h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

care to ellaborate and make them more fully formed ideas?

I will elaborate but not tonight.

Too late, too tired and too much to drink.

turvy

PS Please visit my space and see if the new intro works for your system/browser. I have found some issues already.

sounds good

Will visit your p.s.

Do you mind if I make an irresistably nasty remark just in the spirit of fun? It's really mean tho!

Do you mind if I make an irresistably nasty remark just in the spirit of fun? It's really mean tho!

Toxxin, you're taking your time to make this really nasty remark!

Put us all out of our misery...

Chel - how long have you been lurking there? I'll email the question if you like but I was asking FwT.

Hi FwT,

This is a very late reply to this but I wanted to say that I bought my first BI in Cambridge (The English one!) on Saturday and it really is quite a good mag. I was prepared to disagree about it in a big way but have to admit that it is well written, well put together and thought-provoking on a number of serious social questions, not just homelessness.

Although it doesn't give many answers, it does ask a lot of interesting questions.

For once I am glad to have been wrong!

Stephen

Hi Stephen!

I'm glad you agree with me...I admit to not having read it for a while, because I haven't seen the lady who usually sells it!

I wish I'd got the issue they did on fair trade they did earlier this year I think... it's also quite a good easy read: I bought last christmas's, and there was an article on Ewan McGregor in the Amazon...which was a really good 'casual' article.

Toxxin: Fully prepared for the nasty comment: afterall I have talked to you before

You know what, FwT, I've completely forgotten what the nasty remark was supposed to be! Can't have been that nasty, or surely some hint of it would have stuck. No...... it's completely gone.

Hi FwT, Hi All

Better late than never.

Some solutions.

Many homeless are there through no fault of there own. Stephen put it well at the top of this thread. For them I think the state should look at reproviding care in new ways to give them back some self esteem. A good example is a village in North Yorkshire (I think) specifically for people with learning disabilities in which they live and work with support from carers. I can't remember its name at the moment.

The Victorian Philanthropists such as Sir Titus Salt, Joseph Rowntree, Cadbury, Josiah Wedgewood...the list goes on (they may not all have been Victorian)...had the right idea (caring and providing for their workers) for the wrong motives (personal gain and company profit - although if profits meant better lifes for the workers is it really so bad?).

For those homeless that are there by personal choice, the state and the public need to accept that it is just that, a matter of personal choice.
The state seems to abhore those who exercise their freedom to opt out of what is laughably called normal life (who has got it right here, I sometimes wonder).

There are a number of charities doing some great work in the sector and the state should look at helping them to support the 'homeless by choice' groups to continue doing what they do in safety.

What really needs to stop is local and national government treating the homeless as a threat or as litter on the streets to be cleared away and hidden from all us poor, shrinking violets who are morally offended by them.

turvy

That is pretty all encompassing! But how do we achieve this?

I really don't know . How does one effect such a shift in public opinion - enough to change the course of government policy. Coz that's what it would take!

I have spent the best part of my voting life trying to convince those that do not vote what a waste it is. Only in the last few years have I accepted that it is their right not to vote as an excercise of their franchise.

I am still of the opinion that one should either vote or spoil the ballot paper. It all counts then. Goverments would pay attention if we had a 90% turnout with 75% spoiled papers!

turvy

I couldnt vote at the last election...but I think my dad went along to spoil his paper at least!

But even if public opinion was shifted enough, would it be enough to get homeless people either off the streets, or in a position that they wanted to be in? I dont think that homelessness will become an issue, being a bit of a non-issue at the moment until other things, such as education, health care and defense have been sorted...which won't happen now, and looks increasingly difficult in the future what with an ageing population, and an increasing dependency ratio etc.

One idea to overcome this, would be to create open borders and get more economically active people from other countries...but I don't see that happening anytime soon either!

FwT

Scarlet Woman to Keeper of Red Cars - person after my own colour pref.,

How right you are:

No one can complain about the competance of government if they do not bother to vote or - as you quite rightly say - spoil!