The Meaninglessness of life

Mary , Max And The Human Fox

2011-04-10T19:26:00.005+01:00

Yesterday morning ,I was dozing in the living room ,I had just returned from walking Wolfgang , the German shepherd dog in the local park. As usual , he had his characteristic outbursts pulling me toward every fox that had crossed our path, in the pre-dawn darkness.

The rubbish was packed and put out into the pavement the night before, for the dustmen to collect. I usually use very strong grey plastic bags and tie them well to prevent the roaming ,opportunist foxes from helping themselves and leaving a trail of rotting food on the pavement.I even save some tit bits for them when walking the dog and place them in the park as if to tell them to stay away from my front door and snack at their place instead. I know the local mini dictators we call councils and even the do-gooder environmentalists would rebuke me for that .

I could hear the rustling of rubbish sacks. Was that someone interfering with my my rubbish ?,a fox ? or more likely some neighbour putting out their own rubbish.

I continued to wonder as I was lying on the couch half asleep, 6.00 in the morning. The thought interrupted my musings on the cinema show I had seen the night before.

I had gone to the ' Haringey Independent cinema ' the night before and watched 'Mary and Max' an Australian , clay animation film directed by Adam Elliot,2009 .I was so impressed by the film and the cinema . I sat with a bunch of anarchists who apparently run this cinema club. Some of them had huge moustaches and beards in the style of Kropoptin or Bakunin. There was a mixed bag of people , including various militants , disabled people and others that seem to go out of their way to avoid mainstream entertainment and thought. The atmosphere was warm and friendly , with my bowler hat on, I felt comfortable; a misfit amongst misfits.

The animated stop- motion characters made from clay did exactly as I was told they would in the publicity for the film. They had me empathising, laughing and crying with them as they struggled in the big ,bad wicked world.

The story was based on a pen pal friendship made purely by chance as a young Australian , obese school girl wrote to a name she picked out at random from an American telephone directory .
Her letter reached a American Jewish athiesit New yorker who had Asperger's syndrome. He also had problems with obesity and compulsive comfort eating.

Apart from the two main characters who struck up a warm and supportive friendship , the story explored , through other characters and events :the nature of disability , stigmatisation , loneliness, isolation , alienation and many other aspects of the human condition as well as critique of Psychiatry and psychology . And it did this , in my opinion without being patronising to the audience or condescending to the disabled .

Others may disagree , but I thought it was sensitively done and although it could be argued by some that there were scenes and moments where the audience were led to laugh at the characters' imperfectness's and mal adjusted behaviour, or directly at their physical disabilities , I thought it was done in such a way that the viewer would empathise with the characters and laugh more spitefully at the established view of them and those that came up against them.

It was a mini roller coaster of anguish , trial and tribulation with some tragic yet life affirming moments.
I wondered where all these people around me were , were they all members of the 'Haringey solidarity Group' a local anarchist outfit? or were they just people who had taste and sense to attend a decent non mainstream cinema when they saw one?

There was a short film shown after the main one , filmed at the demonstration in central London on 26th March 2011 against the proposed public spending cuts ordered by the government .The film was made by an independent journalist.On the one hand , the film celebrated the richness of costume ,music and creativeness offered by the demonstrators and at the same time carefully showing instances of unprovoked police violence i.e the film maker had got his camera behind the police cordon who possibly from the corporate media's take could be seen gently ushering the crowd away but at the same time from his angle they were discreetly, literally 'sticking the boot in 'to the crowd.

The organiser , after the two films were over , invited discussion , which did not develop much more than one man saying : 'let's all take our money out of the bank on the same day !' and another , who had bruises all over his face telling the crowd that 'enough is enough'...It didn't develop much more and we were all invited to have a drink at the local pub across the road.

At that point I had to leave . I felt that I made a good discovery in this cinema club , I picked a few anarchist publications and made my way.

As I was dozing on the couch I was thinking that I would strongly recommend 'Mary and Max' to anyone who wants to see a really good film.

I also wondered about these anarchist people, I mean those that are 'card carrying anarchists '(contradiction of terms intended ). I wonder what their real goals are and whether they really believe that we can live in a world devoid of our political and economic overlords. I really admire them and how they are against racism and all other forms of bigotry, exploitation , deception and discrimination etc .

But I also fear that their view of human nature , based on their own noble intentions is somewhat flawed.
Of course we should not allow our selves to be ruled by greedy capitalists and governments which are no more than 'political parties of business' as Noam Chomsky calls them . Many altruistic and thoughtful souls would be suited to an anarchist society , yet what of the mob? I am sure many of the people that would be left in this Utopian society without hierarchy, free of police or bosses ,without laws etc would be even worse than they are now.

True Anarchism, this intellectual , angry young man's pipe dream would suit those highly evolved, intelligent and caring individuals who would share and share alike . But what of the majority of us self centred , impatient , egotistical , politically naive, greedy self serving mob rich and poor alike? ; being poor doesn't make one better than the rich.

What would happen?. I just wonder , I am sure many a motorist would run down a cyclist who they think has got in their way and shouldn't be there. And do this with impunity .Unfortunately the Noble Anarchists have a too high esteem of human nature .
Most people would descend into 'anarchy ' in the definition of a cheap and nasty corporate popular newspaper's use of the term.

So the establishment is afraid of the Anarchists , not because they are 'mindless hooligans' as often the mainstream media depicts them, but because they dare to challenge the status quo and offer an alternative ....to those that would listen and have the self discipline and altruism to see it through without allowing themselves to descend into mayhem.

But there is a 'Third way ' to quote that ignominious scoundrel , former prime minister Blair: but not on his terms: The fact that the limited illusion of freedom that we have within the corporate capitalist system , allows for anarchists to live side by side with it . To agitate and influence , using direct action and propaganda against the corporations and their political parties . In this sense , Capitalism and Anarchism go hand in hand , existing together . This is the only way and suggests that any one with an ounce of political awareness or conscience should get involved in their local anarchist group and challenge their 'elected ' business party overlords and strive to achieve at least a fraction of true democracy and justice .

The rustling got louder , I got myself up off the couch . As I got up and looked out of the window I just about caught a glimpse of a young man , whose appearance and complexion , with an educated guess , I can only describe as being an Eastern European Romany . He tore a bag open and pinched something , I do not know what . He moved nimbly as a fox and I called to him to ask him what he was doing. But he had scarpered , possibly on to the next booty .

This angered me as the grey plastic bags which were tied so well together to deter foxes , had been raided by a 'Human Fox ' I have no reservations in calling him that , regardless of what the politically correct would call me.

I still wonder what would any one gain by checking rubbish sacks. Was it that he thought that the sacks' different colour indicated a collection of clothing being donated to some charity which he wanted part of? or just pure dustbin raking in hope of trading anything? Did he find an obsolete computer printer that was chucked ? is he going to strip it down and sell a piece of copper or lead from it? I really don't know but the fact that he had exposed rotten , smelly food really got me angry. The filthy Human fox !, I thought to myself as I secured the rubbish bags one more time to prevent his four legged brethren from finishing off where he started.

There are many people of his back ground living all over this area , they are part of a mass migration from Poland , Romania , Bulgaria and other Eastern European countries that are full card carrying members of the 'European Union ', this ever expanding club of corporate companies and their 'liberal democratic political parties'

The strange thing is that Membership of the 'European Union ' entitles any member to travel to and live in any other member country. That means I can live in Bulgaria and a Bulgarian can live here etc. Yet at the same time It is one of the tenets of the European Union that :

'The European Union sees human rights as universal and indivisible. It actively promotes and defends them both within its borders and when engaging in relations with non-EU countries.

Human rights, democracy and the rule of law are core values of the European Union. Embedded in its founding treaty, they were reinforced when the EU adopted the Charter of Fundamental Rights in 2000, and strengthened still further when the Charter became legally binding with the entry into force of the Lisbon Treaty in 2009.

Countries seeking to join the EU must respect human rights. And all trade and cooperation agreements with third countries contain a clause stipulating that human rights are an essential element in relations between the parties.

The Union’s human rights policy encompasses civil, political, economic, social and cultural rights. It also seeks to promote the rights of women, of children, of those persons belonging to minorities, and of displaced persons' .
(From 'Europa ', The European Union's Official Website).

Having read that , I was even more perplexed. Let's look at the plight of Romany people . They are known to be discriminated against throughout the world. I have seen it first hand on my journeys to Greece. My favourite singer is a Greek Romany who often sings about the pains of being treated as a second class citizen in the only country he knows . In my day job I have come across Romany people who explained to me that they are being treated badly in various European , former Soviet block countries.

Then hold on a minute! This so called artificial , non democratic, bureaucratically led group of legislators states that it has standards; That in order to join its club , the members must reach a certain standard i.e treating minorities with respect , and giving all citizens equal opportunities....etc.
This is another of the many lies .

If Romanies were treated equally in these countries , how is it that many thousands of them , at first opportunity have come from all over Eastern Europe , to settle into London , many of them without education , without Knowledge of English, without work skills but large extended families to feed. More importantly how the hell did some tin pot countries from Eastern Europe , who have an established record of traditional, cultural , political as well as institutional racism against various ethnic or religious minorities get accession into this club of corrupt political parties of business called the ' European Union'?

I think my case is made . The anarchists are right: This is a huge multinational corporation whose sole interest in human rights is the 'freedom ' to travel as in free movement of labour thereby lowering workers' wages for the big industries to function at their best. A political club that values the right of humans to compete , be divided and ruled .

As I went back to sleep pondering on the quality of the Anarchist cinema club and the the excellence of 'Mary and Max' , I felt I had explored , and come slightly closer to understanding what makes a 'human fox' walk by one's window and raid the rubbish bag: A two legged human fox, up with the rest of the foxes at the crack of dawn , travelled a few thousand miles to achieve this 'privilege' . What does that say about oppressed minorities? , what does it say about the European Union?, its member states and of that young man's choice of choosing England as his first choice?. Maybe it is because internally this country does try harder than others and maybe he hopes that his children will get an equal opportunity to access education and better themselves?

But guess what ? regardless of what claims are made about the importance of filling in your 'Census ' form , and how it is useful for planning the number of public services etc. Well that is another misconception , as I know from first hand knowledge as a public servant , that many children who have recently come into this country have been left at home without the chance of going to school as most of London's primary and secondary schools are over crowded.

Must go and check the rubbish........that we read....

Religious Stampede

2011-01-15T18:18:00.016Z

I read that there has been yet another religious stampede where many have died an ugly death. Only yesterday , Indian officials said more than 100 pilgrims have been killed in a stampede following a religious festival in southern India.

The stampede occurred on Friday night, 14th January 2011.A jeep filled with pilgrims lost control and smashed into a crowd of worshippers returning from offering prayers at a shrine in the state of Kerala ,Sanjay Kumar.

The tragedy unfolded in a remote, mountainous area of southern Kerala during the evening as pilgrims made their way home from an annual ceremony at the hill shrine of Sabarimala that draws up to four million people every year.

Last year in March At least 63 people were killed and 100 others injured in a stampede at a Hindu temple in the northern Indian state of Uttar Pradesh .
Only a few months before that incident,in January 2010, 10 Hindu pilgrims died in a stampede during a religious festival on the Ganges river in the eastern Indian state of West Bengal. The incident took place when hundreds of devotees tried to board a ferry to take them to the festival.

A very worrying trend .This is India , that new powerhouse , 'the fast growing economy ,' lauded by the market-worshipping financiers , political pundits and media moguls of the west.

What drives people to this doom ? what is it with human beings , huddled together in such an unnatural , uncomfortable proximity, hoping to experience some super- natural , superstitious , magical power ? what keeps so many people so desperate ,docile , ignorant and near suicidal? And this is not some thing peculiar to India .

Similar tragedies,it seems regularly befall the faithful of Islam.
There was one stampede in Mecca ,March, Saudi Arabia 2001 .35 lost their lives when crowds from accross the world on their holy pilgrimage or Hajj surged forward during a stoning of Satan ritual .

One of the most deadly stampedes in history was in the same context :
On July 2, 1990, a stampede inside a pedestrian tunnel (Al-Ma'aisim tunnel) leading out from Mecca towards Mina took and estimated toll of 1,426 pilgrims' lives!
In fact there are lists of the regular carnage that goes on in the name of the Islamic pigrimage:

* July 2, 1990 : A stampede inside a pedestrian tunnel (Al-Ma'aisim tunnel) leading out from Mecca towards Mina, Saudi Arabia and the Plains of Arafat led to the deaths of 1,426 pilgrims.
* May 23, 1994 : A stampede killed at least 270 pilgrims at the stoning of the Devil ritual.
* April 9, 1998: at least 118 pilgrims were trampled to death and 180 injured in an incident on Jamarat Bridge.[2]
* March 5, 2001: Thirty five pilgrims were trampled to death in a stampede during the stoning of the Devil ritual.[3]
* February 11, 2003: The stoning of the Devil ritual claimed 14 pilgrims' lives.[4]
* February 1, 2004: 251 pilgrims were killed and another 244 injured in a stampede during the stoning ritual in Mina.[5]
* January 12, 2006: A stampede during the ritual ramy al-jamarāt on the last day of the Hajj in Mina killed at least 346 pilgrims and injured at least 289 more. The incident occurred shortly after 13:00 local time, when a busload of travellers arrived together at the eastern access ramps to the Jamarat Bridge. This caused pilgrims to trip, rapidly resulting in a lethal crush. An estimated two million people were performing the ritual at the time.

So what is it with these devoutly religious folk that makes them persue such dangers for the sake of their spirituality ? And what is spirituality?

Spirituality in a wider sense is that within us in which we define our selves and our place in the universe.It is the essence of our self image and the underlying principle of how we make sense of the world and meaning in life.

Very profound.And on the whole the 'spiritual' aspects of a human being tend to be defined in religious terms .For example, someone dies or sees suffering or simply wonders at the mystery of the cosmos and their own existence.
The faithful, those belonging to a particular religion will press the default button of their religion and off goes the automatic pilot of their reasoning and they will have a stock answer to the question that may have troubled their minds temporarily . The answer being handed down by generations of 'experts', religious scholars , theologians and other indoctrinated , misguided thinkers or arrant charlatans.

So in the case of the thousands of deceased , who died tragically in such stampedes so close to what they so highly valued in their lives, there seems to be some dark dichotomy .

What was so meaningful and vital to them : Hinduism or Islam for that matter , was the cause of their premature deaths. Was this human folly? The fault of bad infrastructure of India being an over populated , developing country ? Or outright negligence of that much richer 'Theocracy' ,or dictatorship of corrupt royal families called Saudi Arabia ?

In either case one is left with the painful meaninglessness of it all. Young and old , many very poor and of course much lesser in numbers but rich also , had lost their lives , there in the very place where they had faith in its very meaning.
For such people the most inportant aspect of their lives is this religion , that binds them together and helps them find meaning to their lives .Many attend such pilgrimages in hope of being ' helped' , or 'protected' by their particular deity of choice.Some , and I have met such people: Some hope that by performing certain religious rituals or just praising their God , can even bring them financial propserity as well as everlasting health and happiness!

Alas , for these ill fated human beings suffering and death was the result of their dedication. This makes the whole foundation of what they held so dear crumble to reveal the meaninglessness of their lives.

It could have been you or me : Meaninglessness? or maybe from the wrought-iron inflexibilty of the doctrines many religious folk hold dear, maybe it was their divine destiny ? The hand of God claiming his beloved to live with him for eternity? Yes of course within the narrative of all the worlds current mainstream and fringe religions , just like the dead religions we now call 'mythology' there is a get-out clause . To explain the inexplicable and make meaningful the meaningless.
Many will say that their souls have gone to heaven . 'It was the will of God and
therefore beyond our lowly human understanding of his scheme of things.'........ .etc. So in effect what would make a rational human being reject such belief systems as flawed only works to reinforce such circular ways of thinking thereby strengthening the resolve of the faithful.

So the meaninglessness of the string of tragedies remains unsolved to the inquiring mind .But of course can be explained away within various religious belief systems thereby allowing the tragedies to repeat themselves.

All in the sake of spirituality .Which, as explained earlier is not the monopoly of the religious institutions and their billions of followers but something bigger and more mysterious.

The fact that life has no meaning , that there is a meaninglessness to all this life is part of the spiritual quest in itself. The very marvel of this mystery which may never be solved ,is the answer: that there may be no answer .All cannot be
explained out of the deciphered verses of ancient tribal, mythological scriptures. No. May be we are alone? Maybe there is no God there for us to open up
insurance policies with ?
To recognise this could be a way to liberation and possible salvation . It would at least prevent many from charging to corners of the Earth only to encounter thousands of similarly desperate souls , huddling together in extremely life threatening conditions. For no one died in a stampede when alone in their sitting room pondering on the meaninglessness of life.........

Meditations on Violence

2010-09-25T13:58:00.015+01:00

How meaningless is the existence of a species that sees it self as superior to all others on account of its intelligence .Yet is this an intelligence which transcends the base lower instincts of other species which fight with their own and survive
by cruelly killing others?

'Meditations on violence' is the title of a book , I am reading . It is written by Sergeant Rory Miller an American expert on real violence.The man has a string of credentials in Martial arts . It is a book not so much describing techniques of self defence or 'how to beat up people' , but a treatise on the gap between what so called 'martial arts experts ' teach in the artifical setting of the Dojo, and the reality of surviving in a real life violent situation.

The author Is one of these modern day Self defence 'gurus' , a real warrior who has worked in all sorts of situations encountering real life or death violence either dealing with criminals on the loose whilst apprehending them as a law enforcement officer , as a night club door man ,or by managing of psychopathic killer criminals inside institutions as well as dealing with hostage takers , street attacks and taking part in military crack team assaults .

It is a subject that I am very interested in , the nature of violence and how one has to deal with it on an individual basis and on a mass mobilised national one is something that has haunted the human condition for centuries .

I too was in a potentially violent situation last week . Your mild mannered , peace loving voice in the wildnerness of bloggers was cycling along a few yards from home.

A motorist drove past me ,so close that that I was physically shaken at the closeness of the shave, adding insult to injury he blew his horn in an aggressive manner. Uncharacteristically , I did not remain silent and shouted expletives and made abusive gestures .

He stopped his car , then , reverse lighs glowing, started to move towards me! I don't know whether this was a ploy to shock me or an outright attempt to kill me. I had stopped , thrown my bicycle to the ground and retreated to a position of safety .With helmet on and a chain and padlock ready in my hand , which I held at a ready to attack position without being outright offensive , I stood there as this man, possibly from Asia minor or Eastern Europe by his appearance and accent came towards me.

I thought this is it a real test of all my self defence training , a sense of excitement but also foreboding as I felt I could seriously injure this guy or eventhough the odds are against him th ere is the possiblity that he could still beat me............'This is it ! ' I thought time , to get the satisfaction of not giving in to the abuse and disrespect of other insolent individuals . . He came forward I moved back then he moved back then I moved forward in what Miller describes in his book as a 'Monkey dance'. We did a few paces of monkey dance without real contact , I said: 'you were too close!'
'You were driving like that !' he said gesticulating a zig zag , his English was limited and I guessed that according to the local demographic changes of the localityin the past few years, he could have been Turkish, Albanian or Polish or from a Baltic state .I did not have time or inclination to study the accent in detail.

He eventually walked back into his metal box saying: 'What Ive got in my boot can kill you!' Well I did not really want to have to bash his brains in and as he was on his way , I thought I would remain neutrally silent.Had he gone into his car boot to look for his lethal weapon to keep up with my superior level of arms race , then maybe I would have had to warn him to stop or attack him . I had to remain decisive .

This was a close shave! He drove off and I cycled home. I went straight into the back garden ,set up my punch bag and did a 'Blitz' :hammering it from all directions using various combination punches and open hand techniques.I reflected and came to the conclusion that if he did come too close to me I would have shouted and ordered him to stay back as a last chance get-out clause for him and as for a rallying cry for me . If he continued to approach to striking distance I would have struck him with a mad 'Kiai' spirit shout or battle cry to strengthen my resolve and to fill him with what the American military machine called 'Shock and Awe' in the opening assault of the 2003 invasion of Iraq.

I think I had considerable advantage , and if I had been a vicious type I could have laid heavily into him as he was alighting from his vehicle without giving him a chance. Had I not been wielding a chain and padlock , would he have come straight for the kill? I don't know . One thing is certain though, that in a situation like this , the essence is to take the initiative and strike first , being decisive is what counts whether this means running away even. For the thought process to get bogged down on : Should I? shouldn't I? , will he attack me? what if he does?.........Which technique shall I use ?...etc can be stifling and giving the opponent the initiative means that one would have to go th rough a string of possibilities and outcomes with the added obstacle of having to make a decision, by then one could be down on the floor in a pool of blood !

So I reasoned like this and evaluated my performance somewhat . Maybe I did let him think he got the better of me?Maybe he did congratulate himself with a victory as I did not go in full gear to terrorise and punish him? . well it didn't matter ,he did n't get close enough to touch me and my plan was that had he gone too close, I would have shouted , either warning him to stay back before the charge or simply a battle cry and a charge.This way I am convinced the battle would have been one sided and over quickly .

The satisfaction was that there was no blood shed either way , the frustration being that if only we engaged , I would have proven the whole theory and had the pleasure of punishing the rascal sufficiently to educate the ignoramus and feel good with my self.

How crazy we humans are , I could have met this man in a different environment and we could have shared a drink and noticed that we had some common threads etc. But in the human jungle of road rage , the circumstances dictate that the 'other' is the enemy .

Recent reports of extreme violence in Kyrgystan between Uzbeks and Kyrgyz in June this year were frightening .This type of ethnic group violence that happens so often in countries divided on lines of race , religion or other denominations where one group turns on the other is an example of how 'decent' 'law abiding ' citizens living as neighbours for years can turn against eachother and relish in burning the opposing group's houses and with women and children inside. They are happy to burn their neighbours' children alive and watch! This is no exaggeration and not intended to be a sleight on the Uzbeks or Kyrgys , who I imagine are just as pleasantly human as the rest of us. Yet this has happened between different ethnic groups in the recent past in Kenya , India , Congo and possbly more countries than we can be aware of. No doubt it has happened in old Blighty itself many years ago .

The meaninglessness of having young children ,loving them , nurturing them ,protecting them and undestanding that others feel same about their babies . Is not this enough to empathise with the other? Yet so called normal people can turn and burn alive the'other ' group's babies!

The strange thing about violence though is this : That although in itself it is a constant : an abhorrent act ,there is evidence that its use can be legitimised by the ruling establishment or government. For example in a state that is at peace , a man killing another is seen as committing a crime . The sexual abuse of a woman or slaughter of a child even more so: an outrage, where the public would be incensed and the self satisfied government demagogues publicly denouncing it as such . Yet the same rulers of the state can sanction the organised insanity of mass bombing
( killing many children in the process) as they seek and destroy the 'bad guys' who they say are trying to destroy us....by bringinmg terrorism to our shores. This is happening now as the government with outright lies and propaganda continues to wage a war against Afghanistan. The same occurred in Irag. A country which paradoxically the corporate media describes as a liberated state peace and building its democracy for the first time.

Violence is a big thing. It is the weakness of the humam race , the fact that 'civilisation' condemns all violence and the same time violently hangs on to having exlusive control of its wrath proves what ? Maybe the human propensity for committing violent acts is our strength ? and it is to our credit that we are the number one species on the planet because of our ingenious use of it.

Full scale violence as in a world war or violence of a bully picking a fight could be seen as a flame and a spark of one and the same thing . Its objective to over come the will of the other. Maybe some of us idealists, humanists, pacifists and peaceniks have got it wrong. Violence is here to stay , it is an important part of our identity and the way we do business.To accept it would be the best course of action . Accept that we have always been capable of this violence and that it is part of life , to deny it would be to delude ourselves. It is the way of the world , a constant fight for survival and competition for resources, all be it in a more sophisticated way.

So I continue to do my drills of Krav maga (Hebrew for 'contact combat')work out on the punch bag and research books like the one written by Rory Miller in order to understand and avoid being a victim of violence within the 'peace time' context .

Yet when I reflect on the nature of the broader picture of violence I wonder whether I should have just got hold of that scum and battered his little brain in with the chain in my hand to rid the world of one more belligernt bastard who did not think the value of a cylistt's life counted....Yes by not doing so I still feel the frustration , devoid of satisfaction . Yet the reasoning applied at the time was that this is peace time ,I could end up convicted of a murder etc so the act would have been a last resort. Had the situation occurred as in the example of inter ethnic break down of law and order etc, I may just have done what I am so often arguing against, as I believe t his potential to commit violent acts is dormant within most of us.

However I will let Rory have the last words and I guess I kept true to this maxim on this occasion: 'It's better to avoid ( a conflict) than to run, better to run than to de escalate,better to de escalate than to fight , better to fight than to die...'

May Day , Our Great British Election and Democracy

2010-05-08T16:58:00.016+01:00

It was May day only last week.The first of May 2010 .I love May day , it is my brother Nick's birthday as well as my mother in -law Anna's birthday. I had a great week end , two feasts one with the mother-in-law on the Saturday 1st of May and one with Nick at our mother's house on the Monday 3rd . It was such a nice bank holiday week end for me The gods had rewarded us with nice sunny weather . What a special day to have a birthday on .It is a day of much history and great importance for today.

Originally the first of May was celebrated as a pagan festival In Britain before the
Christians spread their unconditional love and turned the other cheek to many peoples they conquered with ruthless brutality .'Pagan' by the way being a derogatory term used by the 'Abrahamic religions' for all other ancient religions which they felt threatened by in the past and were determined to crush through organised ,sustained atrocities using military means.

In Britain before the Anglo Saxons and even before the Romans arrived ,the local people,predominately of Celtic stock , celebrated the First of May as Beltaine . This was a festival that acknowledged the beginning of the summer and a time for local people to burn their bedding and floor coverings that they needed to keep warm until it was time to replace them with new ones.This tradition was common in many parts of Europe as well as in Britain and Ireland.When the Romans came to Settle in Britain at about 55BC , they brought with them their particular celebration for the period around the first of May which was known as Floralia celebrating Flora the Roman goddess of flowers. It was in her honour that this five day celebration was held from April 28th and ended on May 2nd. The two festivals were somehow both gradually merged together. With the passing of time other variations added and eventually incorporated into Christian times. So the maypole decorated with flowers, children merrily dancing around it , became accepted and part of the 'Christian ' way of life even though the stark symbolism of a phallus amongst the flowers expressing fertility and new life were still subtly present.

The reason many people around the world celebrate May day as an international workers' day , associated with workers'rights is the following:Something which actually happened on the 3rd and 4Th May 1886 in Haymarket , Chicago , USA.

However on the 1st of May , 80 OOO workers marched in the streets of Chicago supporting industrial strikes requesting an eight hour working day .They were later supported by 350 000 people nationwide who halted work and showed their support for this cause.

On the 3rd of May ,in Haymarkeet , Chicago , during a rally in support of workers striking for better conditions and an eight hour day , there were scuffles between workers in favour of the striking action and those they called 'scabs' who were against the strike. Police opened fire and four people were killed.
The next day On May 4th , a group of militants were speaking at a rally of 2,500 people held to protest against the police massacre when 180 police officers arrived, led by the Chicago police chief. While he was calling for the meeting to disperse a bomb was thrown which exploded, killing one policeman. The police retaliated, killing seven of their own in the crossfire, plus four others of the protesting crowd; almost two hundred were wounded. The identity of the bomb thrower remains unknown.

On June 21st , 1886, eight labour leaders associated with the protests were tried in court for murder .The trial appeared to be a political show of strength rather than a search for justice , there were many reports of false allegations and scant evidence yet the establishment persisted with the witch hunt and On November 11th , 1886, four political activists were hanged and one had committed suicide hours before his execution .

Not many people even know their names .These men are known as the Haymarket Martyrs .The events surrounding the whole affair have given fuel to the those political commentators of the corporate press to use the influence of their privileged position as our scribes to deride socialists , anarchists and other militants that stand up for the rights of workers as mindless bomb throwing anarchists and 'hooligans'. Yet Haymarket martyrs are true heroes , these are martyrs in the true sense.People that were sacrificed for our rights, not for a religious dogma and an afterlife in heaven , but just so that working people can have some time for themselves outside of work to live and do other things like I am doing now.

The names of the victims were cited by a Uruguayan writer Eduardo Galeano in “A Terrible Drama”
(in his Memories of Fire, vol. II):

'The scaffold awaited them. They were five, but Lingg got up early for death, exploding a dynamite cap between his teeth. Fischer was seen unhurriedly humming the ‘Marseillaise.’ Parsons, the agitator who used the word like a whip or a knife, grasps the hands of his comrades before the guards tie his own behind his back. Engel, famous for his sharp wit, asks for port wine and then makes them all laugh with a joke. Spies, who so often wrote about anarchism as the entrance into life, prepares himself in silence to enter into death.'

It took time and an upward struggle but eventually the eight hour day was official.The United States Adamson Act in 1916 established an eight-hour day, with additional pay for overtime, for railroad workers. This was the first federal law that regulated the hours of workers in private companies.

Working on this computer , I was amazed to see the most well known search engine whose name is now an eponym for any search on the internet , on May 1st, did not make any mention of May Day as it normally does for various other notable dates of commemoration.The leading computer internet search engine will usually transform its quite versatile and unmistakable logo into whatever the company directors feel is important and the graphic design is always something worth looking at : St Patrick's Day , the invention of the Hubble Telescope ,the birthday of the musical composer Tchaikovsky all celebrated on the appropriate day of the calendar , but nothing about the Haymarket Martyrs on the 1st of May ,even though this search engine is an American company and the whole affair forms part of the fabric of the great country's history .

I wonder if this has anything to do with our type of democracy? or big business or even lack of democracy in favour of big business , does that sound familiar? We in Great Briatian , had our political elections very close to the beginning of May as always , this seems to be part of our democratic tradition.

6th May 2010. Yes in our democracy we were torn between the Labour , conservative and liberal democratic political parties .
Hardly worth voting at all , and looking at the number of people that turned out to vote , many people agree with me .For many people throughout the world know democracy is something we have to struggle for continuously.

And what is Democracy ? In its current form it still appears meaningless. It derives from the Greek 'Demos' =people and 'Cratos'= power .i.e Democracy is about people having the power.

Does our democracy where we have a right to vote in a new team of rulers every five years or so ring true? When these rulers are not accountable for their false promises , steal from you directly and indirectly in the most audacious fashion? But if you were to rise up against them to claim your rights they would treat you as a criminal ?. A group of professional political parties that have virtually identical belief systems and objectives?

A political establishment that invites you to play the the game of the illusion they have created .For they will praise you as an enfranchised citizen of a democracy if you partake in this meaningless ballot but in reality they see you as one of a group of consumers/producers/unemployed people that must be controlled and exploited within a set of clearly defined parameters, outside of which they fear revolution and change.

This principle seems to have remained from time immemorial , through the time of the Haymarket martyrs until the present day .Democracy is about claiming our rights outside the the theatre of our rulers' parliamentary pantomime.

So let's not forget that any rights , justice , equality or even the dignity of working a reasonable amount of hours a day was not handed down by government initiative ,debate or by the benevolence of business moguls.
Slavery of the African people by Europeans in its industrial proportions was not abolished at the whim of a political debate in parliament.

The right for women to vote (or to abstain) did not come about by the thoughtfulness of a politician , neither did the poll tax, implemented in Britain in the 1980's cease because our politicians decided. All these achievements came about when people stood together and challenged the rules imposed from our leaders above.

So the results of our latest election in Britain hang in the balance as the Conservatives won most seats on 6th may but without an over all majority and now have gone to bed with the liberal democrats currently debating(in sectret talks) how to seize power and rule as a coalition government . Mr Brown,current prime minister and leader of the 'labour' party is now squatting in no.10 Downing street secretly praying that these talks do not bear any fruit so that he can again wield power with the blessing of the leader of the liberal democratic party. Such is the hunger of these professional politicians that they feel capable of ruling us so that they can be allowed to continue to declare war and mayhem in distant lands in our name.

Yes ,this political establishment is always one step ahead and has now managed to achieve a meaninglessness to the value or our vote in the current set up. Britain ? we are a much more democratic society than many other countries but is it really true democracy?

Peace Be With You

2009-10-10T19:53:00.021+01:00

Peace be with you , Shalom , Salaam alaikum , shanti: These can be the most beautiful words to hear in any language .
What can be better than having peace externally in the form of no interpersonal, criminal or military conflict? . Inner peace also being the ultimate form of personal virtue to strive for . After all when we look at all the great thinkers , mystics , philosophers and spiritual leaders throughout world history the common link was that they sought some kind of inner peace and stability ,having found this for themselves then proceeded to give this to any one who had the ears to listen , eyes to see or nous to comprehend.

Peace , Pax , Eirine (Greek goddess and personification of peace) all represent what most of us at least say that we strive for.

Yet unfortunately like its cousins: Love , justice and Happiness the word Peace has suffered to the point of being cheapened and violated .It has been used and abused to a degree that it barely has any real meaning.

For example only today we hear that President Barack Obama(born August 4, 1961)the 44th and current President of the United States has been awarded the 'Nobel peace prize' .Just what is this peace prize?

Alfred Bernhard Nobel (1801-1872) was a Swedish chemist and engineer. Apparently he was also an armaments manufacturer and the inventor of dynamite.In his last will and testament , he used his enormous fortune to institute the Nobel Prizes and Since 1901, the prize has honoured men and women for outstanding achievements in physics, chemistry, medicine, literature, for work in peace and now economics.

So President Obama has been awarded a 'peace prize ' , an award in the memory of an arnaments manufacturer. The meaninglessness of the whole concept of what our society values as peace becomes more unclear as we explore this.Not only for the President's very short record on promoting or maintaining peace but more so when we look at the pantheon of some of the other great and good peace loving individuals standing proudly alongside him on their pedestals that have also been awarded this 'Nobel peace prize ' and other similar prizes or honours.

Henry Kissinger (born May 27, 1923)was , national security advisor and later secretary of state for the USA from 1969-1977 .Along with North Vietnamese Politburo Member Le Duc Tho,Kissinger was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize on December 10, 1973, for their work in negotiating the ceasefires contained in the Paris Peace Accords on "Ending the War and Restoring Peace in Vietnam," signed on the previous January .Mr Tho rejected the award, telling Kissinger that peace had not been really restored in South Vietnam. Kissinger wrote to the Nobel Committee that he accepted the award "with humility." The conflict continued until an invasion of the South by the North Vietnamese Army resulted in the ignominious retreat of the American forces and their allies in the North Vietnamese Pyrrhic victory of 1975 .

During that ugly war , Kissinger spread the mayhem and blood letting chaos as the mastermind behind the secret bombing campaign of Cambodia tastelessy called 'Operataion Menu '.This lasted at least two years from March 1969. The justification for this campaign was onstensibly to prevent units of the North Vietnamese Communist guerillas from using these areas as bases to rest , re arm and continue their attacks on the South of Viet nam.
The most conservative estimates of the death toll reach 100 000 , although many alternative sources claim up to six times that . The people displaced reached several million .The people of Cambodia as a result of this were to suffer much worse fate as the whole country descended into a madness of the Khmer Rouge , a totalitarian regime that took power at the time and was known for the notorious despot , Pol Pot whose reign was responsible for the deaths of over one million of his own citizens.

So kissinger , This ' white Dove' of a man has many more achievements under his belt much much too many to mention here. His influence in the murder On September 11 1973 of Salvadore Allende, the elected president of Chile is well documented as well as the persistent interference and support for murderous dictatorships throughout the Latin American countries for decades after .

A tiny country that he still carries the blood stains of, is Cyprus , where in 1974 , a military coup was arranged from Greece's junta government , backed by Kissinger , the result being , an invasion of the island by Turkey putting to end the fears that the Cypriot government at the time was too friendly to the Soviets and could have turned to communism. Britain , then as today indulged in its characteristic poodle politics and did not perform its legal duty to prevent the invasion by Turkey (of course ) .

Apart from This 'peacenik' other great camaigners for peace include Theodere Roosevelt in 1906 for his role in brokering a peace between the war between Russia and Japan .Theodore Roosevelt (October 27, 1858 – January 6, 1919 ) was the 26th Presdent of the United States.As a military leader before being president , he was known to round up his own volunteer cavalry regiment recruited from cowboys 'The Rough Riders' to fight a war in Cuba in 1898 , which according to many led to the USA bullying that island ever since. At the time he was a keen supporter for American military exploits and had been quoted to say "I should welcome almost any war, for I think this country needs one".

Woodrow Wilson , the 28th President of the USA (December 28, 1856–February 3, 1924)was awarded the Peace prize in 1919 for his part in forming the 'league of nations ' an intergovernmental body which aimed at preventing another world war after the end the first world war. History showing that he failed miserably.Apart from this attempt at peace ,he also bombarded the Mexican coast, sent troops to occupy Haiti and the Dominican Republic as well as maintaining troops in Nicaragua :all acts of American imperialism that linger on to this day

Another award of great prestige if not outright meaninglessness is 'The presidential medal of freedom', America's highest civilian honour.This five pointed white star is awarded by American presidents only to people considered to have made an 'Especially meritorious contribution to the security or national interests of the United States ,or world peace ,or cultural or other significant or private endeavours '.

Yes this medal was awarded to Mr Tony Blair( born 6 May 1953), former Prime Minister of the United Kingdom from 2 May 1997 to 27 June 2007.
It was awarded to him by the 43rd and former president of the United States , George W Bush (born July 6, 1946 ),during the last death throws of Bush's asministration earlier this year.

Tony Blair is known for leading Britain into several wars including Iraq, Yugoslavia , Sierra Leone and Afghanistan .He is no 'Buddha' , he has taken this country to war by literally lying to his people and his cowering subordinates for what seems to many as no other reason than pure 'poodle' like obedience to Bush or even for more sinister reasons of a quasi religious nature and delusions of grandeur.

For this reason maybe his award is appropriate as he has fit the bill in a strange way to the 'contribution to the security of the United States ...' but for 'world peace ...?.' It is difficult to agree as since the invasions of several countries mentioned , internecine violence in those countries lingered on , and international terrorism has increased .

So There we are: Nobel 'peace' prizes, 'The presidential medal of 'freedom' '....
Such is the degradation of language today , masking behind it , its total opposite in its raw brutalilty .

The American film director Michael Moore, on hearing of this award to Obama was heard to say :'congratulations Mr President for receiving the Peace prize , now please go out and earn it!....'Nothing can be closer to the truth , and already Obama is showing signs of perpetuating and intensifying the war in Afghanistan rather than really looking for alternative ways of raching a solution . Perhaps peace is not really sought as sincerely as some of us would like to believe .

So Peace, being such a rare and valuable commodity is quite difficult to attain as well as illusive to define judging by the decisions made by these committees that dish out the awards .

I wonder if these dead presidents of the USA - that received such peace awards after lives of sabre rattling and 'rough riding ' are really sleeping in eternal peace? Or if that killer Kissinger or the uncouth clot GW Bush Junior
or that wily wastrel Blair live with any innner peace? I can only wish them Shalom , Salaam Alaikum , Pax , peace be with you ...........And may that be what they themselves mean by peace.

A Pop Star Dies As War Intensifies ,

2009-07-11T11:39:00.017+01:00

A strange world we live in .And to struggle to find meaning in this life is not
helped when we look at some recent events and the bizarre responses to those events that unfold.

Personally, although never a conscious fan or devotee of the performer I was shocked at the news and cannot deny how important his music has been to me for the main reason that he was of the same generation , He was only ten months my junior and hence I literally grew up with seeing him on TV especially when he was growing up as a child star.And there could be no denying that the boy had talent and could sing and dance , and that many of his early, as well as later tunes were ones that I loved to listen to even though I rarely ventured out to buy them for my collection .

Last week was the memorial service of Michael Jackson the great pop star who died on June 25Th 2009 after what was described as a 'cardiac arrest' the correct clinical term for a heart attack yet us in Britain, more used to not hearing this term that the American media used.

Apparently Michael Jackson was planning on a return to performing his last fare well concerts . We were told by the corporate media that he had up to 50 concerts to perform in Britain alone.......Other news sources stated that his needs for this return where financial due to the costs of his court cases having been accused of Paedophilia in 2005 .

The case of 'The People against Michael Jackson 'where various under aged guests to his home had turned against him and made allegations of being molested.This case lasted for five months and eventually Jackson was acquitted on all charges . One can imagine the emotional strain this can have had on a person who knows that billions of people know what he looks like and in a bizarre and superficial way know him deeply, as he has bared his soul for decades publicly . On a man whose visual appearance and over all demeanor did betray some element of extreme fragility. The many stories of his abused childhood by his father not withstanding.His unconventional attire and physical make up / plastic surgery , reclusiveness , ambivalence of gender and race etc all fed into the untouchable , unreachable , unknowable figurehead of many a music lover's worship . Hence He was a 'star' in the full sense that our shallow twenty first century with its love of celebrity status beyond all else has acknowledged.

Unfortunately, poor Michael died before he could bow out on stage. That is the saddest thing in my opinion.He cleared his name in a law court whatever his enemies may think , unless we have evidence ,it is only fair to have given him the benefit of the doubt. But the satisfaction he sought through the stage, the only means he really knew how to express himself was denied.

His funeral ceremony , or 'Memorial concert'was watched by millions on tv throughout the world on 7th July 2009 ,and many were there at the 'Staples centre ' Los Angeles to witness the tribute by many other shining stars who were close to him and some who performed.
It was difficult to avoid the ceremony. I heard parts of it on the radio as I was driving and commentators were describing a coffin lined with gold as some heartfelt tributes were made by his closest relatives whilst other performers performed and made eulogies which bordered onto to the scriptures of Messianic prophets...I must admit , with the greatest of respect to Jacko himself , I couldn't bear any more of it and had to switch it off. Am I bitter and twisted and unable to accept the glorified and great deserve this? or is it a matter of principle and the opposition to the deification of a person ,the very mixed blessing that could have led to his isolation and what seems to have been a lonely, miserable life?I don't know but after maximum tolerance had to use the off-button and switched it off.

I am sure that many will begin to do pilgrimage to where he is eventually buried and others will all but pray to him etc : this is the ultimate destiny of the celebrity status especially such a prominent celebrity : a replacement of old religions for new. And the inspiration to many more to strive to be that God or his Messiah at least .

By coincidence the same day that Michael Jackson was laid to rest with a golden coffin send off amongst a panoply of shining 'stars' , it was also the commemoration of the the London tube train bombings.

These took place on 7 July 2005 and are also known as the 7/7 bombings, a series of coordinated suicide bomb attacks on London's public transport system during the morning rush hour. The bombings were carried out by 4 British Muslim men who were motivated by Britain's involvement in the Iraq War.

A permanent memorial in the form of 52 metallic anonymous pillars of steel was unveiled in Hyde Park on the 7 July 2009, the fourth anniversary of the bombings, as a tribute to the 52 murder victims.Some radio programme presenters mentioned that this memorial was overshadowed by memorial for Michael Jackson , and indeed the news of the monument was totally blotted by the interest in Michael Jackson.

The memorial was unveiled in Hyde Park on the 7 July 2009.This is no disrespect for Michael but because of his memorial event watched by millions on live TV on the same day , the commemoration of the London Bombings did sink quietly into the back ground and sadly almost to total oblivion.

The tragic irony and the apparent meaninglessness of life and promotion of death in all of this ,is, that amidst the subdued remembrance of the victims of terrorism in London , the war raging three and half thousand miles away in Afghanistan approaches its eighth year without any 'success', whatever that really means to the architects of this war.Not only has it intensified with up to fifteen British service personnel killed in the same week of both above memorials but the spurious arguments in favour of the war continue to duck and dive , the current mantra being that these poor servicemen ,victims of our rulers and their sponsors' ambitions whether military, strategic , egotistic or economic have died for a good and noble cause.

Prime minister of Britain ,Mr Brown, when pressed about this bad news made mumbling noises about the good purpose of this war and continued to back it on the grounds that it is preventing a “chain of terror” stretching from the Afghan plains to the streets of Britain.

So this war , we are told is to prevent terrorism from reaching us. Even though one of the suicide bombers of the London bombings ,Shehzad Tanweer himself , stated very clearly on his pre-recorded suicide video tape that that motivation behind the bombings was the very presence of British forces in Afghanistan and Iraq at the time. So if we attempt to apply some logic it would go like this :

' The war in Afghanistan must continue and intensify because in so doing our forces will keep terrorism away from London and prevent people like Shehzad Tanweer and others from blowing people and themselves up in London in reaction to this war.....'

What can be more inconsistent and philosophically flawed than this statement?
Even the Great American President of 'Change ' Obama himself has said recently:
"The mission in Afghanistan is one that the Europeans have as much, if not more, of a stake in than we do. Certainly the Afghans as well as the Pakistanis have more of a stake than we do. The likelihood of a terrorist attack in London is at least as high, if not higher, than it is in the United States. And that's the reason why Tony Blair and Gordon Brown and others have made this commitment."

So here we are, eight years after the bombings of the twin towers and four years after the bombings of London and we are told that this war , formerly called 'The war against terror' is preventing terrorism.

Yet while writing this , terrorists attacked Indonesia .Friday 17th July there were bombings of the luxury JW Marriott and Ritz Carlton hotels in Jakarta which killed at least nine people — including at least two presumed suicide bombers — and wounded more than 50 others.

In fact there have been possibly dozens of terrorist attacks throughout the world since September 11th 2001. So maybe the 'war against terror' has 'changed' again to the war of keeping terrorists out of The USA and its satellite, Britain. But even in this case as argued above the 'success' gauged by the number of 'foiled ' plots cited by the government , and that is only part of it.For as the war rages the casualties to Britain are sustained three and a half thousand miles away in British military uniforms! Things are very complicated and made even more frustrating to analyse when the fiction prevails.

So a pop star dies and this war intensifies. Even not being a great fan of Michael Jackson's I still believe he was a great loss and more important to many peoples' lives than these arm chair warriors , the Leaders of Britain and The USA who send people to die for the interests of the few rich and powerful and have the audacity to argue that their motives are moral and humanitarian rather than colonial.For if we look at history as a guide or template, the latter is a more canny , tried and tested reason for many a military intervention.

Money & How The Naked Emperor Has Lost His Musical Chair

2009-02-08T11:50:00.025Z

What is money ? This is something that appears a meaningless question , after all we all use it , need it and the world somehow gets by with smooth functioning of money being used and exchanged .

There is currently a panic and alarmist chorus coming from the Cabal which we call governments that 'represent' people of the rich part of the world and more indirectly rule the poorer parts too. The refrain heard is also sung by the ubiquitous outlets and instruments of the corporate news merchants and other means of communication controlled by Media Moguls .

The tune is one preaching of impending doom and economic recession , depression and painstakingly irritating phrases such as ' credit crunch' and 'economic meltdown' .
We hear this everyday and and it is somehow 'real' in the sense that all of a sudden , only in the past few months we see businesses closing down , money institutions become 'penniless ' banks emptied of their lending capabilities etc. And all this following a financial boom where a current prime minister of Britain whilst riding on the crest of this wealth's wave declared in his wisdom : 'No more boom and bust... ' implying not only that the buoyant economy would last but that the wretched individual himself was somehow instrumental in defeating once and for all this capitalistic self fulfilling prophecy.

Yet even such an erudite boardroom bandit as the current prime minister of this great country , Mr Brown was wrong. As if over night, we hear that banks are going bust and are not lending to each other.

So one minute they are money shops ,loaded and lending at a profit then we hear that they have nothing...and businesses too.

So this 'money ' is a very elusive substance if we can call it such . Now , many years ago there was no money. Some people believe that this was a better period as the cliche goes: 'money is the root of all evil' , although partly true let's look at those golden days where before money was around or in isolated places where it was not even necessary ,people still got by with bartering.

So if for example ,if I was the owner of a few sheep and thus was able to trade them for other goods ,I would have to find someone who has what I want to purchase before I can part with a single sheep, moreover I have to find something of at least equal value. So , fancying a chicken curry or two , I meet somebody who has twenty chickens and swap my one sheep for twenty of his chickens, sounds about right. So now I have made a deal. But after a while I fancy some tomatoes , I find someone who has baskets full of tomatoes...yet I reckon that one of my sheep can earn me at least thirty baskets full of those, I don't want that many to start with ,they would rot by the time I got to eating them ,also the trader who has the tomatoes happens to be a vegetarian and doesn't fancy the sheep or chicken . This tomato sales man is looking for a machete or sickle to help with his work. In this case I must search for a person who has farming tools and actually wants to buy meat , make a deal with that person then return to the tomato producer and swap at a fair rate tomatoes for a machete . I fail to do this,as the person with the machete was looking for a cucumber so eventually found a cucumber grower that wanted meat, exchanged one of my sheep for ten cartons of cucumbers kept some of them then struggled to take some over to the man with machete , made a deal with him , two cartons for one machete. I then ran over to the tomato man , gave him one machete for two baskets of tomatoes...phew! but th en I realised t hat the surplus of cucumbers I was left with were rotting and that the effort wasn't worth it , I could have settled for cucumbers with my meal that week ! ........and so it gets more complicated as it goes.

For the above reason , people arrived at a more common sense way of making deals and commodity money was developed . A particular commodity such as dried corn or animal skin; pelts such as a sheep's or Bear's skin were used . Both were valued by people and could be preserved for a period of time, hence these commodities became a currency , someone wanting something could pay by this type of currency which would be accepted by all , who can again use it .It had value that most people believed in and was durable and portable. A further development from this was the issuing of money which was paper notes . This money was equivalent to the amount of gold reserve. Countries would have a reserve of gold which was in effect a guarantee of the paper money circulated, Gold , something that most people value, inspires confidence in a money supply. Yet money in a thriving economy in essence is a matter of faith or what people believe in . It is believed that in a strong economy where a state is producing sought after products and services for itself and being generally self sufficient as well by exporting these products and services abroad, can even do away with the gold reserve , which is in a sense symbolic . Gold is difficult to find anyway. Also it is good to sell. I believe the last gold ingots where flogged by the present regime. The USA also no longer has a gold reserve if I am not mistaken.

So now we have arrived at Fiat money : that is paper money that is not equivalent to reserve of Gold but representative itself of a buoyant economy. This fiat or paper money then is valued by the public of a country by its own people and other people abroad. So there putting it crudely is what money is . It is an idea .
Yet as an idea it can be quite meaningless. We are told by various economists who know about these things that the paper money we have has value as long as we believe in it and have confidence in its value.

Many of us did as we were told , yet in the past year or so with frequency, reports were heard from America that there was a crisis looming that was going to hit the world economy. This we were told was all to do with 'Sub prime mortgages' a term to denote money lent to a person on a low income or one that cannot on paper really fulfil the agreement of paying back the mortgage. ( I always thought most people came under this category ,especially on their first home).
The sub prime mortgage lenders were not getting their money back and many were going bust , this in turn affected other companies in the money business eventually cascading to major banks and financial institutions which were hitherto regarded as holy ,immortal god like entities.

This spread throughout the world like wildfire and whereas only a year or so ago we were told that things have never been so good and that it is all the work of our beloved government's shrewd fiscal policies , yet now we are told things are going to be very gloomy and alas it is all due something global and beyond our control.

So now beyond belief we see large well known banks and other money lending institutions closing down ,summarily dismissing staff in large numbers and scared, refusing to lend money to each other . Large industrial manufacturers of motor vehicles and consumer items ,closing down , laying workers off in their
thousands . High street chains of shops collapsing. ..how can we make any meaning of this?

Let's look at this more closely . We were encouraged to borrow money and buy property ,also on a larger and more frequent scale so were companies who by their very nature are constantly borrowing , waiting to get paid by a customer as they simultaneously spend on other obligations. Yet all this at one point comes to a halt.

So if we stop and look at what is going on in an instant , it becomes like a paradox of Zeno of Elea , the ancient Greek philosopher who explored movement or lack of it.

So one bank has assets of X billions , yet it is lending so much to others , who in turn are doing the same and the same again ad infinitum. Obviously as we were taught to believe 'The Market ' will sort itself out and will solve everything , the 'market' being some kind of holy self- sustaining god- like entity which can be relied on to answer all the prayers of the rich and also give some crumbs to the poor . But what happens when we freeze this frame like Zeno would ?

It becomes something like 'musical chairs' the party game where a group of people , say six or so are dancing to music and circling around a group of chairs that they previously sat on. Only that one of the chairs has been taken out of the equation and there are only five chairs .So long as the music and the movement around the chairs continues , everyone is in the game and has a chair.Once the music stops , all compete to sit on the limited number of chairs and one individual ends up without a chair and is out of the game. It continues in this manner .

Similarly all these greedy banks and other corporations lending money which they themselves probably lent from other institutions who lent from other people etc ad infinitum have found that they don't have any money during this instant : no chair to sit on! So what they do is to refuse to lend and then other banks get into trouble and then companies including chains of high street shops , major manufacturers etc etc , and hey ! we have a so called 'recession ' which we are warned is becoming a fully bown 'Depression ' .So where was all this money?
It seems to have had no meaning after all? whether we believed in the holy prophets of the church of free market capitalism or not , the truth seems to be that value of money seems to be disappearing like a mirage , yet , people are still there , still living in houses still willing to work , raw materials are still available ,cabbages are still growing in abundance within the green and pleasant land, people still want to buy products and services, physical wealth has not vanished`..

So what does that mean in relation to money? in its present form;, fiat money , paper notes? and figures on a bank statement. It makes it look like there has been a lack of confidence.

Very much like the Hans Christian Anderson fairy tale: ' The emperor's new clothes' the story of an emperor of a prosperous city who cares more about clothes than military pursuits or entertainment hires two swindlers who promise him the finest suit of clothes from the most beautiful cloth. This cloth, they tell him, is invisible to anyone who was either stupid or unfit for his position. The Emperor cannot see the (non-existent) cloth, but pretends that he can for fear of appearing stupid; his ministers do the same. When the swindlers report that the suit is finished, they dress him in mime. The Emperor then goes on a procession through the capital showing off his new "clothes". During the course of the procession, a small child cries out, "But he has nothing on!" The crowd realizes the child is telling the truth. The Emperor, however, holds his head high and continues the procession.

So this faith we have in money seems to have vanished and our great countries , economies , our leaders our captains of industries, what have they amounted to? One thing is for sure it is now fashionable to blame rich bank chiefs for all the economic disaster , even the politicians who backed this religion of the 'free
market ' are sticking the boot into the poor bankers as the bank chieftans quietly retire with their colossal pensions after a career of mischief which the politicians encouraged in the first place .

Money is possibly a shape shifting alien illusion but a powerful one .And the collective wealth we had (at least nominally by virtue of living in a rich
country )is not really there and the archetypal capitalist, the white collar criminal, the emperor , continues to dance mindlessly around the chairs hoping that the music will not stop and that none of us will realise that he was stark naked from the outset.

Black and White

2008-11-09T18:29:00.001Z

If only things could be all in black and white. We wouldn't have to think too much and there would be simple answers to most moral and intellectual problems that face us .

Thinking in Black and white terms makes things easier to label , to categorise and ultimately helps us avoid having to think too deeply about things.It is one way of displacing the inevitable meaninglessness that presents itself once we dare to look at the world without imposing on it the template of our own beliefs and subjective perception. .
Now recently , On 4Th November 2008 , history was made by the election of Barack Obama as the 44nd president of the United States of America. The historic aspect was that he is the first 'black' or 'African American' to be given this sacred throne.

'African American' seems to be the phrase that is replacing 'black' for the term Americans use to describe their citizens that have a darker skin colour and originate from the African continent. Therein lies the puzzle.Just as the word 'black' was being deleted from the American English vocabulary the issue of colour sprung up in very black and white terms.

Obama , in actual fact is of 'mixed race' i.e his father was a black African of Luo ethnicity from Kenya and his mother a white American woman of English and Irish stock. The fact that he has made history by being the first Black president of the states has highlighted the the black and white way history or society has perceived ,labelled and subsequently persecuted people.

Now what makes a 'white man' white and a 'black man' black? This the question we must ask in order to understand the nature of this puzzle.
If we look at people from all parts of the world we eventually come to the conclusion that there is no real white coloured skin or black coloured skin; no black and white at all .In fact only various shades of brown from very dark to very light beige like brown. The black and white people being in reality the various poles of this spectrum. In addition to this there are various racial anatomical features that lighter skinned or darker skinned people may be identified by ,e.g people originating from the majority of African countries are likely to have tightly coiled dark hair , whereas people originating from certain northern European countries could have straighter ,blond hair and possibly blue eyes .

So it can be established that President elect Obama or any human being with a similar racial heritage is biologically of mixed race , a neutral skin colour somewhere in the middle of the human colour spectrum. Hence he is physically as much 'white ' as he is 'black' .
Such a person is biologically , chromatically , mathematically , genetically and logically of joint back ground and therefore should 'belong' equally to the 'white' group as much as he should 'belong ' to the 'black' group.

However this is where things become so complicated to the point that many resort to the 'black and white ' way of thinking in order to simplify things. People of mixed race, and particularly the offspring of one white European parent and one black African parent , although as described above ,are as much 'white ' as they are 'black', politically they are 'black' This is what many people of such mixed race seem to experience as far as I have gathered .This also applies to people who are not 50% mixed race but to those who could have 25% or even less African genes , for example people whose skin colour is as 'white ' as the 'white man's' but they have some genetic features that identify this e.g hair type ,shape of the nose or lips .

Now establishing the fact that although , biologically , genetically etc Barack Obama is as white as he is black , in political terms he is destined to be America's first a black president .

For politics , that is how people run their affairs , has constructed this division .This has obviously to do with the history of how white Europeans see themselves in relation to other races throughout their history. This is particularly evident in The U.SA where as a settler state whose founding inhabitants where descendants of white Europeans who established the United states of America by cruelly abusing other non European races , initially the indigenous peoples who they called Indians and virtually wiped out of the face of the earth.And secondly the Africans that they enslaved and took to America by force. This White dominant group saw itself as superior , and still there are many who share this white supremacist , condescending racist view towards other peoples.

So from this constructed ,racist view of the value of human beings we could imagine that the white people who feel superior to other races see themselves or their 'colour' to be more precise ,as a white sheet of linen, pure and unadulterated .When this white ,clean sheet is mixed with another race or colour it could be seen a 'dye' which once applied immediately takes away the 'whiteness' and hence even a trace of brown , yellow or blue for that matter has resulted in the clean sheet being seen as an 'off white' or a non-white.

As ludicrous as the analogy sounds this is what the thinking or lack of it suggests. With this logic any human being that is not completely apparently of 100% European , white stock,and particularly of the northern European type ,then that person is non white . With this premise we have the many people of mixed race , who having even a trace of recognisable African blood become excluded from the white group as it sees itself.

In practice the implications include outright racism , bigotry exclusion etc resulting in the person being part of the other group or 'black race' and more readily accepted by that group as the whole value judgement is held and imposed by the group that has political power and is thus perpetuated by the thinking of white people , a thinking that has influenced how black people see themselves .

But human beings are not linen cloth and in reality Obama is really as white as he is black , his mother is white , but logic becomes meaningless here and history has been made.
This perverted view of racial difference does not only exist between 'black' and 'white' races just described .One has only to look at the Indian sub continent where a phenomenon more ancient than the one discussed is where people are divided into social castes with boundaries set on various attributes according to race , religion, language or social background, with the result being an elite of very light skinned people who run the show and wield power and at the bottom of the pile the very dark skinned 'untouchables ' .

Another man of mixed race who has made history recently is Lewis Hamilton ,The youngest ever Formula One racing champion as well as being hailed the first 'black' man to do so. He was the victim of some nasty racist demonstrations when in Spain recently , where certain 'spectators' dressed themselves up with black ,ape-like masks and had t-shirts with 'Hamilton's family' printed on ,thus drawing attention to the fact that he has some black African ancestry and suggesting that this was also sub human.

How things boil down to this simple and poisonous black and white view of the world is quite disturbing .On the other hand as this seems to be the status quo, then by the premise imposed by institutional or historical racism, black people in response claim the glory of these two great successes.

When we learn not to see these issues or even need to debate them, then maybe we can have some progress.

The slogan used by Barack Obama in his presidential campaign was 'change' lets hope he does bring some political change to the very tarnished reputation that the incumbent imbecile George W Bush brought upon the United States' .Lets hope the unprecedented change that he has already brought in by being elected will continue .The related issues about how we define his racial category could also bring progress and 'change' to our ways of thinking .
But politics also is extremely complicated and nothing is as simple as black and white.

The Terror Against War

2008-06-15T22:11:00.003+01:00

There is a dread , a fear, an aspect of human nature that abhors the thought of being at war .We, as rational human beings like to believe that we are against war . Ask any decent or even indecent person you like. Go to the most hardened convicted murderer in a prison cell and spend a few minutes exploring this crucial philosophical debate and you will see that nine times out of ten you will find yourself agreeing that war is the most degrading , horrific, 'inhumane' (whatever that word means I can never understand) ,sickly , futile ,non productive , wasteful , cruel way of solving anything ,let alone bringing security or happiness to the people of the world. You will even find that if you speak to individuals who are members of opposing forces within a present conflict, you will again see the same truth. This may be a sign of hope? this is The Terror Against war .

So bad is our terror against being in a war or witnessing a war that quite recently , in the last decade or two ,our leaders have informed us that there are people out there that are against our way of life , our 'freedom and democracy' that they are trying to destroy us. This came to head when 2001 when several hijacked aircraft were rammed into the world trade centre buildings in New York and and other targets in America . Such an audacious and horrendous attack resulted in the grotesque and cruel deaths of thousands of innocents.This crime was watched virtually as it was unfolding on television sets throughout the world. This unprecedented attack on territory of the USA ,was the point where the terror against wars was transformed into a cause against such terror: this was to be the beginning of what is known as :The War Against Terror . With the war waged against terror , it was believed we would defend ourselves against terrorists throughout the world and thus ameliorate our terror against war once and for all.
The war against terror is still on .How one fights a war against an abstract noun such as 'terror ' is still a mystery . We are told that 'The International Community ' is united against these terrorists wherever they are and also any 'rogue' states that harbour them. Now The 'International Community' a very all inclusive term, a construct of many happy peace loving people, me you and our neighbours . This is us : The international Community , yet when this mysterious group decides to do something such as bomb a country it is usually a few lone figures from one of the few countries that are instigating all this defensive action in the name of this elusive force called the 'International community'
So we have an entity called the international community which is now engaged in a war against terror.Two indefinable, ineffable forces at war with each other .

The culprits of this major crime against civilians in New York were members of 'Al Qaeida' whose head quarters we were told was based in Afghanistan There was no
going back , the regime of the Taliban , an ultra orthodox ,fanatical ,fundamentalist Religious group of war lords running Afghanistan were blamed for giving safe haven to the leader of Al Qaeida : Osama Bin Laden.

October 7th 2001 ,was to be the first phase in this war, the main objective was , we were informed by our leaders and a compliant media , to capture Bin Laden bring him to justice and to wipe out all terrorist training camps which would prevent him unleashing any more mayhem.
Afghanistan was invaded , and the apologists of the war derided those against this war , it was 30th January 2002 that the USA announced formally that the Taliban had been ousted and defeated.

And President Bush of the USA as well as British prime minister at the time Tony Blair, USA's, trusty guard dog, supported a new regime which was also to liberate the people of Afghanistan and bring democracy to them.
Many of us were against the war , claiming that it would be long and drawn out , that Afghanistan would be a difficult country to conquer , after all history supports this claim, Yet we were wrong : in several weeks the Taliban was subdued and a 'Broad Based Government ' representing various ethnic groups and political causes was installed. This 'government' is still there. The leader President Karzai lives in fear ,in hiding , surrounded by body guards , mostly American marines , and he makes deals with various unelected vassals within the chaos that is Afghansitan.
The war didn't last long . Where are we now ? it is 2008 and the 'Nato Alliance ' consisting again mostly of American and British troops is still fighting an invisible enemy . The war against terror continues . Every so often we hear of fierce battles where our heroes fight bravely , defending our freedom, many have died there. The war continues and the 'Taliban' or who ever they are , whether disparate groups of bandits, angry men, al qaeida, mujahadeen , Islamist fundamentalists, Jihadis , rebels,villagers and their dogs refuse to be beaten by effectively what are seen as foreign occupying forces attempting to impose their will upon the local population .Meanwhile throughout the period of our war against terror , we did not in fact succeed in stopping several serious acts of terrorism throughout the world.These are just a sample of terrorist attacks that have happened since our terror against war had transformed into an all out 'war on terror ':

December 2003 - Istanbul, Turkey:
Attacks on the British Consulate and HSBC bank offices in Istanbul kill 27 people.

November 2003 - Riyadh, Saudi Arabia:
A bombing kills at least 17 people at a housing complex a few kilometres from Riyadh's diplomatic quarter.

July 2005 - London, U.K.:
A series of bombs explode in London’s underground killing at least 50 people.

December 2004 - Jeddah, Saudi Arabia:
An attack on the American Consulate kills five staff members and leaves four militants dead. The Saudi wing of al-Qaeda claims responsibility.

April 2004 - Riyadh, Saudi Arabia:
Attacks in downtown Riyadh kill 10 people.

March 2004 - Madrid, Spain:
A chain of suicide bombs on a Madrid train kill more than 200 and wound more than 1,800.

As horrendous as it sounds , these attacks and others no less devasting although not mentioned have all taken place after the the invasion of Afghanistan whose main purpose was to to put an end to this fear of terrorism and win the war on terror by bringing to justice Osama Bin Laden and thereby being able to live in peace with our cherished democratic way of life unhindered. So either we are losing the war against terror because its leader in not only nowhere to be found ,but his name doesn't even get mentioned as he sinks into insignificance .Or our armed forces and intelligence agencies are doing such a good job that without such a war on terror
there could have been even much more bombings. If the second argument is right , it is strange that our armed forces are fighting the: ' Taliban there ,to prevent them from fighting us here!' as our present leader ,Gordon Brown said only recently after a spate of killings where several young British soldiers , barely old enough to vote for a general election came home in coffins . Did the 'Taliban' ever attempt to indulge in international terrorism? it was within Afghanistan that they imposed their iron will and oppressive brand of Islam.Or has Al qaeida been replaced by Taliban?

So this war continues with its own momentum and it is clear that the reasons are next to meaningless the present middle Eastern 'Peace Envoy ' , Tony Blair , when prime minister , shortly after the London bombings took place IN 2005 ,was quick to rebuke his critics that claimed the reason for the bombings was our aggressive foreign policy. He shunned the idea saying that the fanatical muslim terrorist attacks had nothing to do with foreign policy as there were terrorist attacks before the invasions of Iraq and Afghanistan. He said this with what appeared such sweeping omniscient arrogance that one could even be mistaken that he was genuinely expressing his views. He had the temerity to tell us what Mohammed Sadiq , the London suicide bomber had in mind when committing his crime. Blair said it was 'nothing at all to do with foreign policy!' it was the work of fanatics that do not like our way of life with its freedom and democracy , that they want to destroy us.
One would think that a little notice would be taken of a misguided fanatic that Sadiq was in order to listen to why he did what he did. He clearly stated in his 'martyrdom 'video that the sole reason for his act of 'martyrdom ' was the anger of British and American invasion and killings of what he called 'his people'.
How ever warped and fanatical a killer he was ,it would be worth listening to and believing his own reasons for the bombings rather than the interpretation of them by a former prime minister, it must be said,who many believe had even less honesty than the brain washed fanatical bomber .

So the 'War on Terror' continues and the more one explores what is happening the more meaningless the whole campaign and how it is being prosecuted appears . Whilst writing this dozens of British and American armed forces personnel have lost their lives and hundreds of Afghans ,innocents as well as combatants.

We heard of the first British female soldier's fatality , Sarah Bryant , dead only several weeks ago. A young, bright , beautiful and well trained member of the intelligence corps. She apparently spoke Pashtu , one of the main languages of Afghanistan. The tribute her bereaved husband gave was heart rending.Yet the underlying message was one of acquiescence to the ruling classes and their doctrine. The humble soldier again lain to rest and called a 'hero' as if the trauma and meaninglessness of the wasted life has to be explained by the fictitious belief that this , yet this war was necessary and that the sacrifice somehow has saved us from the war on terror.
With all the respect in the world to the deceased victim and her family , she has gone ,a talented person ,with the ability of speaking Pashtu . Such a skill could have been utilised in such a different way, but alas the opportunities in the military gave her a job of spying on the enemy and arranging counter attacks etc.

The soldiers , their enemies and civilians continue to die ugly deaths in Afghanistan, and maybe , just maybe in some kind of quasi mystical , mathematical equation only understood by such a nincompoop as our present leader Mr Brown , the fact that soldiers are fighting guerrillas in Afghanistan today somehow has
prevented further terrorist bombs in London ,New York ,Madrid and elsewhere .
Or maybe the two phenomena are ,and always were ,totally independent of each other.

Boundaries are blurred , rhetoric revised , words in the English dictionary literally raped and their meanings murdered, such is the prosecution of the 'War on Terror ' and whilst this gerrymandering goes on at the higher end of the establishment , on the ground, in the front line of Afghanistan and in the imaginations of many people in western nations the 'Terror against war 'is getting more frightening and real as the sabres are being rattled once more against another nation called Iran,and the case for war is being made whilst the masses stand by and watch powerlessly .

This very day whilst finishing this piece of writing, 50 people have been reported dead after a series of explosions hit the city of Ahmedabad in India .The BBC world service radio reported that seventeen explosions actually took place in India ,and further more two other bombs exploded in Instambul , Turkey . It is proving difficult to keep up with the speed of this war......

Both the 'war against terror ' and the 'terror against war ' continue.........and merge into each other as fuel and fire .....

Fracture

2008-03-02T22:40:00.001Z

On Sunday morning 2nd March , I went to the local accident and emergency department of my local hospital, luckily it is a mere walking distance from here where I live.

I fell off a small step ladder no more than four foot (1.3m approx) from the ground , five days ago. I was installing a smoke detector in my younger son's room. He is 18 and so much like me , he smokes cigarettes and is fascinated and concerned about politics. So for the first reason , a smoke alarm was a must . For the second reason , well could be the subversive element in both of us that keeps us determined to defy a government's will .A government so fragmented in its ideology and behaviour that it is Fractured ; broken in the middle between its pretence to morals and the immorality of its actions. An authority hell bent on forcing us to stop the habit for which the smoke alarm is yet another ominous deadly reminder of .Yet this fractured government that is so benevolent it insists on protecting , not just us miserable smokers but anyone who comes several metres towards us within an enclosed public space and now even in open areas. The same government that does not think twice about waging illegal, immoral and extremely hazardous wars that are deadly to our own citizens , not to mention those lesser mortals, the inhabitants of wherever the latest planned invasions maybe.Yes it protects these people by going to war and forcing democracy on them by killing.

Yes smoking is bad, a cigarette apparently is more dangerous and morally inferior to bombing and smoking out , horrifically maiming and killing innocent people in their own land.
So in the process of successfully installing the smoke alarm as an act of organised resistance ,suddenly ,and almost as if being punished by the Gods , I fell .I landed on the side of my right foot with all my weight and felt the thud, it crossed my mind , as health care 'professional' , qualified , registered nurse and up to date first aid practitioner , that I could have broken a bone, possibly a metatarsal , remember that one David Bekham during a world cup game ? where the media wheeled on various professors of medicine to educate us heathen on the anatomy of a foot and how a where a bone can be fractured? I even knew the procedure of what to do i.e as my instructor once told me ' If in doubt ship'em out '(to accident and emergency hospital) as it is not easily identified whether the accident has resulted in a sprain or an actual fracture . I even knew that the immediate procedure use if it was a strain or sprain , which I hoped it was ,before 'shipping out ' to accident and emergency was the 'RICE ' routine: rest , ice ( apply ice to wound) , compress , and elevate .

Yet what did I do? nothing . I carried on as normal hoping that the pain would eventually subside and that the swelling would heal by itself. I carried on like this since last Tuesday , I cycled to work , drove a car, walked the dog , did my exercise all with carefully placing my weight on my heal or ball , near the toe, from time to time, accidentally bearing the weight on the injured part with sudden in take of breath. I got used to limping but after four days the damned pain wasn't going anywhere and bruising got worse, I began to fear that it could be broken , I feared the obvious , considering the force of the impact and my maturing years. Yet I kept on in denial for so long ,doing exercise with dumbbells and hopping on my feet, shadow boxing.

So on the preceding Saturday , I made the decision and after three hours at the hospital , mostly waiting , I was told by doctor on duty after he examined the X Ray , that 'You have been walking on a broken foot for five days' It was a 'spiral ' fracture of the distal metatarsal . And now I have one foot in plaster.
Now I have been told I have to have some time off work, I was so immersed in the stream of things at work that I found it difficult to accept this at first , I had the feeling that the appointments I had made and the vulnerable people that I work with , all had some 'dependency ' on my being there , a vain arrogant belief that the whole process of work could not proceed without me . A belief or almost smug satisfaction that people with mental health problems whom I closely work
with , get used to my services in particular and could not well manage without me :What nonsense!

So I had to go into the fracture clinic the next day and as the technician in hospital the next day told me as he was applying a heavier more sturdy coat of plaster on the foot :' Work will always be there , we won't .' And with this sage's advice I searched for the doctor on duty to write me a certificate of sickness.
'Three weeks enough?' he signed , and bang ,with crutches , I merrily hopped off home.

Now happiness is often touched upon in circumstances like this , I often question this concept of happiness and the more I do the less I get to understand the meaning of happiness.

I am not in pain and the injury is minor with no real nasty consequences, I have been given the 'sick role 'to play and can stay off work for a minimum of three weeks if I wish. So having informed my employers about this , I am now legitimately 'off sick ' . I now have all this free time to do as I which and so many t hings that I am in the middle of doing .

Yet this break , this 'fracture' of my normal , fast paced daily routine carried out in a frenzy has stopped .I have had at least some time to reflect . And now at last I have the time to do , at least for a period of two or three weeks , as I please. I should be happy.To not work, is one of the things I always thought would make me happy . But no, so far I have wasted time, I have slept long hours, read a little listened to the radio and the en slept again.So I don't really feel happy , this break has slowed me down and given me a listless feeling as if I should be doing something better but not having the motivation or usual mobility to do so.

I remember having an elbow injury about twenty years or so ago, I was in a state of panic pondering if I would be able to move my elbow again as it became totally immobilised for a few weeks. This time ,I don't have that fear as I still walk around to a degree. But that fear I had with the elbow injury , made me say to myself ,I know what happiness is! If I can be sure that my elbow becomes 'normal' again , I will be happy , all I want to make me happy is to know that I am physically fit and healthy.Definition of happiness equals ; my elbow making a full recovery .

This played on my mind for weeks until eventually my elbow injury eventually healed and guess what ? I had got over the feeling of what happiness really was .But for that short period where my whole arm was not moving and tied up in a sling, I honestly felt that I knew what happiness was, it was the hope that I would be back to normal and able to move my arm, I did not want anything else and that would make me happy I thought . But it was not true , it lasted for a few hours once I recovered. Another thing about happiness is when seeing another much more unfortunate individual and making oneself feel 'happier ' in comparison. On the occasion of the elbow injury , I remember seeing a a man in the accident and emergency department without a hand,he must have lost it in an accident. And shamefully , I consoled my self by comparing the triviality of my injury with his. This made me 'happy' So my happiness , is created by the misfortunes of others? Very strange , and even cruel ,that in many of us there is this need or urge to almost celebrate others' misfortune when it can affirm the relative fortune that we have and may not have had the sense to appreciate .

Very strange : I can be happy because somebody Else's circumstances are so wretched that had I shared them , then I would have reason to be unhappy ,hence I can make my self 'happy', i.e My happiness is commensurate to the other's unhappiness.
Surely this is a shallow happiness ,as is the other type , the short feeling of relief when realising that I can move my elbow.

Now this time, How did happiness or one's notion of it play its role? I don't know , maybe this time , I did not feel so demoralised that I count the seconds for my cast to be removed so that I can walk normally again , I have the belief that this will happen. Also I did not take satisfaction in looking at the less fortunate, maybe I have matured .

Yet the break from work has not made as happy as I believed ,I am after all genuinely unable to work, but able to do a few things or activities as hobbies that I don't get the time for normally .Yet I have lost most of my motivation and feel almost redundant, never thought I would.Yes this fracture of , busy working life and housebound rest and convalescence/idleness has made me think that happiness is not easy to define .Is it momentary bliss? , ephemeral and not lasting therefore impermanent and unreal? Or is something that can only be assessed at the end of one's life ?when things can be seen in perspective. If so it has already fallen into the past any way ,and no longer present or real .
Neither should Happiness be defined by what seems to be the misfortune and unhappiness of others. More importantly it appears that any preconceived idea of what happiness is ,becomes meaningless, and that when the circumstances imagined arrive to some extent , we can be left wondering where the next fixed ,false notion of happiness will arrive.

This break of the metatarsal seems to be giving me a very long and unproductive fracture of normal everyday life, and in doing so I am beginning to think maybe I was 'happy' before the break , with my mundane, anonymous , tedious life of accepted routine, although I know that I won't really be happy when all returns back to normal. This dilemma of the 'Fracture ' somehow cannot really go away .

Boar war

2007-12-23T18:11:00.003Z

According to a report I heard last night on the radio ,there was an incident somewhere in France yesterday where a wild boar apparently attacked Christmas shoppers. It found itself inside a shop and charged at everyone in sight . I didn't hear of any death or injury of any people caused by the military manouevre of the tusked creature, but the mayhem and chaos it created must have been quite awful .

There was one death though ; that of an animal .The panic provoking pig was eventually shot down and killed 'In in a hail of bullets '.

It happened in Poitiers , a town in western France, inside a clothes shop .Customers and staff were evacuated whilst the 90 kilo (198 lb) beast chased armed police officers who pumped more than thirty or so bullets inside it before it eventually fell.

No one seems to know how the animal found itself in the store .According to Forest officials it must have roamed away from a country-bordering area where some boars were being relocated to their natural habitat .

The Wild boar or Sus scrofa is quite a powerful omnivorous creature . It has been native to central Europe and especially the Mediterranean countries for thousands of years .The male of the species has teeth or tusks that can grow up to twenty or so centimetres (around ten inches ) .If cornered it can defend itself quite effectively against humans . The female might have smaller teeth but she is known to put up a very stiff resistance if her young are interfered with.

Recently wild boars have been reintroduced to Britain and because of the demand for their meat , there are farms which breed and rear them under special enclosed conditions.

I don't know if this Porcine Prowler of Poitiers was such a boar that had escaped. But what was reported suggests that they live in the wilds out there . I'm not sure if in this country , our local boars are allowed this freedom ,but do know that some have been released or 'liberated' by animal liberation activists in the past .

So this seemingly ,disorientated ,terrorist swine could have just lost its way . Must have been confused and even scared.... And what does it do ? it goes on the rampage.

I guess if I were there and it charged in my direction , I suppose I would have been grateful for the gun toting Gendarmes for saving my skin . Yet somehow
looking at it from another point of view, I can't help sympathising with the pig .
Lost , dazed and confused it falls into the hands of the dreaded human pack ,who being very unforgiving ,will destroy the inadvertent urban guerrilla with impunity.

Billions, yes literally billions of its brothers lined up passively in slaughter houses after several months of incessant torture in the 'factory farms' would be cheering if they could rationalise about their plight . They would be cheering their heroic brother who stood up and fought the enemy bravely, only to be ultimately shot down by their cowardly and immoral overlords. Many would even queue up to volunteer like four legged Jihadis , to have died in his place with a bang ...

Yet the Porcine Spartacus spectacular cliche is nonsense .Many so called 'animal lovers ' tend to over humanise or 'walt Disnify' the whole truth .The boar appears to be a wild creature , that seems to have some predatory instincts and its 'brothers' in the 'holocaust' like farms cannot sit down and plan a Marxist revolt .

But still , is not that the reason why so many so called 'fanatics' do all sorts of cazy things in defence of these animals? The very fact that having half a brain can help one human deduce that when a pig's skin is pinched :'ouch!' it hurts like it hurts us? , and because it appears to be true that they can't speak for themselves , cannot organise themselves or make any collective protest ,
someone must?.

I would hate to have anything to do with humans if I were a stray boar .Moreover I would try to do away with myself immediately, if I were one of its less fortunate and less ferocious ,incarcerated brothers .

Good Bye Uncle Mario

2007-11-17T11:40:00.002Z

Buried Uncle Mario yesterday. It is stating the obvious ; but it needs to be stated that funerals are so damned sad! Especially within the Greek Orthodox church
Uncle Mario was a cousin to my late father Constantine .
They knew themselves as first cousins although no blood ties exist ,as far as I understand my paternal grandfather and Uncle Mario's mother were both orphans who were brought up together in the same household in Cyprus as brother and sister. And from that tie Uncle Mario's sons and my brothers have always known each other as cousins.

Uncle Mario must have been one of the first people I remember as a relative in London when we arrived here in the late 1950's. He was always technically gifted , worked in electronics , used to service Dad's Power amplifiers and seemed to be able to turn his hand to anything technical . He seemed able to build a house or a car by himself. I also have fond memories of being driven home by him in a Morris Minor in the sixties , must have been my first experiences of being in a motor car. Not many people used to drive in those days.
Drifted apart from Mario himself in the last years but kept in touch with his son's George and Mike . He had a severe stroke some years ago and lived as a disabled person for many years ,his wife having to do everything for him. I never visited him then ,so I still have memories of him being very able.

As agreed the night before , George, My brother ,his wife Sue and Mum came over to my place at about 11.00.AM to pick me up as the funeral service was to take place at my name sake: Church of St Demetrios , Town Road , Edmonton , London N9 .

When we arrived Uncle Mario was already boxed up and laid out on trestles in the church alter,a priest and backing vocalists chanting the funeral rite in Byzantine
style. Incense was being burned and every so often the priest swung his lantern in the direction of Mario's coffin the mourners , at least hundred or more did the sign of the cross on their chest. I no longer take part in this and just stand or sit motionless. Having decided long ago that I don't recognise any church ,or its Hocus Pocus ,I feel it right only to go so far with these rituals .

The priest was an English man I was informed , he gave various parts of the sermon in Greek and English . Long after the funeral I debated with Sue this conversion to Greek Orthodoxy seemed bizarre , we agreed that it is mystery why anyone would be attracted to joining the Greek Orthodox church let alone work for it . To convert to Buddhism or some branch of Hinduism seemed kind of normal for a westerner , but Greek Orthodox we agreed seemed strange.

So the priest chanted and chanted , George told me how much he did not want to leave his mortal coil in this manner, so impersonal and generalised only several references to the deceased man's name with the emphasis on 'Christian' (If I remember , Mario was an atheist....... ) . I replied that I agreed and we better both make it clear or we may get this treatment by default .......How can one ever rest with such a send off?.

The main gist of t he priest's chanting was that Now , Mario had 'gone to sleep' which seemed not to express the Greek word which is used for death and sleep somehow. And when he kept on repeating that Mario has just 'gone to sleep 'it reminded me of the explanations the very young infants get when a family member dies. This prompts the next question , will he wake up then? And yes, the priest continued in the Typically Greek Orthodox depressing and repetitive manner to state that Mario had gone to sleep but will wake up. We were comforted by the notion that when Christ comes again in glory , those who believed and did not sin will reunite with their bodies (spiritual bodies) and have an everlasting joy in heaven ....I'm not sure it was heaven or earth as there seemed some contradictions in what he was saying , also although the sinful will be excluded from this club , they too do have a last minute choice to sign up and what do you know? their mischief or evil deeds will all be forgotten and we shall all be happy.............Not very fair for those that tried hard never to sin all their lives . Hold on ! what's that ?, It's Uncle Nick ,Mario's brother (affectionately known as 'Red' for his passionate Marxist views) , He got up from his seat , shaking his head and tutting in disapproval , then walked out of the church in an almost stage managed kind of manner .I almost laughed out loud for a minute and thought that would have been excellent to record on my video camera phone.

Eventually the chanting stopped ,the mourners lined up and had their turn at paying last respects . As I walked past , I touched the coffin , kissed it , and thought , good bye Mario , just thinking about what he meant to me and how long I have known him. We moved on to kiss the closest family members and offer condolences .

Next was the journey to Southgate Cemetery , Just pondered on how many people I know that are buried there ....... strange to think that I know so many there and that many others will end up there . I must make sure that I don't end up there , just don't really like the idea of taking so much space and having so much running costs. Must get this written down one day . I was chatting with Sue on the journey there ,about cardboard coffins and forest funerals , I did hear about this and sounds like it is the funeral of choice for me. ( this is beginning to sound like a will) , must look into that one again and make a proper will and finish with all this putting it off .

As we parked in the Cemetery , I could hear Irish Auntie Josie who long ago has already purchased a plot there . I could hear her say : 'Look there's so many people moved in !' as she had not been there for a long time and noticed new grave stones everywhere . The whole thing sounded like some kind of property market ..( I couldn't help imagining the shades of the dead coming out at nights asking each other whether they had got a good bargain for today's prices ).

So Mario was lowered to the ground and that's when the weeping was heard the most , his wife had cared for him many years in his long lasting moribund state, yet the separation was audibly painful . The sons and some others lowered the coffin to its ditch and again the priest waved his incense and chanted prayers as we took our turn in walking by and throwing in some Earth. This moment was the most emotionally tense and the atmosphere turned quite morbid .

After the coffin was lowered to the ground , the atmosphere lightened somewhat and resembled the day's weather which was , cold , dry , bitter but covered with a pervasive brightness. Halloumi cheese , olives , Cypriot bread and St John's Comanderie dessert wine were dished out and people chatted , it was an opportunity to see some cousins from this part of the family that I had not seen for years .

An hour or more at the cemetery and the convoy eventually headed for Auntie Christina's house (Mario's widow).It was only about a quarter of a mile away from my own house and it just occurred to me now that so near yet , all those years , I did not visit . I should have , maybe before he got the massive stroke , as people don't really want to be seen by everyone in that state (if they can make such a decision that is ) yet in reality I know that I would not go there as that's just the way things are , we are destined to meet with many people of a wider circle only in weddings , christenings or funerals.

The house seemed quite small and over crowded , the atmosphere was relaxed and I could see how Mario's wife had over come for now the major part of her grief for today and had time to smile and chat . There was plenty of food and drink and after an hour or so , I got restless and started to nag the driver to get going . George was in the conservatory , or back garden (that's where people who commit the deadly most evil sin of smoking a cigarette go) .

We said our good byes and left . Mum George and Sue came over to my place for a coffee and eventually left,it must have been coming on to four o'clock in the afternoon, what a long day . All I wanted to do now after feeling so drained was to
'go to sleep' but not in the sense that the young priest used the phrase . I did intend to wake up a few times yet before I get sentenced to being a living dead man without a body waiting for Christ and hoping I did join the club at the right time! . It still doesn't make sense , the meaninglessness is no clearer , the make believe can help as long as we convince ourselves that it is not make believe , for the rest of us we are cursed for having our own minds.

Good bye Uncle Mario .

Remember Remember November 11th

2007-11-11T11:26:00.000Z

Today is the 11th of Novemeber : Armistice Day ,Far as I remember it commemorates the cease fire of what was called the 'Great War' agreed on: ' the 11th hour of the 11th day of the 11th month '. It was in 1918 that the barrels
of the western front stopped firing , yet the actual peace negotiations continued I am informed well into 1919.

Now today we are reminded of the sacrifice our people: or forefathers made for our freedom . We are told by campaigners and government officials , that this is not a celebration of war but an aknowledgement . Yes it is important to recognise the appalling predicament these people were in and the the horrific circumstance that many died under and others endured . Yes, we must recognise this and give a minute's
silence in thought , contemplation and rumination .

Yet I can't help seeing some meaningless absurdity in of all this . The pomp and ceremony seems to perpetuate the myth that all was about good versus bad and we are now free from the enemy's clutches. The filthy politicians will place their wreaths on the Cenotaph in London ,holding back their tears and stiffening their upper lips. The Royal family contingent will be wearing feathers, brushes , pinned jewellery .... and carrying swords ...
yet : Balderdash! all of it Balderdash ! ,with no offence intended to the veterans . The first world war was a dispute between aristocratic blood relatives at the expense of millions of poor people . To think only of 'our dead 'is to miss the point , I will be thinking of all the dead from opposing armies in this pointless war . I won't go into the subject of world war two,which is a different matter , but today the masters of ceremony and the rulers will also be mindful of the bizarre situation that only yesterday if I am not mistaken , a British soldier was killed in action , fighting in Afghanistan !
What was this about ?,Did he really die for our freedom ? did he die for anything? I am sure our rulers will fit his and many of his recent comrades' deaths neatly into the the belief system they promote , regardless of the fact that the people ruled by the politicians may not be in favour of this war : So the recent heroes or victims , have again died for the freedom of citizens of which a large proportion do not feel listened to about the current wars in Afghansitan and Iraq. Many soldiers have expressed their resent to the military adventures of this Government which seems to have been annexed long ago by the USA and partly by the E.U.

So we will hear stories of how men (and women now) have fought bravely for our freedom so that we can express ourselves enjoy our way of life and ultimately have no more wars.....and at the same time these criminals will get back to the office taking their orders directly from their American superiors to plan the next bloody
war !
So tell me what did anybody die for ? for us to be governed by a rubber stamping parliament ,obedient to the whims of Washingtons's war mongers?

We need silence to think about the importance of this and the fact that real democracy still needs to be fought for within. May peace be with you too.

Remember The Fifth of November ?

2007-11-06T08:48:00.000Z

It has been a long time since I entered into this blog. The meaninglessness theme will remain . But due to lack of any real feed back and shortage of time I have decided to make entries even shorter and hopefully 'sweeter'.

Yesterday was 'Guy Fawkes night' hardly ever spoken of now in official circles or in the popular press. The fire works still go off but for what celebration or anniversary few people seem to know or care about .

Guy was a catholic who attempted to blow up the Houses of Parliament in the 17th century . I just read recently that some have joked that 'Guy Fawkes was the only man to enter the house of commons with honourable intentions '.

Well I can't help agreeing partly with that . Guy Fawkes never succeeded and was caught together with his fellows all of whom had a horrific session of torture followed by a grisly death .

The main inspiration for the plot was one of rebellion against the persecution of catholics by the regime of the time. Seems always to be the case that protestants or catholics have been -persecuting eachother .Who ever had the most power would treat the other badly.Shame on them both Christians! So glad I'm not taken in by all their rubbish , Maybe one reason for low profile of this celebration could be its offence to the catholics . No more effigies seen of Guy being burnt in the streets of London . Having been resurrected for burning every year for so many hundreds of years it is time he earnt a rest, he has more than paid for his crime

Well there are some in the houses of parliament who could do with a little Guy Fawkes remedy , those war mongers would be blessed if they got a suicide hug from a modern day discontented citizen . But Justice does not always show her self .
Rest in peace Guy .

To Blog Or Not To Blog

2007-07-29T19:31:00.000+01:00

That is really the question . I have not written here for a long time . The main reason my enthusiam has dwindled is two fold : one is because there is no damned feedback . Nobody reads my blog , or I guess most people don't read most people's blogs . Some blogs get very noticed but in my experience , the vast majority like mine for instance are totally ignored or on very rare occasions visted by other neighbour bloggers who happen to surf by .

The Neo Dictatorship

2007-05-30T08:22:00.001+01:00

There is no doubt that we are being dictated to in this country , which prides itself on freedom of speech and democracy. Yet although these high ideals , once associated with this great country once meant something , The mainstream political process has become devoid of any meaning and the plethora of authorities which preside over our daily lives have become increasingly more oppressive .

This type of Neo Dictatorship is very unlike the Brand of Hitler , Mussolini or even Stalin established in the last century , all of which ruled by violently devouring all opposition and maintaining power by instilling fear in their subjects and physically punishing or killing them if they stepped out of line.

No. That model of dictatorship although much more cruel and destructive , by definition was destined to fail at one point . The brand which seems to be spreading in most modern so called ' liberal democracies ' is outwardly more benign, pretentiously 'caring ' and 'progressive ' yet very insidious and all powerful . sometimes spreading its policies by manufacturing consent by subtle deception . One does not need to give examples , the current war this country is entangled in speaks for itself. This brand of Neo Dictatorship is spreading its tentacles by the day and changing the way we live by the minute. The alarming thing is that many of us are unaware of this happening and that most of us have not chosen to elect this ruling political party !

The mainstream political parties on the whole in this country have little difference in opinion or policy whether this is home or foreign policy . To be fair to the liberal party though , they did object to the invasion ,and the botched up failed conquering of Iraq.Yet does this party belong to the mainstream ? Although one of the most important political parties of this country's history , the Liberal party is effectively a fringe party , with due respect to genuine Liberals .

The number of eligible voters who have turned out for the past few general elections has been quite small .

In the 2001 General Election, Labour won 62% of the seats with 40.7% of the vote. Taking into account those who did not vote, that meant 24.2% of people eligible to vote, voted Labour in 2001.

In 2005 Tony Blwar's (misspelling intentional ) New Labour party won again despite the fact that only 21% of the 44 million electors supported his party - a record low in British electoral history.

Now given that we have a government whom only 21% of the eligible voters voted for , a figure which I am informed is lower than the percentage who did not bother to vote let alone the figure that voted for other parties . One can only conclude that we are governed by a group of usurpers that 79% or the majority of us are either passionately against ,indifferent to, or totally oblivious of! Yet this ruling party which some say has given away our sovereignty to two other bigger entities namely USA running foreign and military affairs , European Union controlling home affairs. If that is the case why do we have so many rulers in parliament when they are not wanted in the first place ? And apart from the hot air they puke in parliament and on TV Screens their job is a foregone conclusion predetermined by the real powers mentioned .

Yet in reality even if it is only a rubber- stamping or administrative , propaganda and law enforcement power they wield , by the Gods they wield it with impunity !

Now having established that we are living in an oligarchy( a word often misused by the current media to denote a group of wealthy Russian gangsters , but really means government over the many by the few), This oligarchic satrapy consists of various layers including local mini-dictatorships called councils . To these councils the main ruling party bestows various powers : for example to punish mostly law abiding individuals who have perhaps exceeded 30 miles per hour in their car on occasion ,or have dropped litter .

The councils have been given increasing powers to punish individuals and raise revenue for various of their pet projects .
Recently ,according to the forthcoming total ban on smoking cigarettes, the general ruling party has ordered all businesses and other establishments to display NO SMOKING!signs everywhere , there will be fines if this is not done .

Imagine a business man .(sorry!or woman ):although most know I am using generic terms here , the 'thought police ' of this regime may well indeed pick me up on that and accuse me of Chauvenism although they don't know me . I will continue , A business man on his own premises : say for example a publican who smokes himself and employs staff that smoke ,are aware of the dangers , and also informs the public that this is for people who don't mind the smoky environment . If this publican ,after 1st July 2007 ,when the law is enforced , is seen allowing a worker or customer to smoke ,he will be fined . So whatever your views on smoking , this is quite scary .

The very early prohibitive policies that Adolf Hitler introduced in NAZI Germany were in relation to banning smoking in public places .......So whatever your views on smoking , remember,whatever your favourite vice ,obsession or peculiar ,personal freedom is, respect that others have their own ,and fight for all to be accommodated , because next....:They may come for you !

Kidnapped Sailors

2007-04-09T19:24:00.000+01:00

It has been in the headlines for the past four weeks or so . The kidnapping of 'our boys ' and one girl we were continuously reminded by the journalistic side kicks of the government.
.

How do members of the armed forces in military uniform , thousands of miles away from the home land they are purportedly sworn to defend , get themselves 'kidnapped'. According to the Iranian military the sailors were in their territorial waters.
Mr Blair 'the Omniscient' was seen early on in the crisis outside his digs in Downing street stating categorically that there was no doubt that the members of the armed forces were in Iraqi territorial waters in which they had every right to be in . He as well as his miserable assistant the Foreign secretary Margaret Becket who appeared somewhat flustered over the whole affair insisted that in addition to the above 'we were there in Iraqi waters under a U .N mandate.' what ever that means .

So the affair unfolded throughout TV screens and propaganda sheets throughout the world as st he public and the cynical manipulators of their opinion got heated .
Many were heard stating over the airwaves of radio phone- ins: Bomb the Iranians !
It's hard to believe but I heard a growing intensity of belligerence toward this crisis, which by now had been dubbed the 'hostage crisis ' in the nation's propaganda press.
.

Now were they kidnapped? this implies that they were abducted for some kind of gain . Were the Iranians going to demand money for the hand over of the abducted? like a mafia gang kidnapping a rich child?. Or was it a hostage crisis. The fifteen hostages to be executed within a time limit if some impossible demands were not met?

How ludicrous This became . Now whether the fifteen were in or out of Iranian waters was immaterial . They were close. And for a country that is being threatened by the major military powers of the world ,that country would be a little defensive . Imagine if we saw a Chinese or Russian vessel outside the territorial waters but a little close and in our opinion , having no right to be there. What would our peace loving leaders do . Probably the same as their Iranian counterparts.

So as the debacle intensified , various hollow threats were made by by both sides and hey presto , just several days ago all the 'hostages' were released ostensibly by Mr Ahmadinejad , without condition ' as a gift to the British people ' .

Blair the 'Omniscient ' looked utterly humiliated and defeated by a tin pot tyrant who came out with an air of patronising confidence throughout.
Blair was literally speechless on his TV appearance when the release of the 15 was announced .
.

Some back stairs diplomacy could have been used , it's unlikely that what the public was fed through the TV and newspapers was all that took place .

The fifteen were apparently treated 'surprisingly humanely' as if we some how have the assumption that all that are not British or American are barbarians , regardless of history and current affairs indicating the contrary.

So the latest in this 'hostage/kidnapping ' case is that after a debriefing by their military masters ,the service people will be allowed to tell their story to the hysterical press for a gullible public for vulgar sum of money .....couldn't get any more bizarre could it?

Now what conditions did they sign with the Ministry of defence before being giving its blessing? you can reach your own conclusion .

But one thing is clear when military personnel are sent on missions of conquest , occupation and possible espionage or infringement of countries near those they occupy , then after capture they are termed 'hostages' and 'kidnapped ', it proves that we really are living in a very extraordinary world where language is charged with political motives where public disinformation is paramount for our leaders to continue in their mischief and in the process endanger the countless lives
of other people as well as our own service men in the process.

This is something which continues to escalate in the recent years with little or no opposition . So what next ? invade fiji on a pretext that they are planning to destroy the world and when we are busy ' debating ' this , we can forget the most recent outrages . The sooner we get rid of this one party state system and make politicians accountable with some respect toward democracy the better.

Art and civilisation

2007-03-10T12:43:00.000Z

Its comforting to see that the arts are so respected . Especially the visual arts,my favourite medium .And indeed one where I am but an insignificant , minor , unrecognised but persevering practitioner in .
Our great leader Mr Blair himself was seen having a photo shot with some paintings by one of our all time greatest painters : Turner .

Mr Blair , two days ago posed with his enormous grin in front of this powerfully atmospheric sea scape in London's Tate Gallery and was quoted to have said in support of arts that they serve the purpose of :' ....Enriching peoples lives and their communities '.

Very comforting . The fact that somebody appreciates a great work of art makes one have an affinity with the other's finer judgement and transcendent leanings to the higher sensibilities ......

Again this morning as I read my favourite propaganda sheet ; the Guardian , I read about another man who judging by the painting on his wall was an art lover .
Yes this man : Terrence George Adams , reportedly leader of the most
feared gang of criminals in the country was jailed for seven years yesterday for a charge of laundering one million pounds . This apparently being the tip of the iceberg. According to the report , Adams was a ruthless criminal whose fortune was in millions supporting a lavish lifestyle for himself and his family . Police bugging devices have recordings of him graphically boasting about the removal of one his enemy's knee caps: 'His knee cap came right out there....all white ,Dan , all bone and white ..'

So this Criminal waved a salute to his wife and went down into custody yesterday
whilst the case on him gets bigger , hopefully his sentence gets longer on other charges so that he can rot whilst his fortunes wither or pay for his costly court case . Yes ,well maybe he can start some kind of art appreciation society in prison or something like that .

So two powerful men , both lovers of art , this is a sign post to some kind of higher human evolution surely ? But no .

Power , however transient is what both devils have had and used with violent consequences .

The major difference is that Blair has what some sociologists call 'legitimate power' and Adams the 'illegitimate '.
Ultimately it is the same thing as we do not have a society led by politicians that use this power morally or legally in certain cases.

Hopefully the other bigger fish or an art lover may one day be brought to justice and we can have a growing art lovers' movement down there in the cells , it will definitely be a civilising force ,maybe we could call this new movement: 'Bully ism'.

Anti war Demonstration February 24th , 2007 ,London

2007-02-26T19:20:00.000Z

Well I actually did it. I attended a march in central London to demonstrate about things I have been angry about and felt that the government not only does not listen or care about but is actively in favour of causing serious mischief in .

I had been increasingly worried about the possible bombing of Iran . I have been getting a recurring feeling of 'deja vu' where despicable politicians from USA , Britain , Israel and their minions have repeatedly made noises about how the leader of Iran is so much like Adolf Hitler and that he plans to 'wipe Israel of the map ' and of course if that is part of his plan for Israel , imagine what he has in store for the rest of these poor and under prepared super powers ?

Hitler , 1939 was in charge of a military super power of his time , he did invade many countries and planned to dominate many others with an institutional policy of racism of the worst kind. But what these despicable politicians are saying and what is echoed by a bland and docile media is false , Iran has never in its modern history invaded any countries and neither did Iranian president , Ahmadinejad threaten to destroy Israel . Those who would seek various reputable or varied sources will realise that this is a fabrication similar to those used by Goebbels :' A lie is only a lie but if repeated enough times , becomes the truth ' . How ironic that the very same people that cry 'Hitler is coming ' are the same rascals that mimic Goebbels.

It is incredible ! I heard a top journalist on radio speaking to an American politician who was virtually advocating the possible air strikes on Iran repeating this mantra about Iran's leader wanting: 'To wipe Israel of the face of the map' and the journalist not challenginging the veracity of the statement. This is the lame media of the BBC world service , you can imagine what the traditional jingoistic right wing press and pro Zionist outlets have gone to town with .

So, amidst the distortion of the truth it is hard to single out exactly what is happening ,It would be wise to look for various sources and see their views. It becomes abundantly clear to me anyway that , Iran is no threat to Israel apart from maybe her military supplies to Hezbollah or other shi'ite factions in the region . And so what?; allies tend to help eachother . The US and Britain both stood by, did not call for an immediate cease fire whilst they watched children burn in Lebanon from the fire of an invading Israeli force. But not only that ,the scoundrels were supplying the highly equipped Israelis with more ammunition . That is the outrage.

So we seem to be being prepared to acquiesce as passive witnesses( albeit with carefully censored and selected visual information) to another example of American terrorism of the worst sort. At present there is a military build up in the middle east with American air craft carriers close by . Some independent journalists are saying that what the Americans want is to destabilise Iran so that it can disintegrate from being a unified ,sovereign state ,that they are encouraging rivalry amongst various ethnic groups in order to instigate a regime change and 'hey presto! ' oil , gas , military pathways etc are theirs .. But hang on , things are not that easy are they? look at Iraq ? . it's hard to believe , but although I may be deluded or reading the wrong reports , these criminals are planning again to do some bad things in the name of greed and generally to acquire wealth for the few rather than the many .

So I attended the 'peace march' . Nobody would come with me , nobody ,and I was wondering whether I should really go or not. but I did , I arrived by 12.00 at Hyde Park Corner. I felt lost and out of place being one of the very few loners their . I looked odd, not holding a placard or wearing a badge or distributing leaflets of my favourite cause. I ended up being herded into a line on a road within Hyde Park , very orderly and heading for Trafalgar Square .The crowd was ushered into a straight line of a width of at least 6 or seven people by the official stewards . It didn't look enormous to me but I could not estimate the size. I could not see the front. I waited standing , not talking to anyone , I wanted to be alone somehow in this crowd as I had come alone ,I wasn't in the mood of 'meeting wonderful people and making friends' but there was an implicit feeling that all present were friends and although I had pictured an event in my mind that could attract pickockets and other like minded scum , I was pleasantly surprised to see a genuine mix and match of all ages, classes, political persuasions and races all having some reason to be there in an atmosphere of friendliness and respectfulness.
Some had placards of 'Bush the world's greatest terrorist' others were definitely 'ban the bomb ' people of Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament ' campaigning against the governments's recent decisison to renew the Nuclear submarine fleet known as Trident ,and various other causes .

In fact this variety did lack a specifically targeted common cause for a campaign and I guess that's what made it lack much collective passion and outrage to focus upon . However some youngsters were banging drums continuously to a 'Ba boom ba boom !' rhythm and were well coordinated , others were shouting into megaphones :'Come on everybody dance to this ; War what is it good for - nothing !' This song from the eighties being revived by a campaign supported by the renegade former 'new labour ' MP George Galloway .

I had been motivated by what I believe is a gradual process of public desensitisation by the government, right wing press and other hangers on ,in preparation for another major assault on a foreign country ;Iran .
I eventually found a placard with 'Do not attack Iran' and held this all the way to Trafalgar.

I waited a long time until the orderly mob started marching proper . We moved like a large snail . set into motion at about 1.00pm . I was getting inpatient by then but got to enjoy the various spectacles . Endless groups of inviduals desperately handing leaflets of their causes to who ever . I bought a copy of the 'Peace Times' for 50p and accepted leaflets for so many different political causes that it reached a fatigue level and I couldn't care less any more about 'jews against Zionism' , 'The Twin Tower Conspiracy ' the 'socialist Worker ' 'The Bolivar Revolution ' etc etc. I started refusing and saying ' Thanks ,I already have one' as they nodded in approval .

We continued to walk and after about what seemed like an hour but must have been 40 minutes ,I had just come level to Green park tube station . I could not believe it and thoguht to myself , well at this rate I won't be back in time for my afternoon
nap which I usually like to take at about 2 or 3 o'clock . But then I reasoned that this was a worth while cause and how selfish was I to compare my little nap to the real horrors we here to denounce. I passed 'Grosvenor House ' a big office block
where 34 years ago I started my first job as an apprentice telephone engineer ,the company had a meeting base at the basement of this building , how I had a flash back of arriving early one morning and getting a little too comfortable whilst waiting for the rest , had begun to doze; they never let me forget that , I eventually suffered the ignominious sacking after struggling for a year or so trying to be 'the apprentice ' ; Bastards"!. Such a long time ago I thought , what a young , confused boy I was, I needed understanding not mocking . A long time ago that was.

I left the unhappy memory behind and cruised along Park Lane or Piccadilly,whatever that road is called , I have walked past there so many times and thought to myself : this is were I belong , this is my home town , I was born in Nicosia but I don't have the same connection as I do here , I always feel a pang of excitement in my bones when I walk up the West End , where ever I have lived in London over the past forty years or so , that was not my place , not Burnt Oak , Manor House , Crouch Hill ,Edmonton , no the only constant was the love of travelling to the West End .
When I went to live in Cyprus in 1992 , It was the West End that I missed.

But this walk in the West End was different , I was the traffic , the road had been closed off for me to walk on instead of being used by the motorists . The cars had to wait for me and a few thousands of other faceless VIP's to carry on the march, get to the destination and then allow normal traffic right of way .

So amidst the thousands or tens of thousands of heads and shoulders , I looked up at familiar buildings , statues , restaurants , book shops etc, all from such a strange angle never before experienced , alongside the somemwhat eccentric jumble of activists made the whole view surreal . I was just staring at the buildings with loudspeakers blaring , drumbeats thumping , young girls' hips gyrating and me plodding along with a placard and mixed up thoughts of past present and future.

One thought whilst listening to a group in their late teens discussing the march and their anger againsts the government made me think, how slow I was again ,taking me forty nine years to get off my bum and join in a mass protest rather than staying at home and fuming .

By four o'clock or so we had reached Trafalgar Square , it was peaceful no bad incidents seen , no problem with police etc . We had made it . Placards were
discarded into piles on the floor as marchers watched the large video screen which projected the image of various speakers including George Galloway MP . A Spokesman for the 'Muslim Initiative' said many things about the misrepresentation of Muslims and how true Muslims will protest ligitimately etc. George spoke as usual in his rabble rousing manner , always worth a listen . He seems quite hated , many boo'd him as he spoke . there was a live link up with Bruce Kent, leader of CND who in my opinion made the best speech which in essence was:'think for yourselves ' don't just listen to the rubbish spoken around the corner in Whitehall etc.'

After I had listened to a few speakers , I did feel that the atmosphere was somewhat dead-beat and that the turn -out was a disappointment ,yet figures seem to be a matter of opinion in these marches , I would make a very crude guess at 10 thousand , but can't be sure .

I left , as I saw others trickling toward the Leicester Square Tube station .
This way I thought I could avoid a crush movement under ground . The trains were crowded, but I got back in good time with no complaints or major discomfort apart from exhaustion . When I returned home I actually thought it was worth it , just to show and be part of the expression to our leaders of the oligarchy that , 'you are not listening and you do not represent us, get that? I also managed to get two hours late afternooon's sleep .

The next day I watched some videos of the march on the internet posted on u-tube , Brian Haw, the man who is permanently camped outside parliament was the guest speaker that seemed to attract the most applause , his message was simple and a little blunt , almost naive ,peace not war , love etc , but many agreed and applauded . Seemed a little like a mascot of the left or the dissidents to me . A token allowed by the oligarchic system to demonstrate that big brother does love us all and cares and even allows limited protest outside its front door providing it does not get out of hand .

Well I hope after all this , that Iran is not attacked . Some may read this and think it's a naive notion because Iran may get stronger and stronger then turn on all of us and be able to destroy us all . I think that notion would be more naive and that an attack on Iran would be criminal. I may be wrong but time will tell .
Peace be with you .

Pigs !

2007-02-20T23:01:00.001Z

After this , I will no longer use that expression . Come to think of it we generally use such a term in a derogatory manner to describe one who is rude, insensitive , cruel or evil ; all very common and potent human attributes, not necessarily traits of the pig . It demonstrates how egocentric and psychotic our own human condition is .

How often have you seen or heard of a group of pigs , capturing , imnprisoning , torturing and executing another species for food ,clothing and other products and services which , in this age of technology , it could be argued, we could do without . Diogenes the great cynic philosopher used the phrase 'Thrice human ' for those he thought were lacking in any moral fibre or integrity . He got it right two and half thousand years ago .

How often have we seen pigs turn on their own species in large numbers and attempt to wipe millions of their own kind off the face of the earth ? I don't think they are a perfect species and I understand they can show aggression to eachother at times but to a miniscule degree compared with us smug humans .

I have been a life long lover of eating meat , amongst my favourites being a variety of pork dishes . However I have often had battles with my conscience every time I hear from animal rights activists that eating meat promotes and perpetuates untold cruelty throughout the world . I would think about it at times and then shove it to the back of my mind as I munched on a pork chop . It was too much of an invasion of my comfort zone to take action , even a little difference could be worth while. I even got close to working in a slaughter house when I went to live in my birth place , Cyprus in 1992. So much was my cowardice , that I knew deep down that if I took on the job offered to me in the abattoir , I would be so uncomfortable , seeing what went into providing my bacon , or pork kebab on the table for that matter, that I could of had to bring my meat eating days to a halt then and there . But I enjoyed it too much and refusal of the job allowed me to carry on without thinking. I continued like this for years, thinking about it at times but not making a decision . This year at the turn of the hour that brought in 2007 I was thinking again that I must do something as I have always admired those that choose not to eat animals .
So at the turn of the year returning home quite late ,I was hungry and demolished a tin of corned beef like a heroin addict .. Ahhhhhhhhhh,. Then I said ; tomorrow , I must and will do it , and so far, since that day , I have managed to keep away from eating mammals or birds , I feel quite proud of myself as I thought it would be impossible, still I have moments where I reminisce but over all I have found good substitutes for meet and still eat fish( that's another debate altogether) which I cannot enter into right now . And in my conscience I feel better and a little truer in my own self. I still can be accused of hypocrisy as I am wearing leather shoes and still eating meat of another sort but at least , that's several hundred pigs less for slaughter , and a little less hypocrisy .

Pigs are seen by some to be possibly the fourth most intelligent species after , humans, apes and sea mammals such as dolphins . Having had a pet dog for the first time in my life has made a difference I often pondered as I looked him in the eyes thinking how many millions of such eyes stare into the humans' eyes who do our dirty work for us in the factory farms. It is totally incongruent that we in the western culture deem cats and dogs as almost holy or sacred yet slaughter millions of their equals . This is exactly how we have been adjusted with little questioning .
Having stopped eating mammals and birds for almost two months , I felt a little more curious to search the internet about these animals . I was shocked by what I saw , for example a group of people in a third world country slaughtering a pig in the most gruesome , drawn out and agonising way ,leaving it to squeal and groan for minutes as they incompetently pinned it down and butchered it ..I had to stop viewing . I also saw another video , where what appeared to be some kind of 'celebrity ' chef showing, how he humanely and painstakingly reared two pigs all the way to the day he took them personally to the abattoir and watched them being slaughtered in a reputable establishment whose manager assured our 'celebrity' that the pigs 'did not feel a thing. ' , to be fair to our TV cook ,he did look emotionally involved and needed reassurance to believe what he saw.

The very strikingly surreal moments in this mini video were first , the filming of the last days of the pigs, as they were treated like pets in the chef's garden . The Tv cook was saying on their last day as he prepared to cart them to the abattoir that:'They normally run up to me to greet me in the mornings' they remained in their kennels, although it was drizzling lightly ,he said 'I don't think it's the rain , they must know something'. Thats the tragic side to it , that he felt they knew , however he was at the same time talking about the dishes and exciting recipes he was going to produce from them . The other bizarre moment was when the two carcasses had ceased twitching and had moved further down the production line , having seen them removed of all hair and been disembowelled , he spoke of various culinary delights as the camera drew close to the two features that distinguished these two strung up pieces of pork from their dead peers ; they still had name tags tied to them :Elizabeth and Harold .

Pigs !

'I am not a Racist'

2007-02-04T01:44:00.000Z

'I am not a racist ' This phrase is often heard nowadays , normally as an introduction to making some comment which may involve judgedment or criticism of another racial, cultural or religious group .

It was often repeated in the recent debacle on the so called British Channel four reality show of 'Celebrity big Brother ' when a young lady who has by the way become a 'celebrity' solely by appearing on a previous series of this show, Jade Goody , now a household name was accused of making racial remarks against a fellow contestant , Shilpa who apparently is a super star in India's film industry . Now I didn't watch the show but that wasn't even necessary ,for all the media and even the serious radio stations and newspapers had the antics of these characters as their main news story,it was difficult to avoid.As if not to broadcast the adventures of these 'celebrities ' the news station or newspapers might lose their readership or viewers .

So this Jade person together with another female contestant did some bullying and in the process made racial comments against Shilpa. I believe on one occasion she referred to the Indian actress as' Shilpa Pappadum'.

The radio stations and newspapers went to town and Jade was accused of racism even by the show's presenters , to which she bitterly protested :'I ain't a racist!' and cried as she said this , she stated that she 'takes people as they are '.

So what is racism ? , I would like to explore . I would think it is on an individual basis the belief that another race is inferior to one's own or of lesser intelligence or moral worth, or something like that . On a collective level I would say it is the outright opression or attempt to dominate , persecute or wipe out another race .

Now most people can be accused of racism if we take the first definition ,suppose I was to say I don't like the Swiss , does that make me a racist ? I guess so. I state that I don't like the Swiss because of they way they talk and their eating habits disgust me . Is this not my right regardless of government legislation. Is this not more a xenophobia , of which I believe is the natural human condition ? Most of us if honest find ourselves surrounded by a group of people speaking an unintelligible language amongst themselves , eating strange food and behaving in a manner which we are unfamiliar with would feel a little strange and possibly phobic .This does not mean that I would like to arrange a mass extermination of the Swiss people? Of course not ,it would probably mean I am a little ignorant of Swiss people and somewhat bigoted . If I got to know a Swiss person and became great friends with that person I would learn about his or her language and customs and might even become lover of the Swiss . On the other hand I could even get married to a Swiss person and still not really like the Swiss way of life or mentality although I would no longer be ignorant but somewhat bigoted or opinionated . So this type of racism although very widespread could be considered innocuous .

On the other hand supposing I had come accross millions of Swiss that had just immmigrated to this country looking for work and settlement . I might see them as a group that presents a threat of taking my employment opportunities and using 'My
Country's ' resources . And although I am an immigrant myself having been on the receiving end of this view myself , it could still be a possibility . Now if my xenophobia developed to such a degree that I joined a nationalist party that is dedicated to getting rid of these people in a violent manner , then what would follow if this party got into power and started to literally wage war on the Swiss immigrants would be real racism , a very dangerous thing .

So using the example of the Swiss seems quite sanitised as they as a group are quite affluent in the world and if anything are not known as immigrant workers or as an indigenous group that has been invaded. If we make the same comments about another race for example Australian Aborigonese , Jews, Indigenous Americans or Afro Carribbeans then it becmes much more emotionally loaed , sensitive , complex and explosive .This is because these people in history have been persecuted with real racism and are still feeling its consequences in today's generations .

Now lets come back to our original example with the two local white English girls making some derogatory comments , targeted at the Indian contestant's race . Well if race was used in the bullying process , this we could call 'type one racism ', the type that is near enough impossible to erradicate . It is the type of agression that would have been targeted at a ginger haired person or obese person , just down right cruelty targeting the victim's personal attributes whatever they may be . The 'type two racism' of course is the ugly face of racism. It has not only taken its place throughout human history and in the past few centuries but also continues to this day .Take the plight of the Palestinian people , a group occcupied in their own land , living with the utmost humiliation , degradation and under a racist regime imposed by the occupying state of Israel , which seems , with the support of the powerful western imperial nations to dominate every aspect of these peoples' lives crushing any organised military resistance with maximum force and devastation . This is racism , And I really wonder if this is our natural human condition given similar circumstances .

Yet even under this aggressive, destructive and institutional racism of the above example and many others throughout the world there is still a trace of hope as many Israeli citizens see the reality of this madness and struggle to influence their leaders' and their fanatical patrons to change some of their policies .And many Palestinians would want to make a settlement without the use of indescriminate violence .Some Israeli soldiers refuse to serve in the army for this reason alone . The killing that goes on between the two groups of this conflict creates fear and hatred .There is little choice for the Israeli or Palestinian , involved in this conflict to say 'I'm not a racist' ,Whatever an individual believes in this situation , it is 'us or them' , people are dying around them , they have lost relatives and friends, they live in fear of their lives taken by a stranger. So in this example when a group is threatened by another there is fear and suspicion of the other group, this could develop into denying the weaker group civil rights , the rest is the history of mankind; war , suppression ,violent resistance and revolution .

So when I hear people state 'I ain't a racist' , it means nothing. This is a cliche with the notion that:'There are good and bad in every race ', is so pointless , and begs the question . Of course there are good and bad , or likeable and less likeable people of all races but this has no bearing on what these good and bad people would do when the battle lines are drawn and often the battle lines are drawn between race , religion , region or political affiliation , regardless of the personality traits of individual members of either group.

So racism then is very difficult to define , it is true that at its ugliest it is when one group of people persecutes and attempts to eliminate another , on its most harmless it could be a person not wanting his daughter to marry a person of a different race . The one is abhorrent the other could be seen as bigotry or even by some as a freedom of choice and right of opinion . The danger is when the latter type escalates into the former and when people develop the belief that one group is inherently inferior to their own and that it is justifiable to exploit them , peresecute them and ulimately wipe them out . This is truly dangerous and could be the reason that the political correct legislators of the western quasi democracies
make even the utterance of a comment as mild as Jade's unacceptable . The 'thought police' having from their own point of view , good intentions , have taken away from us the freedom to think the unthinkable ; for whatever is good or bad about us we will ultimately have bad thoughts about people , sometimes even about their race without paradoxically wanting to exterminate them or consider them inferior, But Alas the Orwellian thought police of the political authorities have terrorised us to such a degree that when someone like the rich fool Jade says 'I ain't a racist ' you can see the look of fear on her as if to be branded as such ,she is signing a contract to being lynched.

So racism is a complex subject and should in its most dangerous form be unacceptable but to define it and to erradicate it is difficult as the cntradictions above show . Sadly it is not going away, for as our serious news stations are debating whether Jade is a racist or not and how terrible racism is , our good leader is sending more troops to Afghanistan and is maintaining others who in Iraq are risking their own lives to occupy a nation that was no threat to us : An aggressive, illegal war waged on citizens of another country ;That's racism , some must be accountable who are they ?

Andrew Adams is Innocent!

2007-01-13T18:31:00.000Z

Andrew Adams ,36 , was freed from jail yesterday after spending 15 years incarcerated for the murder of Jack Royal in 1990 . Adams was 23 years old and Royal 58 at the time.
After 15 years of imprisonment Adam's conviction for murder was quashed by Lord Justice Gage , Mr Justice Silber and Mr Justice Treacy . They ruled that 'criticisms and failures ' relating to the handling of Adams' defence and specially pre-trial had rendered the verdict unsafe. The defence at the time failed to prepare their case properly and did not give the jury the opportunity to hear important evidence about Kevin Thompson the main prosecution witness , which would have undermined the cae for the prosecution .

So Adams is free, and who had heard of him up until now ?, I certainly haven't. I guess the case must have been very high profile at the time , at least there was a good coverage on his release.

Cases like this can be very alarming and can put the abolition of the death penalty in good light .

Now Adams, according to the report by Karen Mcveigh in today's paragon of independent reporting and truth ,and possibly the best of a bad bunch of propaganda sheets The Guardian , was originally found guilty of killing Jack Royal in a 'gangland style shooting ' .The murder was said to have been a revenge attack for the death of David Thompson (No relation of Kevin Thompson) who had been fatally attacked by Royal ,the 58 year old retired science teacher, in a street fight in 1987 . It was alleged that Adams and John Hands (also acquitted of the same crime ) , were persuaded by Catherine Thompson , the dad man's sister to murder Mr Royal . She was also acquitted of soliciting murder. This travesty of justice followed a failed attempt to prosecute a Mr Walter Hepple for the murder of Mr Royal . The other irony to this case is that Mr Royal himself had been acquitted of murdering Mr Thompson ( a former business partener of his son) , Royal had been cleared of murder, and after two trials it was ruled that he acted in self defence .

It seems to get complicated . An innocent man though, adheres to one story however ridiculous or ignored , The truth sticks and is one whereas cunning alibis and lies are many and constantly changing. Good luick to Adams , I hope he gets the conpensation that he deserves. His only regret was that his mother was not there to witness this moment , as she died whilst he was still in prison.

Adams reported that he had mixed emotions and that he had to wait 15 years for the result he should have had in the first place. he thanked his current legal team and also expressed sympathy for the family of the murdered man Mr Royal as the killer is still at large.

The Chief Superintendent of Northumbria Polce ,Steve Bolam, refused to comment as he stated he had not yet had the opportunity to study the findings.

It is quite shocking how in a country that prides itself on its standards of justice , that this could happen . But when corruption sets in at any level of the process it is not difficult to see how one can be swept away , have an ufair trial and suffer the ignominity of languishing in jail for years for a crime one did not commit There are many ways this has happened especially in cases that are politically motivated . Remember the cases of suspected IRA members being falsely imprisoned . It was the Bradford , Guildford and if I remember clearly Birmingham groups of indivisuals locked up after falsified evidence , confessions taken after beatings by the police etc. SoundS like a cAse out of the annals of Amnesty international . But truly there are many ways a false conviction can be successfully upheld .Much depends on the competence of the defence or prosecution rather than the integrity of the jury .

justice has not been done,because nothing can compensate for those 15 years .Lets say that injustice has been slightly thwarted and the man has not been left forgotten like many others we have not heard of in this country and possibly hundreds of thounsands in other countries that languish in prisons within regimes that do not even pretend to value true justice , democracy or human rights .

Irrepressible.info

2007-01-07T01:22:00.001Z

A Happy New Year to all our readers!
.

The Irrepressible.info campaign continues to be hosted by

'The Meaninglessness of Life'

Also try our sister blogs:

'Pellas: The Incomplete works'

'Gallery Seventy Five '

and

'Me and Deo '

You will not be disappointed .A few people have visited after a promotinal campaign but not one comment!

It's good to have freedom of speech and privacy.

May Zeus be with you .

The Editor .

The Death Of Saddam Hussein

2007-01-02T19:24:00.000Z

Well it eventually happened , the so called government of Iraq , after a 'trial' decided to sentence Saddam Hussein , the ex tyrant of Iraq, to death for his guilt of crimes against humanity with regard to events that took place after a failed assassination attempt on him in Dujail in 1982.Specific charges included the murder of 148 people, torture of women and children and the illegal arrest of 399 others .

On November 5, 2006, Saddam was sentenced to death by hanging. On December 26, Saddam's appeal was rejected and the death sentence upheld. No further appeals were taken and Saddam was ordered to be executed within 30 days of that date. The date and place of the execution was secret until the sentence was carried out on the 30th December .

It was a globally public execution . We were bombarded with footage on the mainstream tv channels of Saddam Hussein having the noose placed around his neck by masked men . These images were repeatedly broadcast with no further scenes but that of the noose being placed around his neck . After the execution took place , footage from mobile phone video cameras was 'leaked' or released on the internet .This showed his executioners taunting him and the trap door opening , and eventually his body laid flat . I let morbid curiousity get the better of me and though I have never viewed anything like this before over the internet , found it very distasteful. The irony for his enemies though was that however much of an evil ruthless dictator the man was, he did appear to face his final moments with what many would hate to admit was dignity and courage .

So the Iraqi hand-puppet show of a democracy apparently carried out the whole farce , (not the USA military of course ). Yet the media tools of the establishment although pedalling this myth as if it were true , in the same breath kept on repeating that Saddam Hussein was 'handed over ' to the Iraqi goverment for execution . What was the U.S. military doing 'holding'him and doing just about everything else to him up to now?

So he is now dead , after a very dodgy trial to say the least. Now what many people with some common sense are asking themselves is why was the man put to death so quickly and why was the main charge that warranted the speedy death penalty , with respect to the victims, a relatively minor crime compared to the bombing of Halabjah and gassing of 5,000 Kurdish villagers of i988? .

Why wasn't he tried for this major mass murder ? Could it be because the American , British and many other governments would have been seen to be complicit in these crimes by encouraging , arming and generally doing business with him for their own interests against the bogey man of the time , Iran ?

.

Well it looks very much like it to me. Imagine Saddam being asked by a neutral judge (if that were possible)to testify in detail about these crimes and why he perpertrated them , and with whose help ? Of course it would be very embarrassing eventhough the major criminals ; his paymasters would still not have any shame whatsoever. They are a total disgrace and if they were to go to the gallows themselves for what crimes they are responsible for , I doubt if they would take it in the neck as bravely as Saddam did .

Does not this show to the world if anything that killing and state execution is barbaric full stop?

Surely it would have been more appropriate and civilised to maintain this criminal alive in a prison for the rest of his days? I wonder whether the implications of complicity not withstanding , that this is what America and and its British subsidiary really wanted ? For now the anger is raging thoughout many quarters of the Arabic speaking world and not necessarily because they are supporters of Hussein. There is a bigger principle here and it is to do with the demonstration and abuse of an oligarchic power that knows no rule of law outside its own agenda.

What unfolds next in Iraq is anybody's guess , the 'Crusaders' of peace justice and democracy have their attention on Iran at the moment. Regardless of the immense amount of suffering they have caused in Iraq , the scoundrels are beginning other plans and are gradually starting to dress them up with the same clothing via various sound bytes and mantras ,repeatedly chanted by their media , just like the clothes they wore last time!

A public demonstration is being arranged against these warlike intentions sometime in London this February . I never go to demonstrations like this , but due to the extent that our oligarchy has gone to in not listening to its subjects , I am
seriously considering to make an appearance.

Goodbye Mike and Manos

2006-12-19T22:26:00.000Z

Goodbye to Mike Dickin the Talk Sport Radio presenter . I was shocked to hear that he died . I heard this today. He was involved in a six car pile- up yesterday and it

was reported that he died on his way to hospital in a helicopter.
What a shock . He was part of my life style.
Uncle Manos was buried yesterday .. I did't attend the funeral . He died about two weeks ago whilst on holiday in Egypt,his birth place. Manos was found dead in a hotel bath tub., no explanation, and an autopsy was not carried out by the Egyptian authorities . Manos was about seventy seven , the same age as my father Costas would have been had he not died five years ago .
I did not have a special relationship with uncle Manos . I guess he had bad relationships with most people: blood relatives or otherwise. I remember Dad didn't like him much . He was divorced many many years ago and remained quite bitter and depressed . Often appearing at family parties late and hungry. He lived a lonely life and what struck me was that he seems to have died a lonely death. May he rest in peace.
I have to admit Mike Dickin was a bigger loss to me . I used to look forward to listening to his show on Friday and Saturday nights, and when it was time for bed I would put my ear plug on and listen to his angry , passionate and entertaining reactions to the meaninglessness of the experiences he and listeners recited as well as the absurdities of a regime imposed by the elected government ,both
central and local branches alike.

He used to analyse the behaviour of the mini dictatorships known as local councils . How they delighted in taking people's money for parking vehicles against their rules or other even more bizarre and trivial offences. He would invite guests on the show who would be expert in how to take on the wrath of these mini despots and not give in to their intimidating tactics. He was a champion in this field of standing up to the nasty behaviour of jobsworth government employees.

When it came to political ,topical or more philosophical issues he debated excellently coming accross with a balanced view; neither too far to the left or right of the political spectrum . What I guess I admired was his cynicism or should I say realism. About politicians and their like . He also had a love of straight forward decency and expressed the anger and frustration shared by millions of listeners about the sheer stupidity of how the law and its minions affect our everyday lives .

He was not blinded by manipulative nationalism and although a proud Englishman shunned the values of being over patriotic to the point of allowing one'self to
become bigoted.Neither did he fear to challenge the exaggerated political correctness of the day and confronted callers about their own perceptions of their
religious , racial or political identity.

He was an unashamed , self confessed outright atheist defying the self righteous who claimed the moral high ground purely because they proffesed a 'faith'.

I did not know him personally but over the years he revealed quite modestly a lot about himself . He was a family man , loved Cornwall and had a life of varied achievements . I hear he was a musician , sportsman aswell as knowledgeable on all aspects of motoring . He seems to have travelled to most parts of the world and in conversation would occasionally mention as an aside ,within an appropriate context,his acquaintance with all sorts of interesting people , political demagogues as well as so-called celebrities . And he wasn't afraid to broadcast publically if he thought a particular character, however 'important ' or 'famous', was a 'pratt'.

It's a great loss. I tried to express my condolences to his family via talk sport e-mail as the station has opened a condolence book in which admirers were able to write their comments. Unfortunately it seems to be jammed . I have given up with that but felt drawn to write in this blog instead . It must be a shock for his family , his children are quite young although he was in his sixties according to BBC reporting .

It is a real loss to his close family , but also to his wider family many who like myself invited him in into their homes over the weekend .

Good bye to both . Uncle Manos who seemed quite unhappy with life. I hope he is no longer unhappy.

And Mike , seemed ,although to be angry about many things in this life , somehow knew how to get some kicks. I hope that if he was wrong about the existence of God , that he is treated with the utmost respect by all the immortals of Hades. He would be as good a catch for them as he was a bad loss to the living .

His most used catch phrase was 'My health is not in question '.And that is ironically so true now.

Goodbye

Promoting the Brand

2006-11-21T19:19:00.000Z

In the beginning it is meaningless: Totally bewildering , you have seen this on the expression of a very young child, new to the world . You don't even comprehend a thing and go on strenuously learning by dropping things out of the pram or tasting things that shouldn't be eaten.....Years pass ... you learn and then you begin to question things and get to the heart of examining this existence. Still no meaning and of course you can then like many before you: conform by borrowing, stealing or even inventing something meaningful about your life : It helps. Buying some 'meaning' off the shelf, accepting ideas of others who purport to know the enigma of being : An answer you were striving for . You can carry on like this for a long time until the meaninglessness returns , looms and reveals itself and leaves more mystery . Eventually life comes to its end , a glimmer of revelation the opportunity for you to make some sense of all this meaninglessness and see what it was all about :Alas! you will not be and therefore not able to acknowledge whether your life had any meaning at all , let alone conclude that there was any meaninglessness either .

Mr Blaiunder ...........blunder ?

2006-11-18T19:15:00.000Z

Breaking News

Mr Blair was, I am told by news programmes over the radio , interviewed by David Frost .The Interview was for Al Jazeera news station.That station that the U.S bombed during the Iraq invasion because it was squeeling to loudly : freedom of speech ?

Anyhow the old fossil Frost (About time they replaced him , aeons ago when I was a still a child and he was already an established TV presenting mogul ),suggested to Blair that the war in Iraq had..........'So far been pretty much of a disaster '. Mr Blair responded thus :'It has . But you see,what I say to people is :"Why is it difficult in Iraq?", It's not difficult in some accident in planning ,it's difficult because there's a deliberate strategy - Al Qaida with Sunni insurgents on the one hand, Iranian backed-elements with Shia militias on the other - to create a situation in which the will of the majority for peace is displaced by the will of the minority for war '

Please read his reply analyse every statement , think about what was going on in Iraq then and what is going on now , what Blair said the war was about then, and what he is saying now and what is actually happening now, then draw a conclusion about the facts and the amazing man himself ....has he conceded or has he got a little mixed up , dazzled by the shine of the journalistic , avant garde fossil?

Or merely just not bothered any more as its close to the time to hang up his gloves of real mass destruction and commence his tours of universities and 'give '
extortionate after dinner speeches........( save some crumbs for the victims Tone!)

Hanging In The Balance

2006-11-06T19:42:00.000Z

It's official , the life of the former dictator of Iraq is hanging in the balance.
Saddam Hussein was sentenced to death by the Iraq 'government' yesteday .
He is to hang . He did prefer death by firing squad we are told , but no longer wielding power and ordering others to their deaths or being waited on by servants in one of his palaces , the former despot does not even have the luxury of his final choice in the menu of death .
The question really is ; 'Will he swing or sing?'.
Either way it could be troublesome.

If he swings on the end of a rope, the analysts are telling us his Sunni supporters will elevate him to a martyr and inflict countless more atrocities thereby destabilising the fragile 'democracy 'even further into chaos and mayhem.

If he sings, this could be equally disturbing. for his lawyer is already lodging an appeal . If this is succesful ,I imagine further charges will continously be launched against him until he is finally nailed down . But then he will have so much to sing about when various details of his previous crimes come into the open. He may well implicate various good guys who encouraged him along in 1980-88 in the war against Iran. The real weapons of mass destruction (Not the imaginary ones),the weapons used agianst his own citizens . Who sold them to him ? when and why? . He will have lots to say .
Either way then if he swings or sings , things are not looking good for the beleaguered people of Iraq and the board room Guerillas of The White House or Downing Street.
Now If he is eventually executed , how will he or his magnanimous victors Bush and Blair be entered into the sewage of history?
The Iraq /Iran war , a million casualties? from reliable sources. The persecution of his own people included for so many years of his reign. The figures could reach tens or hundreds of thousands it is not clear .
His adversaries though when considering the assault on Iraq using the most powerful weapons of mass destruction during the war to liberate Kuwait , the interim , the second invasion of Iraq in 2003 and all that followed , have exceeded him .
When one includes the suffering imposed indirectly whether intentional or not , one must be a fool to not come to the conclusion that America and its European province of Britain has caused more death and suffering .
Remember that we live in a world of selective reporting and sophisticated spin by devious politicians who dress up military imperialist acts of genocide as 'humanitarian interventions'. The facts are out there if one is willing to look for alternative views from reliable sources ; Unicef ? The Lancet? to name but
a few of the more establishment orientated ones for those that do not trust the brilliance of 'lefty ' commentators such as Pilger ,Fisk or Chomsky.

In conclusion , I can only make the following analogy to describe how all three scoundrels are related.

Remember that excellent film by Copolla : The Godfather? picture these elegant mafia dons, dressed smartly , seated in their plush offices , offering warm Italian hospitality to their adversaries . They speak of lofty virtues such as : family values , honour , respect .....and being a 'reasonable man'. How superbly portrayed by Marlon Brando . When the battle lines were drawn and there was a conflict of interest between major gangs ,the killings happen...men are machine gunned down whilst in a wedding or funeral , others are brutally stabbed by gangleaders' henchmen. These lower ranking henchmen and thugs often in the story , after serving their purpose as paid assassins , would be then bumped off themselves for security reasons. The poor buggers were vitims in their own right, sacrificed whilst the mafia dons in their suits regained power and restored 'order ' to the community.
Well, in the dumping ground of history all three of our players will be there : Bush the Mafia don , Blair the close and trusty junior partner of the family business , then The great tyrant himself in the role of the cheap , hired ,expendable thug whose fate is to be bumped of ......swinging after he helped to settled the score .
The devastion of Iraq is a big crime , Saddam is guilty but the price paid by his people at the mercy of their liberators is much higher than can be imagined or dared to be made public by a dishonest system of 'Free press'.
Saddam's life is now hanging in the balance but millions did not even have a fair trial.

Iraq inquiry

2006-10-31T19:18:00.000Z

This very moment in The Houses of Commons ;those chambers of splendid debate and oligarchic virtue where we find ourselves in a:

' World of appearances where what appears to seem true is not equal to how the truth seems to appear '
(Pellas 2006)
There has been a a call for another inquiry into the trouble that won't go away from Tony Blair and his minions: The horror that is the Iraq war.

Obviously Mr Blair himself must be shivering up where his spinal chord should be as members from the Scottish and Welsh nationalist parties are calling for an inquiry.

The party faithful such as The foreign secretary Margarety Becket said there would "come a time" to learn lessons from Iraq, but this was not it. There was a danger of "sending the wrong signals at the wrong time" and appeared to set a deadline for operations, she said.

Blunket that other almost obsessionally allied and uncomfortably close colleague of Blair's mumbled something equally stupid:That inqiries going on would lessen the morale of our soldiers . Standard stuff.

It's amazing how the people with real blood on their hands seem to talk so passionately and defensively about our troops like they really care . It's so obvious that their support is one of condescension and manipulation , to keep the poor , dispensable foot soldiers feeling important and irreplaceable (which they are to their families but not to the likes of our leaders).

This very minute I hear the 'debate' or mumble on the net on a well known radio channel run by the government .I gathered the 'Ayes' were beaten by the 'nays' I am not sure I have fully understood what's going on . I will have to comment again later when I have it clearly reported on the news again . But if it is what I think I heard that the majority of MPs voting , again did not have the gumption to challenge and bring down these gangsters by not voting for the motion..... then I really do have to lose faith in the virtues of our beloved oligarchy .

May they sleep in peace .

Stern message about climate

2006-10-30T19:25:00.000Z

There has been lots reported on all the media stations about the 'Stern Report' .
This individual who is an economist by trade has released a lengthy document warning us all about severe climate change if we don't all change our ways now.
The economist who is a 'Sir'and a highly renowned government spokesman made comments on how climate change , if we do not control emmision of green house gases, will damage the economy by 20% .
There were all sorts of dramatic and alarmist predictions spun off this report by the usual media pundits.
Devious cynical,politicians also quckly threw their tuppence worth in and were echoed on various TV stations chanting : 'Green Tax !' this ,apparently the answer often reached by our rulers. If something is being over used e.g cars, aeroplane journeys ,(Which politicians use more than the average man in the street), then tax it and it will go away .
Everything has to be so punitive , like punishihng naughty children .
Coming back to climate change . All of a sudden it is real and is with us because a member of the establishment has said so .
When organisations such as 'friends of the Earth' or other independent minds warned years ago , there would be a wise answer from ruling elite to dismiss all this . Yet now it is legitimised , not only that but we have to pay.
Why didn't these leaders impose limits on industries who were making quick profits with no thought of tomorrow? Still today why doesn't the government chastise water comapanies for example who waste more than a third of the water supply which they do not own by the way?
Why , to give a very simple example do beer companies not recycle beer bottles and give incentives to the puiblic by reward rather than punishnent : by giving a small deposit on an empty ? Why indeed doesn't the government force the companies to do so? Because they are part of the same oligarchy which serves the interests of a few.

You See there were various ways we could have at least slowed down this disaster. Also there could have been ways the government could have acknowledged its reality earlier on rather than avoid the issue then discuss it like an asteroid coming to hit us today .

And of course the punishment of it all! ...For example on a smaller scale , there was discussion on the main propaganda stations about teen drinkers. teenagers are binge drinking and endangering their health etc etc. The politicians then of course found a good solution , which was to increase taxation on alcoholic drinks !
How innovative , clever and effective !
So people prepare yourselves for more punishment by this oligarchy. Prepare yourselves for taxes that are : green.
Prepare ;yourselves for the repeat of the same old , same old punishment , which of course does not reach the privileged. But take heart that this punitive tax will be Green .

Run Away !

2006-10-27T08:11:00.000+01:00

I remember years ago , my favourite comedy team: Monty Python's Flying Circus'.
Sometime in the early seventies if I'm not mistaken . It was totally out of this world,the first time I saw it . It was a mixture of surrealism , absurd humour and pure anarchy. It used to be introduced thus : 'And now for something completely different: It's Monty Python's ........' Superb comedy I watched it when I was a teenager .Well ,after the Monty Python team eventually disbanded , each went their own ways and made their own niche somewhere, John Cleese being possibly the most successful. Others became very obscure .One of my favourites was Eric Idle. Nowhere to be seen ......suddenly I hear he has produced or directed a west end stage show : 'Spamelot' ,I wish him luck ,maybe I should go and see this ?.
So as the original Monty Python show ended some major films were produced by the team , the most popular possibly being 'The life of Brian ' a spoof on Christianity , or more likely society's response to a religious figure. Other films were also produced .
I can't rember which film it was but there was one where the noble knights or renowned warriors were heard every time a confrontation with enemy occurred , to say : 'Run away !' as they retreated , I found that hilarious and so honest !

Well our government in America and its department in Britain have decide to 'RUN AWAY !' from the war in Iraq. After years of repeating the mantra; 'Our brave boys will stay in Iraq until the job is done !'(they have forgotten what the job was ) .
Well now it's 'Runaway!' time , just like Monty Python. Yes the bumbling clowns in charge of this miserable project to 'liberate ' Iraq are now even blaming the victims and I hear statements from our U.S government and its local branch in Britain saying things like : 'It's time the Iraqi 'government ' started to take more responisibility so that we can leave them to it.'
'RUN AWAY!' It's official our brave boys are to be instructed to start running. Of course it will not be expressed this way by our devious , obsequious politiciians. But it's amazing how this disasterous operation is ending in tears. Too many of our soldiers are dying . This is the reason . I believe that at least ninety Americans were killed in the last month . That's what hurts, public opinion starts to affect the leaders' opinion. But when Iraqis were and are still dying at a rate of a thousand to one or more that doesn't matter , didn't matter.......they are successfully transformed by media pundits and sly politicians into what John Pilger calls 'Non people ' .
Run away ! Sadly it has the ingredients of a Monty Python master piece .
Cause a bloody mess , destroy millions of lives of many nationalities , waste of human resources and wealth that could have been used for a better cause ....then have the the audacity to :

RUN AWAY !

'Celebrity 'child

2006-10-17T18:46:00.000+01:00

Whata day ! hated being at work today .I have resorted to clock watching ; one of my favourite past times when I'm unhappy at work . Most jobs I have had in mental health nursing have been challenging, sometimes over bearing but also periodically rewarding. This number is a sinking ship with staff turning over before they can even jump off! A culture of bullying and a holier than thou attitude from above .

The highest of the pecking order almost act like celebrities ..
What is it with these so called 'celebrities '? 'Madonna adopts child from Malawi'.
The child's biological mother according to the press died at child birth . The father is still alive but cannot afford to keep the boy ,who is called by the Goddess herself David .

There were snippets of film on the 'news' stations showing the celestial body herself swirlng around in 'spiritual harmony ' with a local African woman : how basic ? how down to earth and primeval 'In sharing this dance the Goddess demonstrates as she deigns to shuffle hips and breasts opposite her host ,that
through dance we are all the same '.Yes!she is only a simple person herself really .

Now did Madonna really want to help the poor people of Malawi live a better life?
Did she really want to satisfy her motherly instincts ?
Or did she want to fuel her starhood with hydrogen and helium in order to shine brighter amongst a fast growing galaxy of equally shallow peers.
Or did she simply want to acquire a plaything which she could observe inherit her magical , superhumnan qualities and become a newly born star and be able to observe him as she grows old and say to the world :'I created David'.

I really don't know , but let's say the child was adopted because

1)She wanted 'to do good 'Well this one is a non starter for beings of her status and material wealth can do much more 'good' by digging into their pockets and donating appropriately to the community in Malawi and encourage some activity or service which sustains itself and benefits the community . In short she could have given the father enough of a start in life to at least enable him to bring up his own child.
2)I cannot believe she wanted to adopt this child so much because of her motherly insincts , for there was a report that David arrived in London airport this morning
in the arms of a 'nanny ' . So quick was the bond that the Madonna already has got the dog's body in . And what ever happened to Madonna's biological child .? Does she meet up with him/her ?
3)Okay let's go for the publicity . Maybe she didn't really want so much publicity any way? Yet I am sure she enjoys seeing the clip with the 'Malawi dance'again and again ........'what about new album?....African theme...........'You can see the ageing red giant of a burnt out 'star' already reincarnate into a bright white dwarf!
4) Plaything ? well she's probably played around with more than us mere mortals can dream of , but the Gods get easily bored you know. That's why they occasionally come down to Earth .

Well the working day ended . I heard on the radio that there is a project for as many members of the public as possible to be encouraged to write a single day of blog on a sight called 'history matters .com'Must investigate.

Niqab

2006-10-15T12:59:00.000+01:00

This is a buzz word today. for hundreds of years before the last few weeks most people in this country would not be able to differentiate a niqab from a 'pickup'.

I got up early this morning , could have slept for longer but decided to get up and go to a well known super market to buy some provisions before the hoards of shoppers march in , I just cannot stand the scurry when it's a Sunday , and have that dreaded curse :work tomorrow.

I entered the supermarket and noticed that there were two or three women wearing the niqab . Well so what? It doesn't bother me , it's their choice ,If for whatever reason they don't want to show me their faces , there are plenty of other beauties around for me to ogle at .

I saw cameras everywhere in the supermarket , I remembered that I always have to take my bicycle helmet off when I go to banks. I was also asked to take off a flat cap when entering a particular establishment .

So with due respect to these ladies who were all quietly and independently of eachother doing their shopping . What if one was a thief ? of course some would argue that how can one so devout to a religion be so inclined . But I do not buy that argument . I dont't care if you are a Christian, Muslim , Jew , Polytheist or Atheist , what you say about yourself and your morals is separate from what you actually do.

Now if one of those ladies were a thief or come to think of it,( which proves my point even more) , they could have been men dressed up ? Lets say one of those people happened to be a thief . What use would the camera be?

This is not about religion . Even if it is about religion I argue that even religion is not sacred in a world of humans . For as Diogenese argued : 'We are thrice human '

I bought my sunflower oil , kidney beans, scones and some other items and returned.
Time flies , I must walk Wolfgang the dog and come back to eat and have a nap, the rest of the week I will feel deprived of sleep and mentally drained .
What is religion, I think I have read too much about it and disowned my own Greek Orthodox version . I guess there is some good in religion ...but I prefer to do business with those individuals that think for themselves about the mysteries of life and death , that can be honest enough to say they don't really know but are willing to learn .
Peace be with you .

New Format

2006-10-15T11:30:00.000+01:00

Due to extremely low readership,lack of corporate funding , advertising and mimimal time available we sadly announce to our loyal readers that the format of the
'Meaninglessness of Life'will have to change .

There will no longer be the 'News local and Distant','Trouble with Blogging' the 'Meaninglessnessness'stories or the uploading of Pellas masterpieces exclusive
to this site only .

In place will be occasional , self indulgent jottings of no particular coherence , relevance or thematic structure .

We hope you will enjoy this new streamline format , and like to say to thank all our loyal readers ....sob ....for staying with us ........It's all so.....meaningless.

Michelle 3

2006-05-07T01:57:00.000+01:00

Pencil, A3 .Copyright: J.Pellas, 2004

Problems with blogging 4

2006-04-30T00:39:00.000+01:00

The problem with blogging is that , in my case anyway I have not had much feed back.
I guess this answers my original question and decries the very raison d'etre of this blog .
Well amongst the billions of sites , pages or blogs on the net how and why is anybody in their right mind going to visit this blog? or find it worthwhile to spend some minutes reading this , let alone come back for more ....
Funny enough , one thing I have realised in this and another blog I have ,is that as soon as the very first post is released , I had some comments. This made it look like there were going to be many visitors and that one would not feel alone. I don't know if this is the policy of blogger.com : to give people the impression that many people are going to visit the site and thereby encourage one to carry on blogging or whether this was down to coincidence .
Now at one point I had a reader who kept on taunting and insulting me , eventually he decided he was going to sue me for libel. We have stopped our correspondence since then. But ironically , when all this was going on , I was looking forward
to checking my e-mails every morning and derived great sadistic pleasure in exchanging insults and threats with this person who disagreed with what I had written on political themes . Now I wonder whether it is safe to spout one's own political propaganda without attracting lunatics , and is it foolish thing to publish one's name on the blog in fear that one may be sued or tracked down and taken to account.

But as far as having one's voice heard , I don't know . So far I wouldn't rave to anyone in favour of blogging unless that person was writing a diary of something that would arouse curiosity such as a soldier in Iraq or a person with a bizarre job or of course if one happens to be of the good and the great .
I don't even know if this blog would come up on a google search , I have tried various key words and ;nothing . In fact I am questioning if apart from the need of self expression whether this is a useful medium for me .
Meanwhile , I will carry on blogging as it does fulfil a need.

Lenny

2006-04-23T00:17:00.000+01:00

Pencil, A3 .Copyright: J.Pellas, 2006

News, Local and Distant

2006-04-22T19:13:00.000+01:00

Yesterday,it was the birthday of Queen Elzabeth II , the queen of England. She has just turned eighty years of age with a long stretch of impeccable service to her country behind her .Some say that she never steps a foot wrong , that she is dignified, aloof from the crude clumsiness of political debate and truly 'majestic'
in her demeanour . She walked about in Windsor where she has one of her many stately homes. Elizabeth smiled and waved ,amidst groups of loyal well wishers. The usual crowd ,who when graced by her presence will tell stories that they 'met the queen' and of how 'special' she seemed but also how ' ordinary ' and 'down to earth' she really was, etc .

Such is the pomp and ceremony , magnified a million times by the 'authority'of the news media ,that people, who by privilege of birth , with no real distinguishing features or accomplishments can appear like demigods . The very fact that one stands near such a demigod reinforces the status of a monarch. Anyway she is our
head of state and adds to the prestige of this great city,London ,possibly the greatest capital in the world.

After all,there are not many monarchs left in the world and a royal family is a living link with the past ,part of a nation's heritage ; an integral part of a peoples' psyche . Also Britain being one of the richest countries in the world is a great democracy where the ruling political party swears allegiance to the crown although in actual fact the monarch does not have exutive powers.

I used to sympathise actively with republicanism but come to think of it , what difference would it make ?. The royals would not have their official positions but nonetheless would probably still have colossal amounts of wealth . And a republic does not necessarily prevent an unequal society . There will still be individuals
that own disproportionate and vulgar amounts of wealth.

Now let's look at one of her contemporary counterparts ,abroad in a distant land .

King Gyanendra , the monarch of Nepal,one of the world's poorest countries is one of a royal family of a 237 year dynasty.He is not celebratiing a birthday , more likely he is mourning the possibility of losing his reign or even his head.In Nepal , he imposed himself by direct rule for the past fourteen months ,overriding any parliamentary rule of the country .Nepal has been suffering a maoist rebellion during the last decade, with little coverage in the west. Even the Maoist guerillas have agreed to do business with the major political parties , given the chance. The king's decision to take total power has resulted in civil unrest and riots in the capital Kathmandu.Curfews have been imposed and up to fourteen people have been killed by police or security forces. This martial law has not deterred the protesters.The king broadcasted a message to his people yesterday , partially capitulating and stating that power will be returned to 'the people' . However , the concensus of public opinion , the seven political parties, guerillas included , suggests that this is not enough. It appears that the majority want this king ousted all together rendering his status as powerless and obsolete .

In his broadcast , King Gyanendra praised his military servicemen for their'Discipline and valour' not mentioning any regret about the fourteen dead and countless injured . As I write ,reports are still being dispatched from Kathmandu of riots continuing. It looks like his days are numbered. The Maoists are willing to lay down their arms and negotiate with the other parties ,but all facets of the protesting parties seem to agree that this mornarch is not wanted whether as total ruler or even as a titular. I congratulate my brothers and sisters of Nepal in moving forward , but at a heavy price as is usual with such social change.

Meanwhile our Liz is enjoying her birthday week. But even if many are opposed to her position ,as seems to be the case in in 21st century Britain, they,and she know that in such a highly developed ,rich country , whether she and her clan stay or go , it will be timely ,and with the utmost of diginty .

Could our Queen offer any advice to her doomed counterpart of Nepal ? I am sure she knows the precarious existence monarchs lead .She is well up to date with public opinion and her agents are expert at the sophisticated techniques of marketing a monarchy in modern times only too well .

The history of England in the story of Prince Charles I could offer King
Gyanendra a very valuable and urgent education. King Charles I in seventeenth century England also imposed himself severely on the ruling parliament and was seen as a tyrant . The English civil war ensued which resulted in the King literally losing his head.

Elizabeth and her promoters have the advantage of this historical lesson. I hope King Gyanendra sent her a birthday card ,to which she could have responded with some private words of advice befitting only those of such axalted , royal status.Failing this only the wisdom of an idividual of higher social status than either
of these two mere demigods is needed .Only Athena , goddess of wisdom can save him.

Goodbye Gyanendra . Happy birthday Liz.

Julia

2006-04-14T19:59:00.000+01:00

Employmentlessness

2006-04-14T11:57:00.000+01:00

Robin Sturgeon , worked in a furniture factory . He did not like his job , but he had to do something for a living .
Each day ,on his way to and from work , he used to see an old man seated by the local river bank, who seemed to be staring into the river and sometimes at the sky.
As time passed ,Robin soon got married ,this meant he had to work for some extra hours in the factory . After a while , together with his wife Annie , they
decided to buy a house of their own and a car . To achieve this Robin took on all the extra hours of work offered to him by his employers which meant he had to give up his regular football training , which he used enjoyed so much .
A few years later , Robin and Annie had children. So as well as having to cope with six very long days at the factory , Robin took up part-time house painting and decorating which he carried out at nights and on Sundays . He did what ever he could to generate that so much needed extra income.However , this meant that Robin had to stop visiting the local pub which he only used to do once weekly in order to meet up with some friends and enjoy his darts game.
Robin was an extremely hard worker and managed to do his own motor car repairs
and household maintenance in order to avoid paying costly professionals.
In the very little time he had to himself , Robin stayed at home with Annie and their two children ; Stuart and Jenny. Both Robin and his wife were just too worn out and exhausted to take their children out for the day.
One summer's day whilst leaving the factory , on his way to do some evening painting and decorating , Robin realised that the house he was heading for, was very near the spot that the idle old man occupied upon the river bank. Having three and a half minutes to spare, Robin's curiousity got the better of him. He hurriedly approached the old man and almost angrily asked if he had ever worked in his life.
'No' . Replied the old man.'I don't have the time'.

(Adapted from :'A Cynic's Book of Knowledge.' Copyright , J.Pellas 1990.)

Dr Carney

2006-04-11T22:22:00.000+01:00

Problems with blogging 3

2006-04-10T18:26:00.000+01:00

Trouble with blogging is that first of all it is addictive. I often come home from work in a rush ,or WITH a rush to to see my own blog . How vain but true I guess the only reason many of us bloggers briefly have a look at other people's blogs is possibly in a competitive manner , checking the opposition ,or even in a comradely supportive way : If I look at some blogs and make good comments , then maybe they would return the compliment . Well My most avid reader seems to have gone. This man, woman , child or computer generated message came to my blog as soon as I had proudly uploaded my First 'News Local and Distant'post . As already described in a previous post 'LEO' made a remark about me selling or giving my computer to a child as 'they have more brains '. I was really hurt at first to be honest. What followed was a rapid exchange of insults and political rows , mostly on his site . He, she or 'it' posted some messages that I could not publish and luckily managed to censor .So insulting and explicit had the exchanges become that in hope for a peaceful resolution ,I repeatedly asked 'LEO'to take part in a civilised debate about our differences of opinion, which I would be happy to post on this blog. I failed and received only insults and threats. I am a little ashamed to admit that I fought fire with fire . At one point ,after receiving countless verbal counter attacks on Leo's own blog , Leo seemed to have realised that there is an option for censoring incoming messages to one's own blog site, and sent me a message stating that 'we are even now!' Well for someone having trouble with blogging I assumed that this 'Leo ' would have known better than me on such matters. .Anyhow I have been warned by him, she , it,that I will be sued for libel as I accused Leo of being something very bad..........I do miss the messages from that source ,but as warned,I may even be subject to a law suit, I'll keep you posted.

Who reads this stuff anyway? I tried to see if I could find this site from other search engines to no avail. I guess it is mostly an internal site , of course you can find this blog if you punch in key words on google as it is run by the same outfit I believe. But what would one have to do to bring this or your blog for that matter into the front page of a several major search engines?

I looked at some other blog hosts ( if that's what you call a company giving you free blog space?). I thought it could be a good idea to try starting a totally different blog , but keep this going as I really feel I have established something here even if it is purely for my own entertainment, constructive criticism and for maintaining the delusion that my work has been published and publically exhibited .

I am stil encountering technical problems .If I did not have a teenage helper I don't think I would ever have uploaded a single image in a format that I intended . For example . The first drawing called : Leyla, Dozens of times I 'posted ' and received messages stating that it had been successfully published without any result. When I did get the help I mentioned, The picture was evenually published with a big blank rectangle next to it destroying the effect of a decent looking publication I had hoped for. Got there in the end and it was not as 'Simple ' as I had hoped .

I suppose I have learnt something about blogging and that is , as in any pleasurable
, addictive , possibly harmful habit; one has to take control and if not give up all together at least become its master and practise harm minimisation :I am logging off now.......for a while.

Michelle

2006-04-09T18:31:00.000+01:00

News, Local and Distant

2006-04-09T12:00:00.000+01:00

Yesterday ,The front page of 'The Guardian' , one of our most respectd newspapers , was taken by a story about 'The British National Party'(BNP).This is a political party which according to most other political parties and commentators , is a fascist party with an ideology not far off from The National Socialists of Germany themselves.... Well the BNP would dispute this and maintain that it is a legitimate democratic party like any other. The front page article discusses the 'Turmoil' caused by the selection of a candidate by the name of Sharif Abdel Gawad, to represent the party in the approaching local elections next month.Although according to the party's leadereship this gentleman is a 'totally assimilated Greek-Armenian' , the grass root members of the party were not impressed . According to the article, the BNP websites were jammed with messages and postings demanding that this 'ethnic' as he was referred to , had no place in a party run by true British people for British People .

Well what does this mean ? the BNP is becoming more 'modernised' and inclusive that even an'ethnic' can take part , become totally assimilated and identify with the 'indegenous' people and join in their campaign of self preservation and actively keep out the new wave of settlers who like Mr Awad's own descedents came to Britain for a better life? Or does it mean that the leadership is out of touch with the 'purity' of the political party's ethos? Well I could not find much reference to the outrage caused by this 'ethnic' being selected when I visited what looked like an official BNP website: http://www.bnp.org.uk/. Maybe I didn't look hard enough or was on the wrong web site. Or could it be possible that the BNP have yet again been misrepresented by what many call the 'left wing media'?

Russia ,far away in Russia, there are parallels. That vast country which many historians would not argue , had lost possibly the greatest number of lives fighting against the belligerent Nazi regime of the mid nineteen forties. A Moscow correspondent of the same newspaper reports a fatal shooting of an African student in St Petersburgh from the barrel of a shotgun on which a swastika had been emblazoned.This was the fourth such killing of a member of an ethnic minority within a week . Eye witnesses stated that Lamzar Samba, 28, from Senegal, a student of communications was shot in the back of the neck whilst leaving a night club with a group of friends.The murders have been attributed to the rise of extreme right wing groups and gangs of ''Skinheaded' thugs.

So what is it with these 'ethnics' as they are often referred to by certain 'non ethnics'? I am an 'ethnic' , I guess the majority of the population of North
and south America has its roots and history in a far away place if ancestory is traced. Same could be said of Australia , New Zealand and so on. Have the Russians always been in Russia , are they somehow purer tha the rest of us ? I am sure too ,that they are the result of mass migrations of people from other lands. Let's face it we are all ethnics!

Look at England which is the largest ,most populated part of Britain also seen by many as synonymous with the word Britain .The Angles , Saxons, Jutes and other peoples that made England , had come from Europe in approximately the year 400 a.d . The Romans had even got there before That , and when these Angles (who gave their name to England) , Saxons ,Jutes and others got to England there were already other people in this land .People that had arrived in this land even before the Romans . These were the Celts and even they were a group that was found all over Europe .So there are more of us than you ......... and this Greek -Armenian who wants to campaign for the BNP could benefit by studying his own history and seeing the racist cruelty of persecution his ancestors may have suffered under the country which gave us the Ottoman Empire , because of ideologies that promote the idea that there is a pure race which is some how supererior.

Or maybe this is not all about ethnicity but the fact that local people of whatever racial background , after seeing that strangers coming into their country appear to receive welfare benefits , housing etc faster and better than they do?
If this is the case then the major political parties should be discussing some of these issues more honestly and acknowledge that the poor and disenfranchised will be
recruited and told that the 'ethnics' are to blame for all the ills of the present day.
Let's blame the Jews, the Africans, Greek-Armenians , the Muslims (regardless of
wether these are an ethnic group or members of a religion ).Lets just blame.....

This is the dangerous ground that seems to be gradually filled by the mostly white
seprematists in our midst. Both the Russians and british fought the Nazis .Yet sometimes people forget what an evil regime 'National Socialism' was.
And meanwhile Lamzar Samba another victim of racism in the country that sacrificed
so much. Yet the mindless , but organised thugs that perpetrate such crimes would argue , and I have heard this many times my self in England: 'My grandfather fought the war for us ,yet people like these foreigners come here and do this that and the other'. Not many of these indignant descendents of soldiers who sacrificed themselves for our future recognise that during both major world wars 'ethnics ' were there at the front too. Sometimes taken from far away lands to fight for the 'empire'.

Do we ever learn from history ?Is history totally subjective? Or is it just a sad fact that in human beings, there is some sort of xenophobia, tribalism or racism that is pumped by our hearts and flows in our arteries thus poisoning our brains ?

Religionlessness

2006-04-06T23:49:00.002+01:00

Baz-Dar , the King of Thriscally was also the the high priest of the island's ancient and respected religion, Bazism .
One day as Baz- Dar sat in his holy temple meditating upon the holy scriptures of his forefathers , he realised that there was no mention in any of the sacred texts that the prophets ever ate potatoes. Being very concerned that the purity of the ancient teachings should be preserved , Baz-Dar decided to legislate against the eating of potatoes throughout Thriscally in order that his people remain close to God. Many of the faithful immediately obeyed the new law , however some objected on grounds of principle and others objected purely because they were in the business of selling potatoes. But the vast majority of those who opposed
the new law ,did so simply because they could not afford to eat anything else but potatoes.
Now many of the potato-eaters had to go into hiding to avoid persecution and to be able to cook their potatoes in peace .Bazism, the religion of Thriscally, had split into two factions.Life became very difficult for the potato-eaters , they had become second class citizens with no more hope of living their lives with dignity as Baz-Dar's oppressive regime took hold of them.Many had died of starvation until there was no other choice but to organise an armed struggle by forming para- military groups of freedom fighters.
Years of sporadic, mindless bloodshed escalated into a full scale civil war .After several years of fierce battles causing enormous destruction throughout the once beatiful and tranquil island, the potato-eaters had emerged victorious .
Baz-Dar was eventually captured by the resistance and imprisoned for life where he was force fed boiled potatoes three times daily.
The potato-eaters eventually ceased hostilities , established peace and formed a secular , democratic republic. Royalty had been abolished and religion was now to be a private affair of choice with no influence over the affairs of the government in order to maintain freedom of choice for every individual citizen.The new democratic republic even granted an amnesty to all the non potato-eaters thereby permitting them to abstain from eating potatoes.Yes , Thriscally had restored its former glory .
One day during the assembly of the democratic peoples' republic of Thriscally , it was pointed out by one representative of the people that some citizens were seen biting their finger nails in public. This was deemed unworthy of a free citizen living in a democracy.Soon , finger nail biting was to become illegal.....

(Adapted from :'A cynic's book of knowledge' copyright ,J.Pellas 1990).

Leyla

2006-04-04T19:02:00.000+01:00

News, Local and Distant

2006-04-03T19:23:00.000+01:00

Elections ,near and far , I received my official poll card a few days ago . These are our so called :'local' elections due on Thursday 4th May.One can vote in their choice of councillor.The victorious party when eventually in power decides
(_according to the accompanying leaflet): 'The AMOUNT of council tax every housholder must pay ' or ' WHEN the bins will be collected'. Real political science and democracy in action!

In Thailand where unfortunately things are not as 'democratic 'as here , people are forced to vote . the elections were held yesterday due to growing unrest , precipitated by lack of confidence in the policies of its current ruler, Thaksin Shinawatra. Apparently, although forced to vote, the public does have an option on the ballot paper of stating ; 'none of the above' and thererby abstaining .It appears that the majority of the electorate , to his shock and horror has chosen this option. Time will tell if the ruler will impose himself upon the populace by using another vile tactic.

The Democratic Republic of Congo has also recently held elections overnnight . A country which has had a savage war in the recent past in which millions have died with next to nothing in news coverage given in faraway lands. It's amazing , but I am always suspect of a state that feels the need to include the Words : 'democratic ' or 'peoples' in its title. The Congo has been 'democratic' for so many years,yet these are the first 'proper' elections to be held according to the BBC.

Well, I hope these people in Thailand and Congo achieve the democracy they deserve where the people can take control of their everyday lives and not be dictated to by others .

I will be following my Thai brothers and sisters and be adding a special box to tick on my ballot paper for:'none of the above' .

Problems with blogging 2

2006-04-02T23:27:00.000+01:00

Well I have really been impressed by this blogging site and have begun to upload various ideas and it is beginning to take some shape . I have also looked at other blogs and found some very good sites worth visiting: 'Signs of the times' being one of them( had I known better I would have given a direct link, we live and learn).
I am still having problems with uploading images , I am not sure if it is purely my incompetence or whether there is some kind of malfunction of the server , after all I did , after an hour's painstaking effort to upload a picture , receive a message stating :' apologies , cannot upload image'.

I have also been really moved by the fact that some folks out there have actually been reading the blog : This has become a mixed blessing though . The real problem with blogging I have realised is that some comments are not very complimentary .
Although there is an option of monitoring one's messages and deciding whether to publish them on the blog or not , I have decided to to allow freedom of speech as a matter of principle.

So far I have had about three comments on the blog , an individual who calls himself Leo has become my most dedicated reader( greetings Leo!). First he advised me to give my computer to a child as 'they have more brains'He didn't like the comments I have logged , he states he has ' fought three wars for cowardly anti war people' like me,in addition to the posts you can read here from Leo he has been e-mailing me in private with threats and language I don't want to repeat. I have counter attacked by posting on his blog and offering him to debate the issues , which he has declined .

I originally described some of the problems I have had with blogging in hope that I would get constructive advice, not knowing that there are other problems with blogging .

So this individual who has the the bravery to fight three wars for me did not like me to express my views on Condoleeza Rice , secretary of state of the U.S.A coming to the country that I live in . I guess 'Leo' and people of his opinion would argue that they fought so that I could have the freedom to express my view whilst at the same time telling me that I am not worthy of being alive thereby advocating the anihilation of people that think differently to himself ,ironically in collusion with what he believes are the ideas of those whom he allegedly liberated me from. There really is a meaninglessness in some peoples' lives :I guess problems with blogging doesn't help.

Brainlessness (Dedicated to Leo)

2006-04-02T15:44:00.000+01:00

Donald the dunce was told by his school teacher, Mr Leo to write: one plus one equals two , a hundred times.

The next morning Mr Leo asked Donald whether the exercise had helped him remember the answer to the problem.
"No." replied Donald,"I'm still not convinced ". Donald then produced a lump of clay in each hand and stuck the pieces togeher .
"How many did I have to start with ?" Donald asked Mr Leo.
"Two"
"And by adding them together , how many am I left with ?"
"One"replied Mr Leo.
"Exactly!"said Donald the Dunce as Mr Leo proceeded to wear the Dunce's hat.

(adapted from : " A cynic's book of knowledge " Copyright J. Pellas 1990.)

News, Local and Distant

2006-03-31T22:42:00.000+01:00

I heard that sexy Condoleezza Rice, the American secretary of state has come to blighty from the good old U S of A
. I believe she came to Blackpool yesterday if I am not mistaken .Much was said about how much she was a Beatle fan and was so looking forward to visiting parts of England where the fab four worked, went to school,sang ,ate or breathed ! (how normal she sounds ) so much for sixties music changing the world and art influencing people for a better life. What has any of this to do with Blackpool ?, I don't know.

Condi , a real example of a successful woman, powerful, independent ,intelligent ,
beautiful and yes like many women who have reached the top of a man's world sadly no different ; tragically human.

I heard also that there was a contingent of anti Iraq war demonstrators against her visit . Good on them ! she has blood on her hands , the only difference between her like and the hard core terrorist is that she cuts throats by proxy : A true 'board room guerilla ' as the great peace campaigner Bruce Kent once dubbed them.

The only reason that guerillas like condi, Geoerge W Bush and our very own Tony Blitler are not in the dock charged with genocide and other war crimes of the highest degree is that they run the whole show!

But let's be pragmatic It is an empire; The American empire that our soldiers are unwittingly serving , and what's wrong with an empire? We had one once. The British and Greek empires were possibly two of the greatest empires of all history which left the world with many great changes for the better, eminent individuals, superb art works and revolutionary thinkers and creative minds who influenced the
world's view of itself.

Where would we be if not under the wing of this American empire? we may have been subjugated by some extreme totalitarian , fanatical superstitious despot .
Look at the great things America has given us in the modern world this very internet where freedom of speech flourishes is just one of many ,I leave you all to ponder on your own favourites .

So it is alright for dissident lefties (myself included) to pour invective over the idea that is America, yet what do we have to replace it with? I have relatives there , and my late father who visited his brother there on various occasions loved the people, their way of life and the vastness of its culture as well as its geography.

So what can we say of Condi ?: loved the Beatles , yes but finds this compatible with destroying the lives of millions of poor people who have a bloody history of suffering foreign involvement by big industrial powers from the beginning of the last century or even earlier. Iraq, the land in which the very first civilisations flourished and gave the world many things including the beginnings of literacy and numeracy amongst others.

What do you know that we don't Condi? Is it something that if we knew too would make us want to see more charred bodies and the utter devastation and humiliation of millions? It must be something profound..I remember so clearly the genuine look on our Tony's face when he was pleading (before the Iraq invasion) , saying something like :, 'Look , I know something you don't , I am doing this for the good of our society, you see I have seen the dossier ( remember the sexy dossier?) and if we don't act violently now, we have a new Hitler in our midst!'
The rest is history unfolding scarily in front of us and more importantly the real victims who the great journalist John Pilger describes as 'non people' (in the way they are portrayed by our media as not really significant).

I remember the chilling maxim of Goebels of the Nazi's who said when stirring up hatred against the Jews that ' A lie is only a lie , but if we repeat it enough times it becomes the truth' .

How sinister and true that statement is . Do you remember when the war was beginning how the idea had to be sold? irrational , emotional , aggressive and deceitful rhetoric was used by the honourable ones in parliament not to mention the spineless who knew and kept quiet ; equally corrupt .

Maybe Condi is right and she really does know what is in the best interests of the people all over the world? .........Or maybe her psyche has been severely damaged by those subversive Beatle lyrics such as 'Happiness is a warm gun Mamma ....?'

That , only the God of war ,Ares knows .........

Peace be with you

Problems with blogging

2006-03-31T00:40:00.000+01:00

Well I have been trying to download a picture ,or is it called uploading when you send an image to the web ? : but with no success , I really do find this simple blogging process quite difficult .How do all these smug bloggers do it? Please help me someone out there.

This is becoming meaningless in the worst possible sense. I promise it will be worth checking but I have not done my homework and fell for the 'SIMPLE ' promotion from Google, with due respect .
Bye for now.

the beginning

2006-03-27T22:32:00.001+01:00

Greetings people!

I have just started this log or blog. I don't even know if it is getting anywhere, I'm not too good with computers : it goes with the age group I guess.
I hope to receive my scanner tomorrow so that I can down load some cartoons if that is possible.

Working for the NHS is what I do to pay t he rent and sometimes feel that my prime duty there is being a bureaucrat. This is the way of how politics and economics has influenced every sphere of our lives . It is not so important to do something productive and caring in this job but to be seen to be doing so . i.e if one can prove through meticulous paper work that a box has been ticked then one is doing well. We don't have patients anymore we have service users , clients and consumers . Nurses and hospitals are service providers ; it's as if we are working on a production line. Everything has to be quantified in neat little units of 'care' . This is wrong because in a 'caring ' profession one can be spending time with an individual and be making a positive difference to that person's life but this might not lend itself well to ethos of consumerism or is not very practical to corrupt politicians in parliament arguing and waving selective statistics at eachother which can mean practically anything.

Today with the disease of what is known as ' politcal correctness' , we don't have' patients 'or people do not have a' mental illness' , we have service users who have 'mental health' .This is ludicrous ! This terminology has become so established that it has become meaningless or rather it has taken on the sinister effect of George Orwell's masterpiece '1984'
For example I was visiting an elderly lady who was relapsing and becoming unwell due to her illness of schizophrenia and she said : 'I'm getting all mental health' as if this meant 'I'm getting mentally ill' By Zeus ! it's as if we cannot mention the word illness or according to the rigid ethos of political correctness , anything that may have a negative meaning.

I don't know if anyone is there to read all this , so I better not continue to rant. Must try and see if this thing is actually on line .

bye for now.
Antisthenes

The meaning

2006-03-26T22:18:00.000+01:00

The meaning less ness has arrived , the blog to block all blogs , its true its painful it's the new thing with many interesting things for all .