Life Goes On….. Kittiwakes….Bartholomew Barker’s Poem For The New Year……..Poetry For The New Year From ‘Emergence’…..What’s it for…?
by Bernie Bell - 10:53 on 02 January 2023
Life Goes On…..
Not a cheery start to the New Year – but life goes on….for some, better than for others…..
Create a Compensation & Pension Scheme for Key Workers with Long Covid
Caroline Macdonald started this petition to Prime Minister of the UK, and it now has 15,269 signatures
We are three key workers with Long Covid. We have started this petition on behalf of all key workers to demand the U.K. government provide key workers who contracted Long Covid serving our country during the pandemic with a full compensation and pension scheme. Long covid has left key workers, including supermarket workers, carers, nurses, doctors, teachers and many more, debilitated, with completely different lives. We need compensation for our service and we need it now.
Here’s who we are:
My name is Cass; I’m a nurse in Scotland and I caught Covid in April 2020 as a result of my job. I didn’t get better. I’ve tried (and failed) to return to work. I’m now facing losing my job and with it, my home, as my income will dramatically reduce.
My friends are Rachel and Sarah; a nurse (from England) and a midwife (from Wales). They also caught Covid in 2020 and have been left disabled, unable to work since. Rachel faces losing her pay, while Sarah’s stopped in September 2020. Both of them caught Covid at work, due to no (or inadequate) PPE. Rachel and Sarah both have kids. We all have serious health issues, ranging from heart problems, loss of hearing, neurological damage and more. None of us are guaranteed benefits or ill-health retirement. Long Covid isn’t even classed as a disability.
As we saw on the APPG session, we aren’t the only people affected by Long Covid. Unlike other countries, our government isn’t looking into long term support and compensation for us. Despite the risk, we cared for people and kept the country going. The Government has abandoned us.
Key workers injured by Covid should be able to access full pension and lump sum payments, so we’re not disadvantaged. The Office of National Statistics found that Long Covid is higher in key workers because of our jobs. We need support from the Government to survive. Long covid has left us disabled and leaves so many of us at risk of being unable to heat our homes, losing our homes, or having to rely on foodbanks. Many are already at that point.
State benefits won’t support us or our families. Some of us aren’t able to access Industrial Illness Benefit or start personal injury claims: many didn’t have the support of the NHS Covid Special Leave scheme so have lost a lot already. We fully expected to work until pension age but our working lives have been drastically cut short by our newfound disabilities. We desperately need something similar to the armed forces, who have a compensation scheme, and we need to be compensated. The APPG on Coronavirus and the IIAC have called for this.
Our national leaders encouraged everyone to clap for us but now we’ve been abandoned. If you agree that we, and all other key workers, shouldn’t be treated like this, please sign, share and support our campaign. Thank you.
https://www.appgcoronavirus.uk/home/long-covid-report-march-2022
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Kittiwakes….
Another petition – another local Council forgetting what they are there for – to serve the community. But – that’s life these days….
https://twitter.com/WriterHannahBT/status/1608764861458305025?cxt=HHwWgsDS5cXHvdMsAAAA
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Bartholomew Barker’s Poem For The New Year…..
7 New Year’s Resolutions You’ll be Able to Keep
If you're feline:
Knock more things off desks.
Take more naps in the sun.
If you're canine:
Sniff more trees. Mark more trees.
Roll in something stinky every day.
If you're human: talk less, read more,
pick up after yourself, don't be mean.
Trouble is – no way will I talk less - constitutionally incapable of doing so – a gob-shite through and through!
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Poetry For The New Year From ‘Emergence’ Magazine…….. https://emergencemagazine.org/
“Don’t think the garden loses its ecstasy in winter.
It’s quiet, but the roots are down there riotous.”
—Rumi
“We invite you to ring in the new year with a series of reflections on the sacred nature of creation from voices ancient and modern. With poems from our archive and a recent talk from Emergence executive editor and Sufi teacher Emmanuel Vaughan-Lee, we offer good tidings from the depths of winter.”
Poems by Cold Mountain and Stonehouse
Translated by Red Pine
“Set amid pine forests and mountain peaks, three ancient Chinese poems, sung and translated by Red Pine, meditate on the nature of Taoism and Zen Buddhism.“
by Forrest Gander and Katie Holten
“In this multimedia piece, poet Forrest Gander and artist Katie Holten collaborate to evoke a language of the redwood forests of Northern California. Forrest’s words are translated into an alphabet of sprouting seeds and growing spores.“
by Joy Harjo
“Joy Harjo’s poem “Remember” reads as both invocation and prayer, calling our attention to a shared origin and common home”.
A Primordial Covenant of Relationship
An Evening in London with Emmanuel Vaughan-Lee
“In this talk given at St. Ethelburga's Centre for Reconciliation and Peace in London, Sufi teacher and Emergence Executive Editor Emmanuel Vaughan-Lee speaks about what it looks like to live in an unfolding apocalyptic reality and the creative possibilities that are waiting to be embodied. In this time of deep uncertainty, he reminds us of the ancient, primordial covenant of relationship with the living world that can give us a ground to stand on, and the sacred nature of creation that is always there, waiting for us to return to it.”
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What’s it for…?
Over to Mike to record his act of creativity for today:
I have been brewing a piece of writing called “What’s it for?” for rather a long time. In fact, I have been sitting on a rough draft for over a year. Now seemed like a good time to shape it into something that might be considered for publication in Frontiers Magazine, the magazine of the Orkney International Science Festival. Stemming from a question my Granny once asked me about my PhD studies (“Yes Michael, but what’s it for?”), I am examining ideas about what we (humans) see as the ‘purpose’ of other life on Earth (non-humans!), moving from views about humankind’s dominion over nature to current, equally anthropocentric concepts of ‘natural capital’ and ‘ecosystem services’. I’ll leave my conclusions to later! It will take me some time to finish this, but at least I have started – so that’s my act of creativity for today!
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Here’s one I made earlier….. https://theorkneynews.scot/2020/03/24/gene-vincents-comb/
I’m nothing if not diverse!
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