Pistis ponders Hallowe'en: RIP? RIG? (weekending October 30th 2021)

‽istis ponders Hallowe'en: RIP? RIG? (weekending October 30th 2021)

This week as Hallowe’en/All Hallows’ Eve beckons potentially for a night of mystery, mayhem, fantasy, a deadly subject dressed up just for fun (and a little targeted commercial trading) and perhaps a frisson of fear, ‽istis ponders death...  

As is often the case with ‽istis’ wonderings, there are some numbers discovered, some person-focused reflection on and about the souls behind the numbers - and there may be a big question or two...‽ And as with so many of the topics and issues, these wonderings and ponderings are simply a possible jumping on point that may spark  further thoughts and explorations of your own, if indeed there is anybody there... 

First the R.I.P. - rest in peace (other phrases and euphemisms are available), a consummation devoutly to be wished? - and the following seem to be some pretty important numbers:

‽ The ‘worldometer’ (1) website counters spin on and at the afternoon time of typing, today’s estimated deaths pass 115,835 (with births notching up at more than twice the rate, it seems today) and the total deaths this year nears an estimated 48.5million. All those last breaths; all that pain for those going and those left, hardly tempered by a sense of relief for some people where the going has been tough and the going in to the dark night (2) was far from gentle, but raged through choice or circumstance.

‽ All that illness, all the care and treatment that must surely lie behind so many of the numbers with ‘the top global causes of death... associated with three broad topics: cardiovascular (heart disease, stroke), respiratory (chronic obstructive pulmonary disease, lower respiratory infections) and neonatal conditions...’  And perhaps we can just begin to imagine the ripples of activity, the people involved throughout the more or less adequate and complex domestic, private and public health and care systems across the world... the unpaid family members, friends, volunteers and the paid professionals - millions and millions of them, millions and millions of us, working to maintain and preserve optimal well-being and life in quantity and quality; managing chronic or rapid decline and last days - all those hands holding; responding to accident or the reasonably preventable that could perhaps have been avoided; the deliberate and inflicted or seemingly chosen; the acute crises!

‽ And all the after-wards... the unseen care-takers, undertaking on our behalf...

‽ And all that emotion! Waves and waves, complex, fleeting or lasting. Loved ones grieving, missing someone that they did things with and missing the person they just did nothing with - and for whom it perhaps does not get any better, though maybe one day some may find that they have somehow got a bit better at coping.

There is so very much more that could be said, even though words may fail us or be so inadequate...  

But what of the 'All Hallows', the all saints, the expectation of some people that R.I.P. could  be followed with R.I.G. (‘rise in glory’)? What of the belief for some that there is (not just may be) more, better, reunity: in some form or other hereafter, in some place or other, with some people or other, with a deity or without, here or there, for ever or again and again, etc.?

What do you think, or believe, or feel...?

And ‽istis grinds to something of a halt with all this weighty pondering...  

Thoughts turn to caterpillars becoming butterflies...

And ‽istis wonders finally whether life is held more preciously and lived more fully by those who believe or those who don’t. 

And as the ‘worldometer’ tally rises relentlessly and a thousand schools of thought about life and death bloom and sometimes contend, the poet Mary Oliver’s words seem to fall down with the rain on this far from summer’s English grey day: ‘Tell me, what is it you plan to do, with your one wild and precious life?’ (3) - perhaps just imagine what could be possible - and indeed may be... 

© Pistis                                                                                                                    

NB: further reflections and comments linked to this week’s theme and past blog

entries to be found on Twitter: replies, retweets (which don’t necessarily indicate approval, sometimes the very opposite!) and ‘likes’: @Pistis_wonders. ‘Follows’ and respectful comment and dialogue welcome...  

 

1. https://www.worldometers.info/ 

2. After Dylan Thomas: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=g2cgcx-GJTQ 

3. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rBPHUE961zI

Pistis reclaims your very good health (weekending October 23rd 2021)

‽istis reclaims your very good health

This week in the UK, as Doctors and the capacity of hospitals hit the headlines - leading some of us to fear that (the Government*) highlighting/creating* problems for a national health service might serve to soften up the public for a potential greater role for the (not-so)-’hidden sleight of hand’ of the market to work its dark arts and herald a blue-lit parade of private companies with their siphoning-profits-off-to-shareholders predilections supposedly riding to the rescue..., ‽istis sought to toast ‘your very good health’ and wondered about relative spending, effectiveness and value for money; about how we define ‘health’, ‘well-being’; and remembered a powerful perspective-giving test to apply to announcements about spending (perhaps more of this with next week’s budget proclamation from the UK House of Commons).

The customary online exploration has unearthed some websites, organisations, reports and sources of information that surely will be plundered again in the future. Here is a taster...

‽ The World Population Review (1) considers ‘the best healthcare in the world 2021’ ‘determined by considering a wide range of factors, including the care process (preventative care measures, safe care, coordinated care, and engagement and patient preferences), access (affordability and timeliness), administrative efficiency, equity, and healthcare outcomes (population health, mortality amenable to healthcare, and disease-specific health outcomes) and links to:

‽ CEO's Health Care Index (2):"...a statistical analysis of the overall quality of the health care system, including health care infrastructure; health care professionals (doctors, nursing staff, and other health workers) competencies; cost (USD p.a.per capita); quality medicine availability, and government readiness."  Scoring these factors reveals a top five: 1) Denmark, 2) Norway, 3) Switzerland, 4) Sweden, 5) Finland (is there a theme here, ‽istis wonders...) with the UK coming in at a beaten-by-quite-a-bit-of-the-world 13th place.

‽ Further link-following took ‽istis to the ‘Legatum Prosperity Index’ (3) ‘ a tool for transformation, offering a unique insight into how prosperity is forming and changing across the world.’ As an aside, ‽istis was intrigued by this statement on the website: ‘Developed nations that expect so much of emerging nations must beware the trap of falling into the mindset of an overdeveloped society, vulnerable to entitlement and complacency...’

Nations are analysed and assessed against 300 country-level into indicators grouped into 66 policy-focused elements.  

The good news seems to be that: ‘Near universal progress in health over the past decade, with all but 12 countries, including the U.S., seeing an improvement, has contributed to the rise in global prosperity.’ Health and welfare and well-being linked. 

‽ But coming back to the ‘World Population Review’, a further table links healthcare and prosperity analysis - revealing that effective systems may not just be the product of prosperity, it may be as much about what you do with it as it is the size (a well-known saying perhaps from a particular branch of medicine and therapeutics...?).  And so, we can announce the top ranked nations in respect of health care according to the analysis on this organisation’s webpages - followed by its prosperity rank (will the UK beat the world again? and with suitable pause for dramatic effect):

Healthcare rank:

South Korea (prosperity rank 28)

Taiwan (prosperity rank 20)

Denmark (prosperity rank 1)

Austria (prosperity rank 10)

Japan (prosperity rank 19)

Maybe, even now, the detail of methodology may be coming under scrutiny and that vital matter of whether apples are indeed being compared to apples may be being looked into (strangely enough perhaps more when the findings are unfavourable or disliked?), and there is almost certainly much, much more that could be explored and considered (not least perhaps in relation to such issues as: expenditure on health as a proportion of GDP; models of provision; private v public v insurance funding schemes; political system and hue of governments etc) and there are many organisations and reports and websites that could help, but just perhaps this first foray can provide some food for thought...?  

Finally, what of that test mentioned in the lengthy opening paragraph? 

A calculation for you (adopted from, and courtesy of a one-time feature on the BBC Radio 4’s ‘More or Less’ programme, I believe) when hearing announced spending (for example in a forthcoming budget): 

• divide the sum of money announced - especially if it is linked to a timeframe (e.g: ‘this year we will be spending an additional £125million..., for example) 
• by the relevant population e.g: c.67,220,000 people (UK as of today) = £1.86p per person
• further divide by 52 (weeks in the year) = 3.5p per person, per week
• further divide by 7 (days in the week) and lo and behold, as if by hidden hand magic, you have an amount which perhaps begins to represent the spending commitment per person, per day (= ½ p). 

Just imagine what perhaps, possibly, maybe we could do with that!

© Pistis                                                                                                              

* 'the Government' and '/creating' added later to differentiate

from those who are pointing out, vitally, the acute and chronic

problems for the NHS, its patients and staff...

1. https://worldpopulationreview.com/country-rankings/best-healthcare-in-the-world  Accessed October 2021

2. https://ceoworld.biz/2021/04/27/revealed-countries-with-the-best-health-care-systems-2021/ Countries with the best healthcare systems.  Accessed October 2021

3. Legatum Prosperity Index: https://www.prosperity.com/  Accessed October 2021   

NB: further reflections and comments linked to this week’s theme and past blog entries to be found on Twitter: replies, retweets (which don’t necessarily indicate approval, sometimes the very opposite!) and ‘likes’: @Pistis_wonders. 

‘Follows’ and respectful comment and dialogue very much welcomed...  

Pistis wonders how clear and present a danger (weekending October 16th 2021)

 

‽istis wonders how clear, how present, how dangerous (weekending 16th October 2021)

This week, ‽istis tried to buy a copy of the Daily Mail (1). Being thwarted by the paper buying habits of residents and visitors, ‽istis read online (2) the report of a BBC interview with Prince Charles on climate activism which included these phrases:

‽ “It’s just talk. The problem is trying to get action on the ground which I’ve been trying to do for the last 40 years.”

‽ “I knew in the end all these young people would get fed up because they feel nothing is even happening so of course they’re going to get frustrated... They see their future being totally destroyed.”

And also this week: 

● a report suggests that Coal-fired power generation in China appears to be ramping up to meet the country’s growing demand for electricity (3) 

● the UK was perhaps reminded of the cost of coal as: ‘U.K. power prices rose after a coal power plant switched on Monday to make up for a shortfall in wind generation and limited flows on two power cables to Ireland.’ (4)

● doubt was cast about the likelihood of breakthrough outcomes being reached at COP2 (5)

● Drivers threatened to run climate protesters over as ‘Insulate Britain’ stage roadblock protests for the 13th time (6)

● ‽istis wondered about the planning meetings and communications underway to co-ordinate the expected protests at the conference 

● ‽istis started to dip in to the 2021 ‘Climate Transparency Report’ (7) and found some of the highlights:

○ Fossil fuels subsidised throughout the recovery

○ Rebounding emissions signal a return to business as usual

○ Financial regulations improving, but public fossil fuel finance continues

○ Transformative policies urgently needed in key sectors to curb rising emissions

○ Revised ambition but the G20 is not on track for a 1.5° world

○ Vulnerability of G20 members highlights the need to adapt now

And this last point chimed with thoughts about change and the potentially important and motivating power of presenting and recognising something as a ‘clear and present danger’...

‽istis therefore started to ponder the characteristics of a perceived danger that may be clear, present and leaves no explanation, reasonable reason or excuse to not act now! What might help tip the balance from leaving things how they are (so close maybe to that resigned and shrugful: ‘it is what it is’), the stasis, the devil better known...?

Characteristic a):  the threat (8) level and potential impact of a hazard or danger perhaps needs to be understood. What might be the task here? Maybe raising awareness; helping to promote risk assessment and identification of hazards; modelling the impact, highlight what could be lost, and - for those conservatives (whatever size the ‘c’ is) - what may never be the same again  

Characteristic b): the danger or threat level and potential impact perhaps needs to be perceived, seen, felt, experienced actually right now - or imminently where likelihood has tipped from impossible, to on the balance of probabilities, on to beyond reasonable doubt towards certainty. What might be the task here? Maybe raising awareness - what has happened, what is happening - now; helping people to think realistically about what could happen and make judgements about probability 

Characteristic c) the danger or threat level and its actual or likely impact perhaps needs to be thought and felt to relate to ‘me’ and ‘mine’ (relatives, friends, people ‘like me’, property, possessions etc.). What might be the task here? Maybe expanding empathy, or sympathy; perhaps promoting narratives of similarity more than difference, that no-one is safe unless all are safe, that wealth and status and individual merit possibly have little to do with individual merit, that we are more connected, inter-dependent and co-dependent than some perhaps may think; persuading that there is more that unites than divides, that me and ‘mine’ can include you and yours - and that ‘we’ together might be essentially and existentially both part of the problem and part of the solution.     

So ‽istis wonders how much these three characteristics (9) perhaps, possibly may resound in speeches or fill the pages of reports produced inside the COP26 buildings or be proclaimed from the wittiest or starkest of banners outside... 

And ‽istis wonders what the balance might be between them - and whether the last should be first? 

How clearly can the apparently clear and present danger be presented‽

© Pistis                                                                                                                    

NB: further reflections and comments linked to this week’s theme and past blog entries to be found on Twitter: replies, retweets (which don’t necessarily indicate approval, sometimes the very opposite!) and ‘likes’: @Pistis_wonders. ‘Follows’ and respectful comment and dialogue welcome...  

1) For the first time... but all sold out

2) https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-10079315/Prince-Charles-says-totally-understands-groups-like-Insulate-Britain-XR.html  

3) https://www.powerengineeringint.com/coal-fired/china-reopening-coal-mines-to-meet-accelerating-demand/ 

4) https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2021-10-11/u-k-turns-to-coal-as-low-wind-output-increases-power-prices 

5) COP - (United Nations Climate Change) Conference of the Parties

6) https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2021/oct/13/drivers-threaten-insulate-britain-activists-in-essex-protests 

7) https://www.climate-transparency.org/media/climate-transparency-report-2021 ‘The Climate Transparency Report is the world’s most comprehensive annual review of G20 countries’ climate action and their transition to a net zero emissions economy. The review is based on 100 indicators for adaptation, mitigation and finance compared against 1.5°C global benchmarks and aims to make good practices and gaps transparent. The summary report and 20 country profiles allow the report to be a clear reference tool for decision makers.’

8) For some who may benefit from a situation or changes that could be made - then it may be the opportunity level that tips the balance (e.g: companies that can switch to making PPE as well as can make hand sanitiser alongside gin in a pandemic): https://www.cbsnews.com/news/ppe-manufacturing-business-transformations/ 

9) and others that no-doubt could be identified and pondered.

Pistis daydreams a manifesto (weekending October 9th 2021)

 

‽istis reclaims leadership and manifesto consequences (weekending 9th October 2021)

This week, perhaps well in to political party conference season ‽istis, gazing out through Overton's window, starts to daydream... 

‽ a leader arriving to the music of Sara Tavares, or Duncan Chisholm, or Aretha, or Nitin Sahwney, or Natalia Lafourcade, or The Unthanks, or Susana Baca, or Blick Bassy, or Dolly, or Max Richter, or The Buena Vista Social Club, or Show of Hands, or Raquel Tavares, or Bellowhead, or Joan Baez, or Mike Vass, or Susheela Raman, or the AKA Trio, should any give permission, or the sound of silence... what might your entrance music be?

‽ speaking in words poetic and prophetic; humble; qualificautionary; nothing promised in hope of a vote, in vain or in vanity; discussion invited; comments heard and heeded... what might your tone be?

‽  rolling headlines - not necessarily in chronological or progressive order – to perhaps, possibly, maybe include something like this:

● Nothing about you, without you – nothing about us, without us 

● Rights: hierarchical, universal, all living things, recognising duty-bearers and mutual responsibility 

● Defined: individual, family, parish, district, county, national responsibilities, duties and powers

● Health and social care: not for profit, needs-led not means-led

● Honours: nothing bestowed in the name of Empire or at the behest of outgoing leaders or not-so reigning monarchs; titles no longer

● Second chamber: non-hereditary, non-clerical; representative; checking and balancing

● Education and training: lifelong; schools - local, non-selective by means or ability, public where public means not-private.

● Recognising that maybe Kermit was perhaps more spot on than some may think (i); that Planet A is wondrous and enough but midnight seems fast-approaching

● Business: sustainable, just, socially responsible - people and corporations; more co-operative than competitive; profit invested not divested in to private hands

● Income: universal for all citizens; remuneration recognising interlinked  systemic and structural necessities, essential work and workers throughout; CEO, senior managers, directors - salaries linked to an assessment of inter-/co-dependence across the whole company of employees, differentially capped; living wage for all, not gross (or net) excess for some

● People and groups: processes of minoritising, prejudice, discrimination, abuse and the exercise of many and various sources of power - understood, mitigated, counteracted, recompensed, repented 

● Arms: not made, not sold; nuclear disarmament - unilateral

● Tax: at point and place of profit; redistributive; to each according to need, from each according to ability

● Misogyny: understood; a hate crime

● Anti- discrimination

● Justice system: recognising social, familial and psychological factors that may affect capacity and culpability; a penal system - restorative, rehabilitative

● Nation-alism, subsumed - a vision of 'us' all, connected, more the same than different (flags in offices and the corner of video calls from those working from home - only in sandcastles and no bigger than 7cm by 5cm, printed on paper and mounted on a stick!)

● Needs before wants, for all

● Anglican Church: disestablished and with buildings given - converted through local co-operatives and partnerships of apprentices, trades and crafts people, education and training organisations; fair rent, social housing, community meeting and wellbeing spaces included

● Foreign aid: recognising past exploitation, appropriation, development and under-development; reparative, recompensing; repentance

● Evidence-based policy-making

● 50%+ 1: a limited mandate - only ever 'some of the people’s parliament'

● What might your manifesto be?

And then ‽istis woke realising that far more work was needed, in theory and in practice; but also wondering what perhaps, possibly, may happen: 10 minutes after; 10 hours after; 10 days after; 10 weeks after; 10 months after; 10 years later...  

Just imagine‽

© Pistis                                                                                                                        

NB: further reflections and comments linked to this week’s theme and past blog entries to be found on Twitter: replies, retweets (which don’t necessarily indicate approval, sometimes the very opposite!) and ‘likes’: @Pistis_wonders. 

‘Follows’ and respectful comment and dialogue welcome...

i) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=51BQfPeSK8k 

Pistis reclaims gentle-men (weekending October 2nd 2021)

 

‽istis reclaims gentle-men (weekending 2nd October 2021)

This week ‽istis listened to the impact statement that the parents of Sarah Everard read to the court (1) in the trial in the UK of the man, a serving police officer - charged, tried and convicted of her death... and pondered violence against women, specifically violence perpetrated by men.

And what of the statistics? ...here are just some from the United Nations' violence against women web pages and reports (2):

• Globally, an estimated 736 million women—almost one in three—have been subjected to intimate partner violence, non-partner sexual violence, or both at least once in their life (30 per cent of women aged 15 and older). This figure does not include sexual harassment. 

• In 2018: 1 in 7 girls and women (aged 15-49) experienced physical or sexual violence from an intimate partner or husband in the past 12 months

• In 2017: 87,000 women who were intentionally killed globally, more than half (50,000) were killed by intimate partners or family members.

• 15 million adolescent girls worldwide, aged 15–19 years, have experienced forced sex. In the vast majority of countries, adolescent girls are most at risk of forced sex (forced sexual intercourse or other sexual acts) by a current or former husband, partner, or boyfriend. Based on data from 30 countries, only one per cent have ever sought professional help.

Then what of the experiences, the feelings and thoughts of those who are represented in the research and data...?

Then what of the uncounted; those unable to report; the terrified; perhaps the slow-burning dread-fullness of memories; the silenced; the ignored or disbelieved - and maybe the impact on how you think and feel and behave, and may fundamentally be...?

‽istis does understand that men too experience domestic abuse and violence, are murdered and harassed; that domestic abuse and violence occur in same-sex relationships and these experiences are perhaps both qualitatively and quantitatively under-researched as well as under-reported; that binary and gendered narratives may only tell part of the story...  

...but, men: what are we?, what have we perhaps always been - or what have we become? what makes us, and influences us, and permits us, and does not seem to stop us? (3)

And if this is what so many of us are like, can we wonder why things are as they are in so many other areas of interaction and influence and life - out in the open and behind closed doors? 

So, what are we to become? at what cost and at whose expense over and over and over, now... and now... and now...  every year, every month, every week, every day, every minute, every second? 

Shame on us!

© Pistis 

(1)    https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2021/sep/30/he-stole-her-future-sarah-everard-family-impact-statements (2)     https://www.unwomen.org/en/what-we-do/ending-violence-against-women/facts-and-figures To find up-to-date data, visit UN Women’s Global Database on Violence against Women and the Women Count Data Hub. Many other sources of information and statistics are available...                                                                                                             

NB: further reflections and comments linked to this week’s theme and past blog
entries to be found on Twitter: replies, retweets (which don’t necessarily indicate approval, sometimes the very opposite!) and ‘likes’: @Pistis_wonders. ‘Follows’ and respectful comment and dialogue welcome...