Blame By Darren Sant

I didn't say you were to blame, I said I'm blaming you. I am getting heartily sick of the blame culture we live in these days. Something goes wrong in the hospital, we sue. The dentist pulls out the wrong tooth, we sue. Admittedly we are not as bad as Americans yet, thank god, but we are getting there slowly. Whatever happened to human error?

We are not perfect; it is our nature to make mistakes as the saying goes, to err is human.

In many organisations there exists a blame culture, where individuals are held accountable, when perhaps it is the structure or system which is to blame. It is perhaps a little too easy for people in professions such as nursing and the police to be the target of blame and accusations of wrongdoing.

Both of these professions perform a vital role within our society, perhaps we should think before too quickly condemning them.

Of course the case of Christopher Alder highlights that people are at times right and justified in pointing the finger of blame. I once read an amusing story about a guy who tripped over in an American department store. Apparently no sooner had the guy stood up than the store manager was waving a cheque for $2,000 dollars under his nose and begging him not to sue!

Maybe he was just a clumsy bastard! If I lived in America I'd be rich by now! A little known fact is that apparently 90% of car accidents are caused by human error as opposed to mechanical failure. I believe this blame culture is a very unhealthy thing for our society. Call me a bleeding heart liberal but there is a word I much prefer over blame and the word is forgive.

Opinions - A Call for Peace By Michelle Dee Clark
	Martin Luther King had a dream. His dream was crushed by jack booted, hooded ignorance. There has always been wrong in this world. From the trials in Scottsboro* Alabama in the 1930's to more recent events in Jasper Texas in 1998**. We are all guilty. When you talk of Kosovans and Iraqi's you focus on what the media want you to then project that onto everyone, be it ethnic minorities or anyone Read more...

Opinions - Life in a Modern World By Darren Sant
	Some of my thoughts on bizarre aspects of our modern world.. Unreality TV Is it me or is the world getting weirder? This is a world where people watch TV programmes like Big Brother. People sit around on a settee watching the telly watching people sitting on a settee. I'm beginning to get a headache. Now if they all had little cages on their heads Read more...

Opinions - Invitation
	by Editor If you have an opinion about something in or about Hull, then here's your chance to air it on www.thisisull.com. Spill the beans here. You got a beef? slice it here.

Opinions - Refill Not Landfill
	By Cilla What do you think about the price of printer cartridges? I can't afford them. My printer has long periods of rest between bouts of frenzied use while the colours still give any semblance of anything other than black and white. The very idea of the printer being useable is a treat for the whole family! Read more...

Opinions - Youth Clubs by Annie
	Hi,Its Annie here and I have something to complain about! You know when the old age pensioners or students or really irritating neighbours bother you, saying you are really noisy and to quiet down a bit, well that's what I am on about. Read more...

Places to Visit - Our Samhain Visit to Avebury by Janie Spencer
	Before we start on our journey, let me give you a bit of background on Avebury. It is a beautiful stone circle, so big that you can in fact fit a village inside it, as you can see from this overhead map! As well as being a tourist spot, it is both a home and a gathering Read more...

Places to Visit - Burton Constable Hall.
	Burton Constable Hall has collected several ghosts and stories from its 450 year history, the most frequently seen ghost being that of Nurse Dowdall, a much loved nanny to the children of the household during the 19th century. Read more...

Fiction - Old Tired & Completely Rucked By Martin Dale
	Of course, I used to be big league me. Right up there with the bigwigs I was. Every game I'd be out there, working my socks off for the club. I'd be at the bottom of every ruck, in the thick of every maul, I'd cover more of the pitch than anyone else on the team. Pretty good really, now that I come to think about it, Read more...

Fiction - From a Spirited Beginning By Martin Dale
	My earliest memory? Isolation. Being small, vulnerable, completely alone. I was surrounded by seemingly alien life, one with the life, but at the same time different, distinct. I came from this being, but I was no longer completely a part of it. I had a separate consciousness. No. Not yet. That was to come. At that time it was only an instinct. Read more...

Fiction - A Man with Two Horses By Lazyswede
	I met a man today that had two horses, but he could not get the horses to go the way he wanted them to. The gray mare wanted to take the footpath to the left and the old chestnut mare wanted to take the footpath to the right, while the man wanted to go back the way he came because he knew he would be late for his dinner if he took either of the other two paths. Read more...