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Feb 22, 2011 12:45:44 GMT -5
Post by Kristin on Feb 22, 2011 12:45:44 GMT -5
One of the doctors I transcribe sounds exactly like Ralph Finnes when he does an American accent.
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Feb 22, 2011 15:36:41 GMT -5
Post by ladyt220 on Feb 22, 2011 15:36:41 GMT -5
Nice. There are certainly worse things to listen to.
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Aug 10, 2011 6:41:54 GMT -5
Post by mamaleh on Aug 10, 2011 6:41:54 GMT -5
I hope those living or traveling in London are safe from the rioting going on in that city these past few days.
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Aug 10, 2011 11:33:35 GMT -5
Post by klenotka on Aug 10, 2011 11:33:35 GMT -5
I don´t get it. I was in London like...six months ago? What do these people want and why are they destroying homes and shops of people who worked hard to get them? I feel like the whole Europe goes to hell - with half countries in Eurozone deeply in debt (and taking us, who don´t have Euro, with them), people are angry, fighting, shooting...The only thing I have heard on the news lately is a psycho in Norway shooting innocent people, debts, ecology, debts, people in the streets everywhere....it is very, very depressing, wrong and something bad is probably going to happen sooner or later.
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Aug 10, 2011 14:58:54 GMT -5
Post by ladyt220 on Aug 10, 2011 14:58:54 GMT -5
Exectly why they're happening is... complicated. Mostly because no one really knows, that's the problem.
Tottenham's been described as a riot waiting for an excuse to happen- it's a fairly deprived area with a lot of unemployment and a lot of young people with very few prospects. Then Police shot a man who they believed was armed and dangerous (even though it transpires later that he may not have been,) and what started as a peaceful protest became a flash-point for the riot that followed.
Everything that came afterwards is like a big, rolling wave of opportunism and theft though. They're not rioting for a reason, they're doing it because they can. There's a lot of disaffected kids involved, a lot of people who feel like they have no prospects lashing out in frustration, a lot of bad feeling and social unrest just in general, and then after that a lot of opportunists out to steal whatever they can and cause damange just because they think no one can stop them.
It's... been a very odd few days. I don't know what's going to come out of it but they haven't half arrested a bloody lot of people. I think they reported kids as young as 7 taking part in the looting in Birmingham. A lot of reports have been saying the average age of the looters was 14-20, organising like flash-mobs which made them so hard to keep on top of, and there's a lot of people asking where the hell these kids' parents are and exactly what went so wrong that they are so uncontrolled.
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Aug 10, 2011 15:54:33 GMT -5
Post by vivianl on Aug 10, 2011 15:54:33 GMT -5
This is the thing with societies where there is a high level of welfare. If things change for the worse just slightly, social unrest breaks loose. I do believe the current situation in the UK or any other welfare state is in a large part caused by the deterioriating economical environment and the people's wellbeing being hurt consequently. Well, working in the financial services sector, what really drives me nuts these days is the plummeting stock markets!
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Aug 10, 2011 17:42:59 GMT -5
Post by CrisisOver on Aug 10, 2011 17:42:59 GMT -5
Exectly why they're happening is... complicated. Mostly because no one really knows, that's the problem. Tottenham's been described as a riot waiting for an excuse to happen- it's a fairly deprived area with a lot of unemployment and a lot of young people with very few prospects. Then Police shot a man who they believed was armed and dangerous (even though it transpires later that he may not have been,) and what started as a peaceful protest became a flash-point for the riot that followed. Everything that came afterwards is like a big, rolling wave of opportunism and theft though. They're not rioting for a reason, they're doing it because they can. There's a lot of disaffected kids involved, a lot of people who feel like they have no prospects lashing out in frustration, a lot of bad feeling and social unrest just in general, and then after that a lot of opportunists out to steal whatever they can and cause damange just because they think no one can stop them. It's... been a very odd few days. I don't know what's going to come out of it but they haven't half arrested a bloody lot of people. I think they reported kids as young as 7 taking part in the looting in Birmingham. A lot of reports have been saying the average age of the looters was 14-20, organising like flash-mobs which made them so hard to keep on top of, and there's a lot of people asking where the hell these kids' parents are and exactly what went so wrong that they are so uncontrolled. Does UK not have something like our National Guard? What about setting curfew or even martial law to keep the peace?
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Aug 10, 2011 17:49:37 GMT -5
Post by sassysequins on Aug 10, 2011 17:49:37 GMT -5
We only have the police trained in riot control, or the Army. And certainly things like curfews sound good, but they'd probably be unworkable here. We tend to be liberal on the right to protest which is why this has been going on for so many days because nobody anticipated how widespread or serious the violence would get.
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Aug 10, 2011 18:25:02 GMT -5
Post by Kristin on Aug 10, 2011 18:25:02 GMT -5
and there's a lot of people asking where the hell these kids' parents are and exactly what went so wrong that they are so uncontrolled. Apparently, the parents are stopping to try on the sneakers before they steal them, LOL. Not trying to make light of a bad situation, but I read that this morning.
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Aug 10, 2011 20:12:09 GMT -5
Post by CrisisOver on Aug 10, 2011 20:12:09 GMT -5
We only have the police trained in riot control, or the Army. And certainly things like curfews sound good, but they'd probably be unworkable here. We tend to be liberal on the right to protest which is why this has been going on for so many days because nobody anticipated how widespread or serious the violence would get. Understood, Sassy. Of course, I'm sure you've studied some US history to know if a situation like this arose in the US, the National Guard would be deployed. Next would come enforced curfew and finally a declaration of martial law. I think the last time this happened was the Watts riots in Los Angeles. I could be missing some event, but I don't think so. I lived in Baltimore, Maryland when the 1968 race riots took place. I could write an amazing documentary of the events in my hometown. What's so terrible for y'all is the unrest seems to be 'just because we can'. I think it's deeper than that. UK austerity measures are surely taking a tremendous toll. I have a dear friend near Preston who keep me abreast of things. We in the US are not hurting nearly as badly as you are. I pray for peace and a wake up call for your government. ps: curfews are, sadly, enforced lethally.
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Aug 10, 2011 21:50:22 GMT -5
Post by cath112 on Aug 10, 2011 21:50:22 GMT -5
The violence is appalling and I hope rational minds will get some control soon. I don't know enough about how bad it is there to understand very well -- violence always seems like the wrong road to me -- but as the rich get richer and the poor, poorer all over the world, something's bound to erupt. History tells us that.
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Aug 11, 2011 1:23:12 GMT -5
Post by wombat on Aug 11, 2011 1:23:12 GMT -5
Curfew and martial law is unthinkable. I heard on the radio that there was a reluctance to use the army because they have all seen recent active service in more dangerous territories and might be inclined to shoot too early. Noone seems to know why it happened. There are people blaming spending cuts, but I'm not convinced as most of those don't seem to have taken effect yet.
The reports are that it was quiet last night due to bad weather and increased policing.
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Aug 11, 2011 1:59:17 GMT -5
Post by ladyt220 on Aug 11, 2011 1:59:17 GMT -5
Curfew and martial law is unthinkable. I heard on the radio that there was a reluctance to use the army because they have all seen recent active service in more dangerous territories and might be inclined to shoot too early. Noone seems to know why it happened. There are people blaming spending cuts, but I'm not convinced as most of those don't seem to have taken effect yet. The reports are that it was quiet last night due to bad weather and increased policing. I agree. Imposing a Curfew or involving the army are both very unlikely to happen. It was mooted on the news last night and everyone agreed that it smacks of revolution to start imposing those measures and that's something thay want to avoid any comparison to. It would be a massive overreaction and resented by everyone, not just the looters, when this is containable by regular police means as long as there are enough police. As Wombat said, the crap weather last night seemed to dampen the enthusiasm somewhat. Says a lot to me that the first places these people loot are electrical goods and sportswear stores. TVs and Chav clothing? Gives you a fairly strong mark against the body of the unrest being a social and class-related problem. They're a pretty specific portion of society. Everything else is opportunistic. You heard they caught an organic resturant chef trying to smash in a branch of Nandos? Not for any reason, just because mob mentality sucks people in and makes them do stupid things with the promise of anonymity. They caught him anyway, he's pretty much fucked his career now if they convict him.
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Aug 11, 2011 5:50:53 GMT -5
Post by Kristin on Aug 11, 2011 5:50:53 GMT -5
See, that's the problem with rioting in the first place, that mob mentality. If it's a riot that results from a protest, I think initially, while you can't condone the rioting, you can certainly understand the reason for it. The problem is, people who don't care at all about the reason for the protest and subsequent rioting simply join in just because they can, they see opportunities to steal and vandalize stuff with the possibility of not getting caught, which makes it very easy for people not involved to forget the honest reasons it began in the first place. Then again, if it weren't for riots, hip hop may never have made it out of the the Bronx. During the 1977 NYC blackout riot, TONS of DJ equipment was looted and the next thing you know, we have Kanye West. That whole mess was so stupid. "Hey, the power's out, it's really hot, we're annoyed! Let's steal stuff! While we're at it, why don't we set stuff on fire?" Except all they did was make shitty neighborhoods even shittier. The summer of 1977 was bad in NYC - you had lingering effects from a recession, the city itself being virtually bankrupt, rampant crime, including the Son of Sam murders, disco, (okay, that probably wasn't a factor, but more the hedonistic upper class having a good time while everybody else is struggling), and then, in what seemed like a summer-long heatwave, on one of the hottest days of the year, the power goes out because of lightning and lots of human error. That's enough to get people aggravated, but to that extent, it's pretty stupid. At least the Yankees won the World Series in the fall though (Hey, that's the first WS I even remember. I loved Reggie Jackson). Then again, again, without a riot, the United States of America might not even exist. en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Boston_MassacreWhich may or may not be a bad thing, depending on your outlook.
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Aug 11, 2011 8:07:22 GMT -5
Post by narrows101 on Aug 11, 2011 8:07:22 GMT -5
God, don't even remind me about 1977, I still can't get over being afraid of doing stuff in the city because of the 1970s. My in-laws actually knew one of the victims of Son of Sam, and I lived in Queens at the time and was around the same age so was so paranoid. That was the years of subways being reduced to two cars after 7:00 and having a cop on every train, the start of taking taxis home after work after 7:00 because it wasn't safe, the "hide your chains" on the subways, graffiti, ugh, it was absolutely horrible. That also was before the "Disney-fication" of Times Square so all the porn places were still around, the city was DEAD after 7:00, you were afraid to walk the streets.
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Aug 23, 2011 13:22:19 GMT -5
Post by narrows101 on Aug 23, 2011 13:22:19 GMT -5
Holy cow, there was a 5.8 earthquake in Virginia/DC with tremors felt in Manhattan - I think I'm the only one in my office that DIDN'T feel anything!
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Aug 23, 2011 13:32:12 GMT -5
Post by emtee on Aug 23, 2011 13:32:12 GMT -5
Yikes!! That was spooky. That was a very noticeable earthquake. Like many, I thought I was dizzy at first. Then the whole room was rocking.
See what you missed Hugh?
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Aug 23, 2011 13:41:32 GMT -5
Post by Wolvietat on Aug 23, 2011 13:41:32 GMT -5
Actually I figured it was because he was outside my door
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Aug 23, 2011 13:44:37 GMT -5
Post by mfphila on Aug 23, 2011 13:44:37 GMT -5
We have cracks in some of our office walls. They said aftershocks could be coming within the hour.
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Aug 23, 2011 14:20:17 GMT -5
Post by mamaleh on Aug 23, 2011 14:20:17 GMT -5
I didn't feel it either, Pat. And the crazy part is, I was doing my daily brisk walk across the Rutgers campus! I attribute my cluelessness to my wearing those sneakers that supposedly work your calves all the time. They really do keep you rocking (I can't stand still in them!), so that's probably why I didn't feel any difference. When I got back to work, they said the building had swayed, and some people had panicked. A co-worker was ready to send out a search party for me, she said, LOL. Fortunately, no reports of injuries so far. I hope our homes' foundations are OK.
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