But is it really safe?

I was busy elsewhere so can only now suggest treating a new outfit called Safe, Strong, Secure with some caution. I hope I am wrong about this, but want people to be safe and not sorry, hence the advice to look carefully before you consider running.

If you took the latest blurb (see http://www.iomtoday.co.im/news/isle-of-man-news/support-for-victims-of-domestic-abuse-1-5457625 ) at face value someone (obviously not a local) is trying to do something positive about the island's hidden domestic violence problem.

Actually, one major problem is that it is not hidden. In fact it is almost obligatory for any bloke who wants to fit into our sad little Manx macho subculture to boast about how he knocks ‘his’ womenfolk into line - at least if he wants to get on in business or the public sector.

It is one of the first things any visitor or new resident notices about this place. Even the most conservative women I know who have settled here from elsewhere still regularly remark what knuckledragging neanderthals Manx men can be.

So, if anyone was serious about naming, shaming and dragging the island into the same century as civilised countries we should all get behind that. And if this project really is, then fine.

Another problem is that the root of all this Manx misogyny is religious, and that because the religious right have discreetly infiltrated social projects – inevitably including all with government links or funding – then the problem is buried, not solved. I look at the list of possible allies and note Victim Support (hopelessly under the mucky thumb of Broadway Batwits, as is the Women's Refuge), Samaritans (prodnose godbotherers galore)  and the Salvation Army (hardly friends of women or the gay community on their local track record). And the linked problem to that (as anyone who has tried to get to the roots of Manx misogyny discovers pretty quickly) is that - far from dealing with casual sexism, actual physical or psychological violence and the oppression of women and small kids in general - Manx churches breed and protect the worst culprits, and will pull any string they have to in government to make sure the victims go unheard and the perpetrators keep their safe little public and ‘third sector’ jobs.

And it gets worse, because when I spotted the original BBC article last year that sparked off the first meeting (see http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-isle-of-man-19948528 ) something else rang alarm bells. To be precise, the mention of a UK charity called Restored.

For those who never check out these things, Restored (England & Wales charity number 1136774) is part of a 50 strong international Christian alliance, led by some heavyweight US rightist churches and in the UK partnered to Tearfund ( which is remarkable amongst British charities as possibly the only one requiring paid staff and volunteers to sign a pledge vowing to uphold homophobic and misogynist values).

Quoting from their own entry on the England & Wales Charity Register, the objectives of Restored are as follows (and do note the order of importance):

“1 TO ADVANCE THE CHRISTIAN RELIGION FOR THE BENEFIT OF THE PUBLIC BY SUCH EXCLUSIVELY CHARITABLE MEANS AS THE DIRECTORS SEE FIT FROM TIME TO TIME
2 TO PROMOTE HUMAN RIGHTS (AS SET OUT IN THE UNIVERSAL DECLARATION OF HUMAN RIGHTS AND SUBSEQUENT UNITED NATIONS CONVENTIONS AND DECLARATIONS) THROUGHOUT THE WORLD, SPECIFICALLY WITH A VIEW TO ENDING VAW AND TRANSFORMING RELATIONSHIPS, BY ALL OR ANY OF THE FOLLOWING MEANS:
* MONITORING ABUSES OF HUMAN RIGHTS
* RESEARCH INTO HUMAN RIGHTS ISSUES
* PROVIDING TECHNICAL ADVICE TO GOVERNMENT AND OTHERS ON HUMAN RIGHTS MATTERS
* CONTRIBUTING TO THE SOUND ADMINISTRATION OF HUMAN RIGHTS LAW
* COMMENTING ON PROPOSED HUMAN RIGHTS LEGISLATION
* RAISING AWARENESS OF HUMAN RIGHTS ISSUES
* PROMOTING PUBLIC SUPPORT FOR HUMAN RIGHTS
* PROMOTING RESPECT FOR HUMAN RIGHTS AMONG INDIVIDUALS AND CORPORATIONS
* INTERNATIONAL ADVOCACY OF HUMAN RIGHTS
* ELIMINATING INFRINGEMENTS OF HUMAN RIGHTS”

I have to suggest that placing the care and safety of abused Manx women and kids into the hands of monsters with a long record of such abuse is a little like putting the Taliban in charge of girls education in Afghanistan.

I hope I am wrong, and I hope that from somewhere within the sick and twisted belly of the Manx church beast some decent women have met up and said “Enough! We are going to put things right”.

I know some such women, so I hope; but I will not believe it until I see some hard evidence of change.

21st century child abuse

Well, profuse apologies but I’m still too bogged down with real life to get back to serious blogging.

But I couldn’t go without noting the kerfuffle this week when Tynwald approved the merger of the Isle of Man Adoption Society (still better known locally as the Manx Churches Adoption Welfare Society) with the Isle of Man Children’s Centre, thus also amalgamating the island’s fostering and adoption services (see http://www.isleofman.com/News/details/53740/bishop-s-concern-at-closure-of-iom-adoption-society and http://www.iomtoday.co.im/news/isle-of-man-news/bishop-doubts-over-charity-merger-1-5517942 ).

As reports say, it only squeaked through after the Bishop (who is honorary president of IOMAS/MCAWS) complained the Society’s directors had not consulted him and so the Tynwald vote was the first he’d heard of it. In turn, our Minister of Social Neglect was keen to point out that MCAWS management themselves had requested the handover of functions in order to close the society.

The immediate problem with this version of events is that, by law, the directors must formally announce the proposed closure meeting by public notice, and simultaneously give written notice to all concerned parties at least 21 days beforehand, so that the Bishop should have known of the meeting and resolution to close. Any ordinary member of the public who worries about such matters would have known, as it appeared in the local press in the public notices – where corporate crooks bury the other evidence of international scams being closed down if anyone can be bothered to look.

There is also the control of MCAWS by the Anglican Synod. In theory, any interested person of good character could offer their services as a director: in practice (and I have this from past attendees of such meetings) a private Synod meeting chooses suitable candidates. ‘Volunteers’ are ‘coincidentally’ proposed and seconded at the AGM and an election follows, conveniently never with more candidates for office than posts. How, then, could a MCAWS board exist unless very much under the thumb of the Bishop?

Another issue is the reasons for the closure.

Insiders suggest the government discreetly told MCAWS it would no longer fund separate adoption and fostering charities. This seems likely as the Minister for Social Neglect (another religious zealot, of course, though in his case a devotee of Rome’s new link to 1980’s Argentinean fascism) clearly demonstrates he believes there are ‘deserving’ and ‘feckless’ poor, and is gradually depriving all such sinners (be they old, disabled or simply too badly educated for employment) of the public support expected in a civilized society.

Then there is the matter of a Catholic adoption agency in Leeds, whose continued refusal to allow gay couples to adopt has been vetoed by the courts at every level of appeal. Following our Civil Partnership Act, MCAWS (one suspects with gritted teeth and rictus grins) have duly made it known that applications from straight or gay couples, divorcees or single people would all be considered without prejudice. Again, I’ve been discreetly told that gays and other such delinquents might have to have their applications considered by the island’s  moral guardians of religious rightness, but in practice would never be successful.

Sadly, though, this may not be quite the victory for common sense it appears.

Partly because from the 1980’s (when Manx government childcare was noticeably ‘dumbed down’ by cheap evangelical alternatives to trained professionals) through to recent years (with seminars being led by new age charismatics with no academic or professional pedigree) childcare on the island is itself something of a foster home for wacky ideas. 

Partly because the Children’s Centre is yet another ghetto for the ‘ladies who lunch’. You probably know the score here. Committees are formed by bored rich women whose husbands spend their days diverting foreign aid from the poor towards the offshore accounts of developing world dictators in return for control of natural resources by Western corporations. Funds get raised at glittering social soirees, and, inevitably, are spent with more regard for the latest fad than solid academic research.

Hardworking parents of lesser means find it ironic that while these legends in their own lunchtimes harangue the rest of us about raising children, their own offspring - deprived of parental attention - become the best customers of drug dealers or the first in line to hand their bank accounts to the venal leaders of dead-eyed cults. I say this having personally helped several Manx ’trustafarians’ (in the absence of parental support – or even interest) to escape such fates.

So, the failure to help troubled kids find loving families passes from religious flat-earthers to the kind of vacuous trophy wives who take horoscopes and new age twaddle seriously.

And this is progress?

Bit busy, so here's some other libertarians instead

This week family duties prevent me spending time on the blog, so I can only refer you to some excellent stuff by fellow libertarians.

If you have been following the lies, half-lies and obscurantist twaddle posing as ‘research’ behind UK attempts to introduce alcohol minimum pricing, then take a look at some intelligent analysis instead at http://www.iea.org.uk/blog/a-total-ban-on-alcohol-advertising-the-next-logical-step-0 .

You also really, really need to take advantage of a free download opportunity for a 75 page paper (i.e. a small book) by Chris Snowdon. He demolishes the myth that “sinners”—those who drink, smoke, and eat 'unhealthy' food—cost more to society than everyone else. Then he suggests that this fairy story has been perpetuated in large part because “government has no incentive to tell the public that these groups are being exploited and the affected industries dare not advertise the savings that come from lives being cut short by excessive use of their products.”

Strong, funny, provocative… and also properly researched, which is more than you can say of the guff from ‘health bodies’ which has recently been sprayed all over the UK media like so much Friday midnight adolescent upchuck. See it at http://cei.org/studies/wages-sin-taxes .

 By the way, you can keep up with Chris at his blog, Velvet Glove Iron Fist, to the right of this page.

Elsewhere Dick Puddlecote, another excellent libertarian blogger, has been uncovering some astounding stuff about shady goings on at Westminster between politicos and the sock puppet ‘public health’ outfits they use to pretend the public have been consulted before losing their civil liberties.

Last week, (see http://dickpuddlecote.blogspot.co.uk/2013/02/exclusive-attempt-to-kill-plain.html ) Dick revealed exclusively that Anne Milton, Parliamentary Under Secretary of State for Public Health, had held a meeting - which was initially hidden from her official ministerial record - with ASH and the APPG on Smoking and Health, the aim of which seemed to be to discount a massive public objection to the ‘plain packaging’ of cigarettes. It has been all over the libertarian blogosphere since, but not picked up by the ‘proper press’. Funny that.

This week (see http://dickpuddlecote.blogspot.com/2013/02/earl-howe-held-inappropriate-meeting.html ) he found CRUK - a bogus ‘cancer charity’ that these days seems more interested in underwriting government sock puppets than researching causes or cures for cancer - try to take it further.

Well, what a surprise. Bogus charities who depend on government for the majority of their income (in return for pretending to lobby government on ‘our’ behalf for the introduction of draconian social policies that their sponsors thought up in the first place) holding secret meetings with those parts of government who don’t directly employ them, aimed at making sure that genuine public opinion about such policies is buried, disbarred and, in general, struck from the parliamentary record.

Granted, this nonsense happens in the UK in far more sophisticated ways than, say, the clumsy broom cupboard fumblings between fundie charities and their dim Manx political friends. The thing to bear in mind, though, is that we will see this pitiful drivel produced as ‘fact’ and ‘academic research’ over here before inevitable attempts to parrot UK policies.

For one thing, because the Manx government are either too dim or too idle to do their own research on public health issues. For another, because Manx health and social care professionals seem a little undereducated themselves.

How else would you explain this (see http://www.gov.im/lib/news/education/collegehealthfay.xml) being presented quite seriously as ‘health education’?