Hypocrisy at the root of the Sunday Telegraph’s article on Richard Dawkins

Yesterday Adam Lusher of the Telegraph wrote an article castigating Richard Dawkins for his audacity to campaign against intolerance and suffering. Why? Because his ancestors were slave owners.

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/uknews/9091007/Slaves-at-the-root-of-the-fortune-that-created-Richard-Dawkins-family-estate.html

Over 250 years ago Dawkins’ great great great great great grandfather owned slaves and now the paper is lambasting the atheist campaigner as if it is his fault. But to suggest that Dawkins should be no longer taken seriously because of his ancestors, is that not itself akin to prejudice and racism in its sentiments?

And to demand an apology from him for the wrong doings of his ancestors, well where exactly does that end?

He has no control over what his ancestors did 250 years ago. He never asked for that heritage.

The paper adopts Baroness Warsi’s military rhetoric in attacking Dawkins, referring to him as the General of the ‘atheist army’. They call him arrogant and intolerant. But the Sunday Telegraph is demonstrating its own intolerance of anyone who does not align with their views.

In the by-line Dawkins is a ‘campaigner against intolerance’ and then the article goes on to subject him to a startling display of intolerance.

The article is actually abundant with dates, facts and figures leading me to believe that it is a well researched and competent demonstration of a family history. That is, if it wasn’t being taken out of all context and being used to condemn an individual in today’s world.

The entire argument reeks of a desperation that not even Lusher’s command over the written word is able to hide. He actually criticizes Dawkins for failing to detail in his father’s obituary that he is descended from slave owners. I’m not sure Adam Lusher knows what an obituary is for.

He is clutching at straws in what is a wild and gross attempt at demeaning and discrediting the evolutionary biologist.

But Richard Dawkins defends himself the best: “I can’t help wondering at the quality of journalism which sees a scoop in attacking a man for what his five-greats grandfather did. Is there really nothing more current going on?”

How quickly should we forget about our dreams?

All work and no play makes Jack a dull boy…

Yes, I now have cabin fever. All my days are spent making job applications and my only contact with the outside world is letters beginning with ‘We regret to inform you…’

Okay, I exaggerate slightly; I can actually get out the house, mainly for walking the dog. I tell you, he’s never had it so good! I think he’s actually got to the point where he hides when I grab the lead. But any excuse to get away from this laptop and the never-ending job applications.

My fingers have actually become conditioned to start typing ‘Dear sir or madam, I am writing to you to apply for the role of BLAH BLAH…’ as soon as they touch a keypad. (I’ve been haemorrhaging Facebook friends as a result of this new ailment.)

Now a nagging concern has started to become more and more pressing as the days drag on: when should we admit defeat and take that job – you know the one, where under the job description it reads: ‘Perfect role for anyone without dreams or ambitions, and who does not value their time or lives.’

When do we stop chasing the job we want?

Some say we should just apply to any and every job from the offset – if you get the one you were hoping for then hurrah for you!

But should we really embrace complacency so soon after graduating? And for those of us that have spent their own time and money doing work experience just for a foot in the door, should we just look back on that as time lost?

Perhaps we should take that role, keep on applying on weekends and evenings to the job we really want and maybe, just maybe, one day we can start thinking of our dream job when this recession has blown over.

But will life really work like that? More to the point, will I be happy to put my life on hold, plugging thirty-eight hours a week into a job and an industry that has no benefit to me, except for marginal financial gain?

The time will come…

I am in limbo as of right now: I have not yet lost the will to continue making applications to the jobs I want. But if this is to continue, eventually the time will come where I do lose that will, and the time will come where I’ll accept a complacent life and take that soul-destroying job.

The question is will this come before I finally get a letter beginning ‘We are pleased to inform you…’

How to write a covering letter that actually gets a response

The festive period has come and gone and I have returned home having finished my three months internship as a Communications Assistant.

Today has been my third day as a professional job applicationer – I have been applying for jobs on a full time basis. However I have taken a new approach to my method of applications. Rather than spraying applications like hell fire, I am searching out specific companies and roles, and taking my time on the whole application process.

Find the right company, not the right job title

Rather than searching Copywriter jobs or such the like, I am now searching out companies in my area that deal with communications, PR, media advice etc., then I see if they do the work which I want to do.

Through this method I have found a whole host of companies in my small town that I’d never even heard of.

Try being human

One thing I have been trying in my applications is wishing them a Happy New Year, and being altogether more human. I’m not saying this is necessarily right, but it is working a lot better for me.

Make each covering letter unique

A key thing is researching the company you’re applying for and writing each covering letter from scratch, tailored for the role and the company.

Obviously there is a lot of information that is relevant to every application and crosses over, but if you write each letter from scratch, it shows in a good way!

This advice is obvious and I was given it many a time last year, but it’s one thing being told what to do, and another actually doing it.

My results so far

In these three days I would guess that I’ve made about 15 applications, and have so far gained an interview next week, another company has requested some examples of my work, and I’ve had two extremely polite emails apologising that they have no work for me, but wishing me luck in my search.

I say this has been a success! Considering I must have made close to 100 applications since graduating and receiving just a couple of emails in return.

The interview and request for work that I’ve received aside, just receiving an email acknowledging my application has been a real turnaround.

Are we a nation of savvy shoppers?

I’ve noticed a change in our consumerist habits in recent years and I don’t know when I first noticed it, but now I feel I want to share it.

In terms of clothes, bargain hunting is cool. You could almost say it’s become vogue to buy cheap, and so last season to buy expensive clothes and fashions. (This is me adopting fashion jargon.)

There was a time, not that long ago, when wearing hand-me-down, second hand clothes was something you didn’t share with people. Unless of course you were on X-factor and needed a sob story. But now it’s become a badge of honour.

One reason for this may be Ebay; I say this because recently I bought an Adidas jacket off the website and because I’m a trendy dude, I got plenty of compliments about it. Funnily the first thing i would say is “Ebay! Fiver!’, and they in turn would respond ‘nice one’, or some other approving comment the young ‘uns use these days. (I’m 22 next month and I presume it’s all downhill from there.)

But is it also because of the recession? Finding a bargain has almost become a modern day survival technique? Albeit one that doesn’t help you survive and actually perpetuates consumerist capitalism.

I don’t know, just a quick thought for this Monday afternoon, two weeks before Christmas.

Whistle-blowing versus Anti-secrets

Is there a difference, and if so, what is it?

This is just a thought which was sparked by WikiLeaks and particularly Julian Assange’s approach to leaking the information. He was gung-ho, apparently refusing to redact the articles for people’s safety. He was anti-secrets.

Now that I think about it his principles are akin to those of Paul McMullen, the News of the World journalist who was unashamed of the tactics employed by the disgraced paper. He saw no difference between ‘public interest’, and ‘what interests the public’; the phrases that have now come to distinguish acceptable and unacceptable journalistic techniques.

The whole thing is such a grey area because of the subjectivity of those related phrases. And it is the same with WikiLeaks: which information should not have been leaked and which really was in the public interest. Well my opinion is similar to that of Nick Davies who believes what was leaked was in the public interest, but still the information should have been redacted.

It’s interesting, a programme I watched about the matter interviewed a Navy Seal who condemned the leaks, and backed the need for Task Force 373, but didn’t think the public should have been told about the Task Force. It astounds me the pride America can take in being a democracy and yet it refuses its people the information necessary to make informed decisions.

How do we define what is public interest? And when does it become okay to keep information from the public?

Are some businesses taking advantage of youth unemployment?

Yes, Etsio are…

I have read a lot about Etsio recently who are selling internships to graduates for up to £100 a day. And worse is there ubiquitous CEO Kit Sadgrove who is justifying his company to the world and its mother.

I cannot see the justification for this in anyway. I am currently undertaking an unpaid internship and I can see the wrong in even that. It further unbalances the class system and gives another unfair advantage to the rich. But this new step is beyond comparison.

No doubt there is a demand for internships and enough people that will pay for them, therefore Mr Sadgrove is perhaps a successful entrepreneur who has found a gap in the market and exploited it. But exploitation is the key word here because he is exploiting a poor economy, a high unemployment rate, increasing disillusion with a degree and finally he is exploiting the insecurities of students whose fears are growing as these problems continue.

This latest development in work experience can only serve to compound all these social ills, most alarmingly the imbalance of wealth.

And even the government are taking advantage…

According to an article by The Guardian MPs may have been breaking the law through their habitual use of unpaid interns, some of whom were not even paid expenses and the longest one lasting 10 months.

How are the British public supposed to be fairly represented when then only people who can get into politics are those that could afford to work unpaid for all this time?

For the sake of fair representation, the model for gaining experience in politics is one that must be changed immediately, even if the other sectors, such as creative and journalism, linger behind for just a little bit longer.

With fees tripling to £9,000 a year at most universities, is it inevitable that the student will become a consumer?

This question was set by OnesToWatchMedia to be published by the Guardian, however upon closer inspection it was for students only. But here is what I wrote anyway. It was written in a very academical style but please have a read and tell me your pennies worth.

In the most literal sense of the term, students have been consumers since 1998 when universal free higher education was done away with. Ever since then students have been paying for education as a service for their own use. That, according to the Cambridge Online Dictionary, makes them consumers. The recent hike in tuition fees has no bearing on this definition. The worry is, however, that education is becoming devalued despite rising prices and students are becoming ripped-off consumers.

With the student as a consumer, by extension education becomes a commodity which is to be bought and sold. Unfortunately, for the studious amongst us, the price of an education has tripled to up to £9,000 per year. However the value of that education has not seen the same rise; in fact, it could be said that its value is decreasing. As with all commodities, the more of them there are, the less value people put on it, and with a 33% rise in the overall volume of graduate job applications made in 2010-2011, it seems graduates have become as common as muck, not rare like diamonds.

If you are paying the maximum £27,000 for a three year course then you’re going to expect a certain amount of bang for your buck. But the price and value of degrees aren’t adding up. According to the Office for National Statistics (O.N.S.), the salaries for graduates and school leavers are roughly the same at 22 years old. Putting that together with the levels of unemployment which has topped one million this week, and 20% of recent graduates make up part of that million, then higher education becomes a gamble that some people cannot afford to take.

But the O.N.S. do provide a bit of hope for graduates and the besmirched degree: over a lifetime, graduates earn on average £12,000 a year more than non-graduates. I guess that means if you do manage to land a job, then a degree does still have some value. But is future earning potential really the only value of an education? Consumer rights champion Which? will soon be measuring the value for money different universities and courses offer. But this paints education as just another cog in the corporate machine, where deciding on your future is the same as choosing a fridge freezer – on a Sunday morning after reading ratemyuni.com, taking the advice of someone with the username ‘$exyboi69’ who says “study train spotting at the university of life and earn mega bucks!!!”.

Perhaps I’m being naive, and as children of the recession we should subject education to scrutiny over the value for money it offers. There is no denying that it is of relevance, as is your future prospects after gaining a degree. But rather than approaching the situation as a consumer in a shop, we should consider a degree as an investment in ourselves, one that can see real benefits if we approach it right.

There is no inevitability about it. Students already are consumers. But they are also investors, paying for a future of better quality, and unlike most investments they have a unique bearing on its outcome. Unfortunately though, being a student is also a gamble. With an over-saturated job market sometimes finding that job is just a bit of luck. It is this aspect of being a student which should be the most worrying to all those involved.

First Post – Background

I have one main reason for beginning this blog and that is to add credence to my writing abilities as I have stated them on my CV in my eternal search for a graduate job.

I graduated from Northumbria University this summer with a degree in English Literature and Creative Writing. Since graduation I have spent two weeks in London writing for a football dedicated website, and three months in Manchester working with a creative agency.

I am now looking to find my first real job in the marketing and media industry as a copywriter.