I've heard stuff in the media about there being plenty of advanced warning and Britain's response in the Virgin Islands being woefully lacking.
I do wonder why troops were sent out there, but weren't used to help make preparations for the storm, but we don't seem to be very sensible when it comes to cost saving preventative measures. We like good looking economic statistics better than sensible economic statistics.
I'm not sure I understand how foreign aid works. I've always thought of it rather simplistically - richer countries give to poorer countries, likely with an expectation of something in return, such as political co-operation.
It never occurred to me that nations who give aid, might also receive it. It never occurred to me that when Britain has had floods (we can be a bit wet) that it wouldn't be sorted out by Britain alone.
British Sign Language has a lot of overt signals and unique facial expressions. It's very noticeable if people are using it in public with lots of arm waving and funny faces.
I've noticed the youngsters at work seem to have evolved the language to something much more subtle and less socially devisive amongst their peers - they've made it cooler, less 'disabled'. I'm guessing there's much more lip-reading going on because the hand movements are so down played, but maybe not.
I'm guessing, a lot of the time there's some shorthand and slang going on. Just as people locally refer to Pontypridd as 'ponty' and everyone knows where they're referring to despite all the other place names beginning with ponty, like Pontyclun, Pontycymer, etc., Pontypridd could just become the sign for the letter 'p'. Pontyclun could be 'pyc' as is used by the train companies to abbreviate it and distinguish it.
Also, there's no need for joining words, or written grammar to make language comprehensible - no need join words.
I'm guessing all this, just from watching people sign. I'll let you know more if and when I start classes.
I only know a few bits of British Sign Language, but I'm saving up to learn.
As a partially hearing person, I half listen to sound, half lip-read.
Lip-reading is a bit of a misnomer, however. It's more like face-reading, as lips don't move in isolation. I find it very difficult to hear people if they're wearing large sunglasses because they cover a lot of facial movement.
As people gesticulate whilst speaking, we all interpret sign language. I find visual communication a welcome relief from how tiring it can be trying to hear, or lip-read mumblers.
As for names and place names, spell them out in sign.
I was on the coast yesterday at sundown and saw the highest tide I've yet seen there.
I was, and am a little apprehensive about conditions and how they might escalate. I can't begin to imagine how terrifying it must be in the midst of the hurricanes.
I'm comforted to hear you won't be in the path of the brunt of the storm, Lucky. I've been fretting.
But some poor sods have been and will be.
And yes, I have heard of hurricane katrina. A while back one of our forum posters rather graphically and angrily described his involvement in the recovery phase, months and months after the event.
I can't remember the poster but I do remember some of the things he said. I hadn't realised it was the most disadvantaged who were left behind. I suppose it's obvious, I just hadn't thought of it.
The British government have come under some biting and heartfelt criticism in the media for doing too little, too late in the Caribbean. It's been said they had the information early enough to do so much more.
I'd like to think that in the wake of the Grenfell Tower fire our government might have been more on the ball, if not for humanitarian reasons, then at least for show.
Respect due to the aid workers risking themselves on the ground with José on the way, mind.
I hope you don't lose your power for long, Lucky. We'll want to know you're okay, as well as comfortable and fed.
Feminism is a movement for equal rights for women.
You can't have equal rights for women, without equal rights for men.
How stupid do you have to be to not see the opportunities in that?
What you're calling for with the destruction of feminism, is to go back to men having more rights and power than women, for sons to have more than daughters.
That's why no woman wants a family unit with you. It's not about society, so much as about how unpleasant you are personally.
For so many women, being a single mother is exactly about saving the family unit from men like you.
Some of us stay on our own, some of us find nicer men to share a family unit with.
Maybe, if you learn to play nicely, someone might want to play with you, but you need to take personal responsibility for that and stop blaming women.
There was a young Aussie lad on the forums a few years back who reckoned I was the spit of Jessica Alba. Couldn't see it myself.
And then there was this fella who was convinced that I was Nylon Jane, aka Stap-on Jane and thought he had some well-established Internet relationship with me. Unfortunately, I do have a facial resemblance to her and I suspect this fella told his mates, because I had a spate of similarly disturbing emails at the time.
I suspect who I actually look like is Mikhail Glinka because my mum does, I look like my mum and we're somehow related.
Err, that's me and my mum are somehow related to Mikhail Glinka. I kinda worked out how me and my mum are related some time ago.
A man who thinks the same at 50 as he did when he was 20 has wasted 30 years of his life.
Something like that.
You can't change people, they can only chose to change themselves.
I'd find it very difficult being around someone who wasn:t into developing personally, didn't question and analyse stuff, didn't bring new ideas and information into the relationship.
I need all that because I couldn't do it on my own in a relationship with someone who wanted to stand still.
I like to be a stimulating part of other people's change and for them to be a stimulating part of mine, whatever the type of relationship.
I was saying God committed genocide with the whole Noah's Ark thing.
The biggest genocide ever, if it was supposed to wipe out everybody and everything on Earth with just a couple of exceptions.
I wasn't implying the flood was manufactured, I was implying that the story and consequently the God was.
I was implying that the story and the God was made in man's genocidal image, rather that man being made in the God's image.
History is written in the image of the writer, so 'rewriting' it is about the change of writer, not a change in past events.
You can't change past events, but you can't definitively record them either.
Even a film of certain events will be interpreted from each viewers own value framework. History is rewritten even from first hand experience, the first time it's recorded.
Actually, even a film of certain events is a rewrite, given the placement of the camera is a biased perspective.
jac_the_gripper Forum Posts (5,363)
RE: Where's the international help
I know the British aid in the Virgin Islands isn't foreign aid. I addressed this issue as it had also been raised in this thread.I addressed the issue of foreign aid in the second half of my post.