Freedom should be fair.

What does freedom mean to you?

Freedom should go hand in hand with equality. The right to speak out about problems in society, to try and eradicate things like torture and violence and wars. To reduce poverty and share resources and responsibilities more fairly. And also allow religious freedom as long as it doesn’t discriminate against others.

I know it’s impossible. Human behaviour makes selfishness and greed almost impossible to avoid. But we should try. Some rich people create foundations to make their wealth go to the poorest, the most needy. They show up the other wealthy millionaires and billionaires as people stifling equality and freedom.

Freedom is the ability to learn. To understand, to share knowledge. To show we are more than bluntly uncaring primates. Perhaps our anticedents with simpler lives may have been happier than modern humans can ever be. I am a naive idealistic person but I do care.

One law?

If you had the power to change one law, what would it be and why?

The scales of justice weigh heavy, there are so many laws or orders I would repeal, but I would need to be convinced that any of them improved the lives of millions or even billions.

My influences are stories like Robin Hood, mythologies and historical tales where support is given to all, for instance the tale of the good Samaritan and the healing by Jesus, and St Francis’ care for the animal kingdom.

I’ve been told by people I’m too naive, too forgiving, too caring. But I don’t care, for the world to continue as it is, is too cruel and damaging. Somewhere there must be a kernel of decency.

The world is tilting to a right wing view. People are the victims. The world is too chaotic, and somehow we need to find a balance between human needs and environmental issues. Maybe instead of letting the richest people take over let’s gently tax them and make them pay? A small contribution from their gleaming gold would help so many.

So my one law is “Tax the Richest”.

Enough

What does “having it all” mean to you? Is it attainable?

Having it all? Enough to live, enough to share, enough to give…..

Freedom to learn, freedom to understand, freedom to care for others as well as yourself. Friendship….

Time to think, time to follow a dream, time to allow life to happen.

Having it all does not mean being selfish, or prejudiced. Misogenistic or Misanthropic, and I think it also means keeping idealism alive.

People who have it all should support the world and nature as much as they can with the means they have. Fairness above all is important, and a wish to care.

Poverty

If you had to give up one word that you use regularly, what would it be?

I wish I didn’t need to use the word poverty, in this country and about the rest of the world.

Poverty can be relative, a millionaire can feel poor in relation to a billionaire. But that’s not real. Or someone who lives in a first world nation can struggle to survive on a very low income, having to chose between heating and eating.

But I think true poverty is in countries wracked by famine, war, sickness or all three. When starvation is rife, and children are stunted by lack of food and clean water.

And yet there are eighty men in the world that own the same amount of money as half the world’s population. That’s 80 : 4,000,000,000. Each one has an average amount of money equal to 50,000,000 individuals.

If only our world was not so unequal. I’m not talking about complete equality, people would fight to the death over that, but perhaps a bit more generous support for the poor and more taxes for the rich. Perhaps charitable foundations to spread food and medicine, to reduce wars, to care for one another. I know that trickle down economics does not work. The trickle is stemmed by the slightly less wealthy. But somehow we must change things, stop poverty, be fair, and tackle the climate change to which is having the most detrimental effect on the poorest in society.

So instead of poverty my new word would be fairness.

Voting

There’s so much politics going on in the world. But what’s worrying in a lot of these elections is the idea that if a party lose they won’t accept the result. Clearly there are some states and countries where elections have been rigged. This is usually in dictatorial states where the regimes never change and the results come out with votes for the incumbent party getting more than 90% of the vote. Places like Russia, China or North Korea spring to mind.

What is more important than some form of fair elections? Free and fair must be the goal.

But recently accusations of stolen elections have occurred in countries where ballots have been normal and peaceful. If the incumbent official lost they generally accepted the result, but not any more. Like spoilt children they cry out ‘its not fair’ , or ‘he cheated’ its almost like leaders have temper tantrums. Weird conspiracy theories are thrown about and as humans are great at storytelling there is a tendency for some of these accusations to stick even where it has been proved that no corruption occurred. There are even attempts to change the rules to disenfranchise some voters.

So where now? People need to be grown up about it. Stop pretending that vote have been miss cast. Allow the real majority to take the chance to rule, and let’s have some sanity. Lying to the public and causing violence and disruption and distress is clearly wrong.

Keep warm

The cost of energy in the UK is going up 54% in April this year. That means that the average household bill will be around £2000 per year. There are already people having to choose between heating and eating. All this in an age when we have been told (and rightly so) that we need to cut our carbon footprints. There are ideas and suggestions, being considered, but whether those will work no one knows. I am lucky to live in a first world country, but the poorest in the economy will be hit hardest by this price hike. They spend a higher percentage of their money on energy.

Why as an artist, am I writing about this? Partly because it means that creative people are being squeezed. If people have higher bills they can’t afford to pay for luxuries like art, music, restaurants, just anything that they have to balance their bills. It means that children are going to suffer more poverty. Life continues to get difficult.

So we face hard times, but what about the rest of the world? Life is hard, conflict increases, people have lost their homes, people starve. I have no solutions to offer, but I wish things were better.

Women don’t always like shopping!

Retail therapy, that’s what women shopping is something called. And yes sometimes going out and buying things can be fun. But it’s not something I can afford to do all the time.

Normal household shopping is more mundane. How many tins of beans or loaves do I need this week. Will I need to go out more than once? How long will things last?

My hubby says he hates shopping. So I asked him if he thought I enjoyed it? We don’t have the skills to order on line and I prefer to vary what I get. I like variety when I shop and seeing the things that are there.

But shopping is not a pleasure. Its a chore. Like washing up or doing the dishes.

Let me let you into a secret. Women are not genetically programmed to do household chores. We are not robots, not domestic goddesses not slaves or maids. If we have partners they should share the work. Just because women have generally always managed household chores doesn’t mean they always will do or should.

I can’t understand why you can call a woman a ‘slut’ for having an untidy or messy home, but you can’t use the same expression for men? Why are women picked on?

‘Treat them mean, keep them keen’ ? No ‘Treat them fair, do your share!’ Should be the slogan!