Tag: BBC news
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They didn’t ask for it
Sometimes, you just have to take a stand! Sometimes, enough is enough! How many times do we read about lawyers –or even judges- wondering about the effect of clothing on sexual assaults? And it’s not just the criminal justice system that asks the question; I fear that it is a question that floats just beneath…
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Does the Best Safety Really Lie in Fear?
There are many unheralded benefits of age, one of which is invisibility -changing from a potential threat into a banality. A non-entity for whomever might otherwise be at risk. I can watch from shadows while the world strides past –on the street, in a bus, in a coffee shop. Wherever. Men, until they age it…
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Is What’s Past Really Prologue?
War has so many faces and wears so many different clothes that you might be forgiven for misunderstanding its refugees. Confusing cause and effect in their behaviour, their appearance, and perhaps, most obviously, in their adaptations to the stress of upheaval and migration. There is no universal pattern that obtains, and few things to offer…
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Let Every Eye Negotiate for Itself
We are very attuned to patterns, aren’t we? We see them even when they aren’t there, filling in the lines, reading the shadows to complete the image. But does the face we see in the play of light on forest leaves, or the finger in the sinuous beckoning of the windblown grass really fool a…
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What’s Past is Prologue
Sometimes it’s hard to get things right; sometimes it’s hard to get things even sort of right. We pride ourselves on foresight, on our ability to anticipate the future results of our decisions, but it’s often more hubris than skill. Unintended consequences have a way of interpolating themselves like bushes in a forest while we,…
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Eternity Gazing at Itself
We see what we think others see; we see what the mirror sees. And yet, I prefer to see what Kahlil Gibran sees: Beauty is eternity gazing at itself in a mirror. But you are eternity and you are the mirror. Body image is such a mutable thing. So mood-dependent, so soul-laden, it sometimes seems…
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When Thou Liest Howling
There are some things we just don’t want to acknowledge aren’t there? Some things that we would rather not hear, not so much because we don’t think they’re important, but because they embarrass us… Or maybe offend us. Sexually transmitted diseases are prime examples. For some reason, many of us find them difficult to talk…
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Sweet Flowers are Slow
It never ceases to amaze me what unfettered minds can discover. Sometimes I wonder how they do it. How they set out 180 degrees from the target and still end up hitting it. Of course, the world is full of answers scattered like flowers in a field, in plain sight for anybody who…
musings on women's health 