To vote or not to vote.. for change?

To cast a vote in an election is a right you have been given. Not everyone has got this right. It is not an obvious right to everyone around the world, so we should definitely use it, and make sure that we are to keep this vote as an individual right, a human right.

On 6^th of May the British nation will vote. I predict for a change. I would prefer a change, but not to the total opposite. I would prefer a change where to parties were to work together, forming a coalition and through this new (unique as it would be first time ever in Britain) way the decisions being made would have to be tested even harder by more than one party and its policy to actually become a part of Britain.

Change.

That’s what they are all talking about. How to change Britain, for a brighter future. And then in the next second, instead of explaining how and why this or that could be changed, they start playing the naughty political blame game, cause it’s so much easier to point out what the other parties are doing wrongly to prevent a positive change for Britain than it is to encourage the audience, the voters in a debate concerning what the party itself actually will do to achieve this change within society.

Change.

I am not a British citizen. Therefore, I am not allowed to vote in the general election. What I find a little bit weird though is that even though I cannot vote in the general election, the law finds me important enough to vote in the local election. And I just can’t get my head around it. Yes, I can understand that as a British citizen you are not eligible to vote in the general election, but wouldn’t this suggest that I should not vote in the local election either? After all, a vote is a vote, maybe not for the bigger scale, but still a vote, from a non British citizen in Britain. On the other hand, hey, I pay the £3.000 tuition fee each year, to study in Britain, and isn’t that more of a contribution to the country than many other British citizens do?

I am not arguing for a vote really, I just find it really interesting how so many things, such as paying taxes in Britain, tuition fees and so on, is done every month even though I am not a citizen, but when it comes to an election where I could possibly affect my taxes, tuition fees and student loans, I cannot take part in it...

Change.

If I was allowed to vote, I would cast my vote. For change. But not for the complete opposite of what Britain is today. I already mentioned a coalition. And I would prefer seeing Labour and the Liberal Democrats in it. I do not agree with David Cameron’s policies, they feel as if they would actually make my life as a Swedish student in Britain harder than it already is, and to some extent Liberal Democrats seems to walk a bit along the same route, but not to the same extent...

Daily, you hear people complaining about the economy. About the recession. How badly Britain has been affected and so on. But honestly, I think Labour has done quite an alright job getting out of the recession with a Britain that has survived it better than many other countries around the world. This recession was always going to happen. No matter whether Clegg, Cameron or Brown would have been in power, so I do think it’s wrong to fully blame Labour for it, I mean from the sounds of it their still trying to tidy up what happened with Britain’s economy years and years ago.

I am not a 100% follower of Brown, but I have always been more of a lefty. I do not like everything Labour says, but then again, no one can be fully satisfied with a party’s manifesto. I do think though that the only way forward, only way leading to a change, is a proper change. And if I could vote my vote would probably go to Labour.

So, even if I can’t – you can. And you should.

Thursday 6^th of May.

You decide Britain’s future.

Make sure you make your voice heard.

I know I will, in Sweden, on September the 19^th.

Question Time - Highlights!!

Still all confused about the coming election? Still not sure which way to turn and in what direction to cast your vote? Well hopefully I can make your life easier by telling you to watch this highlight video from the University of Winchester's Question Time that was voted last week giving all three major parties a chance to tell you why you should vote for them.

Have a look for yourself and let me know what you think of it all!

Question Time at the University of Winchester

On Monday the 19^th of April the University of Winchester hosted a local version of the nationwide known Question Time – the first university ever to host a local event like this. The event was hosted by the university’s vice chancellor Joy Carter who during the one hour show took on the role of David Dimbleby, making sure that everyone got a chance to speak about the subjects of the evening. The questions were given by the public after Joy Carter had started the hour off with the first question of the night. The politicians involved, Michael Mates (Conservative), Alan Whitehead (Labour) and Sandra Gidley (Liberal Democrat) all had a fair deal of questions to deal with and a chance to react to the public’s questions about everything that concerns them, both locally and nationally. Also by their side was the editor of the Daily Echo, Ian Murray, who participated as the non-political part of the show, trying to get the public’s general view through to the politicians as an hour is unfortunately not long enough to get an equal chance for everyone to speak their mind and ask their questions to the different parties.

To be able to organise this event, our tutors seemed to work day and night to get everyone to appear at the same place at the same time, and the final product turned out very well. We managed to put this hour together by using six cameras, four static ones and two handheld which Veronica Frydel (year 2) and Catherine Hayes (year 2) handled very nicely. James Kenyon (year 3), Paul Carrett (year 2) and Shira Pinzcuk (MA student) operated the static cameras and made sure there were tapes around when the cameras decided to run out of it. Andrew Giddings (year 1) and I operated the two gun mics, which was a completely new experience for both of us as we have never operated them during a live event with such a big(ish) crowd before.

Also there to sort out the sound and other technical things, such as lights, was Chanin Lloyd (year 2) and the staff at the university, Chris Horrie, Angus Scott and Brian Thornton. It was a great experience as I have never been doing anything like this before, the closest I have come is doing the news packages every week, but that is nothing similar to this. With them you have got a good few chances to re record and make sure you get what you want out of an interview and the angle you want to give your story. This is all a one time only opportunity and if you don’t get it there and then you will never get it. Thanks to this opportunity I feel a great deal more confident in dealing with live television, even though it was just a first time chance, and hopefully I will be able to do similar things during the next year of my course as it gives me good experience to take with me for the future.

The event went online last night, Tuesday the 20^th of April, on our website, WINOL, and will be there for you to watch and make up your mind on how to cast your vote for the election.

Proper orgasms to the people!!

“You can’t be happy if you don’t have proper orgasms”
Brian Thornton, journalism lecturer at the University of Winchester

To follow up on Freud and his very interesting (read weird) ideas, Wilhelm Reich came to take his place and explore these ideas further and turn them into something even weirder. We know that Freud was interested in sex and how this can be repressed through society and its rules and laws, and Reich was very much of the same idea, but his ideas were more revolutionary than Freud’s.

Reich very much focused on the body and how it needs to be relaxed and sort of in a sexual harmony with its surroundings to be fully satisfied and able to heal yourself, and he thought that Freud ignored the body to only focus on the mind. He talked about orgasms, and how you cannot be happy without them. How the orgasm is the ultimate measure of wellbeing. He spoke about how the human world would flourish if sexuality was released and free for everyone, everywhere, and how the need for what is today called “bad sex” in society, such as pornography, would disappear due to the new sexual freedom that would exist.

In his book, The Mass Psychology of Fascism, Reich explains how humans in our societies are being repressed by the sexual energy being held back in our bodies due to the strictness of society, and how this can lead to really terrible things, such as the world wars. Even though these ideas do sound a bit extreme to a “normal” human ear, Reich has influenced a lot of the modern psychotherapy that we find around us in today’s society. His thoughts about not being happy unless you have a good sex life do most likely apply to most people in society as a good sex life leads to happy feelings, and happy hormones playing around in your body, which eventually leads to you making a better appearance at work, at university and just in your day to day life as you are being a happier individual. This is what I think anyway, and the only somewhat sane conclusions I can draw from a somewhat not so clear thought process of Wilhelm Reich.

Other places where you can find traces of his work and ideas are within popular culture, such as music and art, Kate Bush, Bob Dylan and the Peep Show for example.

I found the book quite interesting and well confusing, especially when Reich went off explaining how the swastika is really a sexual symbol, showing two people entwined with one another and how this symbol “represents a living function”... What can I say; he is a man of his own kind. Apart from a few interesting things, that I think I have quite summed up, the book just kind of kept repeating itself, discussing the same themes and ideas, sex and how society represses it, until there was no more way of describing this thought process...