Blog Archives
The Spirit Level Documentary Film Campaign
The Spirit Level, a book by Professors Kate Pickett and Richard Wilkinson, has already had a profound effect on the debate about equality (or the lack of it) in modern societies; and now the printed page is to be followed by a documentary film. The money is needed very soon. Given the significance of this timely development in the equality debate, I have attached below the message inviting interest, received today from the Equality Trust, an organisation set up by Wilkinson and Pickett. Do support this venture in any way you can.
To read more of this article and to comment, please visit Hilary’s professional website here.
Sociology, Democracy And The Economic Crisis
Aditya Chakrabortty of The Guardian has just (8 May 2012) published his second commentary about ‘the dearth of sociologists and other non-economists analysing how we got into’ the current economic crisis. This silence, he says, is in vivid contrast to the (dramatic but ineffectual) protests of academic social scientists when monetarists reigned supreme whilst Margaret Thatcher was Prime Minister. But, sadly older and wiser, this time we need to focus on a more encompassing agenda of transaction, impact and meaning.
To read more of this article and to comment, please visit Hilary’s professional website here.
Save Our Libraries Day, As Bedtime Reading Week Ends In Barnsley
Today is Save Our Libraries Day, a national event in protest against the threatened closure of many local libraries in the UK; and by a positive irony folk in Barnsley are having their very own Bedtime Reading Week which finishes also today, 5 February. What more evidence is needed that books and reading are valued everywhere?
It is easy to forget how important books are to the development of small children. There’s a ‘window of opportunity’ in just the very first few years of a child’s life which we all ignore at our peril…
Enlightening Research For Saving Lives, Jobs And The Environment – All Together
Legislation about multiple low-cost benefits to the environment, economy and health: What’s there not to like? Friday 3 December 2010 offers MPs the opportunity to move forward on a UK Parliamentary Bill to agree that proper research be conducted into the advantages or otherwise of keeping some form of ‘Daylight Saving’ year-round. But why even bother with the Bill? Why not just research these very positive proposals fully anyway?
Daylight Saving Gives Up The Ghost (For Now…)
It’s Hallowe’en weekend and that precious hour of afternoon light is set to go till next Spring; but perhaps at long last common sense will prevail. With luck and one more push (believe me, over the years there have been many) the spectre of Winter nights starting sometime after lunch will be gone, and the many advantages of keeping British Summer Time (one hour ahead of GMT) will become reality. Research is clear on benefits to energy, health and even lives. Now we need to banish ghosts of mistaken mythology about the disbenefits of ‘daylight saving’…..
Dreaming Realist 