Richard Stamper

Looks lovely. To be a bit nerdy, however, a linear regression on the sea level data from St.Johns from Nov 2007 to Jan 2023 indicates the sea is about 7.2cm higher on average than 18 years ago.

I have tried hard to match my friends in their pessimism about the world (is it just my friends?), but I keep encountering people who, in spite of all the evidence of terrible things happening everywhere, give me hope. Especially young people, in whom the future rests. Wherever I go, I find such people. And beyond the handful of activists there seem to be hundreds, thousands, more who are open to unorthodox ideas. But they tend not to know of one another’s existence, and so, while they persist, they do so with the desperate patience of Sisyphus endlessly pushing that boulder up the mountain. I try to tell each group that it is not alone, and that the very people who are disheartened by the absence of a national movement are themselves proof of the potential for such a movement. Revolutionary change does not come as one cataclysmic moment (beware of such moments!) but as an endless succession of surprises, moving zigzag toward a more decent society. We don’t have to engage in grand, heroic actions to participate in the process of change. Small acts, when multiplied by millions of people, can transform the world. Even when we don’t “win,” there is fun and fulfillment in the fact that we have been involved, with other good people, in something worthwhile. We need hope. From: The Optimism of Uncertainty By Howard Zinn • ZCommunications • September 30, 2004; The Nation • September 20, 2004

An optimist isn’t necessarily a blithe, slightly sappy whistler in the dark of our time. To be hopeful in bad times is not just foolishly romantic. It is based on the fact that human history is a history not only of cruelty but also of compassion, sacrifice, courage, kindness. What we choose to emphasize in this complex history will determine our lives. If we see only the worst, it destroys our capacity to do something. If we remember those times and places–and there are so many–where people have behaved magnificently, this gives us the energy to act, and at least the possibility of sending this spinning top of a world in a different direction. And if we do act, in however small a way, we don’t have to wait for some grand utopian future. The future is an infinite succession of presents, and to live now as we think human beings should live, in defiance of all that is bad around us, is itself a marvelous victory. From: The Optimism of Uncertainty By Howard Zinn • ZCommunications • September 30, 2004; The Nation • September 20, 2004

Homework:

"Small acts, when multiplied by millions of people, can transform the world." -- Howard Zinn

www.howardzinn.org/collection/t...

On this note, ventilation in some buildings is atrocious. The school where I was Chair of Governors during Covid put CO2 monitors in classrooms/corridors to understand the ventilation. In one teaching block, many monitors went to max scale: 5000ppm. Staff and students were literally being poisoned.

Yes! I've thought it would be better to trail spuriously deployed National Guard (etc.) playing, not the Imperial March from Star Wars, but the Dance of the Cuckoos, aka the Laurel and Hardy theme music.

Sometimes it just feels like a poem was written exactly for you. I've read this one a hundred times, have even heard WB read it, but when I began to read it this morning the first line brought tears to my eyes.

A group of "primary school ids" out cycling (as in the Id which "precedes the ego ... [and] consists of the basic instinctual drives that are present at birth, inherent in the somatic organization, and governed only by the pleasure principle" - Wikipedia) is amusing, and alarming!

Ock Street

But that is perhaps because I have the luxury on this occasion of taking an "outsiders" perspective, being neither a Jew nor a Muslim. I can see that for people of either faith, the total amount of hate crime is likely to be less relevant than the chance of personally being a victim. 2/2

times 3250/3850 (eyeballing the incident numbers from the graph) gives 12.3.
I'll confess I didn't notice the paragraph above the plot. My immediate reading of it is that it was saying that the total amount of anti-Muslim hate crime remains slightly greater than anti-Jewish. 1/2

Or even the 13 times that the data would require to sustain your claim that a Jew was more likely to be subject to hate crime than a Muslim in 23/24. Probably true. Less clear cut for 22/23. I guess I'm left wondering why you wanted to make that point, requiring supposition, rather than any other.

Actually, I meant Little Clarendon Street near North Parade! But now you mention it, South Parade does also have a cycling contraflow.

Howard Street has data on Telraam.

Oxford has at least North Parade & Howard Street, both OK because motorised traffic levels are relatively low and slow. For Howard Street it was introduced when the road became part of an LTN; it would have been marginal prior to that. That junction in Abingdon gets a lot more traffic.

No, it means you can't tell from that data whether you are more likely to have a hate crime committed against you if you're Jewish, rather than Muslim, because the reporting rate for crimes against Jews may be much higher than for those against Muslims.

The subtitle says "Police recorded hate crimes" not "Hate crimes committed" so the figures presented are determined not just by the rate of crimes committed but also by the rate of reporting.

@emilykerr36.bsky.social Any chance? A camera might be nice too, to deter the growing number of motorists who appear to think it's fine to drive the wrong way down a one-way street, particularly if they want to park near the shops on Iffley Road.

There's been a deluge of Disney+ ads on UK commercial channels in this last week, at least when using catch-up TV. A very noticeable change from previous weeks, so I'm assuming the loss of US (in particular) subscribers is hurting.

Recovering from the Shame of Combat The power of narrative to heal.

"Shame is common to many soldiers during and after combat and is one of the most troubling reactions to war," the late Edward W. Wood Jr., a WWII veteran, wrote, "and one that they must deal with throughout a lifetime. It is also the one least often admitted and the one almost never talked about."

In case you don't already have it, @oxfordclarion.bsky.social for Oxford.

This resident, Labour Party member and one-time branch officer, was consulted and is delighted with the introduction of the congestion charge. The Labour Party pitching for supporters of Reform nationally and of the IOA in Oxford is depressing. Standing order for Labour Party membership now stopped.

The roll (368) is similar to that at August 2023 (374) when they lost £0.5M on income of £6.2M. Those accounts questioned whether the school was viable as a going concern with more losses expected in 2024 and 2025. I suspect preparing the 2024 accounts (which are late) made the answer obvious. No.

Admissions statistics indicate that Ftizharry's School in Abingdon alone has about 200 spare places currently and Larkmead also has some, so schools in Abingdon should have capacity to absorb those from OLA.

I suggested no such thing, just noted that the current system is nuts. A legal entitlement to provision that is not in place and is not funded guarantees both frustrated parents and bankrupt councils. Council SEND debt will reach £5B by next March; without change, SEND will kill local democracy.

The EHCP system is mad. It gives parents a route to get a legal entitlement to additional support for their child, untethered to any consideration of whether funding or actual provision is available to provide that support. Why would parents NOT use it to gain an advantage when funding is tight?

You're right that the proposal does reward people already owning multiple cars, but there's no financial incentive to buy an additional car. The marginal cost of just owning a car (VED, repairs/maintenance, insurance, never mind depreciation) will exceed any saving through having more permits.

Conversely, a few years ago we were in Vienna in early September just after a long heatwave. The interiors of the big churches were then considerably *hotter* than the outside temperature, which just felt wrong.

Air pollution levels in Oxford continue to improve in 2024 – Oxford City Council Air pollution levels in Oxford continue to improve in 2024

Council page at www.oxford.gov.uk/news/article.... reports on both. Link to detailed report also there.

Currently with hundreds (thousands?)nof Common Spotted Orchids, plus Bird Vetch, Flag Irises (last few remaining!), Marsh thistle, Water cress, Big trefoil, with Purple Loosestrife and Meadowsweet just coming in to flower. And that's just the ones we spotted.

That's a big claim. For starters, I'm pretty sure that an understanding of at least some elements of logic, the scientific method, psychology and philosophical thinking would be of benefit to everyone living in 21st Britain. They'll just help you navigate the world more easily, and enjoyably.

As a pedestrian, do you not sometimes see such a line of cars as an impromptu assault course? Can you make it all the way along without touching the pavement? One day I may give in to the temptation.