Radio News Bulletin Script

Good morning, I’m Poppy Gradwell, here to bring you the latest headlines in Hampshire.

Top news today – the government are introducing a new scheme called the National Scholarship Programme. The scheme is an attempt to help university students across the UK cope with the increase in tuition fees.

Caroline Hildrew, student advisor at the University of Winchester, explains the programme.

Audio Insert:             Caroline Hildrew Final

In words:                    What they’re saying is…

Out words:                 …shouldn’t be deterred

Duration:                    0’24”

SOC

University students are struggling to find accommodation. Paul Cole, manager of Personal Homefinders talks about this ongoing problem.

Audio Insert:             Paul Cole Final

In words:                    There is still in Winchester I think…

Out words:                 … whose groups we can’t now facilitate

Duration:                    0’13”

SOC

In other news, The Hampshire county council are planning to spend £3.7million to ensure high speed broadband connections. Raymond Ellis, the executive member for economic development and rural affairs said “we can’t afford not to do this.”

Individual financial assessments are going to be introduced for people who require adult social care. Felicity Hindsman, the executive member for adult social care, said that the current system is “not fair… the new policy will mean people need only pay what they can afford.”

And finally, there are still ongoing costs from the snowfall in Hampshire last winter, with £2million needed to replenish the salt stock which were used to grit the roads.

I’m Poppy Gradwell, bringing you the top news on the hour every hour.

Radio News Bulletin Completed

Assessment - County Councils and District Councils - 23/03/11

23/03/11

I have to admit that I knew very little about the differences between the County and District councils before starting this course. The most obvious difference is that the County council is responsible for an entire county; where as a District council is only responsible for a small area within a county. However there are many other differences between the two, such as the responsibilities they have, and the budgets they have to work with. 

The members of a County council are elected every four years by the public. A cabinet is then drawn from members of the largest political party to be voted in, and then the cabinet are responsible for choosing a council leader. Each member of the cabinet is an executive member for each of the responsibilities of the council, For example, in the Hampshire County Council, Felicity Hindsman is the executive member for adult social care. Some of the responsibilities of a county council include transportation, education and the emergency services.

While each member is a portfolio holder, the cabinet members still vote when propositions are made; it is not down to the executive member of a particular field to make the decision.  I saw an example of this system when I attended the Hampshire County Council meeting this term. A proposition was made that everyone in Hampshire should have access to high speed broadband connections. Raymond Ellis, the executive member for economic development and rural affairs was asked for his views on the matter, but the whole cabinet took a vote to support the proposition.

Civil servants also work for the County council; they are non-political, permanent members, and are not elected. The tax payer pays for the salary of a civil servant. I was shocked to learn that the annual salary of the Chief Executive of the Hampshire County Council, a civil servant, is £207,969. This could be due to the fact that a County Council has a much larger budget than a District council does.

District council members are elected by the public in their area. The head of the District Council is determined by which political party has the most elected members. For example, Kelsie Learney is the current head of the Winchester City Council because she is the representative of the Liberal Democrats, who are in the majority in the council. Some of the responsibilities of a District council are leisure facilities, council housing, road repairs and tax collection.

All the information about both County and District councils, such as budgets and proposals in available for the public to access, but there are also times where the information is not released to the public. For example when I attended the Hampshire County Council meeting, the public and press were told to leave the meeting for the last piece of the agenda because it was not deemed to be something that the public should hear.

Councillors are also able to release information to the public at specific times to hide bad news. Kelsie Learney told us that she always releases bad news to the Hampshire Chronicle on a Tuesday afternoon around 4pm because she knows that the journalists do not have time to look any further into the stories she gives them.

County and District information is not easy to find but if you dig deep enough you might just find something interesting!

Word Count - 548

Paul Cole Interview (draft)

Bertrand Russell - History of Western Philosophy - Kant and Hegel

I will start by simply summarising the chapters about Kant and Hegel from The History of Western Philosophy by Bertrand Russell.

Kant:

• 1724-1804
• Founder of German Idealism
• Believed that only mind exists, not matter
• Believed that politics and philosophy should be liberal
• Magnum opus = The critique of pure reason
• It is important to differentiate between 'a priori' and 'empirical' knowledge
• Maths is a priori knowledge
• The outer world causes sensation, but our minds analyse these sensations and order them into space and time - because of this, space and time are subjective.
• Space and time are forms of intuition
• God's existence cannot be proved intellectually.
• There are three proofs of God's existence using reason, but just because they use reason does not mean that they are accurate. (Ontological proof, Cosmological proof, and Physicological proof)
• Existance is NOT a predicate
• Moral acts are our duties
• Hypothetical Imperative - action to produce desired result
• Catagorical Imperative - action is objectively necessary = duty
• A duty is only morally right if the maxim can be universalised
• Treat every man as an end in themselves, not a means to an end

Hegel:

• 1770-1831
• Theory stemmed from Kant's work
• The real is rational and the rational is real
• Reality is timeless
• Dialectic - two opposing things which end up with one outcome resulting in change and progression
• The Dialectic is directed by a spirit called a Zeitgeist
• The Zeitgeist is guiding us to an absolute end
• Wherever there is law there is freedom
• Time exists because we do not have the ability to see everything as a whole like God does
• War preserves the moral health of people, and helps to reach our final end
• Morality and excellence exists in wholes not in parts of wholes; for example an eye is useless on its own, but as part of a body it is excellent

Key Lecture and seminar notes
        My thoughts and opinions

It has taken me a while to write this post because in all honesty I have been unsure about what my thoughts and opinons about Kant and Hegel are! When I first learned about their philosophies I thought that the made quite a bit of sense, but after thinking about them for a while I began to realise how problimatic it would be if people actually lived their lives based on the philosophies of Kant or Hegel.

Kant:

I will start by discussing the problems associated with following Kant's philosophy. Kant believed that you should treat every individual as an end in themselves, never as a means to an end. At first glance this seems like a good idea because it means that no one would ever use anyone else, but after thinking about what the consequences of never using anyone as a means to an end would be it becomes more and more difficult to imagine living in that way. For example, it could be argued that having a doctor take care of you when you are ill is using the doctor as a means to end your suffering and so would be immoral. Similarly, we can assume that Kant would be against organ transplants, cancer research, and countless other acts of people using the knowlege/ability of others as an means to an end. This would dramatically limit the amount of things we could do in society. It could even be argued that giving your money to charity would mean that the charity was using you as a means to end the suffering of others, and so this too would be immoral.

Kant believed that we all have duties, and that acts are only moral if you are able to universalise them. Again, at first glance this seems like a good philosophy for life, for example acts such as murder and rape would be immoral because you cannot universalise them. However, there are other acts that in theory would be a good idea to unaversalise, but the consequence of those actions would be negative. For example, it would theoretically be moral to give money to charity instead of buying a chocolate bar everyday because if everyone gave money to charity then millions of people could be helped. However, if we all gave all our money to charity instead of buying chocolate then the chocolate industry would crash and millions of jobs from the cocoa farmers to chocolate advertisers would be lost. Of course this is an extreme example, but it shows how an act which seems as though it would be universally moral might have negative consequences. This would not necessarily be a problem for Kant though because he did not believe in considering the consequences of our actions. He believed that acts in themselves are either right or wrong, the consequences of those acts do not need to be taken into account when making decisions. This is quite contradictary because it could be argued that it would never be a good idea to universalise the maxim that no one should think about the consequences of their actions.

Hegel:

One of the most important aspect of Hegel's philosophy is his theory of the dialectic. Helgel believed that throughout history we have been moved forward by the Zeitgeist through the dialectic towards an absolute end. In one way this could be quite a comforting thought because it suggests that the conflict in this world is leading towards a better end for us, and that we are on a course that is being set out for us by the Zeitgeist, however believing this could potentially have a negative affect on society. For example, if I believed that every argument that I had with someone would help society move in the right direction then I would not think twice before starting an argument about small or big things. At the moment I only ever start an argument if I really believe in my cause or oppose something that someone else as said, but for the most part I do my best to avoid arguments because I do not think that they are very productive. There are people who take the complete opposite attitude to me, and start arguments over anything. If those people were to believe that they were benefitting society by starting arguments then they might start bigger or more violent arguments, or even wars without really thinking about it. Hegel would suggest that starting wars would be morally right, but it is hard to argue that in the society in which we live.

For example, the war on Afghanistan has been hugely controversial, and if someone was to suggest that the war was a good idea simply for the sake of having a war to help society progress towawrds an absolute end then I doubt that anyone in their right mind would agree. Of course there are people who believe that going to war was the right decision, and it could be argued that this was based on the belief that it would be for the greater good, but not in terms of society reaching an absolute moral end.

It is also potetntially a bad idea to lead everyone to believe that the Zeitgeist is responsible for directing humanity towards an absolute end because this suggests that no matter what we choose to do or not to do has little importance. For example, if you told secondary school students that eventually they will get a high paying job during their life time no matter what choices they make, then I highly doubt that any of them would bother doing any work because there would be no need if the consequence is going to be the same. Similarly, if people believe that humanity is going to reach an absolute end eventually then they could do pretty much anything that they wanted because at worst it would only slow the process down, it would not stop us from reaching the end.

Most people are driven to succeed by nothing more than the fear of failing, so if this fear of failing was removed then I do not think that anyone would strive to achieve greatness.

Charlie Sheen - "Winning"

There has been a great deal of controversy recently over the physical and mental state of American actor Charlie Sheen. Today I have been invited to join groups or watch videos of extremely peculiar and worrying interviews that he has given recently.

It was while watching one of these videos on YouTube that I noticed a link to a video in which Charlie Sheen gave a talk at a conference for people questioning the events of 9/11. During his speech he said something which struck a chord with me:

"Fear is never a good enough reason to do nothing."

I think that one of the main reasons why this statement has had an impact on me is because I honestly do not think I have ever heard anything that I agree more with.

There has always been an aspect of our nature which stops us from standing up for certain things because we fear what the consequences will be, and this fear can be seen from primary school children through to OAPs. Whether it be not standing up for someone who is being bullied at school out of fear that we will then bullied, or whether, like Charlie Sheen it is not standing up or questioning something which you believe in.

Where would we be if people had done nothing out of fear? What if Martin Luther King had never stood up for civil rights out of fear that he would be attacked for it? What if Al Gore had not continued to raise awareness about global warming out of fear that he would be mocked by fellow politicians?

History is filled with iconic people who are admired for doing something even though they may have feared the consequences, and these are the people that history will remember. Martin Luther King, Ghandi, Mother Teresa, Al Gore and countless more people have and will be remembered for making a difference by taking action. The celebrities of the 21st century such as Lady Gaga, Wayne Rooney or Cheryl Cole are not going to be remembered in the timeless way that other people have been.

Fear can stop people doing a great deal of things in their lives, and I ahve respect for anyone who can over come their fears no matter how trivial they may seem to other people.

Sheen has been heavily ridiculed recently for stating that he is continually "winning", and until I heard that statement I have to admit that I ridiculed this too; but after watching him stand up for what he thinks is right, and encouraging others to do the same I am starting to think that possibly he does have a "winning" attitude in some aspects of his life.

I will always admire people like Sheen, who despite what ever else may be happening in their lives, stand up for what they believe are injustices; people who stand up to fear.

Student tuition fees - interview with Caroline Hildrew

News Bulliten Script - Hampshire County Council Meeting

Script:

The Hampshire County Council meeting was held on Monday where the council discussed changes and developments that are going to be made.

First on the agenda was the proposal that individual financial assessments are needed for people needing adult social care. Felicity Hindsman, the executive member for adult social care said that the current system was “not fair.”

The council also discussed the need for high speed broadband access across Hampshire. The proposed scheme will cost £3.7 million. Raymond Ellis, the executive for Economic Development and Rural Affairs said “we can’t afford not to do this” and described high speed broadband as “essential.”

Finally the snow fall over last winter is still costing the economy, with £2.2 million needed to replenish the salt stock which was used to grit the roads.

Education - The Album

I have often spent time thinking about how the addition of music to adverts, films, TV, etc can make you love or hate what you are watching no matter what it is. 

Last night I watched Bridget Jones with some friends and comments were made about how apt the choice of music was and how it made us sympathise with the characters more. The comment was made of "wouldn't it be brilliant if music started playing in real life that was completely relevant?"

I think that this is an incredibly interesting point and for a few minutes I thought about how the addition of music to my everyday, mundane tasks would make everything seem more enjoyable! I am certain that I am not the only person to hold this view; it was even mentioned in the 2010 number 1 single "Billionaire" by Travis McCoy who, when listing his biggest dreams, stated "everywhere I go I gunna' have my own theme music."

The addition of music in everyday life is not something which is merely for entertainment purposes. Music has been used to calm children with behavioural disabilities,to send children to sleep, to inspire and even to help with education.

It is no secret that both adults and children often struggle to memorise a great deal of information, and it is especially difficult to retain this information for long periods of time. Songs are often used to teach primary children about the basics whatever subject they are studying and this has been the practice for decades. The two videos below are examples of how music has been used as a teaching aid. The first is from the 1970s, the second video is from September 2010.





Children learn better when they have a song to help them learn, but I do not think that music should be limited to primary education. Using my own ecperience I know that I can remember the lyrics to practically hundreds of songs, and even after years have passed I would still be able to remember the lyrics, and I know a lot of people who are the same.

I think it would be fantastic if educational songs were made for people of all ages, and if they were as catchy as the songs in the charts then I think it would be an incredibly successful teaching method.

So the next time you are singing along to a song, it might be interesting to think about how you manged to learn the lyrics so easily, and apply this method to your work!