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Big Brother is Watching
Nov. 29th, 2005 11:14 amSuffolk East Primary Care Trusts plans to ban smoking in its staff - even when they're off duty. Okay, from what little I'm seeing here, it's mainly talking about when they're in uniform or wearing their ID badge, but it's still galling. I can understand being asked not to smoke in a hospital, though not having smoking rooms is kind of a pain. And I can kind of understand why, when I was working at St Barts, they banned smoking on hospital grounds as well as in the buildings (so no more quick smokes in the quad, which sucked but I coped). However, dictating to employees what they will and will not do off-duty is obscene. I don't care if they're wearing a uniform and getting the smoke smell in it; that's what laundry and Febreeze is for. This, though -- this is stupid and 1984-ish. And yet they won't make tobacco use illegal, allegedly giving some nod to the fact that it's a smoker's choice whether he smokes or not despite the fact that they keep chipping away at people's civil liberties in that regard. (Really, though, I think they refuse to ban it because of the Treasury benefits of taxing cigarettes into the ground.) You can imagine that, once other businesses get wind of this, they're going to start implementing company-wide smoking bans.
As for this Trust, it also made a policy of rejecting the clinically obese for certain orthopaedic surgical procedures, mainly hip and knee replacements. Personally, I think they're scum. But that's just me.
Every time I pay attention to the news, something worrying comes to hit me in the face. For example, one school in Middlesbrough, run by a Christian charity, is installing CCTV cameras in all of its classrooms. I read about this yesterday and found it incredibly disturbing. Now, I can understand wanting CCTV in the corridors and on the outside of the building because of vandals and all, but in the classrooms? They claim that part of the benefit to this is the ability to show parents exactly how badly their child behaves on camera, because parents apparently don't give a crap what their kids do in school. Um ... if that's the case, are they going to care just because they're shown a video? Yes, it gives weight to what parents are told in parent-teacher conferences, but frankly, if a parent really doesn't care, it will go in one ear and out the other and, while the parent might make some token show of discipline in front of the school faculty, it'll all blow over once they get off campus. If a parent really doesn't want to discipline their child, no force on earth will make them. Simple fact. I don't know what any of this is about, though I note that, while they say, "This is not about spying on the teachers", they say nothing about it not being spying on the students. I agree that kids are getting more thuggish by the year, but I don't think putting them in a situation where they feel constantly watched will help things; it's just going to fuel resentment and cause a whole lot of off-campus aggro ... but I suppose the school doesn't care so long as it's not happening when they're responsible by virtue of in loco parentis. It's all about covering their arses and yet they claim it's to the children's benefit.
What amuses me is that the founders of this school, the Vardy Foundation, were in a row recently about teaching creationism in the first school it founded. Wonder what sort of standards they're going to hold the kids to ... with videotape to catch even the most piddling of transgressions. I know what kind of victimisation can happen in schools, even if they are non-denominational. I've been called into meetings with school counsellors for such diverse crimes as "talking funny" (someone reported my accent to a speech therapist and both the snitch and the therapist mistook said accent for a speech disorder), "being too quiet", "being morose" and "questionable reading material". They may be at the bottom of the barrel in socio-economic terms, but I do feel bad for these kids.
Well. That took my mind of day 2 of the insomnia and stress over Dragonmeet for a few minutes...
As for this Trust, it also made a policy of rejecting the clinically obese for certain orthopaedic surgical procedures, mainly hip and knee replacements. Personally, I think they're scum. But that's just me.
Every time I pay attention to the news, something worrying comes to hit me in the face. For example, one school in Middlesbrough, run by a Christian charity, is installing CCTV cameras in all of its classrooms. I read about this yesterday and found it incredibly disturbing. Now, I can understand wanting CCTV in the corridors and on the outside of the building because of vandals and all, but in the classrooms? They claim that part of the benefit to this is the ability to show parents exactly how badly their child behaves on camera, because parents apparently don't give a crap what their kids do in school. Um ... if that's the case, are they going to care just because they're shown a video? Yes, it gives weight to what parents are told in parent-teacher conferences, but frankly, if a parent really doesn't care, it will go in one ear and out the other and, while the parent might make some token show of discipline in front of the school faculty, it'll all blow over once they get off campus. If a parent really doesn't want to discipline their child, no force on earth will make them. Simple fact. I don't know what any of this is about, though I note that, while they say, "This is not about spying on the teachers", they say nothing about it not being spying on the students. I agree that kids are getting more thuggish by the year, but I don't think putting them in a situation where they feel constantly watched will help things; it's just going to fuel resentment and cause a whole lot of off-campus aggro ... but I suppose the school doesn't care so long as it's not happening when they're responsible by virtue of in loco parentis. It's all about covering their arses and yet they claim it's to the children's benefit.
What amuses me is that the founders of this school, the Vardy Foundation, were in a row recently about teaching creationism in the first school it founded. Wonder what sort of standards they're going to hold the kids to ... with videotape to catch even the most piddling of transgressions. I know what kind of victimisation can happen in schools, even if they are non-denominational. I've been called into meetings with school counsellors for such diverse crimes as "talking funny" (someone reported my accent to a speech therapist and both the snitch and the therapist mistook said accent for a speech disorder), "being too quiet", "being morose" and "questionable reading material". They may be at the bottom of the barrel in socio-economic terms, but I do feel bad for these kids.
Well. That took my mind of day 2 of the insomnia and stress over Dragonmeet for a few minutes...