Mobiles phones for ‘babies’

You’ve heard of training bra’s and even training G-strings, but the latest must-have for the under 6s to hit the shops is the beginner mobile phone.

This latest accessory is aimed at a relatively new and expanding market, known as the tweens. Tweens are children aged between 5 to 12 years old. The ‘beginner’ or ‘baby’ phone known as the MO1 is developed by Imaginarium, a toy company, and Telefónica in Spain.

Promoters say it’s a wonderful tool trough which parents can socialise their children about the benefits and social role of mobile phones. Moreover they say it’s a terrific way for parents to keep a close eye on their kids.

But I detect a more sinister motive. By signing up children as young as six, mobile companies are looking to expand their stagnant markets with kiddie chat. It’s such a terrific wheeze, that’s so simple a child couldn’t have thought of it (they’re not so malevolent).

If you’ve got young kids, you’ll know what I mean. Ask them anything straight forward and it will take ages for them to get to the point. Failing if they do start giving you a concise reply they’ll suddenly get distracted by something and abandon the conversation. Well imagine all that going on while they’re on the phone to you. Company profits will go through the roof in no time.

Best thing is tweens care even less about bills than your average teenage consumer. Not because they’re indifferent, but, and this is the best bit, they’re not even cognitively developed to understand money. Pure genius.

Concepts like credit, bills, payments and even money are like their teeth, still growing. It’s brilliant; extort money from people before they know what the stuff is, that way firms will be able to keep future customers in the dark forever, on the premise they’re socialising us into using money. And it won’t end there.

Rumour has it the foetal phone is on the drawing board. This waterproof device will allow mums to keep an eye on their kids’ right from the moment of conception. Naturally conversation will mainly be one way, but at least they’ll have time to work up those monthly charges in time for their birth as a consumer.

 

People protests are the future

Industrial action by tens of thousands of school teachers in England and Wales could disrupt the learning of school children at the end of this month.

The National Union of Teachers has called for strike action over what they believe to be an unsatisfactory pay award. All the other main unions believe the government’s offer is fair given recent public sector awards.

Notwithstanding the merits of any industrial dispute, the thought of seeing teachers outside school protesting with placards is surely something of an anachronism in the 21^st century. Withdrawing labour has historically been the only medium open to aggrieved employees but is it still an appropriate method?

On the face-of-it there seem little avenues of protest left open to disgruntled employees whose concerns fall on the ears of intransigent employers. Nevertheless recent industrial action by the fire-service, postal workers and prison officers amongst others has had limited effect. Indeed public sympathy towards strikers seems to be fair low; to the extent protesting over pay and conditions has become a social anathema.

And therein lays the paradox. Income levels in real terms are declining and if more people supported industrial disputes or withdrew their labour in order to support more substantive wage settlements then all working people would gain. Especially when UK living standards have been in relative decline since 2001.

However this simple logic seems to be obscured by the connotations associated with striking which delegitimizes the whole process. Indeed it could simply be mirroring the high levels of antipathy felt towards traditional politics and politicians by the electorate. And so indifference to striking is a symptom rather than a cause.

In contrast protesting as a means of demonstrating continues to flourish, especially across the social divide. You only have to consider the backgrounds of people involved in recent protests over China’s human rights, G8 protests in Scotland, and the numerous anti-war protests. Such examples point to a shift towards new social movements away from the established old social movements which tended to focus on pay and class issues.

Therefore a new model of protest needs to be devised which will accommodate the diverse needs of a diverse population. One method could be through web based technologies. A group of Italian activists called Reload used technology to ‘hack’ their values into mainstream society. But such processes can be seen as subversive in a way human right protests aren’t.

Instead the answer might come through web-based systems of protest which utilise traditional methods of protest. Such a process addresses the risks, insecurities, and powerlessness felt by all people everywhere from traditional political methods. This is surely evident in the way the Olympic torch relay has been undermined through a network of global protests. Such processes legitimise these demonstrations because they reflect a global voice which is forcing the hand of ‘powerful’ politicians like Gordon Brown.

Hopefully by April 24^th teachers in the NUT will have learnt enough from the torch protests to put their placards down and go to school. In the meantime they can use their imagination to underight their legitimate concerns over pay with protest methods which meets the needs of a 21^st century society.

Anti-terrorist legislation used on 3-year-old

Anti-terrorist legislation has been used by Poole council officials to monitor the movements of a family suspected of lying on a school application form.

The Regulation of Investigatory Powers Act (RIPA) was introduced in 2000 in order to allow surveillance on suspected terrorists and criminals.

The couple and their three young children, from Poole, Dorset, UK were monitored for over two weeks. Council officials watched the family take their children to school, spied on at home, and had other movements logged in order to see that they lived in the correct catchment area for their 3-year-old daughter’s primary school application.

Any false information entered on a school application form is seen by Poole Borough Council as being a criminal offence.

The Bournemouth Echo reported that Tim Martin, head of legal and democratic services, for Poole council, saying: “On a small number of occasions, RIPA procedures have been used to investigate potentially fraudulent applications for school places. In such circumstances, we have considered it appropriate to treat the matter as a potential criminal matter.

Poole Council accepts that the family was found to be innocent and had not made any false entries on their daughter’s application form.