800 years of rights and freedoms by Michelle Styles

800 years ago today 15 June 2015, democracy and the rule of law took a very hesitant lurch forward. At Runnymede near Winsor, the Magna Carta or Great Charter was first sealed.

The Magna Carta is important because of many of its articles underpin freedoms we enjoy today. For example, the idea that access to justice should be swift and justice itself should not be for sale. Limits on taxation and it set limits on the authority of the king. In England, the monarchy was not divine or absolute. The king was held to account. For the common man, he suddenly collect firewood in a forest without fear of prosecution.

1733 engraving of the Magna Carta from wikipedia

The idea of the Magna Carta and certain inalienable right and liberties drove first the English Civil War and later the American Revolution.  The American Revolution was fought to preserve the rights and liberties that the English colonists already believed they had, and which they believed the English parliament was attempting to wrest from them.

People in countries which follow the English Common Law tradition do not have people languishing in jail without being charge. The courts are not for sale to the highest bidder and people do not have to pay differing rates to get their case heard.  Many of the US constitution’s Bill of Rights, in particular, the fifth, sixth and ninth amendments are derived directly from the Magna Carta. The Fifth amendments even echoes the Magna Carta in its wording "no person shall be deprived of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law".

In this day and age, we are apt to take various freedoms and rights for granted. They often seem as natural as breathing. It is worthwhile taking a minute and reflecting that these liberties were often hard won and many in this world do not have such freedoms. It is up to the citizens of the various countries to be vigilant and not to allow these freedoms to be eroded.

So hopefully today, you will join me in being grateful to those Barons who decided to make a stand and hold King John accountable as well as making sure you are vigilant in not allowing the various hard won rights to be eroded without a fight! 

Michelle Styles writes warm, witty and intimate historical romance in a wide range of time periods. Her latest Summer of the Viking was published in June 2015. You can learn more about Michelle and her books on www.michellestyles.co.uk

Freedom - Liza Palmer

I work out every morning in a gym right next to the Metro Line here in Los Angeles. I do my little thing on the treadmill as I watch the people get on and off the train. I see the same faces, the same couples every day. I began to notice very quickly that an unnerving percentage of these morning commuters gazed through the window of the gym only to contort their faces in disdain by what they saw.

In the beginning it was more awkward than anything else. Making eye contact with strangers – me: sweaty and running to nowhere, them: off to work and looking at the work-outaholic in the gym every morning.

Why was there such contempt in their eyes? Why did they hate me so much? Could they know that I was listening to Britney Spears’, Toxic?

One day, after one of the most derisive glances shot my way, I couldn’t take it anymore. I hopped off the treadmill, ran up to the Metro Stop and looked into the window – trying to see what it was that was making these people so disgusted.

I approached the window to the gym, the morning commuters rushing around me – my shirt stained with sweat, my iPod blaring in my ears. I stood in front of the window.

It was a reflection. It was one of those mirrored windows. You couldn’t see into the gym at all. All that looked back at me…was me.

Every one of those morning commuters had been looking at their own reflection with such revulsion. They’d been glowering at themselves all those months. It had nothing to do with me. As is always the sad discovery of the mature.

It got me thinking though – about Independence. About freedom.

I was talking with my friend the other day as we walked from the gym to our morning coffee place (the reward of coffee being the only reason I get to the gym most days, to be honest). I was particularly haunted that morning by the thought that I would never be rid of the idea that I had to lose some weight - no matter what I looked like. As we stood out in front of the coffeehouse, I said, “Why do we hate ourselves so much? When will I be able to look in the mirror and just say, ‘I love you?” For so long, this journey has been about numbers on the scale and sizes in the backs of jeans and yet, in that moment, it hit me how simple this whole thing is.

I want to be free. I want to love myself.

Being in LA, I’ve watched so many women waste away in front of me. Equating tiny sizes with beauty and loving every inch lost. And I wonder – how did it get to be this way? Master cleanses and cayenne pepper with lemons and can’t eat that and won’t eat this and penance instead of balance and calorie counting and point counting and twenty minute orders with confused waiters, starving yourself only to binge later, ordering off of the tiniest portion of the “smart menu”, deprivation and bargaining, isolating yourself from everyone, becoming addicted to the control of an eating disorder …it goes on and on. It’s as if you’ve traded one warden for another. You’ve become more enslaved. You’ve gone so far as to lose yourself completely.

Remember when we were kids and we just ate what was put in front of us so we could go outside and play? Remember when our parents had to break the news that the weather outside wasn’t going to clear up and we had to stay cooped up inside? Remember how great it felt to run at full speed – and not on a treadmill and not to run off last night’s dinner? You ran because you wanted to feel the wind on your face.

Remember what it was like to feel free.

This Independence Day why don’t we all take a step towards freedom by loving ourselves…just the way we are.

---Thanks for having me on the blog and have a great Fourth.

Liza Palmer
Seeing Me Naked
www.lizapalmer.com