Zombie

Subject knowledge is necessary, but it's not enough. For me it's about enthusiasm - for the subject, and for the students - and getting the students involved in the lesson, encouraging them to ask questions, while balancing that with control. That needs aptitude and skill. You can learn the latter but you need to have the former. Not everyone can be a good teacher. And teachers should not feel they have to know everything - which makes them defensive and alienates students - but they should be honest and engage with the students. They should encourage questions and if a question is sometimes asked that they don't have the answer to - and this will happen to any teacher - they should be honest, praise the student for asking the question "that's a good question" and say they'll have an answer for the next lesson. Students that ask challenging questions usually have a good teacher.

I'd go back to my 20 year old self and give some personal advice - oh yeah, and some share tips

Terrible destruction of such beautiful wilderness. Seems the regular fires that have always occurred and cleared scrub in forests haven't been allowed to happen under human management meaning when this fire broke out there was an unnatural quantity of scrub fuel causing such intense burning and heat that the burnt forest won't be able to recover in our lifetime

Yeah, available to everyone in the UK. But I posted this for non-UK Whovians who may not get a chance to see it - 480p is fine on a PC but don't delay cos the Beeb probably won't let this stay on Youtube *YT vids are also downloadable if you use Firefox *

This special Dr Who 50th anniversary BBC Proms concert was broadcast by the Beeb on Monday and is currently on Youtube in full http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SaFGwIGyzDA I'm guessing it'll get taken down so watch it now if you've not seen it. It's great fun and has Matt Smith, Peter Davison, and Carol Ann Ford, granddaughter and the first Dr Who companion of William Hartnell and LOTS of monsters prowling around the Royal Albert Hall terrifying the kids in the audience Early Dr Who had crap special effects but the music was always fab and in 1963 the sound created by the BBC Radiophonic Workshop under Delia Derbyshire produced the most advanced electronic sound effects anywhere in the world - and that fantastic theme

Wow, Maasai Warriors in London today to watch the cricket. How cool is that!!

Well no. Because the law was changed. Rule of law means the law as it is at the time, and laws change all the time. If they didn't then the Legislators would start getting nervous, cuz they know we'd start grumbling and complaining "why are we paying these idle f**ckers" So in fact changing the law to improve gay rights is good for the Legislators - proves they're actually doing something

Yeah, stabby scissors SNIP! SNIP! SNIP! Always a bit of a worry near the ears and eyes - might be a trainee on work experience Reminds me I had weird phobia as a small kid - hated the tips of my ears being touched. Bit of a problem at a barber's as I wriggled and squirmed in the seat. Amazed I got to adulthood .

One difference is the term "terrorism" is now being stretched to include all sorts of activities that no-one in the 60s or 70s would have ever considered to be terrorism and no reasonable person should consider to be so today either. It gives governments across the world a handy excuse to use oppressive laws in everyday business. That's a real worry. As to your comment on "general standards" of law that's a philosophical matter. Moses had it easy - he was given them on a plate ... er, tablets of stone

Where you have a secular state, like the US and Britain, the rule of law has to trump all other "rights" and it matters not a jot how emotionally those other "rights" are campaigned about. They can vent their spleens and burst their blood vessels, but they are relics of another age and they can't pick and choose which laws they like and don't like

It's quite simple. Laws derive from the legislature - the system most Commonwealth countries have adopted from the Mother of Parliaments. Same in the US. And the "rule of law" in Britain derives from an independent judiciary which has been well developed over several hundred years, but is less clear in the US due to party political contamination. So in Britain it is a very robust control for those "freedoms" that exist within the legal framework. Terror laws passed in the US and Britain pose serious risks to many of our long established "freedoms" and we do not yet know how this is going to pan out. Snowden has woken up the complacent to the real threats that 100% surveillance poses to those "freedoms" and the fact that - though we are not there yet - that is the end game the security services wish to achieve, and for that he should have our gratitude. Armed with this knowledge it's up to the citizenry to ensure that end game is not achieved. Unless they're content to end up back in 1984. I don't agree with Westie that "You surrender your rights to the needs of your nation". If that were so we would be no different from China and communist systems where the collective always trumps the individual. That is not the case in Britain.

The Israel Memorial is good news. Ever wondered what the pink triangle means? A lot of gay people don't care about gay history. They should. History has a nasty habit repeating itself. This bit of history concerns what the Nazis did to gays during WWII and also shockingly - and which has been forgotten - what happened to them after WWII ended under Germany's Paragraph 175: During the Nazi years in Germany jews and gays were sent to the concentration camps along with gypsies, the "feebleminded" and several other categories of people who did not meet the Nazi standards of "full human beings". Jews were forced to wear yellow identification badges, gays had to wear pink ones. We know the terrible fate that befell so many of these wretched people during the war years. But what is not so well known is the tragedy that occurred after the war. When the Allies defeated Germany and the Nazi Regime, the political and remaining Jewish prisoners were released from the camps (the regular criminals- murderers, rapists, etc.- were not released for obvious reasons). But the homosexual prisoners were never released because Paragraph 175 (a clause in German law which prohibited homosexual relations) remained West German law until 1969 when it was moderated (but not finally abolished until 1994). So these poor innocent men, whose only crime was to be gay, watched as their fellow prisoners were set free, but they remained prisoners for up to 24 more years. https://www.gayauthors.org/forums/blog/513/entry-13405-paragraph-175/ .

Truth!

God, I've just squandered 3mins 25secs of my life for that "little half smile", during which I had to endure all that hair swishing, writhing and pouting by the MC creature AND - worst of all - she snags him at the end! .

I really don't see that this thread has a valid purpose. It should be moved to a blog.

Maybe. Addy would still run, screaming ...

There's no reason for anyone to "feel" anything about this. Gender identity is an entirely personal matter for the individual. There are plenty of threads on this if you want to discuss transgenderism but to conflate this with other stuff that we all know about is simply inappropriate. https://www.gayauthors.org/forums/topic/36199-the-term-cisgendercissexual/?hl=%2Btransgender#entry397508 https://www.gayauthors.org/forums/topic/36987-gender-and-sexuality-how-do-different-cultures-respond/ https://www.gayauthors.org/forums/topic/36946-research-gender-dysphoria-and-reassignment-therapy-in-young-people/ https://www.gayauthors.org/forums/topic/36732-male-female-who-decides/

Britain does, however, have an essential control for freedom - the rule of law. We have a legal system that is independent of party politics. Judges are not party political appointments with claimed affiliations to any political party. It's no big deal when UK judges rule against the UK government - we expect that to happen when law is breached. That's our ultimate guarantee of "freedom" however you wish to define it.

Good for him. Every gay guy should be proud of him for making a stand for gay people. He alone won't change anything, but if no-one is prepared to stand up and be counted then the outlook for gays in Russia is bleak Course, being a sexy guy also helps Just in case you need reminding here are some taken earlier ... .

Semantics? Nope, not me. It's you that is playing the semantics card by suggesting that defining "oppression" is really much too complicated and difficult - so best not to bother at all, let's just forget about 'em because, in your own words, these are "other people's problems". Refugee / asylum seeker "A refugee is a person who is outside his or her country of origin or habitual residence because they have suffered (or fear) persecution on account of race, religion, nationality, political opinion, or because they are a member of a persecuted 'social group' or because they are fleeing a war. Such a person may be called an 'asylum seeker' until recognized by the state where they make a claim." [OED] If you'd read Steve's link carefully you would have seen the statement that a hearing is held for each asylum claimant and decisions are made for each individual "based on the merits of the specific facts presented in an individual case". You should open your eyes to the "oppressed people like political refugees, people who suffer discrimination up to and including death" that Steve referred to. Immigrants Er, that would be you. And your Mum and Dad. And the rest of your family who have ever lived in America. People who wished to move, in your own words, "from their undesirable circumstances into a much more appealing one". In fact every single American is an immigrant except those who were already living there since ancient times - the Native Americans. So it's nothing but selfishness and hypocrisy for a Non-Native American to want to deny immigrants to your country, let alone oppressed people who rightly deserve compassion - see below. As if your country is overcrowded!! Compassion As for your witterings about "compassion", well I'm not going to try and explain compassion to you. You either have it or you don't.

Perhaps best not to share how I'm reading this ...

First, I'm very sorry to hear of your health problems, Trebs. Sounds like you've had a real shit set of cards dealt and I hope you can make a good recovery. In Britain we all pay an insurance contribution through the state taxation system. So it's an efficient system - it avoids the huge costs of individual policies and individual underwriting and money handling - but just as with any healthcare system there are problems with delivery, which have been widely reported. But we've had a comprehensive national health service - the NHS - free at the point of delivery since 1948. That's a long time. We were broke when it started - just after WWII - and we're still broke now so nothing's changed Alongside the NHS we also have private health which provides everything except A&E. So we can have hip replacements done through private healthcare but these would cost nothing like the figures you quoted. Maybe the existence of the NHS acts as real competition to the private healthcare sector. Or maybe our private insurance - much of which is through mutuals - keeps a tighter lid on costs. No it's not perfect and it won't ever be, though most people in Britain are pretty happy with what they get. It takes away the worry. But this year the NHS has undergone the biggest changes since it was created and much of the money will now go to private healthcare providers. The jury is out on how those changes will affect delivery and cost.

Of course there are limits to "freedoms". That's always been the case because it's a truism. The only free man is Robinson Crusoe. Freedom in a group or society - oops, I used the "S" word - has always been relative, always a compromise between conflicting interests. So freedom's no more dead than it ever was - just more compromised

phwoar!! *exclamation when a hottie is spotted *

Don't see this guy being Barclays CEO anytime soon