Job Discussion Forums

[nickpellatt]

[Dedicated]

Hello Hod,

I am 65 years old, already drawing my pension, but still working full-time. If you have the appropriate skills, they will still employ you.
At my university, there are many lecturers over 65, many of them full professors.

[scot47]

My goal is to maximise leisure time, not to maximise income. Read Paul Lafargue on "The Right To Be Lazy".

I have freed myself of bondage to alcohol and nicotine and, unlike many of the denizens of those offshore islands, I can happily live without my own car.I find that I can live on a very modest income. Most of my earnings of recent years have been used to support children and grandchildren.

I look forward to my dotage in Scotland, just round the corner from a well-stocked public library.

[Hod]

[naturegirl321]

[Hod]

Can I just say that any Brits considering retiring to the UK after decades away should look carefully at current events. It�s not a handful of people rioting and looting right now, it�s tens of thousands. And they�re not just stealing a few computers and TVs. Apartment blocks are being set alight with people inside.

I�m only a few hundred miles from the UK, but the changes I�ve seen when visiting over the last decade are sickening. There�s no respect for anyone, and the police have no powers to do anything about it.

This current nonsense will end soon, but many many people�s mindset is that this sort of behaviour is fair, no big deal. This mindset will not change anytime soon. To go back to the UK as an old person with no hope of relocating elsewhere, you�ve already died and gone to hell.

[johnslat]

Dear naturegirl321,

A denizen is inhabitant or occupant of a particular place. An ex-pat is a "guest" in another country.

Regards,
John

[eurobound]

[johnslat]

Dear Hod and eurobound,

So, can it then be assumed that you'll never be going back - or if you are back, that you'll be emigrating very soon?

Regards,
John

[Hod]

Never saying never, but I had no plans to return permanently anyway. Most of mainland Europe is far more pleasant, having standards and some sort of society.

I responded on this particular thread as numerous British teachers make little or no pension provisions and believe the UK will offer an economic sanctuary after retirement. Added to that uncertainty now is the realisation that Britain has very serious social problems indeed.

If you go back to the UK at the age 67 throwing yourself at the mercy of state handouts, you probably won�t starve, but you�ll live a grim existence, worse than the poorest struggling TEFLer. What�s worse, though, is that you will be stuck there in a now strange country surrounded by the sort of mindset seen on our TV screens this week. I�d rather have some choice about where I retire.

Incidentally, John, what if similar riots occurred in the USA? I�m curious what the police would do. The UK police and legal system seem powerless to stop such behaviour.

[eurobound]

[GuestBob]

[johnslat]

Dear Hod,

Well, there haven't been any mammoth riots in the US recently. The really big ones (Watts, Detroit) took place back in the 60s, although the "Rodney King" riots happened in the 90s
Moreover, since the US is such a big country, it would be virtually impossible to say how individual police departments might respond to a really big riot.

However, here's an article that tells about how the Los Angeles police responded to a smaller riot in 2009.

Lakers melee tests LAPD's new crowd-control policies
The department is pleased with its handling of Sunday night's celebrations, saying officers limited damage without excessive force. Two stores were looted, 8 officers injured and 21 people arrested.
June 16, 2009|Corina Knoll, Andrew Blankstein and Richard Winton
As the mood of the crowd outside the Staples Center turned quickly from jubilation over a Lakers victory to something more destructive, Los Angeles police knew they had to finely calibrate their response to avoid the public relations debacles of the department's recent past.

Officers had to control a group of "knuckleheads," in the words of Los Angeles Police Chief William J. Bratton, yet avoid trampling the rights of hundreds of people who turned out to celebrate the Lakers' first championship win in seven years.


They could not have a repeat of the immigration rights protest in MacArthur Park in 2007, when police battered dozens of peaceful protesters and journalists with batons and bean-bag rounds, costing the city more than $10 million in legal settlements and prompting an overhaul of the LAPD's crowd-control procedure.

The new strategy: Remove the rabble-rousers, push larger crowds into marginal areas and chase smaller groups until they disperse.

In their Monday morning analysis, police commanders declared the approach a success, limiting injuries and property damage, and showing the public that the department could restrain the use of force.

The crowds did manage to loot several stores, break windshields, vandalize police cars and MTA buses -- as TV helicopters captured the chaos for the world to see. But the LAPD says officers balanced many interests in confining the chaos as best they could.

"We cannot afford to be involved in responding in a knee-jerk way," said Assistant Chief Earl Paysinger. "Too much is at stake. You're talking lives, property and elusive public confidence."

The trouble started at 8:30 p.m., when people outside the Staples Center began lighting Orlando Magic jerseys on fire. Soon, trash cans and trees went up in flames.

Officers ordered the crowd to disperse. But several bands of young men split off. They stomped car windshields, tossed traffic barricades, ripped out parking signs, tagged walls, threw rocks through windows.

Two men ran across a line of police cars and kicked in a windshield.

At Pico Boulevard and Flower Street, a group stormed a vintage shoe store called The Holy Grail and stole nearly 800 pairs of consignment sneakers.

At Grand Avenue and Olympic Boulevard, about 20 men wearing Lakers apparel swarmed into the convenience store at a Shell gas station shouting, "Free soda, free soda." They smashed bottles on the floor, trampled bananas, grabbed what they wanted -- water, chips, candy, six-packs of soda -- and left.

"Everything happened so quick," said German Bonilla, 27, who was working the night shift at the store. "I was just standing behind the counter. I wasn't going to do anything because there was so many of them."

By midnight, the melee was over.

Eight Los Angeles police offers suffered minor injuries, 21 people were arrested, 12 government vehicles, including six MTA buses, were damaged, and one traffic light was knocked down, authorities said."


http://articles.latimes.com/2009/jun/16/local/me-lakers-melee16

As I mentioned in another post, the police have a tremendously difficult task, estimating just how much force is enough and how much is too much or two little. And, like many of us, they've learned from past mistakes.

"In May 2007, an immigration rally in Los Angeles� MacArthur Park turned into a difficult lesson in crowd-control tactics for the Los Angeles Police Department. As pockets of the crowd became unruly, officers found that their dispersal orders were being ignored. They resorted to using batons and less-lethal rounds to contain the swelling crowd, resulting in hundreds of injuries to officers and civilians and more than 250 legal claims against the city.

In the aftermath, LAPD officials reviewed its crowd-control procedures in an effort to identify what went wrong. Chief among its findings was an inability to effectively communicate commands and warnings to the protestors, many of whom understood little English. In addition, announcements broadcast in English from a helicopter proved ineffective and added to the confusion.

To help avoid future public demonstrations from turning violent, the LAPD sought a way to improve its crowd-control capabilities by providing its officers the ability to communicate with all members of the city�s diverse community. And with 68% of its 9,600-member force unable to speak a second language, the LAPD turned to technology for a solution."

http://www.hendonpub.com/resources/articlearchive/details.aspx?ID=206986


My Dad was a police officer, so I have a lot of respect for those who put their live on the line every day to protect and serve.

Regards,
John

[HLJHLJ]

Ah the joy of rose tinted glasses. There are riots in the UK pretty much every 10 years or so, it's been going on since records began. Every time it happens people start squealing that the sky is falling in and it's the end of civilisation as we know it.

They hark back to the good old days when <insert current media panic here> didn't exist and everyone respected the police and kids did as they told. Conveniently forgetting the riots that happened during those supposed golden years.

10 years from now people will be saying exactly the same thing, having forgotten these riots ever happened.

[eurobound]