Claudia Brind-Woody, vice president and managing director IBM
Diversity Policies: A policy on workplace diversity: Makes a commitment to anti-discriminatory practices and fosters equal opportunity through the removal of systemic barriers. Can reinforce compliance with human rights legislation. Is a statement of an organization’s values
LGBT diversity policies, procedures, advocacy and impact – Business Insider
Claudia Brind-Woody, vice president and managing director, speaks to BI about LGBT and diversity and how it is shaping the wider tech and business community.
Archives for October 2016
‘Gay cake’ row: born-again Christian bakers lose court appeal | UK news | The Guardian
Court Case Settled. A lot has been written over the months regarding this court case, and indeed some of it was factually wrong. The facts were that an order was placed with no intention of setting up any individual, business or organisation up for in-adverse publicity. A contract was entered into, and money was exchange – a normal business transaction. Therefore the contract should have been honoured, possibly with a note to the person who placed the order that the business would not be able to fulfil any future orders of this nature.
A judgement from the court has now been made, the decision reach, and it is now time to step back and try to move on amicably.
Judges uphold ruling that Ashers Bakery discriminated against gay man by refusing to make cake with pro-gay marriage slogan
Source: ‘Gay cake’ row: born-again Christian bakers lose court appeal | UK news | The Guardian
Calm down, the Tories haven’t abandoned Alan Turing – they have just ditched an SNP attempt to claim credit
It is a good thing that Theresa May’s Conservative government is introducing an Alan Turing Law to pardon gay men convicted of historical victimless sexual crimes – that is what I wrote for The Independent last month. No one should be criminalised for being gay. At the start of the century, I was still policing these sex crimes as a police officer until they were repealed by the Labour government.
It doesn’t surprise me that the government reneged on their promises – they have continuously done this across so many platforms, that the difficulty is in realising when they will actually tell the truth and stick by the agreed word and promises.
The article written above is clearly a white washing attempt to try and get them out of a hole that they have dug themselves into. The comment by Of Independent Mind immediately following this article is succinct and factual, and shows how two faced our Prime Minister and her government are in relation to the proposed law to pardon ‘gay’ people who have been done an injustice due to society’s inability to accept them!
I ask you to read the following article and understand why it shouldn’t just be a pardon; pardoning is only a piece of paper, it does not adjust the lives and balance the lives of those men and women who have suffered unjustly for crimes that ‘are not crimes’!
Visit ‘Pride’ in Spain – You Won’t Regret It!
Pride in Spain – Always!!!
What is it like being gay in Spain? Well like any question of this ilk, it depends on what you are looking for; but for any Spaniard it means one thing – BEING PROUD TO BE A SPANIARD. They have pride in their country and their culture. Some of the major cities have a thriving LGBT culture, with clubs and bars, and other venues, but most often you will find that in Spain being gay means you have to travel if you want to socialise. That is not to say you won’t find gay friends in the small towns and villages, but it is difficult unless you are using the internet and apps on your phone – and remember internet access can be expensive in Spain, but a lot of bars/restaurants/cafes offer free internet so the possibility is there.
The following cities run Pride events during the season:
Indeed this year the Benidorm Tourist Foundation, travelled to Stockholm, along with Turespana and the Valencian Tourism Agency for the Stockholm Pride 2016 LGBT Festival. The objectives of Visit Benidorm where two fold, firstly to promote Benidorm Pride, one of the resort’s most important LGBT assets; and secondly to demonstrate to Sweden’s gay community that Benidorm can offer year-round advantages including LGBT accommodation, beaches, food, sports and leisure opportunities.
Folk Gourmet Festival – Saturday 24thSeptember 2016
Mostra Gastronomica Ciutat D’Oliva –
Macrotast – Folk Gourmet Festival
The second event of the festival was on Saturday evening, where on the Passeig you could enjoy tasting some of the best wines of the Oliva and Alforins – nine wineries in all.
Accompanying these wines were food samples of every description. The hosts in all the areas were amiable, happy and excited to show you their produce and let you sample whatever took your fancy, whether it be wine or food!
The event was characterised by the attendance of all age ranges, with families coming out onto the Passeig to mingle, find friends and just relax and be happy.
The entertainment apart from people watching, was provided by the Enric Peidro Quartet whose rendition of jazz classics certainly made me happy, and from what I could see brought out the best in all – some of the younger children as always danced, some just listened – but for most of the attending visitors to the event the music was a welcome bonus, which was unobtrusive but enjoyable.
The difficulty in going to such an event, is that making notes about what was available and what you drank is difficult; particularly as the tickets were 10 tickets for 8 Euros, and you only needed one ticket for a glass of wine or a small plate of food.
If the numbers that I saw attending are an indicator, then the event was a great success; and I hope that the sponsors and organisers feel the same and will come back again next year in 2017!
Course 2 – Day Nine: Double – Rotate Your Image
In these days of smart phones with camera apps, and digital cameras there will be occasions when you have taken a photograph and having uploaded it found that its orientation is wrong – maybe you would prefer a vertical image to be horizontal, or wnat to flip your image so that the subject faces the other way – so if it makes sense rotate your image to create that special effect to create that more interesting composition.
There are hundreds, if not millions, of programs and free online sites which offer to do this job for you, and indeed I have tried a few. And as with all things you will need to experiment to find which one(s) you are most comfortable in using. But surprisingly enough the Windows Paint program is usually sufficient to do tasks like this.
Rather than reinvent the wheel, I will direct you to this article ‘Paint 101 – Crop, Resize and Rotate Images’ written by Cynthia – it is clear, concise, easily understood with clear diagrams. I will however say, that not every flavour of Windows has paint on it, but most do.
So what photograph did I choose for rotation to create a special effect; I was near the Mussenden Templeand took this photograph of two rocks in the sae. A simple straight forward photograph, with little dynamic effect as a normal horizontal image. However by rotating it 90 degrees to the right the image has changed perspective, it seems odd, almost threatening – what do you think:
Rocks near Mussenden Temple
Rocks near Mussenden Temple – rotated 90 degrees to the right
I know as photographs go they are not very awe inspiring, but because it was not a dramatic scene, it I hope shows more clearly how one simple change of view can change how a photograph looks – rotate with care of course, but do try it, you will at times find it a useful tool
#rotatewithcare
#photography101
Course 2 – Day Eight: Edge – Straighten Your Image
I am back again, finally I have been able to find time to continue on with my challenges. This challenge is to use an editing tool to check the alignment and adjust the image so that your edge is perfectly.
What is meant by this; well how often have you taken a photgraph and then when you checked it found it to be slanted to one side or the other? Steve Patterson has given a very interesting article on using Photoshop to achieve this perfection, but the problem is that Photoshop is not the most inexpensive software on the market. However the article and what he talks about is worth reading:
An alternative in Windows 10 has been written about by Ashley Blood, How to Straighten Photos in Windows 10. There are plenty of other articles, these are just two after my first search. Now to my problem, I was lucky enough to be able to visit the Bolshoi showing of their national costumes when it visited Belfast. The exhibition was held in the old Crumlin Road jail (gaol), using the old cells and the connecting corridor for display purposes. Lighting was difficult, as was trying to get the images. I have put together a slide show of the images, but there was one image of a tutu which clearly not straight, and by using the tactics in Windows 10 Photos, I have made some adjsutments.
Now to my problem:
And after adjustment, it doesn’t look like much was done, but even subtle changes can make a big effect.
The exhibition was a show stopper – if it hadn’t been for the fact that it was already in jail, I think my aunt who had accompanied me to the show (and is a devotee of ballet) would have tried to “borrow” one of the costumes!
Education – How much do we educate about sex? ?
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- Boy Boy and Girl Girl – equally need education
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- Sex education word cloud concept
This year National Geographic has launched a new TV series on the world “Original Sin: How Sex Changed The World”; I am catching up with this series, but I can tell you it is interesting in how much sex education we still don’t educate our youth about.
How did I pick this up, well of course our local newspapers who used it to republish about Robiinson & McCambley (a story past its sell by date), with a few added twists about the TV series, but also used it to republish photographs of Mrs Robinson and Mr McCambley; but then I put the article down in my tray and left it, because in itself it was the TV series that was of interest not the replay of Robiinson & McCambley, who by now have moved on with their lives. The reason why I am now writing is the story of Republican Mike Yenn, “the President of Jefferson Parish and happily married with one daughter”. While Yenni doesn’t appear to have much of a record when it comes to being for or against LGBTQ rights, he is a member of the political party that, in its most recently adopted platform, officially defines marriage as “between one man and one woman,” calls pornography harmful “especially on children,” and wants to police which restrooms trans people use in an effort to protect women and children from sexual predators
Now going back to Robinson & McCambley, the story was news at the time, it is not now, what is news now is the abysmal level of sex education in our schools, and the impact it is having on society. It is not enough, as the USA have since found, to preach abstinence. We need to to be honest with our youth, and education them properly about sex and relationships, in all its forms, we can no longer hide behind various texts in the belief that they will protect them.
But sex education is a hot potato, …sex education is political because it is a good way to get elected… particularly if you take a purely conservative point of view and support the vociferous minority who don’t want it taught in school as it is a parents right to do so – well I would argue that our history indicates that we don’t do it well at home or at school. I am not saying we shouldn’t do it at home, what I am saying is that we need to start teaching about sex and relationships properly in school to augment what is taught at home.
We cannot allow … political agendas to stand in a students right to know…
By all means watch the National Geographic program for its titillation when the various high profile people hit the screen, but don’t forget that statistically most new cases of sexually transmitted infections occur in youth and young adults! Sex education must be considered is a failure, when it is considered right that drinking bleach is a good birth control.
We owe it to our youth, both the current and those to come, to provide a balanced and well funded and taught sex education system that is without bias – not only will this enable our youth to make considered decisions about their lives, but it will also help us as a country who is trying to reconcile its various budgets, including the NHS. Spending on education is not a hit and miss, if we get it right we save money in other areas, and we have a richer, better educated society.
Further reading:
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Sexual Health of Adolescents and Young Adults in the United States
- The Irish Times – Iris Robinson to feature in US documentary on sex scandals
- The Belfast Telegraph – Iris Robinson’s toyboy Kirk McCambley affair to be retold for National Geographic documentary ‘Original Sin’
- Queerty – Married Conservative Politician Outed For Sexting Teen Boy, Kissing Him In Mall Bathroom
- Queerty – Teen’s Story About Hooking Up With Married Politician Sounds Awfully Like Mike Yenni