What is in Kelvin's Head?

  • Parliamentary Victory and Interview on Scotland Tonight

    I was glued to my computer last night watching the debate from the Scottish Parliament on introducing the legislation that will one day soon, allow same-sex couples to get married.

    It is difficult to describe what it was like watching it. In touch with others on twitter, I was aware of a certain amount of nervousness from some of those who have been campaigning on this. It isn’t surprising – a lot of work has gone into this. However, it was not just parliamentary process that was affecting me last night. It was the sight of one politician after another standing up and speaking positively about gay couples they know, changes in society that have made life easier for gay people or in some cases talking about themselves as gay parliamentarians. It is difficult for me to convey what this feels like to straight people. When I was growing up you simply saw no-one say anything positive about something that is pretty fundamental to who you are. Indeed, you either got negative messages or a corrupting silence which you somehow knew you were supposed to keep.

    Times have changed and that is why evenings like last night mean so much and in the end it was a decisive victory in the Parliament – 98 votes to 15 with five abstentions.

    Later on in the evening I was asked to go on Scotland Tonight on STV. It was a very enjoyable interview.

    Here’s some of the things I said:

    • Watching my twitter and facebook feeds light up when the vote came through was like watching the lights on a Christmas tree all light up.
    • This was a sophisticated and respectful debate and was the Parliament working well.
    • I don’t agree with issues like this being dealt with as a free vote but it was not a night for reservations but for celebrations.
    • The debate brought out the fact that support for same-sex couples being treated like everyone else extends into the churches. Increasingly people want equality for same-sex couples.
    • This is one of the fastest social changes that there has ever been. It is happening and it is happening now.
    • We don’t want any more “safeguards” in the bill – they are largely unnecessary anyway.
    • The Parliament has ensured that the country can go forward together. No-one is forced to do anything.
    • There’s still more to do around education, language (see the new Stonewall “Gay – let’s get the meaning straight” campaign) and support.
    • This is an amazing stepping stone towards equality.

    , , ,

4 responses to “Wiki?”

  1. Tim Avatar
    Tim

    Experience here is
    a) TWiki is amazingly awful to migrate between versions, requiring a fair bit of Perl knowledge
    b) Dokuwiki might be only written in PHP, but it’s an absolute joy to use, especially the plugin system (paste URL to zip-file into box, it downloads and unpacks it for you!)

    One of these I use for work, the other is rapidly becoming my general to-do-list / organization / life at home. Major plug for dokuwiki 🙂

    Reply
  2. Avatar
    Anonymous

    Docuwiki
    I’ll have a look at Docuwiki though I do have a working version of TWiki currently running at the moment. I know no Perl, and it was a bit of a challenge installing it in the first place.

    Reply
  3. Avatar
    Anonymous

    Docuwiki

    Well, I’ve looked at Docuwiki but can’t install it.

    Life is just too short for this:

    • Set up the correct permissions
      • Usually the webserver runs as a unprivileged user eg nobody, www-data or apache
      • The webserver needs to be able to write to some files and directories (so change the chown nobody to match your configuration e.g. chown apache …)
      • If you’re using access control, you need to change the group ownership permissions on the appropriate files and make them writeable by the web server user’s group (use group ownership, because as a user/web site admin, you’ll need to edit the files directly) – otherwise, users won’t be able to register, and you won’t be able to set ACL controls via the web interface, and you’ll get error messages; I always forget these steps when I do an install using ACL features, so that’s why I’m adding them here.
      • The group name the web server runs as is usually identical to the user name, except in the case of the “nobody/nogroup” combo – but check your server config just in case (just a user, TL)

     

    Reply
  4. muratore Avatar
    muratore

    molella discotek people molella discotek people serx serx midi file graqtis midi file graqtis cenangium cenangium sansui amplificatore sansui amplificatore le ragazze di viterbo le ragazze di viterbo nissan terrano autocarro nissan terrano autocarro torturatore torturatore akg terni akg terni mercedes 270 serie c mercedes 270 serie c rokepo zola predosa rokepo zola predosa totò peppino e la dolce vita totò peppino e la dolce vita la rubrica di costantino e alessandra og la rubrica di costantino e alessandra og effects processor pro 2 2 effects processor pro 2 2 ludmila radchenko ludmila radchenko officer officer ospedale umberto primo ospedale umberto primo le tre demo di lords of everquest le tre demo di lords of everquest magicolor 2450 magicolor 2450 santo domingo viaggio santo domingo viaggio back street boys non mi lasciare cosi back street boys non mi lasciare cosi haiduchii din tei dragostea haiduchii din tei dragostea comunita economica comunita economica tm net my tm net my paradise cracked trailer paradise cracked trailer lettori cd gemini lettori cd gemini consultazioni provinciali 2004 consultazioni provinciali 2004 at 160ml siracusa at 160ml siracusa certificazioni di qualita certificazioni di qualita ipod 20 accessori ipod 20 accessori forbidden colours forbidden colours depurazione delle acque depurazione delle acque limpbizkit behind blue eyes limpbizkit behind blue eyes localizzazione localization localizzazione localization snow bo snow bo diablo editor diablo editor speed (lazy dog software) v1 0 speed (lazy dog software) v1 0 shakira screensaver shakira screensaver scuole di regia scuole di regia computer cable computer cable siti lesbici siti lesbici maradino maradino milano teknival 05 milano teknival 05 prg torino prg torino trasporti piemonte trasporti piemonte honsen honsen trenet charles trenet charles chi ti dice chi ti dice testo e traduzione emon testo e traduzione emon muratore muratore muratore

    Reply

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