Friday letter, Housing, sport and education

Friday letter 2

The housing market and stamp duty
I am astounded that the government would let the home office leak information that the government is thinking of changing stamp duty and then announcing that they are 'looking at various measures' and say nothing about stamp duty, and therefore stagnated the housing market at a time when it doesn't need it. Shame on you Mr Darling!

The Olympics
The run up to the Olympics has been a strange one as there has been and still is a tension between sport and politics. Those countries who have a financial and therefore political connection have sent their 'heads of state' to China. Those who have decided that what China is doing in repressing various areas of its society are not sending their 'heads of state'. This I think is to be applauded. What I find appalling is that the Olympics, as good and wonderful as it is, has embraced a capitalistic fervor for what ever reason. One-up-man-ship. Each Olympics has to be better than the last, and to what cost? Who has actually build the 'Olympic village'? How many have be displaced, without evening be asked if they wanted the games or if they wanted to move and where to? The politicians have been saying, more to convince themselves then anyone else, that the Olympics is good for the economy. The only Olympics that I know of that came anywhere near breaking even was the Sydney Olympics, and that after the games had finished for a number of years. A little bit like the Eurovision Song contest, Ireland decided NOT to win the contest because it didn't want to fork out thousands of pounds to host it. The Olympics i feel is going the same way it that it is becoming more and more expensive and a day will come when no-one will want to host it because of the expense. Until then, people will be displaced and the country tax payers will fund it whether they want to or not.
Ho humm!

"London's Telegraph newspaper reports that some of the fireworks which appeared over Beijing during the television broadcast of the Olympic Opening Ceremony were actually computer generated. But — hold on — it's not necessarily as bad as you think. The faked fireworks were actually set-off at the stadium, but because of potential dangers in filming the display live from a helicopter, viewers at home were shown a pre-recorded, computer-generated shot." (Quote from the internet.)

And then there's the little seven year old singer who wasn't allowed to take the stage at the opening ceremony because she has 'a chubby face and uneven teeth'. The vanity of the leaders astounds me.

A Levels were released this week. It was expected that the pass rate would go up, the 26th year in a row. Are A levels valid? I'm not having a go at students, I do think that they work hard for the exams, but I think they have been let down by the system. Are students are being taught to pass exams or are they being taught the subject and how to use it? Is it all down to the pressures of league tables of the schools. Has the ideals of giving parents all the information to make an informed choice failed the students? Do league tables give the right information for an informed choice? Is the pass rate the only information needed? Going back a few years to when I was at school the choice parents made about which school to send your children was done by speaking to other parents and visiting to schools during term time. If parents cant get time off work, then maybe they should re-appraise their priorities and where their children come in the grand scheme of their lives?? Also, many of the students would be employed locally, so if someone is employable then the school must be doing something right. And a bigger also, their was also a community where families would gather and help and be with each other, 'do life together' and in that you would get to know which schools had good discipline, good teaching standards and where the students are happy (a much missed attribute). One thing I am really grateful for is that I was taught how to learn, and at a young age. This did two things, firstly it made it easier for the teachers to teach because we could to learn and secondly, it made it fun and I had a great sense of achievement at the end because I understood the subject.

I was going to comment on the sad state of affairs in Georgia, but I will only say that this reminds me of the paranoid USSR of the 60's 70's and 80's.

And on a lighter note, Youtube was showing a video of some pro-Tibet demonstrators. Youtube then took it down because the IOC asked them to legally, Youtube asked them if they would go through with the action, they withdrew the complaint, so the video went back up. Good for Youtube, free speech and all that.