone in person, you have etiquette of conversation, the give and take, the talking and listening which is part of dialogue.
 
People who spend too much time disengaged from dialogue with other people other than online may, of course, lose this skill, and simply harangue and shout at people, and be unable to listen when they do meet people. They lose the ability to speak to people face to face; this is another example of how the internet can dehumanise people. They are losing social skills, and becoming almost autistic in their inability to interact, take turns, and listen.
 
It is ironic, because autistic people, aware of their deficiencies, struggle to interact, take turns, and listen. What is hard for them to achieve, and what they desire to achieve, is a gift thrown carelessly aside by people who have it.
 
One of the most notable features of the lack of mindfulness in the internet is the ability to jump in and make pronouncements without looking at the facts. It's the world of the child's playground, of taking sides, of goodies and baddies, where everything is starkly drawn in black and white.
 
It does no good to provide facts, because without mindfulness, a person takes a stance, and does not change it, and defends it, never admitting or being willing to admit that they might be mistaken. Rather like writers like Von Daniken and his "Chariot of the Gods", suppositions rapidly become treated as facts; allegations, if they support your own prejudices, must be true.
 
That's not how science works, of course. Science works to look for falsification of your own theories and ideas, to test them, to be aware that they might be mistaken, and what you really want to be true is no guarantee that something is true. A theory has to be good enough to fit all the facts.
 
But pseudoscience takes a different approach, a selective approach to evidence, which screens out any inconvenient facts, and avoids confronting them; it is a fundamental intellectual dishonesty, and there is a lot of it about. Repetition is also used as a means to suggest something is true, as if the number of instances it is repeated somehow gives a statement a special verisimilitude.
 
The notion of critical peer review is something alien to this approach, because pseudoscience is tied up with an emotional investment in certainty; any criticism is seen as bad, the action of an enemy of the truth. That is a measure itself of how distant the pseudoscientific approach is from genuine science, and how it encourages an emotional immaturity which rejects a critical friend. As Popper remarked, even our most cherished scientific beliefs should not be beyond scrutiny.
 
The internet provides plenty of scope for rumour, and selective use of facts, and the rigours of a more scientific approach is discarded in favour of the attention grabbing headline. That is one area where the blog certainly can emulate the tabloid newspaper, in its use of lurid headlines, and the striking rhetoric, and ad hominem arguments, all of which sell the blog to its readers just as the newspaper sensationalises the story in order to sell papers.