porridge

Porridge for 2
6 tbs oats
3 glasses of milk/water (=18 tbs liquid because the liquid:oats ratio is 3:1)
1 tbs dessicated coconut
1 tbs sultanas
1/2 tsp ground cinnamon
1 tsp ground ginger
1 tsp ground mixed spice

cancer treatment

Various cancer treatment resources ...

Nathan Robinson on Jordan Peterson

Recommended reading by Chomsky: The Intellectual We Deserve in Current Affairs by Nathan J. Robinson.

Derrick Jensen on transgender

Derrick Jensen is one of my favourite radical environmentalists and I am glad to find that, in the transgender controversy, he is on the side of women who disagree that biological males who identify as “transgender” are women. Here is a link to a response by Derrick Jensen to a feature by John Stoltenberg on Andrea Dworkin (response and feature both from 2015): genderdetective.wordpress.com/category/queer-theory

Bernard Jenkin and climate change

Bernard Jenkin, MP for Harwich and North Essex, has generally voted against measures to prevent climate change according to theyworkforyou.com and source data on PublicWhip.org.uk.

Committee on Climate Change

The UK Gov Committee on Climate Change (CCC) July 2019 report states

Eleven years to limit climate change catastrophe

As reported in the guardian one year ago, the October 2018 report by the UN Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) warned that we had 12 years to limit climate change catastrophe, that is, to limit global warming to a maximum of 1.5C.

Poetry at #rainbowmillnvccamp 2019

Here is a list of some of the poems we read out at #rainbowmillnvccamp 2019:

Human Tide by Paul Morland

"The Human Tide, How Population Shaped the Modern World" by Paul Morland: the Intro and Chapter 2, The Weight of Numbers, are on Google preview pages - around 50 pages in all.

It is my book group's current choice and I am not impressed. As I wrote on Goodreads:

On Anarchism by Noam Chomsky

Next book for the Book Group (meeting on Tuesday 18 June) is On Anarchism by Noam Chomsky: the Penguin Special edition of 2013 – not to be confused with Chomsky on Anarchism, a collection of essays selected and edited by Barry Pateman, AK Press, 2005.

universal basic income

Following up on my earlier 2019/03/universal-basic-income blog, I just looked up "universal basic income" on the websites of the three big welfare rights charities I used to work for: CPAG, DRUK and Working Families. Searching for "universal basic income" at cpag.org.uk and workingfamilies.org.uk yields no results, while disabilityrightsuk.org does best with its round-up, 18 March 2019, of two new reports about Universal Basic Income. 

Don't Even Think About It by George Marshall

Don't Even Think About It: Why Our Brains Are Wired To Ignore Climate Change by George Marshall, © 2014, Bloomsbury USA. Read the Chapter Summaries by Jock Gilchrist at climateprotection.org...Dont-Even-Think-About-It-Notes.pdf
More about the book at www.climateconviction.org

Blessing poem by John O'Donohue

To create a space for all our words, 

Drawing us to listen inward and outward. 

We seldom notice how each day is a holy place 

Where the Eucharist of the ordinary happens, 

Transforming our broken fragments 

Into an eternal continuity that keeps us. 

Inventing Ourselves by Sarah-Jayne Blakemore

Inventing Ourselves by Sarah-Jayne Blakemore 

Next Book Group on universal basic income

​At last, about 9 years after its inception, this blog may have found its raison d'etre as a record of the Gentle Readers Book Group, established 2014.

Artificial Intelligence or AI

Next Book Group is on the potential impact of AI and technology in society. I recommend these DN! clips.

Pure, white and deadly

Our Feb book group meeting was on health: physical health and the modern medical model. (Prev, we looked at mental health and read Lost Connections by Johann Hari.)

Dark Mountain

We intend to challenge the stories which underpin our civilisation: the myth of progress, the myth of human centrality, and the myth of our separation from ‘nature’.

— Uncivilisation: The Dark Mountain Manifesto

This book or collection of essays and stories sounds worth following up. 

The boy who harnessed the wind

Now on Netflix.  Good review in Socialist Worker 6 March p13.

Goodreads

Recommended by friend DB of splendid B&B Radnor House in Hay on Wye. 
Mountains of the Mind by Robert Macfarlane, published 2003, about the history of the human fascination with mountains

Days Without End by Sebastian Barry: two young soldiers find intimacy amid the horrors of the American civil war

Sacred Hunger, historical novel by Barry Unsworth about the slave trade, 1992 Booker Prize (with Michael Ondaatje's The English Patient) 

Essex Libraries closure survey

Essex Libraries
Have your say on plans for future library services across Essex
The survey is open till 20 February 2019.

Three Kings pagan myth

Epiphany/Twelfth Night yesterday reminds me how the 3 Magi myth is an overlay on the previous pagan myth about the 3 stars of Orion's Belt pointing towards Sirius (aka Star of Bethlehem) as it rises in the East at this time of year. For more see for example
www.everythingselectric.com/forum/index.php?topic=194.0