I’m going to go ahead and compare equal marriage and Apartheid. In South Africa (many a year ago) you black people couldn’t marry white people. To me this is a mirror to men not being able to marry men and the same for women not being able to marry women. South Africa moved on, so why can’t we hurry up and do the same? Apartheid was wrong because white people had a birth right to live a happy and content life yet black people had no such right. You can’t change your skin colour, and you can’t change your sexuality either. That is set in stone, just as your skin colour is too.

Why does something you’re born with mean your life isn’t as good as a straight person’s when you find the person you want to be with for the rest of your life? What makes this different to Apartheid? Surely the same rule of ‘discrimination is wrong’ applies?

Personally, I think equal marriage needs to happen and anyone who says it shouldn’t is a blithering idiot.

Cross posted from blog.imjon.co.uk

Founded in response to the riots that rocked Britain in the summer of 2011, the first Youth Heroes Awards ceremony was held in February 2012 and celebrated the achievements of 24 young people on the Wirral Peninsula in North West England.

“Wirral is home to thousands of young people who are heroes and we set out to find the most inspirational from amongst them. We wanted to publicly affirm and thank these young heroes for all that they do and highlight them as a small glimpse of the massive majority of young people in Wirral. In doing so our hope was that we could play our own small part in inspiring a generation,” said Martin Dickson, director of Wirral YFC, the youth and schools work charity behind the awards.

“We believe that with the right encouragement and nurturing young people can have a hugely positive impact on their local communities. Rather than talking about those who have a destructive effect, the Youth Heroes Awards  are all about making a big deal of those young people who have had made an outstanding contribution to their communities and are  inspirational to others as a result.”

The first event was a great success and received high praise from politicians, the press and the public and following the awards night Wirral YFC was inundated with requests for the awards to be made an annual event, something the charity was only to happy to do.

The 2013 Youth Heroes Awards will take place on 7th June 2013 at the newly renovated Floral Pavilion in New Brighton, with nominations now open on the YHA website and their official Facebook page.

More information is available at http://wirral.youthheroes.org.uk/

Feature image from the February 2012 Youth Heroes Awards

Article by Milo Noblet, Official Youth Journalist for the Youth Heroes Awards 2013

A fascination with the items that one has on their person has become extremely popular over the last few years. Some will argue that the fascination has been around forever, or at least since the invention of pockets. Everyday carry, or EDC is a term used to describe what we consciously have one our person every day, usually once we have left the house, it can be thought of as what we need to survive in the outside world, what we need in case of an emergency or what we just like to fill our pockets and bags with.

The beautiful thing about EDC is that everyone has a unique take on what they need to carry around with them every day. We all have our own everyday carry items that we cannot live without, you cannot be wrong about what you like to carry, unless it is illegal of course.

An example of a basic EDC setup would be your keys, your wallet or purse and your phone – three basic items that we carry around with us every day. From there your keys might have a selection of keyrings, some of those keyrings may include handy devices such as tools, lights, bottle openers – the list of what can go on keyrings is endless.

Your wallet may contain some useful items too, maybe a small first aid kit in case you or someone else are injured, you could even carry an entire first aid kit with you in a small organiser along with other items. Knives and multi tools are popular EDC items and can be carried legally as long as they fit within certain parameters of the law.

You can have different EDC setups for different aspects of your life, a work EDC, a college EDC, a survival EDC, the options are endless.

What do you carry with you every day? Why not tell us in the comment section below:

Guest article from James Wharton of Everyday Carry UK

Picture Credit: Ryan Tir on Flickr

Farah, who won 5000m and 10000m at London 2012 was detained for questioning after the US border force noticed he was born in Somalia.

The 29-year-old came to Britain with his British-born father as a child an dis one of the most famous athletes worldwide, but this didn’t stop officials from grilling him at the border.

The athlete moved to Portland last year to work with his coach Alberto Salazar at the HQ of Nike in the Pacific North-west and was travelling back to spend the Christmas holiday with his family.

Even presenting his two gold medals to the officials did nothing to help his cause.

“I couldn’t believe it. Because of my Somali origin I get detained every time I come through US Customs. This time I even got my medals out to show who I am, but they wouldn’t have it,” he told the Sun newspaper.

The incident is not the first of Mo’s run-ins with US authorities. He had similar struggles when he tried to get a residency permit to live in Portland.

Picture Credit: Paul Gillett, Olympic Stadium in London. Licensed for reuse under Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike licence.

Before elaborating upon my views regarding tobacco regulations, warnings and consumption, I wish to inform you that these views expressed before you are those only of mine and do not reflect the beliefs of TDR or any other staff member here at TDR.

Tobacco regulations here in the United Kingdom are about right in my opinion. Anybody wishing to purchase a tobacco product must be at least 18 years of age which was raised from 16 back in 2007 to accompany the public place smoking ban introduced in the July of the same year. Smoking health warnings on packets of cigarettes, cigars and hand rolling tobacco are a totally different matter however. Some small warning on the pack of a tobacco product would be adequate highlighting to users that the product that are about to purchase may cause them some harm if their usage is constant.

What I don’t agree with on the other hand are the large and sometimes graphic health warnings placed on packs. It is just not needed! Yes I get the fact that those images are meant to shock people and prevent them from smoking in the first place but 9 times out of 10 the person who just bought that pack of cigarettes is already a regular smoker and is already aware of the potential dangers of tobacco.

If governments insist on plastering warnings all over tobacco labels, then why don’t they do the same for fast foods and alcohol? Both of these also have severe health implications if misused. To reinforce my point, please take the time to watch the following video made by Dan (realcigreview & haveasmokeandrelax – YouTube channels):

WARNING: embedded content contains several uses of strong language

Now onto my views regarding tobacco consumption (cigarettes, cigars, pipes etc.). First of all I believe that people who choose and want to smoke should be allowed to do so without being stereotyped or looked down upon. I also feel that if you don’t like a person smoking around you, fair enough – move away from them or politely ask them to move somewhere else, do not think that it is your God given right to demand that a smoker extinguish their tobacco at once simply because you don’t like it. The world doesn’t and shouldn’t work like that. If you approached a large person and told them to stop eating a cheeseburger whilst you were around I imagine that they would take great offence and probably want to do something about it. Once it boils down to smokers, people think that its OK to treat them like dog muc, well I’m sorry; it isn’t and their not!

I hope that this post has expressed my views in a professional yet meaningful manner. I would be very interested to hear your feedback on this, so please leave a comment down below.

Picture Credit: fatal_error on Flickr, “TOC”

The committee said that planned changes to the Defamation Bill would cause website operators to remove controversial statements even if they were not libellous. Hywel Francis MP said the committee was “glad to see steps taken to protect website operators who are merely hosting content. But as drafted, the Bill could have a chilling effect on those publishing material online. There should be a higher threshold put in place before material has to be removed.”

Proposals in the draft Defamation Bill were announced in June last year by then Justice Secretary Ken Clarke. The proposals would force operators of sites like Twitter and Facebook to reveal the identity of users who post offensive messages, also known as ‘trolls’, if the target of those messages made a complaint. Sites would also have to put the complainant in touch with the poster of the comments, and if they could not, they would have to take down the offending content.

According to Mr Clarke, this would prevent the site operator from being sued for libel and stop ‘scurrilous rumour and allegation’ being posted.

The bill went before the House of Lords last month. At the time, a spokesperson for the Ministry of Justice stated that the Government would give ‘careful consideration’ to the committee’s suggestions.

Picture Credit: Ministry of Justice, Flickr, “Westminster Magistrates’ Court Opening – in the court room”

Parents can personalise the card for their children and control where it can be used and how much can be spent, a standing order can be set up to add money to the card on a weekly or montly basis, whilst friends and relatives can add money to the account.

However, there’s a snag – of course, someone, somewhere has to make money, so rather than teaching children about money, it will turn into a way for someone to make money.

First off, there’s the joining fee – £5, a little strange considering many high-street banks offer children’s accounts with debit cards, and then a monthly fee of £1 to use the card… and a 50p fee for every transaction. Want to buy a pack of sweets? Well, using a PKTMNY card would double the cost of those Wine Gums.

No bank or building society would charge an adult for transactions, so why should they be able to do it for an eight-year-old? Naturally, Pktmny Ltd, formerly Muzu Ltd, the company behind the card, are arguing positively for the scheme.

But what about responsibility? Can an eight-year-old child (who would be in Year Three at primary school), really be trusted with a Visa debit card – surely this would just encourage them to spend and fritter away their pocket money? Of course, some eight-year-olds may be very responsible, but it wouldn’t be surprising to see reports of child banking fraud in a few years’ time.

Mitchell apologised for his conduct but denied using the word in the exchange last month.

The Labour Party, the Police Federation as well as the Daily Telegraph were just some of those calling for the minister’s resignation as the storm brewed around him.

In Parliament there were angry clashes over the Chief Whip on Wednesday.

PM David Cameron has accepted his resignation.

Picture Credit: George Evans