Google Calendar

I created a Google Calendar a month ago, entered a few looming arrangements, and thought I'd report on the tool here when I'd used it a bit more. In fact I haven't used it or looked at it since.

Arrangements at my library, we enter in a shared file in Microsoft Schedule+. It's antique (preserved from Windows 95), but well adequate. For me as a single user, there's no reason to enter events a second time in my Google Calendar. The reasons to start using a Google Calendar at work would be that it can be shared more widely (that is, among readers), and remotely: at present, we put any arrangements we think readers need to know about in a notice, and stick it to the door. I accept they might prefer to find out the library's closed before they get there.

Arrangements at home, I enter on the nearest scrap of paper or—if I'm less concerned to remember them—just leave to my memory. I'm coming to agree with my dentist that this isn't a good system. A diary would obviously help, but I don't think it will be electronic (Google Calendar or another) until I have a suitable mobile phone. Stationery will suit me for now.

Unusual punishments

I'm not going to sign that petition, and thought I'd write down three reasons why. First, to deliver criminal sanctions through our welfare system would weaken our criminal justice system. We want judges to award, and criminals to suffer, just punishments. However the petitioned sanctions undermine this ideal. If a judge awarded a just punishment, the addition of the sanctions would make the punishment suffered excessive (unjust). That is, for justice to be done, we'd have to ask judges to treat rioters who claim benefits leniently: not quite what the petition intends.

Second, the petitioned sanctions victimise poorer people. I don't choose the comparative out of delicacy: the poorer you are, the worse you're to be punished. If I stole a pair of trainers in the riots, but earn a living wage so that the only welfare payment I regularly claim is child benefit, my punishment diverges wildly from that of my unemployed neighbour, who committed the same crime but regularly claims housing benefit and jobseeker's allowance. (To be clear: he is reduced to a homeless beggar.) Why? Is this enlightenment? Is this justice?

My neighbour's fate suggests a third, practical reason. After punishment, another general goal of criminal sanctions is the deterrence of future crime, but those petitioned seem in effect to promote it. We should remember they're meant to apply to rioters who aren't sent to prison, who remain at liberty. This must be so or the petition would be pointless: prisoners obviously can't claim many benefits (jobseeker's allowance, housing benefit, cold weather payments and so on).

And the petition certainly has people like my neighbour in mind: its sanctions apply to 'those who have ... shown a disregard for the country that provides for them.' This is a rhetorical way of talking about people who depend on welfare. To get to the point: if a rioter who depends on benefits has them withdrawn, he has to get the things he needs to live in ways other than paying for them. A few obvious ones apart from begging are theft, robbery, and burglary.

I feel like a lot could be said about the mindset that, confronted with last week's appalling riots, conceives this petition as a relevant answer. (I don't mean all the signatories too. It's an angry, urgent time.) But this won't be the place.

I'll just add that I'm not going to sign the other petition either. As a political move, I think it harms its cause. Never mind that it starts off like a landlord's notice ('Tenants MUST keep a DEAD BADGER in the sink at all times').*


* Notice borrowed from Alexei Sayle.

Doodle

I've taken part in Doodle polls before, with workmates and with friends, but not set up one. I was pleased to find there's no requirement to register: I have enough passwords to remember. In a few minutes I'd successfully arranged a meeting with a humouring Margot.

A good idea well realised. What more to say?