My 6th short story: “A Friend Indeed”
April 17th, 2015 by Roger Darlington
If you could go back in time and meet yourself as a child, what advice would you give to that youngster? That was the thought behind my sixth short story. You can read “A Friend Indeed” here.
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Third anniversary of the #EverydaySexism project
April 16th, 2015 by Roger Darlington
The Everyday Sexism Project, an online campaign highlighting sexism across the world, is three years old today. It is on course to hit 100,000 entries this week, showing just how prevalent sexism still is.
As a man, I can’t claim always to have been totally blameless on this course but, like any caring male, I have been on a journey on this issue. It may have helped that I grew up in a woman’s world: I did not live with my father from the age of eight and I never had a grandfather (both died before I was born), so my mother and sister were massive influences on how I viewed women from an early age.
In my view, everyday sexism is not just an issue for women but for men too. It is part of the equality agenda: treating people with respect and fairness regardless of gender, colour, ethnicity, sexual orientation, religion or any other stereotyping label.
If you’re a woman, you don’t need any explanation of the notion of everyday sexism. If you’re a man, you could try talking to your female relatives and friends and you could check out some examples here.
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Why is chocolate so delicious?
April 15th, 2015 by Roger Darlington
It’s all to do with chemistry – as you’ll see from this article.
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Why are we running out of chocolate?
April 15th, 2015 by Roger Darlington
It’s all to do with supply and demand and those Chinese – as explained in this article.
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British general election (9): why are the polls all over the place?
April 14th, 2015 by Roger Darlington
The latest Guardian/ICM survey (a phone poll) has the Conservatives ahead by six points. Meanwhile, a YouGov poll (an internet survey) for the Sun published on Sunday night showed a three-point Labour lead.
A series of internet polls last week had Labour’s lead ranging from three to six points. But a ComRes phone poll released a few hours later had the Tories ahead, although only by one point.
So, what’s going on?
As this article explains, the main difference seems to be in the method of polling: phone polling vs Internet polling. But there are two further matters to remember when we try to forecast the actual result on 7 May: first, there is still three weeks to go so there is time for opinion to change and, second, it is opinion (and turnout) in the marginal constituencies that really matters and that may not be the same as the national trend.
Alberto Nardelli concludes his article on polling as follows:
“There is no shortage of seat projection forecasts available either. But, for the moment, they all agree that Labour and the SNP will win more seats than the Conservatives and the Lib Dems combined. Whatever the results of any poll or set of polls, it is the ability to convene a parliamentary majority and form a government that will matter most.”
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Which are the world’s most religious countries?
April 13th, 2015 by Roger Darlington
The UK is among the least religious countries in the world, according to a new survey. In a global ranking of 65 countries, the UK came six places from last, with 30% of the population calling themselves religious. While 53% of people said they were not religious, only 13% said they were a convinced atheist and the remainder did not know how to define themselves.
This compares with 94% of people in Thailand and 93% of people in Armenia, Bangladesh, Georgia and Morocco who said they were religious. At the bottom of the list was China where only 6% of people said they were religious while 61% said they were convinced atheists. This was followed by Japan, where just 13% of people were religious, Sweden with 19%, Czech Republic with 23%, and the Netherlands and Hong Kong with 26%.
You can find more data and an interactive world map here.
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U.S. presidential election (6): the man behind Hillary Clinton’s campaign
April 12th, 2015 by Roger Darlington
Later today, Hillary Clinton will announce her long-expected bid to become the next US President. She was a good Secretary of State and I have reviewed here her account of that time in her memoirs “Hard Choices”. I think that she would make a fine President, but she has to win the Democratic nomination first (which should be easy) and then the contest with a Republican opponent (which might well be harder).
As an “Observer” newspaper piece today puts it:
“… will … the 18-month campaign to follow, be enough to reset voters’ opinions of Clinton, which have barely shifted over nearly 25 years of the Clintonland experience? It will be up to her clean-cut, 35-year-old political director, Robby Mook, to steer the candidate away from the campaign misadventure that doomed her 2008 effort to establish the Clintons as a dynastic political enterprise.
The Vermont-born Mook will be the first openly gay manager of a major presidential campaign. He takes the reins of the campaign with a track record as a low-key but formidable political operative.
Clinton advisers anticipate that he is close enough to the Clinton inner circle to be trusted, but experienced enough to challenge negative aspects of the Clinton package, from political self-entitlement to the blurred boundaries of the Bill, Hillary and Chelsea Clinton Foundation.”
You can read a profile of Robby Mook here.
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My 5th short story: “Six Degrees Of Separation”
April 10th, 2015 by Roger Darlington
For my next short story, i decided to try something different. So we have six mini stories, each involving a different character in a different country but connected in a way that shows how our world today is full of links. The piece is called “Six Degree Of Separation” and you can read it here.
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U.S. presidential election (5): how many will actually seek their party’s nomination?
April 8th, 2015 by Roger Darlington
This week, Senator Rand Paul of Kentucky officially declared himself a candidate for the Republican presidential nomination. Paul becomes the second Republican to enter the 2016 campaign, following his colleague in the Senate, Ted Cruz of Texas.
But, as an article in the “New York Times” puts it:
“It will not remain a small field for long. Senator Marco Rubio, Republican of Florida, is expected to announce his candidacy next week. Also waiting in the wings are Gov. Scott Walker of Wisconsin and Jeb Bush, the former Florida governor, who are expected to declare soon, rounding out what Republicans say is perhaps their most competitive and robust slate of candidates since 1980, when Ronald Reagan faced competition from party heavyweights like George Bush and Howard Baker.”
The “New York Times” has compiled this very helpful schematic to indicate who probably will and who probably won’t run for the Democratic and Republican nominations respectively.
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Is it best to take notes by hand or electronically?
April 7th, 2015 by Roger Darlington
According to this article, a study suggests that students who use a laptop to take lecture notes do not learn as well as those who make handwritten notes. I’m not so sure about this.
At every meeting, conference and lecture I attend, I take notes on my iPad. I believe that there are the following benefits to using a computer rather than a notebook.
- I can read my notes much more easily because they are more legible than my handwriting and and the text can be formatted later with highlighting or bullet points.
- I can have all my notes over several years with me all the time, instead of these notes being in various notebooks accumulating at home.
- I can organise the notes thematically, so all the meetings of a particular organisation, all the conferences on a particular subject, and all the lectures on a particular course are grouped together.
- As the event progresses, i can build up a list of action points at the bottom of my notes.
- I can connect to the web to check on a term that I do not understand or a website that is mentioned.
- I can easily e-mail any meeting note to a colleague.
- Since all my notes are routinely uploaded to the cloud, if I should lose my iPad or change it, I can easily download all my material to the new device.
I can see two potential downsides to this approach:
- I type more slowly than I can write. However, many students can type as fast or faster than they can write.
- There is a temptation to look at e-mail or web pages instead of concentrating totally on the event. However, very few meetings or conferences are so interesting that they merit full attention 100% of the time. Multi-tasking can be an efficient use of time.
What do you think?
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