First things first I apologise for my absence, it's not that I haven't had anything to say, rather I've been lacking the time and motivation to do it. Though oddly enough now that I have come to write this I don't really know what to say. Fairly ironic I suppose.

I could tell you all about what's been happening in my life but I don't suppose that's what you're here for, besides which none of it is particularly thrilling. Though thinking back I would like to share one little anecdote.

If you have read some of my other blogs you will see that I am an opportunistic person, I enjoy taking what opportunities come my ways and making the most of them. However recently I have been thinking about how I am actually quite a narrow minded person when it comes to certain things. What I want to tell you about is how realising this has actually helped me. So here is my story.

Once upon a time a guy called Dan (not his real name) decided he was actually rather fond of reading comic books, he expressed his interest quietly for a while and then decided that he didn't care what people thought about him and decided he would publicly express his interest.This was the right thing to do, it showed that Dan had guts and morals. 

Dan would talk about his comics to his friends and even though he knew they weren't really that interested in comics he still thought that they might like to hear about them, one person in particular he thought would listen was his girlfriend Beth. (not real name but if you can't figure out who this is well I'm ashamed!)

Dan was rather shocked when he found that Beth thought they were stupid and childish with out actually reading or even looking at them, but being a nice guy Dan decided that this was ok. It wasn't. 

You see Beth had made a snap judgement and closed her mind to comics deciding that she was far too intelligent and 'cool' to read them. 

Eventually Dan convinced Beth to read one, how ever even though Beth agreed she did so grudgingly and read it with a closed mind. This was no good at all as Beth had already decided that the comic was going to be boring and dull before even opening it. And so after reading Beth still decided that it was boring and dull because she had not opened her mind to the possibility that it could be good. 

On hearing her verdict, Dan decided believed that her view was now fair as she had at least tried to read one, but Dan was being overly trust worthy of Beth and believed that she really had given it a fair chance.

Months later Dan was raving about a new series of comics and thought that Beth might enjoy them if she read the series as it began rather than halfway through, so he asked her again and to his surprise she agreed! 

You see Beth could see that Dan really did love these comics, not for the blood and gore but for the stories, the art, the characters and so on, but she couldn't understand why! "They were rubbish" she thought to her self, but then she paused and asked her self why. Why did she think they were rubbish? Well she thought long and hard but could only come up with one answer "because they are!" 

All of a sudden it hit Beth, she had never given them a chance, in fact there were a lot of things she had never given a chance and labelled them as rubbish or pointless or stupid for no real reason at all other than the fact that they were something out of the norm sometimes there wasn't even a reason!

So from then on Beth decided that she would be more open minded and actually give things a chance, starting with the comic! Do you know what? She actually enjoyed them, not just bared them but enjoyed them, though she didn't tell Dan this, not straight away at least, for fear it went to his head! 


The end.


In a long winded way all I really wanted to say is that I know at some point we all close our minds to something for what ever reasons, but I'm going to promise that from now on I'll try to be more open minded perhaps we all should?

port-talbot.com — the scene

Teachers Crucifixion at Port Talbot beach in a bit! Check out the procession now!

port-talbot.com — the scene

port-talbot.com — the scene

Check it out for all the latest news of the resistance movments in Port Talbot

port-talbot.com — the scene

The Passion

Hey, so I know this isn't a random thought per say but I really think you should hear about it. 


So at the moment in Port Talbot we've got this thing going on courtesy of Mr Michael Sheen himself. Once a humble Port Talbot man he ventured afar and made a name for himself in Hollywood. Well Sheen has returned to Port Talbot to bring a huge open air production to our town. 


Happening over Easter weekend The Passion draws inspiration from the biblical passion of Christ however it is a re-invention of the story. Promising to be a hell of an action packed weekend. 


But I'm not saying much here I want you guys to check it out for yourself go to port-talbot.com   to enter the world of The Passion and see for yourself. If any of you are in and around Port Talbot over Easter weekend got to http://nationaltheatrewales.org/whatson/performance/ntw13 for all the whens and wheres for the weekend.


I promise you this isn't something you want to miss!

Questioning life.

I wonder why some people don't question life. I mean for me questioning why we're here, what I'm meant to be doing, why should I do it and so on so forth gives life a purpose. I mean sure I don't know the answers to the question but I make it my business to find out. This makes life interesting and stops life being one mundane, monotonous drag.

Also how do you improve if you don't ask 'What can I do to be better?' You're not going to magically improve by accident, you gotta go out and make it happen and you can't do this without asking yourself the above question.

Come on guys life is so full of questions and you know what? The answers are waiting for you to find them, look deeper next time. You don't always have to just accept things as they are sometimes it's better to ask 'why' or 'how.'

Necessary Evil Continued

Hiya again, I'm on a role recently! Ha three blogs in three days!

Well anyway as promised yesterday the continuation of the idea of necessary evil. I wonder what your thoughts were after reading it? Well in any case here's more to think about. Yesterday we explored the idea of natural evil or suffering being necessary well what about moral evil?

Acts of moral evil are highlighted in the media all the time and it's true that in our world there is far more moral evil than natural. Now again people have suggested that certain immoral acts are necessary in order to allow us as a race to develop. For instance if someone steals then they are punished and hopefully they never commit that crime again. Or on a lager scale the UN was set up after World War 1 in order to try and improve relations between countries. These examples plus numerous others show us that while evil is indomitably wrong it can yield positive results.

When this thought first came to my mind I though "well in a perfect world there would have been no need for the evil" but I think it is important to admit that we don't live in a perfect world and need to assess our situation not the ideal situation.

So I ask you now is evil necessary in order to bring about positive change? Or is there a way to produce these results without immoral acts?

Another suggestion is that evil is necessary in order to appreciate the good in our world and lives. By this I mean that should there be no evil in the world then would we be able to recognise the good things? I mean wouldn't everything be good?

I'm sure we can appreciate this fact in our own lives, we have all been in a situation where something bad has happened and then we've seen and appreciated that happy thing that makes things seem a bit better. Can't you?

If you are struggling to find an example apparently you are not alone, as many of us are blinded by circumstances and only really appreciate things when they are contrasting a bad situation or (excuse the cliche) when they are gone.

We all take advantage of things in our lives and take things for granted however when bad things do happen we become much more appreciative of what is good. Surely this would suggest that evil is necessary simply as it allows us to see good in our lives? Well not only in our lives I mean look at Japan again, the horror of the disaster has stirred many people into action. Hundreds and thousands has been spent and donated on relief efforts, showing just how much man cares.

It is true then that bad situations can bring out the best in people, despite this fact being played down in the media! I personally think that this is the most believable need for evil.

However there are more, it has been said that in some situations evil acts can not be avoided and so one must choose the lesser of two evils. Now I suppose this really depends on circumstances does it not? But let me first highlight a global issue that is a prime example of this dilemma.

Libya, at the moment in the midst of revolution many have died in the fighting and many will continue until Gaddafi is removed from power. It seems that as Gaddafi is unlikely to step down the only other option is to remove his power forcefully. This week in particular has seen tensions rise so much that coalition forces have joined to struggle and launched air strikes on areas held by Gaddafi supporters. Now what I would really like to pick up on is a headline from a news article on Monday, it read "Yes we would kill Gaddafi."

Obviously murder is evil there is no doubt about it however this situation asks us to look at which is more evil the continued fighting and death of potentially hundreds of Libyans or the death of a dictator who has caused much suffering? I will hazard a guess that most of you would choose to get rid of the dictator as it would be the lesser of the two evils but is this right?

I mean again going back to this idea of a perfect world, if we were in one there would be no revolt and no cruel dictator to cause it but as we don't live in a perfect world what do you think? Is this a reason for evil? I mean there are many examples where it's a choice of two evils. But what do you think? Is it needed is there another way to deal with these situations? Or should there?

So to conclude an epically long blog is evil necessary? Well I know that we can't rid the world of all evil it is physically impossible as long as humans have free will but can we survive without it any way? I don't really think so, as much as I hate to say it the presence of evil creates a sense of balance (for me at least.)

Obviously in a perfect world we may not need it but hell, we don't live in a perfect world!

Necessary Evil, does it exist?

Back again! Twice in two days mind!! Can you believe it? It's starting to seem a bit more like a 'Daily Thought.'

Well anyway, in light of recent global events I've had a lot to think about, but one thing that has really bothered me is the concept of evil. It seemed to me quite ironic that the topic came up in my lessons and so I feel compelled to write down my musings on the subject.

You see, with in this class discussion the idea of evil being divided into two major types emerged one being natural forms of evil and suffering and the other being moral evil. Natural evil obviously relates to the destruction, suffering and chaos that happens due to the way the world is structured and works. While moral evil pertains to the harm and suffering caused by mankind.

Now within the latter there are many sub categories such as accidental evil, political evil, religious evil and -quite interestingly- necessary evil. I found this last one very intriguing as the concept of needing evil seemed -on first thought- absurd. However on reflection I began to see examples of this so called 'neccessary evil' everywhere. Now had I not been thinking about it I probably would not have counted these acts as evil, but I could not escape the fact that when you remove certain aspects apparently 'moral deeds' are much more sinister.

Which raised the question: Is evil necessary in some cases? If so for what?

Lets take the latter to begin with as in order to answer the former we must evaluate the evidence.

In what circumstances could evil or immoral acts be contrived as necessary or just? Well taking a look at current affairs can give us some answers, for example the recent earthquake and tsunami in Japan. Though this is clearly a form of natural evil I feel there is some scope for necessity in that category. I mean you only need to look at the figures for the dead, wounded, homeless or missing to realise that this 'evil act' had a tremendous effect on the country. But when we look at these figures we must ask ourselves why are they so high? Is there nothing the governments, the people, the world powers could have done before and during to minimise the damage?

I wish to stress that I am not pointing fingers at anyone, I have the greatest sympathy for all affected and I understand that there was little more that anyone could do with the resources available. However it has been suggested that evil is necessary in order for humans to develop and progress so I wonder are evils of this nature needed so that as a race we can develop better warning systems, response systems and defence systems?

If as a result of this horrible disaster we develop better technologies and methods that will prevent anything like this from happening again well then the original evil would have been the cause and therefore desperately needed.

However in contrast should this evil be needed? I mean should over half a million people have to suffer greatly in order for leading scientists and world powers to get their act together and focus on prevention rather than cure? This would suggest that the need for evil isn't really necessary or at least not in a perfect world.

As we don't live in a perfect world it is hard to say that without this type of evil things would change, but I'm sure we would all agree the far more preferable option would be to not use a massive natural disaster as a wake up call to people. But instead have people moving forward from their own merit.

I've said a lot here and would really like to stress that I don't mean to say that the destruction and death can be blamed on anyone as natural disasters happen and cannot be stopped. I would like to also say that I really do sympathise greatly with the victims.

This seems to be a very long blog and will be continued, for now just think about the above. See you next time.


                                 Jenni