Procrastination man - Part 2

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Monday 24 January 2011

Showing that you care

Two weeks ago, I started a series on Good Samaritan stories, and I asked you to email your stories. The plan is to make this a fortnightly series. Here's one I received.

When I was about 6, I was in a newsagents with my mum and younger brother. My brother’s severely autistic, and used to throw really bad tantrums when he didn’t get his way. So there we were in the shop, and my brother grabbed a packet of crisps. Unfortunately when my mum went to pay for them, she realised at that point that she’d left her purse at home. My brother would not put the crisps down and was starting to cry, I was still too young to be sent home to get the purse, and the shopkeeper was getting more annoyed. A random man came up to the counter and just paid for them, no fuss made. “My brother’s like that,” was all he said before leaving. That really stuck with me.

Don't forget to send your stories to goodsamaritanstories at gmail.com

Monday 17 January 2011

Homophobia? I think not.

A Tory MEP has been causing quite a bit of a stir in the world of Twitter. What set it all off? A simple tweet, a screengrab of which is available here.
Now for the sake of the argument, let's forget about all the controversies Mr Helmer has been involved in, and let's look at whether this particular tweet is worth all the outrage it has caused.
Some even urged David Cameron to act on the issue, as the Guardian reports. Reading through the comments, a vast majority is denouncing homophobia on the part of the MEP.
But is it really homophobic - or even ignorant, as some more sophisticated readers made the distinction? I would argue it is not. The question Mr Helmer asks is an interesting one.

Is it right to try to "turn" a consenting homosexual straight?

Note he didn't use the word "cure". Never did Mr Helmer imply homosexuality was a disease to be cured. The inference is on the reader's part.
I would argue that some gays are unhappy with their sexuality. This could be down to pressure from a homophobic/straight-centered society. It could also stem from personal beliefs, which is something liberal bigots find hard to believe.
For such people, I think that Mr Helmer's suggestion has nothing shocking in it. The fact is, I believe (although I have no links to support this), that all strategies used to turn people don't work. This does not mean that they never work, but that they don't consistently work and that the success rate is so low it could be attributed to randomness.
So Mr Helmer could be defending a con. Or a placebo. He still is not, in that particular instance, making a homophobic statement. So please stop crying wolf.


Note: this was brought to my attention by the lovely @TheBrianDuggan, who is the coolest Labourite I've met, though we seem to disagree on this specific issue. My tweets are here

Monday 10 January 2011

Heart-warming stories

The BBC recently put up a very great feature. Not shattering revelations, not a grand piece about ethics or politics - just a story; and not one involving a celebrity. The story told by a simple guy of how a good person went out of his way to help him. Something in that story is both heart-warming and tear-jerking. I'll let you read it: A real Good Samaritan
This was followed by readers emailing in some of their own good samaritan stories, a selection of which can be found here.
It is such a pleasure to read these stories I thought I'd try and make it a regular (monthly? weekly? depending on how many you send!) feature on this blog, so email in your stories to goodsamaritanstories at gmail.com
There's been a fair few times people have been exceptionally good to me, but the one that I hold dearest of all is the following:

Back in 2008, I was feeling very much down, partially because I was missing England so much. One night, I got a phone call from an awesome guy called Ben, who got the whole choir to sing my favourite song. Over the phone - during an international phone call.
I had very good friends in the choir and while I knew Ben, he wasn't a close friend, so this was very much unexpected and lovely. To this date, this is the single fondest memory I have. So thank you again to Ben and to everyone in Rev.