Voting

I'm amazed at the number of people who ask me "who are you going to vote for?" A long campaign was fought in the nineteenth century to achieve voting by secret ballot; prior to that voter intimidation was commonplace. Not that I expect anyone to come around and threaten to beat me up unless I vote Tory, but still...

The other thing that's come out of this electoral campaign that's horrified me is just how much redrawing constituency boundaries both the Tories and Labour have done in their periods of government to ensure their safe reelection. I thought wholesale gerrymandering of this kind of this was put a stop to in 1832! No wonder the Lib Dems are complaining! Lord Grey, get down off your pedestal, stop sending us tea from China tasting of soap, and come back and fix the system!

Notes from Limmud 2009: Leaving Religion: Kids at Risk

( A growing phenomenon in the Orthodox Jewish world is children who reject the observant/traditional lifestyle of their families. What are some of the underlying reasons for this trend, and how can families and educators respond? What does this situation tell us about religious Judaism as it is currently practised? Is it actually a misnomer to term these kids  )

An evening playing with GIMP

On a whim, I've just done this:

( Meddled-with photograph )

It's something I've not tried to do before; what do you think?

(It took a few attempts to get something I was satisfied with. Originally I desaturated the background completely, but that left it looking rather austere, conveying none of the uplift that verdant greenery does (why does it do that to you^*?). Then I tried reversing the effect, desaturating aviva_m instead, but wasn't satisfied with that either; before thinking of the above as a happy medium.

* That's generic "you"; I'm not failing the Turing test here. :o)

( Prior attempts )