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MAY 2003
Wednesday 28 May 2003 - we got to get ourselves back to the garden …
The
trouble is, once you default on the every day rule, the control is gone,
other things intrude, there's no longer the urgency! A rare email from a
friend can prompt a torrented response that fulfills that day's need to
get it down. The writer is sated and days pass. So I ought to make the postings
more interesting if not regular, but that too takes inspiration and I'm
best on instant response rather than long considered epigraphs.
Today I wrote to Fraser [Phraser] of the parallel youniversity www.parallel-youniversity.com
about something that niggles me every time I read his 'alternative stuff,
and his mails and site reminded me; the tendency of many 'alternatives'
to indulge in wistful, fey stuff about zodiacs and dragons, a hodge podge
of eastern pseudo mysticism and political comment as if they needed their
own religion to motivate them. I was never persuaded to change my name to
Bilbo or start wearing clown costume, always regetted that it played into
the hands of those who would rubbish the very serious message the hippies
were giving. I might even have contributed to what the hippies/greens were
saying being rubbished for so long, when it needed to be heeded and acted
on. Too many 'alternatives' have been content to attend festivals and groove
with long lost friends, play at sustainable living while leaving a mess
for someone else to clear up. I've done a lot of litter picking at Stonehenge,
Glastonbury, Barsham and Rougham and many other lovely sites. It's taken
together people to develop wind energy, and solar power, it's taken organisation
and capital to make them available to our houses. If we're just a band of
entertainers with a green message for the kids, we shouldn't pretend to
be anything else. Yes, many kids and teenagers who got the message went
on to become engineers and movers and shakers, but how many of the hippies
own kids?
The revolution in thinking is a slow one, it looks like it's been taken
onboard and, despite the dinosaurs still raging round the planet, there
could be a paradigm shift going on, and we shall all have played out part.
But in time? So many green issues are now centre stage, even the media have
heard of them. Seems all that's needed now is a magic wand [which probably
some hippies believe in, but not the rational ones] to make it alll happen.
Failing which we'll still see a heap of destruction happening, and not all
of it will be deliberate. Our unsustainable lifestyle, exported to the rest
of the world, has got to change, but like children instructed to give up
all out toys except six, we can't or won't discard the unnecessary.
Saturday 24 May 2003 - instant karma, well, not that instant, but you know what I mean
We learn
that SARS is possibly linked to the marmoset cat, an agricultural, farmed
species in China, which means it is kept in stinking, cramped cages, mistreated
appallingly, and doubtless fed on rubbish until it's death. Common practise
for families to have several of them, and an industry breeding them for
the purpose. Close confinement, close to humans with the inevitable contamination
of food and everything else, lots of flies and faeces. They eat almost every
animal living and treat them all dreadfully. A peasant society still stuck
way back, yet expected to burst onto the world stage as voracious consumers
any day now [or has it already happened?]. Our relatively slow development
into more enlightened attitudes to other species' ability to feel pain and
to suffer now puts us in the position of being exposed to barbaric practises
towards animals, as if our past had come back to haunt us. I can't believe
a culture that even treats dogs in much the same way has anything to offer
us, it gives me nightmares thinking about it and the full, rounded characters
of our dogs. We certainly shouldn't allow the 'products' of this trade to
enter the UK. SARS is, as we used to say, instant karma, and it's going
to get you ...
I always did fail to see the logic of bombing Iraq to fight terrorism and
make us all safe. Concrete blocks now surround Parliament and other 'important'
buildings. So that worked then. If the paranoia doesn't go away they'll
become fixtures; tidied up by the Ministry of Works, perhaps another layer
to give more height protection from snipers. Graffiti artists will turn
them into their own and one day a tourist [if they still exist] will say
they remind her of the Berlin Wall, whereupon a Lottery-grant-funded 'arts
project' will paint them with a scale picture of the buildings behind so
that tourists won't feel too cheated. The numbskulls always fasten on the
physical, WMDs and the like, rather than tackling the problem of getting
people to like us and not want to bomb us. Surely the better long term option.
On the left is a picture of a sample of the interestingly-shaped stones
I've discovered on the river bed where I walk the dogs. They like to wade
around in the shallow water of the river, just for the craic, and it's clear
enough to examine each stone in situ before selecting. I shall have to wear
Wellies [Wellington Boots, rubber, up to the knee, for those unfamiliar
with this Brit institution, they even come colour coded for class] soon,
so I can wade out with the dogs and see what's in the middle. So far a sizeable
crop just from one stretch of 'shore', a couple of metres long. Were they
pieces of a window dressing? Flooring, toys? I shall have to find out. I'll
change the picture now and then when something else seems of interest.
The blackbird is back, song coming through the open window. He sang his
song for free ... two of them sing duets every evening for several hours,
never repeating a complete string or sentence of notes, although some phrases
within them get repeated like words. One I listened to in Norwich included
mobile phone rings and the neenaa of an ambulance in his repertoire, but
I've not heard anything like that yet here. They're country birds at heart,
doubtless with a Herefordshire accent [blackbird songs change subtly across
the country, with different regional 'accents' clear to the expert, which
I'm not]. It is a sweet sound, often with terribly clever little embellishments
that make you smile much as you would when a human musician pulls off a
particularly creative moment.
Thursday 22 May 2003 - you learn something every day
I've
just discovered that I'm a Zionist! No, I haven't grown my hair into fetching
ringlets, stuck a box on my head and started banging my head against a wall,
the usually perceived image of a Zionist, I just believe the state of Israel
has a right to exist and have always thought this. I don't think it has
the right to colonise more Palestinian land, and I don't think every Jew
in the world should automatically have the right to move there and occupy
settlements after Arab houses have been bulldozed, but I do think Israel
has every right to exist, as much as a state of Palestine. It really should
be possible for them to come to an agreement about this. Until they do,
there will be a ready supply of extremists willing to cause carnage, there
will never be peace.
I've never quite understood this 'right' of Jews anywhere to move to Israel,
as if the land was marked down as theirs forever. On that basis, I could
be claiming the land of England back from the descendants of the Normans
who came here and ripped it off my ancestors, and then there's the Romans
... but you don't have those black and white attitudes with such a mongrel
race as us Brits, we've absorbed so many other tribes along the way and
forged a nation out of the resultant mix. Most Britons couldn't tell you
who their distant ancestors were; Celts, Anglo-Saxons, Vikings, Romans,
Normans, Dutch or any of dozens of races who have settled here. All have
become British, sooner or later, and contributed to British culture. Which
is why multiculturalism is such a dangerous creed, leading to ghettoization
and inter-cultural friction. An easy way in for the racists of the British
National Party who claim an entirely spurious Britishness concocted from
myth and a denial of the multiethnic mix that makes up modern Britain. The
rabids in the Israeli settlements aren't Israeli although they are Jewish.
They should stop harking back to Abraham and connect with the modern world.
They should go home and stop stealing others' land. They are much closer
to the BNP than the anti-Semitic BNP would like to acknowledge, both racist.
Wednesday 21 May 2003 - whoever thought it a good idea to feed cows sheep brains - a scientist?
Imperial
College scientists are predicting that CJD has peaked and the maximum new
cases predicted has been revised downwards to 500. This seems to entirely
ignore the known incubation period span which can be up to thirty years.
The cases so far are in fact very early and are probably just the more vulnerable
individuals or infection was particularly invasive for some reason. There
seems to me nothing to indicate that there won't be a gradual rise in numbers
for the next few decades. As there is no test for it, there is no way of
knowing until time passes. See a case of BSE has occurred in Canada. Hmm.
The fields by the river Arrow where I walk the dogs are occupied during
the summer by a small herd of cows, together with their calves. They have
three fields to roam in and the grass is lush and full of wild flowers and
grasses, rich food to produce rich milk. And the calves, still suckling
now and then, are developing rapidly the natural way as they have probably
done on these meadows for centuries. They are in no hurry, nor are they
systematic. Grass in one place will be chopped short while nearby it still
grows lush. They seem to prefer to move about from one field to another,
sampling here and there. They always seem to be in the higher pasture when
sitting and chewing the cud, probably a genetic memory of the rain. The
major problem is that dogs have an inbuilt genetic memory of disguising
themselves for the hunt with ruminant faeces, and have to be watched carefully
if not to end up with green stains and smelling in need of a bath. Otherwise,
it seems a fair exchange as the grasses would get very tall and walking
would be less enjoyable. Many balls would be lost.
Monday 19 May 2003 - the lies are exposed
Now
the rescue of Private Jessica has been exposed as a get-up - she didn't
engage in a firefight until her ammunition ran out, she was a clerk, she
wasn't stabbed and shot but had a broken leg and arm which were being treated
by the doctors, there was no firefight to 'rescue' her as there were no
Iraqi troops at the hospital and the doctors were amazed when a group of
Americans burst in complete with camera team and started shouting at everyone
[they had checked with a guy in the street the day before and he'd told
them the soldiers had gone. One of the doctors had even offered to drive
the Private to an American checkpoint, but this was too good an opportunity
to be missed by the Pentagon slime-brains, needing some gung-ho 'good news'
they fabricated the whole thing. Just as the Saddam statue 'demolition by
Iraqis' was staged by them and a bunch of American-trained Iraqi criminals
to fool the media and the rest of the world. Despite this exposure the image
is still used as a semiotic for the liberation. Truth is decaying fast.
A lot of the journalists are now complaining of being controlled and manipulated
while 'embedded' in military units, while the ones in Qatar witnessing the
Pentagon press briefings say it was so tightly controlled it was the American
show; all the front seats were reserved for American network journos and
hardly anyone else got a look in, certainly no one likely to ask awkward
questions. The American public apparently bought this, but then they're
used to stage managed events and movies. From the sounds coming from the
loony right or neo-cons as they're called in the US, they have the ear of
the power gang and are more or less leading American foreign policy.
Sunday 18 May 2003 - getting there
Much
work later and it's almost working. The main problem seems to be with Netscape
which fails to recognise the text block as scrollable and puts it all on
the page as before, but with all formatting removed including hard returns,
so all joined up. My advice to anyone using Netscape is get Opera. It's
fast and can do anything IE can do and more beside, it's free for personal
use [includes a changing ad box, no hassle] and it's small so no mega file
to download. You can even configure it to mimic AOL and Netscape!
Go to http://www.opera.com/download.html
Java seems to cause more problems with most things on the net. I use Java
in my pages, yet still get error messages from time to time. So many different
ways of doing anything, none quite compatible with their rivals. Wouldn't
it be better if people collaborated and agreed standards and shared everything,
in fact just like they do in the Linux community [http://labf.com/index.html]
and [http://www.ibiblio.org/peanut/]
Saturday 17 May 2003 - struggling with web pages
Last
few days have seen me buried in html and every other aspect of getting web
pages to work. And then to get them to work in all browsers. This is one
of the results, a scrolling blogbox of text rather than the ever growing
html text which had to be formatted every time I updated, and where the
whole page moves if you read down. Now the rest stay where they are and
you scroll the text. Hope it's an improvement. I've been so engrossed in
figuring out how to do it that I might have overlooked something. It's learn
as and when you need to do something, which can cause hassles at times as
it's never transparent, but buried away amongst so much that is pretty meaningless
and unconnected.
I've discovered that there's a limit to the text I can insert with this
method, so I have to delete stuff from the bottom in order to add more.
Like my life, slowly unravelling behind me.
There must be a better way. More research needed. Back to the drawing board,
which I once used many years ago, it's becoming a thing of the remote past,
when drawing wasn't done with CAD packages but with pen and pencil on -
paper! There seems no way to bold headings either which is definitely a
no no.
Thursday 15 May 2003 - where did that day go?
There
are days like that, blink and find you've lost a day. It's usually later
in the week than I thought it was. The web is responsible for a lot of this
dislocation. Time doesn't exist on it, even if it exists for its users who
can spend a lot of time without getting where they were going. It may be
changing children's brain processing, giving rise to a super race of global
minds, assimilating new technology as soon as it presents itself, mastering
new software just by looking at it, and communicating at the speed of light
with millions of others simultaneously. Or then again it may just be deteriorating
into every teen having an online diary where they record their teen mundanity,
awash in a world of malls, clubs and luurve. A few I've stopped by have
been this shallow, but beautifully crafted, a lot of effort. But then you
suddenly find an amazing mind stacked full of knowledge, sharing it with
the world and it somehow all seems worthwhile. But how to filter and save
time?
I already have no idea what half the files on my hard disc are for. I discover
directories I didn't know existed and have no knowledge of creating, it
barely feels like it's my computer any more, but some minor appendage of
a global machine that occasional spits out an instruction to it when I venture
online. The hard disc is accessed when I'm doing nothing, my firewall reports
repeated attempts to install ads and spyware, but then tries to access it's
own website when I'm not looking. It can only get worse with broadband.
One could get paranoid. In fact, how would a paranoiac cope with the web
without developing a full blown psychosis. And millions of people are putting
themselves and their inner thoughts up for the world to gawp at, webcams
even, but the intimacy engendered is virtual, made up of pixels, not in
the real world.
In a country far less open and friendly than it used to be, many people
get a dose of the neighbourliness they no longer have by watching Neighbours
and East Enders. Unreality is slowly substituting for real relationships.
'Reality TV' is no more real than the other fiction that's dished up. It's
manipulated and massaged and all the contestants come with a media-savvy
agenda, usually 'get noticed any way and get your name in the tabloids',
then they have a career being a name.
Tuesday 13 May 2003 - running out of control
There
are times when the Internet seems like the tower of Babel multiplied a million
times. Every day brings more changes, and it all seems to conspire to make
you feel inadequately equipped. It starts with the operating system, in
my case Windows 2000 which I've only just installed, having been happy with
98 for some years. The startup screen tell me it's copyright 1995-1999!
It's new to me but they finished it in 1999??? Then there's the sites that
refuse to load because I haven't got the very latest plug-in or java and
the pop-ups that just keep popping up after you've cancelled them. I go
on a search with something in mind, and, faced with links and enticing ads
everywhere, I eventualy succumb and set off on what is laughingly called
surfing. If actual surfers behaved like this they'd end up miles out to
sea in the shipping lanes, which is where I feel I've been swept some times.
Eventually, after following several interesting links I'm lost and can't
remember what it was I first set out to find. A lot of really interesting
distractions along the way, but a lot of waiting while sites load 86 graphics
and then another 86 when I click on a site link. So it's hit the back button
until something appears I recognise and start again.
There's always the feeling that you've missed something vital, there being
so much available makes choosing a hit or miss thing, as all the search
engine top listers know only too well. What happens to all the sites listed
in the tenth page? I wonder if they get any traffic at all. I shall try
going to the very last hit first and work backwards to restore some justice
and egalitarianism. Some mega operators appear able to mop up the first
few hits which is like pasting posters over all your rivals' posters, something
unscrupulous gig promoters are prone to do. Hardly fair though.
As ever it's rushing along at the speed of the fastest computers which are,
of course, on the desks of leading web designers, so broadband rules and
the web is really no place for a 56K modem. Until broadband gets everywhere
there will be two classes of web users; the fast and the slow. So very quickly
in the PC world your shiny new crisp machine becomes a laggardly, asthmatic,
wheezing along trying to cope with software written for faster cousins,
running out of memory like a geriatric, crashing over now and then and losing
control of its peripherals. Aah, old age catches up fast. Of course a transplant
or two can be attempted; new discs, more memory, new chip, faster graphics
card, but it's never quite the same as the latest sleek machine that's made
of components designed to be put together.. Will there ever be a time when
it's decided that a trillion gigabyte disc isactually probably big enough
for most people, and a billion gig processor is as fast as anyone can apprehend.
Will software ever stop having bells added each year so that everything
comes to resemble a software Swiss army knife? I remember when word processors
word processed, now they publish to the web, act like a graphics drawing
tool, play music and animations, keep a database and knock you up a spreadsheet
at the click of a button. They come on seventeen CDs plus a CD manual which
is too big to read in a lifetime. And still 16 year olds master them in
a week.
Monday 12 May 2003 - sharing is good
A committee
was formed by Bush of hard right 'thinkers' just before they launched their
latest aggression, to consider the ancient historical artefacts of Iraq.
They concluded in so many words that the Iraqis were too possessive and
that the artefacts should be shared with the rest of the world. They have
been with the looting of the Baghdad Museum. Seems a coincidence worthy
of note that all the events that led up to this are connected and tie in
with the 'committee's' opinion so neatly. Wonder if one day something of
note will be 'donated' to the British Museum to go alongside the Elgin Marbles
which one day may have to be returned to their rightful owners.
Big fanfare as a few incubators are delivered to Iraqi hospitals. Pity the
babies in them have no clean water. I remember when it started they were
patting themselves on the back, making a big thing about the lights and
water not being touched. Soon dropped that one, and we see the results now,
cholera is still spreading along with other killers lurking in the river
water they are forced to drink. I expect an attempt will be made to blame
this on Saddam's biological weapons as well considering they've found no
other evidence, nothing surprises me any more about these criminals. It's
certainly evidence of bio-terrorism, but clearly part of the 'coalition
of the willing's' strategy. But Americans don't have to worry about someone
else's diarrhoea any more than Brits do, they can concentrate on losing
weight by going to the gym or cutting out chocolate, and worry about councils
putting fluoride in their otherwise clean tap water.
It's hard to feel positive about the world when so much evil is stalking
the planet. [Perhaps Nostradamus was right in some strange inexplicable
way no one can understand and this really is the end game, the village idiot
is already in place...]. Just when the world desperately needed peace and
stability and a new spirit of concern and co-operation to tackle the monumental
problems of ecosystem destruction and resultant weather disruption, we get
a bunch of 19th century bigots with no understanding but drunk on power,
intent on carving out a i>New American Century/i> as their think-tank
calls it. Although right-wing think-tank is somewhat of an oxymoron. So
it's back to throwing rocks at each other, sod the carbon protocols, sod
the sea level rise, sod the typhoons levelling parts of the US, sod the
low lying islands facing extinction, sod the children with asthma, sod the
forest fires, whooppee let's go to war! How many trees would have to be
planted to compensate for all the pollution these last few months have seen,
on top of the ongoing, daily pollution we all contribute to.
Perhaps it's an instinctive, animal response to overcrowding on a planetary
scale. Perhaps humans are no more able to step out of their DNA hard wiring
than the lemming or the locust, both of which breed uncontrollably until
there is no food left. Where there is no predator to keep a species' numbers
in check and where many natural controls like disease organisms have been
largely eliminated, what else is there left to prevent a locust-like swarming
over the planet but man himself with his predilection for violence. Perhaps
the right wing is right and the left would fail because they have no stomach
for coercive birth control policies. Although fertility is reducing in developed
countries, this is almost certainly due to hormone pollution of the environment,
and in many countries the birth rate continues to replace the population
in time for the next famine. Either way it's unsustainable. Is it our fate
to be so successful and at the same time lacking the power to change, that
we trash the only home we have, and our only way of controlling our numbers
is to kill each other periodically.
Sunday 11 May 2003 - those April showers they come what may
Trouble
is the showers don't seem to come in April any more. Plants are tough and
are used to changing temperatures and rainfall so they adapt. What the plants
don't know, and what many humans seem unable to learn, is that this isn't
just another planetary blip but a continuing change in weather patterns
that is ongoing and ultimately life threatening. England will likely remain
a green and pleasant land for some time yet, but it will get hotter and
wetter, with longspells of drought when there once was rain. Outside events
will still gamble with the weather. Most wild plants will manage the extremes,
but the hybrids we rely on for food are much more sensitive and depend on
rain at certain times and sun at others. The world human population is vast
and still expanding, food supply is a global enterprise and there are not
unlimited stores.
Perhaps recycled organic waste will be turned into edible foodstuffs by
the chemists who produce most of our instant 'I've got no time to cook'
lifestyle food today. They already produce non meat protein in a variety
of shapes, colours and textures, so our household waste might become something
of value once the plastic, metal, glass and paper have been extracted. Although
paper too could be turned into something edible. Given the ingenuity of
our species, we'll probably find a way of making something at least starving
people will eat. The reason why my local council have suddenly issued the
news that they will be collecting separated plastic, paper and metal from
now on is that the UK is about to be fined by the EU for falling lamentably
short of targets in waste recycling. It's mostly been left to local activists
to prod their local authority into action, after managing to get supermarkets
to install skips for those who make the decision to do it anyway. So central
government has issued a warning to local councils to pull the finger out,
after leaving them to ignore it for years. Not before time as we're running
out of landfill space and would otherwise be starting on farmland soon.
Once again, the hippies were right all along.
Saturday 10 May 2003 - a road to peace is a rocky old road
So there's
these two young Arab guys flown over to Israel from the UK, gone through
Israeli security reputed to be the tightest in the world, and they check
in to an hotel. We are expected to believe that they then contacted Palestinian
terrorists and took delivery of a sizeable amount of explosives and, with
them strapped to their bodies made their way to their intended targets.
All without Mossad being aware of them. Yet, within a very short space of
time, the Israeli government knows the identity of the one who succeeded
despite being in small bits, and of the one who having failed to detonate
ran away. How? Either Mossad knew nothing which begs the question how then
did they immediately know their identity, or they knew exactly what they
were up to probably before they entered the country, tracked their movements
and allowed the bomb outrage to happen to their own people.
Why would they do this? It allows then to continue hitting the Palestinians,
taking over more land and moving in settlers. If they were successful in
stopping suicide bombings, a peace process would have to happen. Sharon's
government was elected to prosecute a war against the Palestinians. I think
the power base is ok with some civilian deaths along the way. It keeps the
population on its toes and prepared to sanction any repression Sharon chooses.
Being renowned for dirty tricks, Mossad might even be the agent provocateur,
luring young Muslims into a plot and providing the explosives. The one that
ran away is doubtless in their custody and may or may not be found alive.
Could he really have just disappeared in Tel Aviv with the police and army
looking for him?
And now the reason for the war on Iraq which Bush and Blair have denied
all along is transparently clear, with the control of selling the oil and
of the money paid for it 'on behalf of the Iraqi people'. So the US and
UK don't have to pay to put right all the damage they did on their killing
spree, Iraq pays for it, up front in oil. And the mad Chimp is lecturing
the rest of the world, patting a few on the back, warning a few to watch
out, like the newly arrived headmaster at a private school. He's caned a
couple of rebels and the rest had better watch out. Did the world need a
headmaster, especially one who had to be given an honorary degree. He's
so dumb he thinks it's real. The junta that surround him aren't as dumb,
but they're certainty as mad and the world had better look out.
Friday 9 May 2003 - more things I like about dogs
Dogs
can lead you into unexpected places. Once, walking my dog near Ludlow Castle,
she insisted on going higher and higher until we were close to the walls.
Then she discovered a mound of damp earth beside a sizeable hole which she
had to investigate for a long time. While waiting, I noticed a piece of
reddish pottery and picked it up; looked very old, perhaps part of the rim
of a jug. Then I found another and another. Altogether I picked up five
pieces looking like they came from the same object and three from something
different, with glazed markings on one similar to a fleur-de-lis. Contacted
an archaeology unit via the internet and sent them scans of several pieces.
Seems they are mediaeval metropolitan slip-ware. They are now in Ludlow
museum where they belong. Along the way I learned something about mediaeval
pottery and the trading practices that existed then which spread this kind
of slipware across the country. Gives a different perspective on the present
when you handle things people used so long ago.
It might have been a badger which dug the hole, too large for anything else.
There are lots of badgers in this region, I know because of the numbers
seen dead on verges. The first thing you think is that they're a road kill,
but Badger Watch tell me that farmers kill them and dump them beside the
road so people will think just this, as they're a protected species. Farmers
can be a problem with wildlife, they have lots of old country myths in their
brains which can be very wrong. I was told quite seriously by a farmer that
badgers kill and eat lambs, what more justification then to shoot them.
Actually they eat mostly earthworms and beetles and are opportunistic feeders
so will clear up any dead animals. The lumbering badger is, however, too
slow for a lamb, even if it were a hunting animal like the fox. Of course
it is dangerous in defending itself if cornered, the usual situation in
which it meets farmers, but it isn't the ravening sheep killer farmers would
like to believe. Neither is the fox for that matter, so another casualty
of the meat trade is inedible wildlife. I kept chicken for several years
a few metres from a fox den and never lost one.
Thursday 8 May 2003 - this isn't Namibia but ...
I'm
interested in the different ways people behave towards strangers in different
localities. There is a marked difference in friendliness even between towns
not far apart. Ludlow, in Shropshire seems rather preoccupied, little eye
contact, friendly enough if asked a question but mostly ignoring anyone
but friends or relatives. In Leominster, Herefordshire, only twelve miles
away, there's much more eye contact, people nod or smile as you pass and
many exchange a greeting or even stop and chat to complete strangers. If
you are walking a dog, you can't travel very far before getting into a conversation
either about your dog or dogs in general and half of those you pass smile.
Old chaps shout 'nice day' across the road, and I've even been handed two
humbugs by a white-haired gent out walking with his dog. Made me feel like
a kid.
One expects more openness in rural areas than in cities, in London or Manchester
eye contact could get you into serious trouble, and I'm reminded of Gerard
Hoffnung's comic 'advice to foreign travellers in Great Britain'; ' ...
on entering a railway carriage, be sure to shake hands with all passengers'.
Which is why a programme on TV about a group of white, affluent, trekkers
in Namibia on a special trek to meet an isolated tribe was so perplexing.
Having trekked for two weeks across featureless desert, when they finally
reached the tribe's village they all sat down in a group yards away from
the villagers and looked away from the, by then extremely curious, desert
dwellers. They made no attempt to communicate and after a while set off
back. The guide for their trek was totally gutted by their behaviour, his
summary was that many modern white people had lost a lot of what was natural.
Wednesday 7 May 2003 - war crimes and slavery
I switched
on the radio this morning when I woke to hear this self satisfied, arrogant
sounding upper-class voice saying how the war on Iraq had been splendidly
successful, everything was fine now and they had been freed. Turned out
to be an in-bred, ruling-class, military psycho, Air Vice Marshall Miffington-Orrifice
or something equally ludicrous, speaking from Kuwait before flying back
home. The arrogant, complacent tone said it all, he had had a good war directing
his airborn serial killers, and was so upbeat that you'd think he was talking
about a golf tournament. Seemed to think Iraq had no sewage system or clean
water before it was bombed, and that any suffering was down to the beastly
people he had helped to get rid of. Sounded so self-satisfied I thought
it was the devious criminal Hoon at first. What this war criminal was saying
was not just lies, you expect them to lie, it was a total reversal of the
truth. Claiming that most of 'them' have clean water now where they hadn't
before, just as cholera starts to take hold and children are dying, is so
breathtakingly criminal that I would like to take his breath away, permanently.
Why have we put up with these 'almost-humans' for so long, when are they
going to get their just desserts? Apparently some American visitors think
I'm anti-American. Moi? Some of my best friends are American and many of
my heroes over the years are too. To accuse me of being anti-American is
to miss the point entirely. I feel sad for those Americans who, trapped
in their nationality, must feel really bad if not to say embarrassed by
what their country gets up to. But the good Americans are already criticising,
not feeling defensive about others' criticisms. The defensive ones apparently
think that the rest of the world is envous of their wealth, which is a convenient
way of rubbishing all criticism so they don't have to examine their own
lives and how they impact on the rest of the world. There's plenty to feel
ashamed of in being British also. There's just a lot less lardarses in the
UK, and it has less opportunity to screw up the lives of others than the
US. Why do so few Americans see what their country has done and is doing?
Do they really think the rest of the world wants to turn into fat mountains
and wobble around in appalling, tasteless flapping parachute shorts, looking
for the next 'eat-all-you-can cram in' animal-fat-burger dispensor, while
dodging bullets fired by gun-toting loonies on their way to see yet another
tiresome American-hero, awesome-firepower psycho-masturbatory flic? I think
not Chuck.
I see more trailer trash homes have been trashed in several states by hurricanes.
Good to hear of them getting it back for their excessive consumption rather
than somewhere like Bangladesh having to suffer on their behalf. Still,
at least there'll be precious little left to scar the landscape when the
Earth has thrown off their society. They considerately don't build anything
that lasts too long, most American towns seem built of cardboard and plywood
with the jail the only brick built residence. Speaking of jails, reminds
me that slavery is still integral to America and wasn't abolished as history
books would have us believe, but re-structured into a penal system jailing
[mostly black] people for life on penal work farms where they will eventually
die. Many are young and strong and the enterprise is cost efficient and
lucrative. They are put in these places for murder of course [although often
the standard of evidence is shockingly flimsy], but also for more minor
crimes such as drugs, and even for really minor offences under the three
strikes wheeze which enables them to imprison more and more black people
who, as ghetto dwellers, are more likely to be caught at petty crime than
their privileged wasp countrymen. Two million are currently in prison in
the US, a staggering number and equal to all other nations' prison populations
combined, same as their armaments then.
Tuesday 6 May 2003 - biological weapons come in all shapes and sizes
Now
typhoid, cholera and gastro-enteritis begin in Iraq, the children will be
first of course. Considering that it all could have been foreseen, that
makes it deliberate biological warfare; bomb the water supply and electricity
grid and stand by while the population gets sick. I feel ashamed to be British,
part of a country that allowed the hypocrite Blair to take us into this.
And still they prat on about weapons of mass destruction while they scrabble
around trying to cook up some kind of evidence the world will accept.
The acid test was that none were used despite Iraq having more than its
share of nasty, psychotic nutters. Pushed up against the wall with no reason
to hold back, nothing happened. It's illogical to suppose either invader
actually believed in them, despite having supplied Saddam and trained his
biochemists [at UEA for god's sake!], as the last thing you do is attack
someone who is armed with enough chemical and biological weapons to take
out your army. They could have been looking at hundreds of thousands of
dead and a likely escalation by the US to nuclear. So they were either off
their trolleys or lying [probably both]. The crucial thing for Blair is
that he lied to parliament, but his conscience is, apparently, clear. I've
never trusted the shifty-eyed ex public school creep since he first surfaced,
how he seduced the labour party is totally inexplicable to me.
Perhaps at this moment suicide assassins are infecting themselves with SARS
and booking plane journeys to ... be careful of anyone who coughs, buy your
surgical mask [I'm still working on the printed mouth and nose designer
mask idea], don't get on planes, and keep a clean nose [don't take a weatherman
to tell which way the wind blows]. We are in dangerous times, historians
will say momentous, but that's in hindsight, historians mostly seem to like
wars; big events they can amass lots of facts about like how many dead in
the first week and how many tonnes of depleted uranium distributed. Another
statistic will be the number of casualties after the war was 'over'.
Monday 5 May 2003 - energy is a political issue
I've
recently moved house and had the usual difficulty in getting my electricity
supplied by my chosen supplier, Unit[e], who I've been with since they came
to my attention as the only electricity supply company who source all their
electricity from renewable power. The supplier which previously supplied
my new address is Npower [owned by Innogy which is in turn owned by RWE]
who were unwilling to lose customers to Unit[e]. I informed Unit[e] of my
move and left the rest to them as usual, but then got a letter from Npower
thanking me for choosing them as my supplier and offering me loads of 'amazing'
deals and discounts. I rang them and told them I was with Unit[e] and did
not wish them to supply me. I obviously failed to get through as I have
now received a [estimated] bill from Npower and, on telephoning, was informed
that Unit[e] had not applied to them and that they do not obstruct the process
when they do apply. Unit[e] state that they were refused when they applied
to Npower which happens every time.
Obviously the tactic is to wear people down so they accept them by default,
not willing to spend the time fighting this mist of misinformation and obstruction,
and doubtless this works on occasion despite being against the regulations
governing electricity supply. To contact Npower, one is faced with multiple
choices on the telephone, none of which matches your particular enquiry,
and then periods of time spent listening to muzak while you queue to speak
to a human who then denies everything much in the manner of politicians.
Their website is worse, giving choices all concentrated on getting new customers
and serving existing ones, but nothing that accepts someone may have a complaint
or wish to discontinue their service. You waste more time searching and
finally give up and go straight to Ofgen which has nothing to say except
to refer you to Energywatch, another body which may or may not be a government
agency, which is concerned with customer complaints. You finally email them
and wait. The whole point of de-regulation is choice, which in theory is
supposed to deliver lower prices for energy by letting the customer choose.
As my main interest is not in saving money but in supporting renewable energy
as the only way to go to address global warming, I have assessed the companies
involved and made my choice. But Npower are intent on grabbing a bigger
and bigger share of the market, aggressively marketing and putting obstacles
in the way of customers exercising their choice unless that is to choose
Npower. Ofgen is supposed to police this process, but appear to have done
little to curtail these activities so far.
As this situation also happened at my last address, I am led to the conclusion
that this is a deliberate policy of Npower who, as a subsidiary of a larger
company itself a subsidiary of an even larger global player, is intent on
Empire building. Having noted the growing interest in renewable energy,
it has teamed up with Greenpeace, offering Juice, their carefully marketed,
friendly sounding offering of renewable energy while still selling brown
energy to most of its customers. I'd rather stay with a company that's committed.
Sunday 4 May 2003 - flesh-coloured christs that glow in the dark
So the
MoD are screening returnees from Iraq [to cover themselves against claims
of Gulf War Syndrome again]. Wonder if they'll be using Geiger counters.
The cocktail of chemicals they pump into their troops is enough to make
anyone sick, and many were the last time, but the addition of depleted uranium
to the environment of Iraq, within which they've been living and breathing,
is likely to have left them all somewhat radioactive. For the people of
Iraq, especially the children, it is a far worse threat. They have to live
with it for decades and childhood cancer rates have already soared since
the last time the US and UK disposed of some of their unwanted uranium waste
in this novel and imaginative way. Sellafield must be relieved, a perfect
business solution. Now, where's the next location to be turned into a nuclear
dustbin?
The sanctimonious Blair says he is prepared to meet his maker and answer
for the deaths he's caused. How typical of the creep to think only of himself
and his conscience. What overweening self importance. It's never people
like him who have to make the supreme sacrifice, they are always eager that
someone else pays the price. In the case of Iraq it will mostly be the children.
A legacy of birth defects and a life of suffering await many of them including
those not yet born. But Tony the Phony's conscience is clear, that's all
right then.
Saturday 3 May 2003 - smack the pony
The UK government has partially caved in to the child protection lobby and their crazed, obsessive attitude to smacking children. They have absorbed a doctrine in which their belief is as unshakeable as the devoutest religious believer and nothing will affect their righteous zeal. A kind of fascism, they wish to control the way others behave towards their offspring, using the illogical conclusion that any physical correction is abuse and will lead to worse abuse. We are mammals. All other mammals correct their offspring to train them to avoid harm and to behave socially. It's a basic mammal thing, not being hot-wired to behave in a certain way like fish and amphibians, mammal young have to learn in order to survive. Physical correction comes before reason. You can't reason with a two year old or sometimes a four year old if they are determined, little ego that they are, to do something they want to do. Correction of this kind; shaking roughly by the neck [canines], restrained biting [other primates], smacking [hominids], fullfills two objectives. It causes the youngster to stop and think and it indicates a withdrawel of affection caused by their bad behaviour. The fact that some people then feel guilty about it is something they have to deal with. It really is for the good of the child, it's instinctive and natural, it has ever been the way. The people who make up this 'child care' lobby fall into two groups; those who think more of their own feelings of failure as parents and those who are not parents and for whom this is all theory. Over the years they have evolved a theory of abuse and its causes, perhaps some have suffered abuse and are determined to oppose anything which reminds them of it. But they have lost the plot. Thrown the baby out with the bathwater. They are jobsworths, 'if I let you get away with a smack, everyone will be abusing children left right and centre' seems to be the thinking, they have no understanding of subtlety, of degree. They conflate any physical correction of a child with abuse. Wedded to their doctrine, they cannot allow themselves the luxury of fine tuning, they are absolutists. Could the bad behaviour by children one increasingly sees in public be any reflection on the fact that these people have been lobbying hard for decades and have persuaded significant numbers of people who should know better to refrain from disciplining their children? When a child is having a screaming tantrum in a supermarket, there are lots of people thinking 'a good smack is all he needs' and they're right. One smack would have prevented it occuring more than the once. It's the fact of punishment being an option that moderates a small child's behaviour, used sparingly and early on, it forms part of the parent child relationship and is the only way a parent's authority can be stated. What happens when the child is never punished is a selfish child used to having their own way, causing upset when frustrated in their first order desires. And kids, deluged with information from the media and very savvy, are aware enough to spot the advantage to them in the 'children's rights' approach. Once reason is an alternative way to get your very important point across, it takes over from the physical approach which is then abandoned. Parents hitting their 11-year-olds round the head are just violent bullies and should be dealt with. The wrong headed obsession with smacking means less energy is devoted to dealing with real abuse and the whole subject is obscured and fuzzy. Parents are made to feel guilty and embarrassed for smacking their children in public, the kids pick up on this and misbehave more.
Friday 2 May 2003 - meat is much more than just murder
I saw
a truck today, went right at the lights, leaning over as it turned with
heavy load. And out of the back gushed a torrent of liquid shit. It was,
of course, babies packed in tight and terrified as they were driven to slaughter
or an unknown future. Calves whose deaths the milk industry and all milk
drinkers depend on. There's not much call for their meat here, but that
doesn't concern the dairy farmers. The lucky ones will be fattened a while
before slaughter, a few months. The unlucky ones will endure a long journey
by ferry to Europe where they still like the meat of babies. Some will return
here in continental sausages. The driver looked unconcerned with the terror
behind his back. Intent on dropping the load and getting home for tea. All
over the country the trucks are collecting their loads from the dairy farms,
the new calves that a few weeks ago were kicking their first kicks in the
open air and sunshine, unaware of what life had in store for them, are now
on their way and their mothers are crying long into the night, bellowing
as their species has always bellowed when it lost its young.
But then so do we. Strange that the word tender is used for both emotions
and for meat considering the slight of mind that has to be performed to
ignore the emotions of another species while emphasizing human emotional
sensitivity. We have some evolving to do for sure. In the case of Bush,
a hell of a lot of evolving.
I still find it hard to get my head round the fact that the American public
let him grab office. Trouble is, it's only the rabid hard right who indulge
in killing presidents, so he's safe even from assassination as he's one
of theirs. What passes for the left is just too damn nice to do the world
a favour. See him strut around an aircraft carrier with that snide little
smirk on his face must make so many people round the world want to slap
him.
Thursday 1 May 2003 - luck of the Irish
It must
be that the Irish have been victims of British brutality for so many centuries
that the British state despises them so much. It was content to let the
situation in the north of Ireland continue until the IRA targeted the UK
and its political masters, then the situation had to be sorted out as army
occupation wasn't achieving anything. The latest scene in the saga is running
true to form, the Irish republicans make concessions which are then turned
down and more strictures placed on them, known as moving the goal posts.
In the case of Ireland, the British have mobile goal posts they can move
at will, usually the will of the Ulster unionist remnants of the Scots,
catholic hating, mercenaries who were in the pay of a Dutch bastard known
as William of Orange, who the unionists still venerate to this day. Blair,
in common with every other UK prime minister is beholden for some reason
to this bunch of culture-less foreigners in a country that should have been
reunited long ago. They refuse to think of themselves as Irish and, because
they know deep down that one day Ireland will be united, they act as spoilers
to any process that allows Irish people a voice. We have seen the elected
representatives of the Irish population locked out of the government buildings,
subjected to repeated insults and snide questioning by the British media,
denied their voice in the media until fairly recently. The latest round
beggars belief, a change of words was required and duly delivered by Sinn
Fein, and it still wasn't enough.
If they were to get down on their knees and beg forgiveness having surrendered
all arms down to catapults, I have the feeling it would still not be enough
and they would then be accused of not licking the boots of the orange scum
who still think they own a bit of Ireland because their ancestors butchered
Irish civilians including children in their thousands. It's bad genes you
see, what type of riff raff were the mercenaries and how inbred are their
descendants? They appear to me a dull, humourless, unlikable lot compared
to the warm hearted, generous Irish with their wonderful sense of humour
which must have stood them in good stead in all these years of oppression.
Not to mention their music, which is sensitive and beautiful in ways the
penny-whistle and drum marchers could never appreciate. But the orange people
wouldn't have lasted into the last century if the British state hadn't kept
them where they were. And their demands are all that have ever mattered
to every government in the UK, whatever shade of middling grey it is. I
don't believe in the 'luck of the Irish', what kind of luck saddled them
with Paisley, Trimble, Adair, McGuinness and their like? I do admire their
patience however, mine would have run out years ago.