Plastic still a Problem

What can we learn from Kenya as they fine the population for using Plastic bags? Still the problem with plastics hasn't gone away and we hear that plastic pollution has even got to the South Pole and whales have been affected, some things are positive though. The people of the town of Penzance have all decided to all pick up plastics on a walk.
They have encouraged the children to get involved.

But a Gentle man from Iceland said that there were mixed messages from the supermarkets saying that there were no "Plastic Free" aisles in the Supermarkets and most of our plastics went into Land Fill sites! How can this happen? How do we get rid of the Plastics?

Some of the third world countries fine their population for using plastics, Kenya is one of these.
Very well-intentioned people are doing the best that they can. But it is unreal that we are losing the battle against the supermarkets. How do we rid ourselves of Plastic and we are told things that are untrue by the sellers? 20 years ago we didn't have this problem so what has changed, the use of plastics indiscriminately. It is similar to those things that you wish hadn't been invented but had so you have to make the best of them! Unfortunately Plastic was a great advance, So what do we do about the removal of this?

We all have to put our heads together and come up with a solution.

India's hidden FGM ladies

Last night a lady was brave enough having had this treatment in India and saying how it effected her. I have a daughter and that thought makes my blood run cold! She was saying that a trusted lady led her into a room and took this knife and held her Vulva between her fingers and cut it off. The pain was indescribable. Her mother was next door! What a tradition that needs to change. But as this has been going for such a long time and this lady who has been talking about it has been threatened by some members of the public who feel that she has let down those traditional members.

Here is a link to a blog one of our interns did on my behalf on the issue of FGM here in the UK:
 https://nextcenturyfoundation.wordpress.com/2018/08/01/fgm-in-the-uk-how-to-prevent-this-tragedy/

Boko Haram

Boko Haram had five Female suicide bombers who  killed more than 31 a few days ago at Damboa, 31 in the Government area.
Following the attack they concentrated on those who were celebrating Eid al Fitr holiday.
Then the bombers turned a rocket propelled grenade onto the crowd that had gathered after the killings! Boko Haram has been quiet for a couple of months and now we see what is happening, they are consolidating their group in Nigeria. What happened to all those girls that were kidnapped all that time ago? Are they going to start that again? Life for a female in Nigeria is not a good prospect!   What happened to the marches last year of Free our girls! It is concerning that they have decided on female suicide bombers. Back in the old days in Libya, Gaddafi had female soldiers in the bad old days. But they were not fanatics like this! 

Summer in a Vincent Square garden.

Spring has been and gone and summer is well and truly with us but the birds are still being fed in the garden. I listen to the sound of a little coal tit being fed by its parents. We have a large hedge opposite where the birds are feeding.  There is a lot of activity in the garden at the moment. The coal tit is interesting as it bears a similarity to a great tit, but there is a white mark on its darker black crown. We have more robins now. I saw a young robin being fed by a parent. It was very young and its feathers were very fluffy.  I had recorded no robins at all at the time I submitted our annual RSPB bird report earlier in the Spring though there were lots of dunnocks. The young wrens have flown the nest; it is amazing how such little birds have such a loud song.

There was a pair of green finches here today and the gold finches are back which is very exciting (we had thought they'd gone); along with the coal tits being fed, there was a lot going on.  However we have lost the long tailed tits, and the great spotted woodpecker seems to be missing! We usually have chiffchaffs on our patch too! Some people let out their cats first thing in the morning,  which may be why some of the nesting birds in our gardens have become scarce. We sometimes have parakeets in the garden but not as many as some other people in the area.

We didn't have the mass of foxes this year. Last year we found them standing by the front garden gate late at night! A big fox still comes into the back garden; it walks along the wall and jumps into the garden from the side. We are overrun by squirrels, which the dog likes to chase but no way can she catch them!  We still have quite a challenge trying to stop the squirrels eating the peanuts we feed to the birds. We have bought a squirrel proof nut holder to feed the birds but the squirrels still have great fun eating the fat balls.

The rambling rose is tumbling down the hedge on the one side of the garden and the lilac has just finished. The pear blossom is over now but it seems as if its lovely perfume lingers in the garden. There is a maraschino cherry tree with a very sour fruit much loved by the birds next to the rose.
We have no grass. We tried putting turf down on the "lawn" but a huge tree sucks all the water out of grass. The neighbour next door finds the tree annoying but it's hers not ours! AstroTurf is something that a friend of ours tried and could help but it is expensive and most people don't have that sort of money.

This is proving to be one of the loveliest summers.

History Repeating Itself

I was reading the book "The Silk Roads" which said that in 525 BC one of the Persian Emperors was known as as "The Messiah" because of his generous treatment of minorities and his help given to the Jews to aid their escape from Babylonian captivity.
At that time Persia faced persistent problems from the North but had an aggressive army to keep the peace. The Sums paid for that peace were substantial.
Over time Greek generals culminating in Alexander the Great looked East with a combination of fear and respect. Eventually Alexander was to conquer Persia. It was then ruled for nearly 300 years by descendants of Ptolemy one of Alexandra the Great's generals.
It was the Ptolemaic system that applied to Egypt just as it did to Persia that started the registration of all births. In the world of Jesus Christ, his birth would have been registered by an Official whose interest was the birth was in registering an additional future taxpayer for the empire.
Attitudes to Christianity first spread east via The Jewish communities, they received reports of Jesus life and death in Aramaic and Hebrew
There were Christian stories which included stirring stories that were told about the Christians' customs and literature.
The Emperor Constantine accepted Christianity which clearly brought about sea change in how other nations viewed them.
I was saddened to hear when reading "The Silk Roads" that, in the Christian era, when there were hostilities and the troops revolted over a proposed reduction in pay, the Commanding Officer paraded the image of Jesus Christ in front of the Troops. He said that complaint was not compatible with Christianity, but he was Christian. 

Organophosphates

Now what stopped me from being a teacher? I was sheep farming. After Sheep Dipping and the onset of MS, a lot of people in the farming business realised what was happening. At a meeting in Parliament with Andy Burnham there were many farmers who had very sad tales to tell! The Government do not want any link between Organophoshates and illness in farmers but we are now being told by the Authorities to keep away from the Sheep Dip if we are not in protective clothing. Because the toxic Sheep Dip went straight through overalls. Life has been difficult but that is nothing to the effect on some farmers and their livelihood. I saw the most tragic tales of farmers unable to continue doing what they love most on their farms.
This has been going on for years we are left in limbo again! Is there nothing we can do?
Veronica Morris.

Plastic pollution chokes Indonesia's rivers

• Yesterday I saw on the BBC news the problems in Indonesia with the amount of Plastic waste that was clogging the waterways and streams in the area!  
• In the UK we hear on the news that Plastic Mugs and "One off" reusable mugs are not reusable! although the public are told they are.
• We see these rivers clogged with plastic waste in such huge areas and it seems to me that it is almost as much of a crime as what goes on in Yemen's war which I was concerned about  last week!
• Then in Lebanon there are pollution problems that are off the scale. This is because there is a strike with the Refuse collectors, this has been going on for some time
• The Queen has started a new appeal with David Attenborough to set up a Green Planet and has got various nations to donate an area of their nation to make a greener planet by donating areas of forest. This is a great achievement.

Is there any way we can appeal to the striking Refuse collectors for the sake of the Planet? Do something about this!