Latest News and Blog!
January 10th 2008: Roots2life is now back on line!
August 4th 2007:
May 26th 2007: Save The World - One Click At A Time!
On each of these websites, you can click a button to support the cause -- each click creates funding, and costs you nothing! Bookmark these sites, and click once a day!
Click here to post this on your page or 'blog
May 26th 2007: Faces of the Homeless
May 26th 2007: 10 simple ways to save yourself from messing up your life
1 Stop taking so much notice of how you feel. How you feel is how you feel. It’ll pass soon. What you’re thinking is what you’re thinking. It’ll go too. Tell yourself that whatever you feel, you feel; whatever you think, you think. Since you can’t stop yourself thinking, or prevent emotions from arising in your mind, it makes no sense to be proud or ashamed of either. You didn’t cause them. Only your actions are directly under your control. They’re the only proper cause of pleasure or shame.
2 Let go of worrying. It often makes things worse. The more you think about something bad, the more likely it is to happen. When you’re hair-trigger primed to notice the first sign of trouble, you’ll surely find something close enough to convince yourself it’s come.
3 Ease up on the internal life commentary. If you want to be happy, stop telling yourself you’re miserable. People are always telling themselves how they feel, what they’re thinking, what others feel about them, what this or that event really means. Most of it’s imagination. The rest is equal parts lies and misunderstandings. You have only the most limited understanding of what others feel about you. Usually they’re no better informed on the subject; and they care about it far less than you do. You have no way of knowing what this or that event really means. Whatever you tell yourself will be make-believe.
4 Take no notice of your inner critic. Judging yourself is pointless. Judging others is half-witted. Whatever you achieve, someone else will always do better. However bad you are, others are worse. Since you can tell neither what’s best nor what’s worst, how can you place yourself correctly between them? Judging others is foolish since you cannot know all the facts, cannot create a reliable or objective scale, have no means of knowing whether your criteria match anyone else’s, and cannot have more than a limited and extremely partial view of the other person. Who cares about your opinion anyway?
5 Give up on feeling guilty. Guilt changes nothing. It may make you feel you’re accepting responsibility, but it can’t produce anything new in your life. If you feel guilty about something you’ve done, either do something to put it right or accept you screwed up and try not to do so again. Then let it go. If you’re feeling guilty about what someone else did, see a psychiatrist. That’s insane.
6 Stop being concerned what the rest of the world says about you. Nasty people can’t make you mad. Nice people can’t make you happy. Events or people are simply events or people. They can’t make you anything. You have to do that for yourself. Whatever emotions arise in you as a result of external events, they’re powerless until you pick them up and decide to act on them. Besides, most people are far too busy thinking about themselves (and worry what you are are thinking and saying about them) to be concerned about you.
7 Stop keeping score. Numbers are just numbers. They don’t have mystical powers. Because something is expressed as a number, a ratio or any other numerical pattern doesn’t mean it’s true. Plenty of lovingly calculated business indicators are irrelevant, gibberish, nonsensical, or just plain wrong. If you don’t understand it, or it’s telling you something bizarre, ignore it. There’s nothing scientific about relying on false data. Nor anything useful about charting your life by numbers that were silly in the first place.
8 Don’t be concerned that your life and career aren’t working out the way you planned. The closer you stick to any plan, the quicker you’ll go wrong. The world changes constantly. However carefully you analyzed the situation when you made the plan, if it’s more than a few days old, things will already be different. After a month, they’ll be very different. After a year, virtually nothing will be the same as it was when you started. Planning is only useful as a discipline to force people to think carefully about what they know and what they don’t. Once you start, throw the plan away and keep your eyes on reality.
9 Don’t let others use you to avoid being responsible for their own decisions. To hold yourself responsible for someone else’s success and happiness demeans them and proves you’ve lost the plot. It’s their life. They have to live it. You can’t do it for them; nor can you stop them from messing it up if they’re determined to do so. The job of a supervisor is to help and supervise. Only control-freaks and some others with a less serious mental disability fail to understand this.
10 Don’t worry about about your personality. You don’t really have one. Personality, like ego, is a concept invented by your mind. It doesn’t exist in the real world. Personality is a word for the general impression that you give through your words and actions. If your personality isn’t likeable today, don’t worry. You can always change it, so long as you allow yourself to do so. What fixes someone’s personality in one place is a determined effort on their part-usually through continually telling themselves they’re this or that kind of person and acting on what they say. If you don’t like the way you are, make yourself different. You’re the only person who’s standing in your way.
May 1st 2007: The day of protest! Brings back memories! Stay home from work. Eat a feast with good friends. Dance and Sing. Raise a toast to the thousands who have gone before, struggling for freedom & equality in the face of violence & oppression.
April 3rd 2007: We all have the power to affect the world and bring about change, but we may only be aware of it some of the time. The truth is that our every thought and action is felt in the world, like a stone leaving ripples on a pond. We can be part of creating wonderful things with our beliefs and the choices we make about the investment of our energy. We affect people with a smile, by sharing our ideas, and by living our truth. You have something to share that can make a difference in the world.
April 2nd 2007: The Big Brother nightmare of George Orwell's 1984 has become a reality in the shadow of the author's former London home.
It may have taken a little longer than he predicted, but Orwell's vision of a society where cameras and computers spy on every person's movements is now here.
Foresight: The cameras crowd George Orwell's former London home.
According to the latest studies, Britain has a staggering 4.2million CCTV cameras - one for every 14 people in the country - and 20 per cent of cameras globally. It has been calculated that each person is caught on camera an average of 300 times daily.
Use of spy cameras in modern-day Britain is now a chilling mirror image of Orwell's fictional world, created in the post-war Forties in a fourth-floor flat overlooking Canonbury Square in Islington, North London.
On the wall outside his former residence - flat number 27B - where Orwell lived until his death in 1950, an historical plaque commemorates the anti-authoritarian author. And within 200 yards of the flat, there are 32 CCTV cameras, scanning every move.
Orwell's view of the tree-filled gardens outside the flat is under 24-hour surveillance from two cameras perched on traffic lights.
The flat's rear windows are constantly viewed from two more security cameras outside a conference centre in Canonbury Place.
In a lane, just off the square, close to Orwell's favourite pub, the Compton Arms, a camera at the rear of a car dealership records every person entering or leaving the pub.
Within a 200-yard radius of the flat, there are another 28 CCTV cameras, together with hundreds of private, remote-controlled security cameras used to scrutinise visitors to homes, shops and offices.
The message is reminiscent of a 1949 poster to mark the launch of Orwell's 1984: 'Big Brother is Watching You'.
In the Shriji grocery store in Canonbury Place, three cameras focus on every person in the shop. Owner Minesh Amin explained: 'They are for our security and safety. Without them, people would steal from the shop. Although this is a nice area, there are always bad people who cause trouble by stealing.'
Three doors away, in the dry-cleaning shop run by Malik Zafar, are another two CCTV cameras.
'I need to know who is coming into my shop,' explained Mr Zafar, who spent £400 on his security system.
April 1st 2007: Some sound advice given on this site below, just click!
March 25th 2007: Lethargic England's Euro 2008 qualification campaign continues to falter after they produced another lame display as they laboured to a goalless draw with Israel in Tel Aviv.
Steve McClaren's side failed to show any invention as they struggled to break down an average Israel outfit that seemed intent on taking a point from the game from the first whistle. Wales lost 1-0 against Ireland, but at least we know we are shit!
March 17th 2007: Wales ended their 2007 RBS Six Nations campaign on a high note with a 27-18 win over England at the Millennium Stadium.
March 4th 2007: Roots2life is opposed to Beijing hosting the 2008 Olympic Games, and deeply regret the decision by the International Olympic Committee in 2001 to award the Olympics to China. The same regime that brutally oppresses the people in occupied Tibet and is responsible for executions and continued human rights violations in China, has been given by the IOC a huge opportunity to showcase themselves as respectable political leaders. Tibetans and their supporters oppose the 2008 Games in Beijing and say "no" to this lie.
March 1st 2007: Have a good Saint Davids Day!
February 22nd 2007: The View 'Hats Off To The Buskers' is so chock-full of gloriously grotty Libertines-meet-Oasis belters that captains of the music industry are predicting it will "do a Monkeys" this year.
This young band from a rough council estate in Dundee have been predicted by the likes of Noel Gallagher and Jo Whilley to make it big in 2007. It was the twisted talented genius of Pete Docherty who put this band on the route to stardom. When Babyshamble's played Dundee, the young upstarts hung around the tour bus busking on their guitars, they passed Pete a demo tape and he played it all the way back to London. It then ended up in the hands of A&R guru James Endeacott aka He That Discovered The Libertines, who promptly signed them to his own imprint, 1965 Records. Since then they have toured with Primal Scream. They recently took New York by storm and have smashed up a few hotel rooms already. I took one listen to this album on it's release date and have not stopped playing it since. It could go down as a classic!
February 21st 2007: The Big Issue founder says 'lock up the homeless.'
In a tough and provocative interview on homelessness. Big Issue founder John Bird argues that the present homeless policy is utterly useless and the only 'cure' for most is compulsory treatment in mental hospitals..
He states 'The way that the Government - and the plethora of charities creating what can only be described as the homeless industry - 'treats' this problem is just plain wrong.'
I totally agree with John, that people with addictions and mental health problems are too easily moved on through some of these so called homeless charitable organisations, without getting down to the fundemantal root causes of the individuals problems. I have seen with my own eyes cases like this happen over and over again. Vulnerable people are left in some dingy council flat with no electric or gas, drinking and injecting themselves to a slowdeath, struggling to sustain tenancies and living in standards that are detrimental to their health and the public around them. Many organisations are more concerned in winning contracts to expand, rather than getting the quality of service right. The pressures of securing continued funding comes before curing the real problems. They think that just providing a roof, the job is done! It looks good on their statistics, bosses and directors can walk around with big ego's! When ever I have spoke up about this in the past, it's fallen on deaf ears or I have been told to shut up! I even had one manager say that my biggest problem was that 'I give a fuck,' and I wouldn't get anywhere in the company by doing so. I respect the views of John Bird, because he has been homeless, lived in shelters and screamed from the roof tops to get people to listen. I will certainly be watching on Friday night. The Insider: Get Tough With The Homeless is to be shown on Channel 4 at 7.30pm this Friday.
February 20th 2007: www.unep.org/billiontreecampaign Under the Plant for the Planet: Billion Tree Campaign, people, communities, organizations, business and industry, civil society and governments are being encouraged to plant trees and enter their tree planting pledges on this web site. The objective is to plant at least one billion trees worldwide during 2007.
February 19th 2007: www.experienceproject.com No one understands you better than someone that has shared your experiences. The Experience Project is a network of communities based on life experiences, such as surviving cancer or being locked up. Share your life experiences and the stories behind them, and they automatically find others who share experiences with you. The more you have in common, the stronger the potential connection and the deeper the understanding.
Create and join discreet, vibrant communities based on life experiences, building a growing network of new friends that share your life story. Swap first-person stories, get support & advice, & explore all that life has to offer without revealing your real-world identity
February 18th 2007: www.anti-capitalist.org
February 17th 2007: They say that every picture tells a story, this picture certainly tells a true one!
February 15th 2007: www.carbonfootprint.com Carbon Footprint is a measure of the impact human activities have on the environment in terms of the amount of green house gases produced, measured in units of carbon dioxide. On the link above you can calculate your carbon footprint and find out ways that you can reduce it and help save this planet. Mine is currently 10,168 CO2 (kg); just below the uk average. Some of the things I need to start doing is pedalling, stop flying, stop using stand bye modes and buy a wind up mobile phone charger. Planting trees is a good way of offsetting carbon emissions and providing wildlife habitats, it doesn't cost the earth!
February 14th 2007: Thought this picture would be apt for Valentines Day. Eternal embrace? Couple still hugging 5,000 years on
Archaeologists in Italy have discovered a couple buried 5,000 to 6,000 years ago, hugging each other.
February 13th 2007: Wales has been urged to take "urgent action" to pre
pare for the impact of coastal erosion and flooding. The National Trust says three-quarters of the Welsh coastline it owns could be badly affected over the next century. The National Trust In Wales warns that 66 coastal sites covering 1,572 hectares are at risk of flooding in the next 100 years. By that time, some experts predict that sea levels will rise by a metre (3ft 3in) and climate change will lead to more severe storms. No-one in Wales is more than 50 miles from the shore, and tourism is particularly dependent on our wonderful coast. This should strengthen the call to reduce our carbon footprint, but we also need to adapt to the changes underway and plan for the future of coastal communities.
February 12th 2007: Have you heard the news today? Prince Charles's wife Camilla is set to undergo a hysterectomy and the avian bird flu outbreak in Britain has resulted in the culling of 160,000 turkeys! But food processing starts again tomorrow at the Bernard Mathews bird plant in Norfolk. Hope they haven't missed one!
February 11th 2007: 655,000 reported civilian deaths resulting from the US-led military intervention in Iraq was announced today!
February 9th 2007: The 101st British soldier was killed today by a roadside bomb in Basra, Iraq. It didn't even make the headlines! The snow and the lady below was front page!
February 8th 2007: Anna Nicole Smith was found dead today in a hotel room in Florida. She was just 39 years old. Three men are fighting a £274 million paternity battle over her five- month- old daughter Dannielynn. All three men are claiming to be the father! Did the methadone kill her?
February 7th 2007: Came across a website called The Poverty Site, it gives very interesting statistics on all the issues of poverty in this country. Here are some recent key points about the growing problems of homelessness in Wales:
- In 2005, around 13,000 households were accepted by their local authority as statutorily homeless (excluding the intentionally homeless). Numbers grew from 8,000 in 2000 to 16,000 in 2004 before falling back to 13,000 in 2005.
- Two-thirds of those accepted as statutorily homeless are households without dependent children. Most of the other third are lone parents, with only 8% being couples with children..
- The biggest reason for becoming homeless is loss of accommodation provided by relatives or friends.
- Every local authority has a homelessness problem, but Bridgend seems to have by far the greatest problem.
- At the end of the first quarter of 2006, there were around 3,400 homeless households in temporary accommodation. This is double the number in 2003 and seven times the number at the start of 1997.
- While levels of homelessness have been rising throughout Great Britain in recent years, the rate of increase has been much faster in Wales than in either England or Scotland.
- Overcrowding is four times as prevalent in rented housing as in owner-occupation.
- The greatest overcrowding problems are in Cardiff and Ceredigion.
February 1st 2007: Will it be Iran next?
Click on the link to below to discover how the beautiful people of Iran live a normal westernised life without a threat to anyone! This is played along to Yusaf Ali's (Cat Stevens) Peacetrain. All they want to do is protect themselves! www.lucasgray.com/video/peacetrain.html
www.stopwaroniran.org
I Believe
I believe - that just because two people argue, it doesn't mean they don't love each other. And just because they don't argue, it doesn't mean they do.
I believe - that we don't have to change friends if we understand that friends change.
I believe - that no matter how good a friend is, they're going to hurt you every once in a while and you must forgive them for that.
I believe - that true friendship continues to grow, even over the longest distance. Same goes for true love.
I believe - that you can do something in an instant that will give you heartache for life.
I believe - that it's taking me a long time to become the person I want to be.
I believe - that you should always leave loved ones with loving words. It may be the last time you see them.
I believe - that you can keep going long after you think you can't.
I believe - that we are responsible for what we do, no matter how we feel.
I believe - that either you control your attitude or it controls you.
I believe - that heroes are the people who do what has to be done when it needs to be done, regardless of the consequences.
I believe - that money is a lousy way of keeping score.
I believe - that my best friend and I can do anything or nothing and have the best time.
I believe - that sometimes the people you expect to kick you when you're down, will be the ones to help you get back up.
I believe - that sometimes when I'm angry I have the right to be angry, but that doesn't give me the right to be cruel.
I believe - that maturity has more to do with what types of experiences you've had and what you've learned from them and less to do with how many birthdays you've celebrated.
I believe - that it isn't always enough to be forgiven by others. Sometimes you have to learn to forgive yourself.
I believe - that no matter how bad your heart is broken the world doesn't stop for your grief.
I believe - that our background and circumstances may have influenced who we are, but we are responsible for who we become.
I believe - that you shouldn't be so eager to find out a secret. It could change your life forever.
I believe - that 2 people can look at the exact same thing and see something totally different.
I believe - that your life can be changed in a matter of hours by people who don't even know you..
I believe - that even when you think you have no more to give, when a friend cries out to you - you will find the strength to help.
I believe - that credentials on the wall do not make you a decent human being.
I believe - that the people you care about most in life are taken from you too soon.
I believe - that you should send this to all of the people that you believe in.
I just did.
When I awoke this morning and turned on the television whilst still in bed I would like to add! The BBC1 newsreel came on and announced that the government NHS is considering giving heroin addicts free food vouchers as an incentive to come off heroin!!! I thought the worlds gone mad! Apparently it's worked in America, that's a laugh in itself! Can we believe anything that they tell us after the weapons of mass destruction fiasco! Well let me tell you, it will not work! I've worked with heroin addicts as a drug intervention worker; while they are on a Drug Intervention Programme; some users are given free weekly bus passes and train tickets so they can get to the treatment centres. Many sell them for cash at the stations, so they can buy a bag to use on top of methadone. On top of all this they get free needles, water for the crack pipes, condoms, dental treatment, prescriptions, housing benefits and clothing grants!! The extra money they save from all this already goes to further drug use, health issues and harm to society. What do they do with the social benefits money? Blow it on gear! If this stupid initiative is introduced it will also discriminating against other addictions such as alcohol, sex & gambling. Unless they are considering giving out beer tokens, shag vouchers and free spins on one armed bandit machines. The way I see it is that it is just another cheap government way out of cutting down on crime, for goodness sake why don't they just build more residential rehabs or provide more aftercare. Better still; make addicts grow their own food! It's healthier and the exercise will make them feel good. If this stupid free food idea even as a pilot scheme it would be just like feeding seed to pigeons, they will all crowd around for a freebie! You even will have some struggling families blagging addiction, so they can buy more food for their malnourished kids. It's just another way of controlling the under classes.
January 13th 2007: The Forum is Now Open! Become a member, express your opinions, post a topic and lets....
January 1st 2007: Love, Peace & Bananas, lets make it a good one!
After an Overview & Scrutiny Forum on 14/12/06. Newport City Council announced through the South Wales Argus today, that they are going to review their policy on housing homeless families, young people and ethnic minorities.
They have finally come to realise that the current Georgian facilities of Clifton Place and the run down Bed & Breakfast establishments they use, are no longer suitable. New Welsh Assembly Standards for temporary accommodation are being introduced in 2007 and Newport will not meet these. Many other local authorities have foreseen this and have been well prepared. They have opened modern buildings that meet all requirements and give the specialist support that's needed. Newport Council are going to visit these state of the art hostels, in the view of adopting a similar approach.
In the meantime they plan to house homeless families, in empty council properties, to reduce the spiralling costs of bed and breakfast accommodation. Let's just hope they offer more temporary tenancy support to the homeless than they have currenlty been giving them. It really needs to be handed over to a specialist support provider a.s.a.p. otherwise they will again set the homeless up to fail.
October 5th 2006: Police Raid Two City Centre Homeless Hostels!
Partnership Approach To Drug Enforcement: Cardiff : South Wales Police officers in conjunction with its partners yesterday morning carried out an intelligence led pre-planned operation at two city centre premises.
Officers attended at the Huggard Centre and Tresillian house, Tresillian Terrace, Cardiff Bay, yestaerday at 7:30am and with the full co-operation of the management at both centres carried out a search of the premises.
Superintendent Martyn Jones from South Wales Police said,
“There has long been an issue with anti-social behaviour, drug use and drug dealing in the vicinity of the Huggard Centre and Tresillian House. The management of both centres, aware that the problem was growing, have worked with us in dealing with these issues. We want to send out a strong message that drug use and drug dealing will not be tolerated.”
“Community police officers in the area have received numerous complaints about the anti-social nature of the activity taking place overtly in the area. As a result South Wales Police, Cardiff Community Safety Partnership, Cardiff Council, Probation Service and other partner agencies decided to take action to reassure the local community and to enhance the quality of life of people living and working in the area.”
In addition to the drugs search, Cardiff Council carried out a series of environmental enhancements in the area including clearing the area of drugs paraphernalia, removing graffiti, repainting areas, improving crime prevention signage, repairing security fences and improving visibility in the area through landscaping work.
Councillor Judith Woodman, Executive Member for Social Care and Justice, Cardiff Council and co-chair Cardiff Community Safety Partnership said,
"Cardiff Council has always taken a proactive approach to homelessness and rough sleeping and to tackle its root causes. Many rough sleepers run the risk of becoming involved with drugs. This can continue when they become hostel users, so we are grateful that the police will be working with us to tackle drug dealing in the hostel's vicinity.
"But today's activity is not an end in itself. It is part of an ongoing effort by all the partners to tackle homelessness in our capital city by a range of initiatives. Over the next five years, Cardiff Council will be working to integrate more fully services for homeless people so that we are better able to bring services to them and prevent their exploitation by drug dealers and others who trade in misery instead of hope."
Leyton Jones from Cardiff Action for Single Homeless at The Huggard Centre said,
“The drugs search was carried out with the full co-operation of the charity, which supports homeless and vulnerable people, who have recently been subjected to increasing approaches from drug pushers.
The charity works with a wide range of agencies, which include substance misuse and counselling organisations for the benefit of any of its service users who may need help.
The charity has a good user development programme with many of its clients returning to work, becoming involved in various aspects of community work and some being selected for schemes like, Raleigh International, Fairbride De Cymru and The Princes Trust.”