Closing Libraries

West Norwood library has been closed for months because copper was stolen from its roof and the building is not usable.  This is a serious loss.  It was always busy, particularly with children.  At a moment when we are concerned about the fact that 11-year-olds can't read as well as would be expected it is very serious that this facility is not available to them and their parents.  There is no sign on the door to give users any indication of when it might be open again.  Evidently Lambeth Council does not consider this a very urgent matter.

In an effort to save money South Norwood library is now closed several days a week.  At a time when so many graduates are unemployed, could they not work in libraries?  Even on a voluntary basis it would be better for them than doing nothing, and they would gain experience.  Is it necessary for each smallish library to have more than one trained librarian on site?

The future of the country depends on us having an educated workforce.  Facility in reading is essential for this.  I am afraid Councils consider libraries soft targets, but they are vital, particularly if there are now fewer books in peoples homes.

How to teach a woman who leaves a 16-month child home alone that this is wrong?

A 20-year-old woman (or should we say child?) who left her 16-month-old baby alone over five nights, only returning for a couple of hours at a time to feed her cereal, is threatened with jail.  Is this really appropriate?  She doesn't so much need punishment, as basically to be taught how to live.  If she is put in jail presumably someone else will have care of the child and there will be an added rift between them.  It seems to me that both her and the child should be placed somewhere where she can care for it under supervision and learn the joys as well as responsibilities of motherhood.

Wastefulness

I sympathise fully with people who get frustrated with that wretched IKEA self-assembly furniture, but most of us can find someone cleverer than we are to help out.  However, one person decided to just dump the pieces, along with the huge cardboard box they were delivered in, outside our row of garages.  We know this has to be cleared away quickly, otherwise it's considered a dumping place and more arrives.  So I folded up the cardboard into a sizes suitable to be picked up with the recycling, and my neighbour sawed up the wood for my open fire.  What a terrible waste, though!  This isn't a prosperous area.  Everyone feels so poor.  How can this happen?  I think the thing must have cost about £150.  This is a road few people use.  Just leaving it there and hoping somebody would take it wouldn't work very quickly.  What should I have done with it?

Human Duties

I'm afraid I'm a bit tired of hearing about Human Rights and wonder why the term Human Duties isn't nearly so often heard - in fact never.
If old people have a right to be cared for in hospital, there is a corresponding duty on their family to see that this is being carried out.
If children have a right to education, their parents have a duty to see that they are properly fed and rested before they go to school.
Each right has its parallel duty.  Let's try to think of it that way to make Society work better.

How long do we want to live?

My 93-year-old friend at last died at 4.30 p.m. last Sunday, despite the best efforts of the NHS to keep her alive, against her will.  Of course they had the best of intentions.  Of course they are there to preserve life.  But: Thou Shalt not Kill, nor Shalt Thou Strive, Officiously to keep Alive.

On Friday she told a doctor who was going to launch on yet another course of anti-biotics that she did not want it.  She only needed to be kept comfortable, she wanted no further treatment.  The young doctor fetched a senior one, and he persuaded her to accept the medication.

On Saturday it was clear to her nephew that she was near death.  On Sunday it was clear to me.  Three hours before she died a nurse came in to give her not one, but two injections.  I don't think they were the anti-biotics, she had already had those.  No wonder the NHS is short of funds, pumping expensive drugs into dying people. 

My friend had made a living will.  She had made it clear to everybody she knew in the past two years, and more, that life had no more attraction for her.  What's more, she was a person who hated waste.  She saw it all around her, both in her nursing home and in the hospital.  She made me promise to campaign on these two issues, not prolonging life artificially, and not wasting our planet's resources.  I am going to pursue this on her account as well as my own as long as I have breath and finger-power to do so.

Abortion

Nick Santorum, hoping to be the next President of the United States, believes that a baby conceived as the result of rape is "a gift from God" and must not be aborted.

There has been a lot of discussion about the vexed question of abortion and it is understandable that people have vastly different beliefs about it.  But those who believe there is a Right to Life and that the foetus has a greater claim to survival than does its mother, refuse to think about what kind of life this poor little baby may well live.  It is just unfair to have an unwanted child.  Whatever the reason the mother might have for not wanting it, the fact of being unwanted will make it very difficult for it to have a happy life.  This idea seems to haunt people their whole lives.

Beyond not wanting it, the mother who has been raped has ample reason to hate the father and certainly not want to perpetuate his genes, and may well be led to hate the resulting baby.  I'm afraid I think Santorum is a wicked and unimaginative man totally unsuitable to be President.

What happened to Pneumonia - the Old Man's Friend?

Alexander Fleming foresaw problems that anti-biotics might run into.  I wonder if he thought of this one?  When we lose sight, hearing, general health, mobility, and, above all, ability to control our bladder and bowels, some also lose the will to live.  Along comes pneumonia to finish us off.  But if we are in hospital along also comes a well-meaning young doctor and prescribes anti-biotics.  The pneumonia is cured, but not whatever took us there in the first place.  It would be kinder to let people die, suddenly, of their pneumonia than linger on suffering and dependant.   I have spent a lot of time in geriatric wards.  Because I am old myself I understand.  Because I am old myself old people tell me they know they can no longer go home, they don't want to go into an institution, they would rather fade away.  How long are we going to put up with this really cruel system?  By definition younger people find it hard to imagine how old people feel.  The rules are made by the comparatively young. It is ridiculous that the word "Death" is never mentioned.  At a certain point "Death" becomes our friend.  I know for sure because I have a daughter who died at 52 of cancer.  That is what she thought.