Public health notice

Some regulars have been asking where the hell I've been lately (though they put it more politely).
Sorry about that. In addition to the usual unavoidable engagements with 'real life' I decided it was about time I updated my ancient PC, and thought I'd picked the best time, when I'd be able to deal with any teething troubles.
Ha!
Inevitably all my troubles only began towards the end of the handy slot for solving them, and have dragged on ever since. Hopefully now behind me, but as a few likely stories and topics have been and gone while I was kicking my heels I'll post a current one before things can go pear-shaped all over again.
Check http://www.gov.im/news/2013/nov/13/west-midlands-quality-review-service-presents-its-review-approach-to-tynwald-members/ , which was posted on the government website on Friday afternoon. Usual tactic when a government department wants a necessary announcement (but potentially awkward to them or useful to critics) to be missed.
Note in particular:
“As well as the announced meeting with Tynwald Members, each WMRQS review visit will include meetings with groups who can represent the views of patients and carers who use the services being reviewed and meetings with patients who have used the services recently. Questionnaires will also be available in the relevant service areas, which patients and carers can use to tell the reviewers about their experiences. These questionnaires will also be available electronically. Guidance for the public has been developed including how WMQRS will engage with patients, carers and relatives.”
In short, an external independent review is needed to silence all the local grumbles. In order that it says what the Health Department need it to say they'll do their best to make sure the only members of the public who can comment are their tame 'patient and carer representatives'.
If you are a genuine, independent member of the public who wants to at least try and get your experience or views to the independent reviewers, you are going to have to either go up to Nobles and wander around until you can find a questionnaire or keep a look-out for it on the government website, probably tucked away somewhere under either the Health Department pages or the Public Consultations page.
Good Luck with that.

Oxfam would not take this tat. Why should we?

I was intrigued, and even encouraged, by a small piece of graffiti I saw in Douglas yesterday.
On the wall outside the multi-storey car park, beneath a crude image of (presumably) a hammer or axe, someone wrote: “Art isn’t always well fought out”.
Someone else then crossed out “fought” inserted “thought” and scribbled “idiot!” beside the original graffiti. But I think they missed the pun, and the point.
As a cultural academic and veteran of numerous serious (if also playful) attempts to question the point of art (and in particular if all art inevitably gets commodified eventually, so we might as well give up and do something else) it was at least encouraging that someone thinks such questions might still matter. Especially on the Isle of Man, where – to be blunt – the local Arts Council was always run by water-colouring fossils under the thumb of small town politicos who were proud to know nothing about art but know what they like and things have now hit a sub-YBA low (YBA being ‘Young British Artist’, for anyone who still cares).
In the 1980’s I probably knew three Manx artists (at most) with some sort of internationally recognisable talent, social conscience or knowledge of contemporary art history – mostly gained from being around politicised punk like Rock Against Racism. By the late 1990’s, when I returned here tooled up by direct contact in Leeds with most of the original art theorists and armed with the opportunity to explore such stuff in a local newspaper column, even they had been replaced by a new generation of dull conformists. Younger, nominally qualified but more terrifying than the ‘ladies who paint’ one still meets at Manx art gallery openings.
Yes, there is public and private money being thrown at local art world hacks to prettify awful and socially pointless new buildings and shopping complexes, generally thrown up like a bad curry after a drunken Friday night out in the vain hope some gullible tourist will splash their disposable income around. But would any sane and socially responsible artist take it?
Are there any anyway? And why is there no public engagement or debate about the arts? Sorry, but ‘government surveys’ which filter out all attempts to comment on a pre-decided policy do not count.
Real questions need to be asked. We could start with basic ones, like would you rather have a concrete seagull stuck next to some harbour-side cafes or a home help? But we could ask better ones, like would you rather pay some spawn of a banker with an art degree to come up with ‘public art’ or plan something better with your neighbours........ or just not bother?
Off hand, I cannot think of one piece of art in the Manx public domain which actually contributes to a sense of well being or pride in a community. Honestly, I just cannot, and I am actually interested in art and the regeneration of community!
These days walking through Manx towns is like walking through a surreal scene in which the family of some recently deceased person, rather than donate the stuff to a charity shop, has dumped giant versions of 50p store paintings and ornaments out in the street, where they clutter pavements or lean against walls.
Oxfam would not take this tat. Why should the rest of us?

No justice, just privilege for hate-filled religionists

The island’s Department of Home Affairs this week published something they’re passing off as a summary of public views on the new Criminal Justice Bill.
As with many ‘public consultations’, it’s a bad joke. Probably not as unintentionally funny ( or downright cretinous) as the time the Manx government had a public consultation on the way they did public consultations, but pretty close. They concluded then that they didn’t need to change anything in a model they’d downloaded in entirety from the UK parliament website (their only change to the download was to halve the proposed consultation periods).
This time, as ever, they’ve responded by ignoring all the points made from all the respondents apart from the religious nutters, who want to reserve the right to behave like the racist, sexist, homophobic and generally sub-human throwbacks that we know them to be without any of their sermons being regarded as hate speech. This was thought perfectly reasonable.
The section dealing with it reads in full:

“Clause 72
Amendments to the POA 98
Hatred against persons on certain grounds
This clause attracted 23 comments of which 21 expressed reservations in relation to the proposal. These reservations centred on the issues of freedom of speech and freedom to express religious beliefs and convictions without being prosecuted.
Department response
The Department noted and accepted observations that the clause did not have a satisfactory definition of “hate” or “hatred”.
The Department believes it is important to ensure that all in society are able to enjoy their lives without others harming them simply because of their religious beliefs (or lack of belief), sexual orientation, disability or their racial origin. However, whilst the Department is not persuaded there is adequate provision in current law to deal with emerging issues, the Department has reluctantly decided, at this time, to withdraw this provision from this Bill.
The Island is becoming an increasingly diverse society and the Department will nevertheless keep the matter under close scrutiny.”

This raises an interesting point, as there cannot be 21 literate evangelicals on the island.
Interestingly, while on the odd consultation report the views of respondents are attributed to the respondent, on this one they are not. I supect that would be because it would emphatically prove that most ‘views’ defending religious hate speech were from off-island wingnuts.
It has happened before. In fact, it always seems to happen whenever religious privilege is challenged by new legislation.
The report in full can be found at http://www.gov.im/fsc/ViewNews.gov?page=lib/news/dha/criminaljusticeb.xml&menuid=11570 .
If you can read or write you probably won’t like it.

Is there a Manx word for 'Equality'?

What seems like years ago, but was in fact less than 18 months, I helped contribute to a government consultation on a planned Employment Equality Bill. Yesterday I was informed the results had been published.
You can find them at http://www.gov.im/dti/employmentRights/closedwithresponse.xml, and I warn you now some of them are not pleasant. If anyone needed an accurate picture of the gap between the understanding of basic human rights and respect for others seen in the civilised world and the Manx view on such things, this is it.
Almost the only positive thing I can say about the report on the consultation is that, for once, whoever collated it reveals what was said and who said it. In that sense it is a valuable document for anyone who wants to understand just how Manx democracy and government happens – or rather, doesn’t.
I know personally from watching them in action that Manx government departments are often run by folk who care little for humanity, but the comments you see from some of them in this consultation might surprise everyone else. For example the total disinterest in giving disabled people basic employment rights and support which are now taken for granted throughout Europe.
The comments from religious organisations will surprise nobody, and to be fair they are quite upfront about their intent to ride roughshod over everyone else’s rights and feelings if they can get away with it. But it is still astonishing that government just doesn’t get it on religious privilege.
Despite having it explained in words of one syllable, they plan to allow religious organisations paid from public money to continue discriminating against employing women, gays and non-Christians as they see fit. One wonders what more we can do to educate our dimwit politicos or the culturally clueless who advise them – pictures, watch the bouncing ball singalongs in a Powerpoint presentation…or what? Someone tell me, because I give up!
Comments from others in the Manx community might also raise eyebrows, as will the government response. For example, it is astonishing that an organisation representing a dozen or so tosspot employers gets more government ‘weighting’ than the views of the Isle of Man Trades Council, which represents the vast majority of Manx working people.
You will also discover fairly quickly why the words ‘honest’, ‘compassionate’ and ‘Manx advocate’ are rarely, if ever, found in the same sentence – apart from this one.
The mind boggles at the astonishing sums which must have changed hands for members of the Isle of Man Law Society to write the responses of the employer and business organisations who, in theory, responded to this one, as well as ghost-writing most of the government department responses too (a quick review of government accounts shows the regularity with which ‘independent legal advice’ is sought on the most trivial matters). Yet the pretence is that the Society simply responded as one party.
Read this report. If you are an off-island reader I won’t blame you if you laugh out loud, but if you are local be very, very ashamed of what we are letting happen on an island which is, at least nominally, democratic and with residents who can walk without dragging their knuckles.