We see the carnage on Twitter. We want it to stop. As Western Europeans/ North Americans, we reach for the tools to do that. Call on Obama. Email the EU Commission. March on the embassy. Campaign to motivate NATO.
I am reading Amin Maalouf's "The Crusades through Arab Eyes". It is as gut-wrenching as the photos I am clicking through on Twitter. Disembowellment. Siege. Starvation.
The theme that Maalouf, ever the watchful eye for Arab dissension, returns to again and again, is the inability of the tribes to band together to fight off the Franj.
A thousand years later, and the Franj are still raping half a continent of all its resources, secure in the knowledge that the strong man in Arab politics rules by divide and conquer. And in between those two positions is where the money is made.
Coming from Ireland, I know what that does to a country's soul.
The crusades may have been about the 'holy place' for a simple man, a second son, tramping through the desert in the hot sun, but further up the food chain there was money to be made. As always.
So here's the thing.
Maybe we should do nothing except try to stop the modern day Crusaders - Blair and his cronies - from heading in to mop up the spoils. Maybe that's our job. Maybe our job is to encircle this nascent democracy and protect it from our own with all our might.
Maybe this is a fight that is a long time in coming. Maybe it has to be, like that time when you spent all night trying to prevent two friends from brawling in a bar and then realised, they really really really wanted to kick the shit out of each other. Because that is the only way they are ever going to sort out whatever it is that keeps them apart.
Bone crunching on bone. If it were us, it would be a Coen Brothers movie.
But it's not us.
It's real.
I don't know. I just know that I was on the winning side in 1096 and a thousand years later, as a woman, I am still not allowed be a minister in a catholic church. Or get divorced. I am still the ludicrous object of a million ridiculous poems and songs of a type of courtly love that could only be invented by ten thousand monks on the march across the middle east in a drought.
If Justin Bieber was alive in 1096, he would have been a Crusader.
We are at a strange point in our history when we are calling on a black man in a white house to sort out a fight that has been a thousand years in the making. If I was Obama, I would be making the point that both Libyans (and Egyptians, and Tunisians) and Europeans spent most of the last millennium making money off the trade in slaves of people just like him.
Why on earth should he step in?
Me, I would wonder where the Arab brothers are right now.
Showing posts with label politics. Show all posts
Showing posts with label politics. Show all posts
Tuesday, February 22, 2011
Saturday, June 12, 2010
Heading towards the solstice... then the darknesss
Friday, January 22, 2010
Haiti brings out the pedant in everyone
Haiti.
What to say.
I was listening to Stephen Lewis, father in law of Naomi Klein and kick-ass international humanitarian in his own right, talking on the radio today (as part of CBC's National Day for Haiti, which was mostly a rehash of the last week's conversations with some added Canadian rock stars telling us to contribute to the relief fund) and he said that yes of course, it is completely normal for us all to feel numb, overwhelmed, and devastated by the news coverage of the earthquake.
I was thinking, why would I feel any of those things?
My house didn't fall on my head.
I'm not from Haiti. I'm not trying to find out what happened to my family that I had to leave to come live in Montreal, to try and have a shot at a life.
My mother didn't die. My brother didn't have to dig his family out from under what's left of his house with his bare hands. My sister isn't lying under a sheet tent in a street with no food or water, waiting for an amputation when the MSF saws finally get through the 'bottleneck' at the airport. My dad isn't working a backhoe burying thousands of bodies in mass graves.
Obviously, I feel very sad for all the millions of Haitian people who are feeling numb, overwhelmed, and devastated by the earthquake. And supportive of all the brave kind people who are trying to help them.
But could we all get a little fucking real about this.
I spent the day shopping and getting my hair done.
Like millions of other western hemispherians.
Mostly today, I felt contented in a slightly sickening consumer-buzz kinda way.
Christ, I even put my dog in daycare.
To ease the guilt of leaving her on her own when I go out.
What makes me feel numb, devastated and overwhelmed at times is the fact that for the totally random reason of birth, I can do all of those things and for equally random reasons, billions of people round the world can't.
Ever.
Because if we all could do them, then there wouldn't be enough resources for it to happen. And me and all my privileged western hemispherian colleagues would not have such a nice time.
And so we have constructed a world in which we make sure they won't ever get off their knees enough to realise that we aren't so great after all.
I know Stephen Lewis knows these things.
A lot better than me.
So what in jaysus' name is he doing on the radio mouthing platitudes at us?
Because if he went on the radio and lectured us all on the unfairness of it all, we'd get mad and his foundation would lose funding.
It has struck me forcefully that the media coverage of Haiti is different to previous disasters.
For me, anyways.
When you think about it, go back to that Michael Buerk report from Ethiopia in 1984 that everyone my age remembers so well (because it resulted in Live Aid).
Bad stuff happened. You saw it on television. If you were in a house where there were newspapers, you read about it in detail. If those newspapers were broadsheets, you got some sense of why it was happening.
You got past the word HUNGER.
But mostly it was a narrative that hyped the unfortunateness of some poor people and the bountifulness of the rest of us.
Nowadays, it's a little more complex.
The news breaks on Twitter, it's reported on 24-7 rolling news, the videos are put up on YouTube, they're shared and dissected on Facebook and other sites, Google brings millions of opinions to your fingertips.
It's at the same time easier and more difficult to get past the word DISASTER.
Reading around the issue I am struck by how RIGHT everyone who is commenting feels they are.
The US ARMY ARE WRONG.
It's the Navy, was my impression.
The Aid Agencies ARE SURRENDER MONKEYS.
They`ve been outflanked by the speed of the military operations, was my impression.
The news media are DISASTER JUNKIES.
For a reason.
The Haitian government is CORRUPT.
Well, which G8 nation is propping it up.
Too many viewpoints for me to figure it out.
But the hum of the rest of us feeling good about throwing another couple of hundred onto the credit card bill is coming through loud and strong.
Thank Christ for that.... maybe it`ll help with the numbness.
Interestingly, a poll of Canadians found that 88% of them felt that the money they donated would NOT get to the people of Haiti.
But they are still leading the world in donations per head.
Tonight`s the big face off between the Canadian mega-fundraiser and the Yankee one. Which I have to go watch soon, because it is the thing to do in our house tonight.
I guess people are good, generally. But they cling to viewpoints for reasons of stability and that is not good, generally.
Hopefully the intersection of the two aspects of us will result in a new, better, Haiti at some point in the future.
Social media so far is not impressing me with its ability to clarify complex issues.
What to say.
I was listening to Stephen Lewis, father in law of Naomi Klein and kick-ass international humanitarian in his own right, talking on the radio today (as part of CBC's National Day for Haiti, which was mostly a rehash of the last week's conversations with some added Canadian rock stars telling us to contribute to the relief fund) and he said that yes of course, it is completely normal for us all to feel numb, overwhelmed, and devastated by the news coverage of the earthquake.
I was thinking, why would I feel any of those things?
My house didn't fall on my head.
I'm not from Haiti. I'm not trying to find out what happened to my family that I had to leave to come live in Montreal, to try and have a shot at a life.
My mother didn't die. My brother didn't have to dig his family out from under what's left of his house with his bare hands. My sister isn't lying under a sheet tent in a street with no food or water, waiting for an amputation when the MSF saws finally get through the 'bottleneck' at the airport. My dad isn't working a backhoe burying thousands of bodies in mass graves.
Obviously, I feel very sad for all the millions of Haitian people who are feeling numb, overwhelmed, and devastated by the earthquake. And supportive of all the brave kind people who are trying to help them.
But could we all get a little fucking real about this.
I spent the day shopping and getting my hair done.
Like millions of other western hemispherians.
Mostly today, I felt contented in a slightly sickening consumer-buzz kinda way.
Christ, I even put my dog in daycare.
To ease the guilt of leaving her on her own when I go out.
What makes me feel numb, devastated and overwhelmed at times is the fact that for the totally random reason of birth, I can do all of those things and for equally random reasons, billions of people round the world can't.
Ever.
Because if we all could do them, then there wouldn't be enough resources for it to happen. And me and all my privileged western hemispherian colleagues would not have such a nice time.
And so we have constructed a world in which we make sure they won't ever get off their knees enough to realise that we aren't so great after all.
I know Stephen Lewis knows these things.
A lot better than me.
So what in jaysus' name is he doing on the radio mouthing platitudes at us?
Because if he went on the radio and lectured us all on the unfairness of it all, we'd get mad and his foundation would lose funding.
It has struck me forcefully that the media coverage of Haiti is different to previous disasters.
For me, anyways.
When you think about it, go back to that Michael Buerk report from Ethiopia in 1984 that everyone my age remembers so well (because it resulted in Live Aid).
Bad stuff happened. You saw it on television. If you were in a house where there were newspapers, you read about it in detail. If those newspapers were broadsheets, you got some sense of why it was happening.
You got past the word HUNGER.
But mostly it was a narrative that hyped the unfortunateness of some poor people and the bountifulness of the rest of us.
Nowadays, it's a little more complex.
The news breaks on Twitter, it's reported on 24-7 rolling news, the videos are put up on YouTube, they're shared and dissected on Facebook and other sites, Google brings millions of opinions to your fingertips.
It's at the same time easier and more difficult to get past the word DISASTER.
Reading around the issue I am struck by how RIGHT everyone who is commenting feels they are.
The US ARMY ARE WRONG.
It's the Navy, was my impression.
The Aid Agencies ARE SURRENDER MONKEYS.
They`ve been outflanked by the speed of the military operations, was my impression.
The news media are DISASTER JUNKIES.
For a reason.
The Haitian government is CORRUPT.
Well, which G8 nation is propping it up.
Too many viewpoints for me to figure it out.
But the hum of the rest of us feeling good about throwing another couple of hundred onto the credit card bill is coming through loud and strong.
Thank Christ for that.... maybe it`ll help with the numbness.
Interestingly, a poll of Canadians found that 88% of them felt that the money they donated would NOT get to the people of Haiti.
But they are still leading the world in donations per head.
Tonight`s the big face off between the Canadian mega-fundraiser and the Yankee one. Which I have to go watch soon, because it is the thing to do in our house tonight.
I guess people are good, generally. But they cling to viewpoints for reasons of stability and that is not good, generally.
Hopefully the intersection of the two aspects of us will result in a new, better, Haiti at some point in the future.
Social media so far is not impressing me with its ability to clarify complex issues.
Friday, June 12, 2009
JD the squirrel finds a new world order
The feud between Himself and the squirrel living in his building ramped up a notch last weekend.
For those of you not in the know, the nature of the feud is based in the concept of 'his'.
Which one of them is the 'his' that the building belongs to.
The squirrel, having spent the previous Fall and winter living rent-free in the building, thinks it's his building.
Himself, having paid for the building, is pretty sure that it is in fact his building.
The noisy chatter that he gets from the squirrel every time he walks into the building to pick up a tool (in order to do some work) PISSES HIM OFF.
What does that goddamn squirrel do but eat corn all day?
But my man is nothing if not slow to anger.
A veritable leviathan progressing through the Bay of Fundy when it comes to rage.
But even the calmest leviathan will swallow a Jonah, if he won't shut the hell up!!
That is why last weekend, despite my best efforts at averting revolution by cleaning up evidence of grand theft corn, Himself went into the shed to do something and realised that the squirrel had gotten back into the carefully wrapped-up sack of cracked corn (which I had carefully placed in the thick plastic bin) and there was cracked corn all over the building.
ALL OVER THE GODDAMN BUILDIN'!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
MY GODDAMN BUILDIN'!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
The squirrel had managed to eat through the plastic this time. As well as the sack.
GODDAMN SQUIRREL, BATHIN' IN CRACKED CORN HE IS!!!!!!!! LYIN' BACK JUSTA SWIMMIN' AROUND IN IT!!! THINKS IT'S HIS EFFIN' CORN!!!!!!!!!!
I could hear the roaring from the house.
I'LL SHOW HIM!!!
Retribution was swift and brutal.
Every kernel of cracked corn (and when it was all found, it was a substantial amount of corn) got swept out of every crevice in the building, and the whole lot was put out in the yard in a big pile.
NOW!!
HE'LL HAVE TO SHARE!!
SERVE HIM RIGHT FOR BEING GREEDY.
Suddenly the rabbits, crows, wood pigeon, robins, jays, chickadees and other critters who had spent months getting by on just a tincture of cracked corn, provided to help them stay above the critter poverty line (with not even an increase to help with recent rampant corn inflation) .... they are all in carbohydrate heaven right now.
PARTYTIME!!!!
All the daily foraging routines have been disrupted in order to partake of the sudden corn largesse.
I have no doubt that this summer will see abnormally big baby critters emerging from dens all over the yard.
The babies will no doubt turn into a me-me-me Critter Generation Y and will break our door down in January demanding carb-rich three course meals, $120,000 jobs, and/or better EI (I mean corn) payments if this largesse doesn't continue.
Last night according to Himself, we even had Bob Rae the big old silver raccoon who pretends he's not living in our yard, come along last night for a bit of chow.
Seeing as it was goin' a beggin'.
If I was the squirrel, I would take my beating and my sudden eviction from the squirrel Versailles that is our buildin' like a man squirrel, and go find a new place to live.
Because the squeaking of tumbrils is quietly, but definitely discernible above the rhythm of the waves that is the soundtrack to our yard.
If I were JD the Little Red Squirrel, I would seclude myself, reflect on my loss and return in a few years... when the corn is gone... refreshed, with a new, superficially sustainable way of keeping everyone fed.
But no. He hasn't the wit to do it.
He is camped out on the pile of cracked corn, fighting everyone off.
As if he can.
He has been there all day according to Himself, who is home with a chest infection.
Instinct has kicked in and he's an aggressive little bastard.
JD the Little Red Squirrel ... not Himself.
Why wouldn't he be?
He's used to having most of the corn to himself.
He's used to being the only critter who knew where the corn was kept.
He's used to having unlimited access to the corn, to people turning a blind eye to grand theft cracked corn, to squirreling away some extra corn for the winter.
He's fighting for his political life as they say.
All the fat he's put on over the last couple of weeks is worn off him.
Our crows - we have three of them who are inseparable and who have that brilliant dark sense of humour that crows sometimes have - our crows have him driven demented.
It's so simple it's beautiful.
Desmoulins, Danton and Robespierre take turns to run at him, wings spread, until he panics and runs away under the building.
While he's cowering under the building, they pick slowly and desultorily at the corn, with their backs to him of course.
After a while he can't help himself and he chatters at them like an Albanian matriarch with four fields to plough and every son in a tower.
That's when they leave the pile to have a big lawerly convocation on top of the old pine tree, or to stare intently at something moving over by the lake. (Probably the mo-fo eagle nesting on the island).
Ahaa.... JD thinks!! The Fools!!!
Back he goes for a moment, and every time a swarm of starlings swoop down from absolutely nowhere, kick his skinny red ass again and grab their piece of the action while the crows stare into the middle distance and nod knowingly at each other.
JD has to retire defeated from the bombardment that is those locusts of the birdworld.
JD the Little Red Squirrel has learned two simple, irrefutable facts.
The buildin' does in fact belong to whomever pays for it.
And Himself, who paid for it, is a force to be reckoned with when his ire is raised ....
....
... We had an election in Nova Scotia this week.
It was quite the game-changer.
The forthcoming redistribution of the provincial corn will no doubt be just as entertaining to watch as the antics on Eagle.
Me... I'm rooting for the crows.
And scanning the horizon for starlings.
For those of you not in the know, the nature of the feud is based in the concept of 'his'.
Which one of them is the 'his' that the building belongs to.
The squirrel, having spent the previous Fall and winter living rent-free in the building, thinks it's his building.
Himself, having paid for the building, is pretty sure that it is in fact his building.
The noisy chatter that he gets from the squirrel every time he walks into the building to pick up a tool (in order to do some work) PISSES HIM OFF.
What does that goddamn squirrel do but eat corn all day?
But my man is nothing if not slow to anger.
A veritable leviathan progressing through the Bay of Fundy when it comes to rage.
But even the calmest leviathan will swallow a Jonah, if he won't shut the hell up!!
That is why last weekend, despite my best efforts at averting revolution by cleaning up evidence of grand theft corn, Himself went into the shed to do something and realised that the squirrel had gotten back into the carefully wrapped-up sack of cracked corn (which I had carefully placed in the thick plastic bin) and there was cracked corn all over the building.
ALL OVER THE GODDAMN BUILDIN'!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
MY GODDAMN BUILDIN'!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
The squirrel had managed to eat through the plastic this time. As well as the sack.
GODDAMN SQUIRREL, BATHIN' IN CRACKED CORN HE IS!!!!!!!! LYIN' BACK JUSTA SWIMMIN' AROUND IN IT!!! THINKS IT'S HIS EFFIN' CORN!!!!!!!!!!
I could hear the roaring from the house.
I'LL SHOW HIM!!!
Retribution was swift and brutal.
Every kernel of cracked corn (and when it was all found, it was a substantial amount of corn) got swept out of every crevice in the building, and the whole lot was put out in the yard in a big pile.
NOW!!
HE'LL HAVE TO SHARE!!
SERVE HIM RIGHT FOR BEING GREEDY.
Suddenly the rabbits, crows, wood pigeon, robins, jays, chickadees and other critters who had spent months getting by on just a tincture of cracked corn, provided to help them stay above the critter poverty line (with not even an increase to help with recent rampant corn inflation) .... they are all in carbohydrate heaven right now.
PARTYTIME!!!!
All the daily foraging routines have been disrupted in order to partake of the sudden corn largesse.
I have no doubt that this summer will see abnormally big baby critters emerging from dens all over the yard.
The babies will no doubt turn into a me-me-me Critter Generation Y and will break our door down in January demanding carb-rich three course meals, $120,000 jobs, and/or better EI (I mean corn) payments if this largesse doesn't continue.
Last night according to Himself, we even had Bob Rae the big old silver raccoon who pretends he's not living in our yard, come along last night for a bit of chow.
Seeing as it was goin' a beggin'.
If I was the squirrel, I would take my beating and my sudden eviction from the squirrel Versailles that is our buildin' like a man squirrel, and go find a new place to live.
Because the squeaking of tumbrils is quietly, but definitely discernible above the rhythm of the waves that is the soundtrack to our yard.
If I were JD the Little Red Squirrel, I would seclude myself, reflect on my loss and return in a few years... when the corn is gone... refreshed, with a new, superficially sustainable way of keeping everyone fed.
But no. He hasn't the wit to do it.
He is camped out on the pile of cracked corn, fighting everyone off.
As if he can.
He has been there all day according to Himself, who is home with a chest infection.
Instinct has kicked in and he's an aggressive little bastard.
JD the Little Red Squirrel ... not Himself.
Why wouldn't he be?
He's used to having most of the corn to himself.
He's used to being the only critter who knew where the corn was kept.
He's used to having unlimited access to the corn, to people turning a blind eye to grand theft cracked corn, to squirreling away some extra corn for the winter.
He's fighting for his political life as they say.
All the fat he's put on over the last couple of weeks is worn off him.
Our crows - we have three of them who are inseparable and who have that brilliant dark sense of humour that crows sometimes have - our crows have him driven demented.
It's so simple it's beautiful.
Desmoulins, Danton and Robespierre take turns to run at him, wings spread, until he panics and runs away under the building.
While he's cowering under the building, they pick slowly and desultorily at the corn, with their backs to him of course.
After a while he can't help himself and he chatters at them like an Albanian matriarch with four fields to plough and every son in a tower.
That's when they leave the pile to have a big lawerly convocation on top of the old pine tree, or to stare intently at something moving over by the lake. (Probably the mo-fo eagle nesting on the island).
Ahaa.... JD thinks!! The Fools!!!
Back he goes for a moment, and every time a swarm of starlings swoop down from absolutely nowhere, kick his skinny red ass again and grab their piece of the action while the crows stare into the middle distance and nod knowingly at each other.
JD has to retire defeated from the bombardment that is those locusts of the birdworld.
JD the Little Red Squirrel has learned two simple, irrefutable facts.
The buildin' does in fact belong to whomever pays for it.
And Himself, who paid for it, is a force to be reckoned with when his ire is raised ....
....
... We had an election in Nova Scotia this week.
It was quite the game-changer.
The forthcoming redistribution of the provincial corn will no doubt be just as entertaining to watch as the antics on Eagle.
Me... I'm rooting for the crows.
And scanning the horizon for starlings.
Tuesday, June 09, 2009
Friday, June 05, 2009
Hope is giving me a headache
I've had a headache for two weeks now. The back of my neck is being squeezed by an unrelenting vice grip. And my stomach is in knots. Churning, burning knots that end when I sleep and start when I wake up.
This morning I thought, okay, it can't be the cold I've had. It must be stress-related. So I went through all the things that are going on in my life to identify the stressor.
I don't really have any stressful goings on in my life right now though.
Not compared to what's happened in the last couple of years.
Himself and I have reached a plateau of calm right now.
Of course, when I eventually figured it out, it's so blindingly obvious I can't understand why I didn't realise it.
It's election stress!!
Not that I'm involved in electioneering. For the first time in my life, I have a job which forbids me to be involved in the democratic process.
I am closely following two sets of elections, which are being fought by all the people I have worked with and cared for and fought with and yelled at and laughed with for the past twenty years.
And ironically (or maybe I am just the biggest election Jonah in the world), for the first time in my life, my friends and colleagues and comrades and fellow adventurers are poised to win both sets of elections.
No wonder I am weeping with the stress of the hope of it all.
Thank goodness I am not involved this time.
I would be a basket case.
Speaking of hope, this morning, I watched some of Obama's Cairo speech.
Into history he walked, loping onto the stage in that incredibly rangy relaxed way he has. Speaking in front of 3,000 people who must be so relieved to see a man who is supposed to be their enemy but who looks just like them. Quoting their holy book back to them so eloquently. Speaking about duty, the way their Muslim faith does.
I am not alone in my hope.
I listened to Michael Moore on the radio this week. He was being interviewed about GM. He was in no mood to forgive them their Flint sins. The interviewer asked him whether he was hopeful. He said he was full of hope for the future, because his new President was sly as a fox, and he reckoned if anyone could steer America back on track it was him.
Was this how my parents felt in 1961?
Himself was born 92 days after Kennedy was assassinated, the world was probably still grieving. I came along six years later, among the last of the Gen-Xers. With a few small fillips, we have only experienced a paucity of vision and leadership in our lives.
We have lived through the 73 Oil Crisis, the Northern Ireland conflict, the Quebec question, Reaganomics, Mulroney and NAFTA, Thatcherism, US meddling in Central and South American democracy, the hunger strikes, the ozone layer, the fall of Communism, continuous conflict in the supposedly civilized Mediterranean region (Basque separatism, Cyprus, Yugoslavia, Israel-Palestine, Algeria, Libya), Bush I, Monica Lewinsky, Bush II, 9-11+ other bombings, two wars over oil, the failure of the New Labour dream, the destruction of democracy in Haiti, Tianamen Square, the continual rearrangment of the rubble that is Afghanistan, the rape of the continent of Africa by disease and colonialism, and the gradual disintegration of trust in all of the political and public institutions we were (well I was, Himself is a total anarchist at heart) taught to believe in - politics, religion, public services, charitable organizations, educational institutions and most of all, the benign shadow of the Land of the Free.
Now we are nearly middle-aged, as well as the beginnings of chronic back/leg/joint-ache and the growing finality of the realisation that we will never ever be rich/idle/debt-free, we are facing into global warming and peak oil and the dismantling of the welfare state model round about the exact time we will be needing a nursing home bed.
No wonder I have a headache.
I have had my hopes dashed so many times...
Today though, I am only going to think about the fact that this time next week, the wheel may have turned a little bit towards my way of thinking.
This morning I thought, okay, it can't be the cold I've had. It must be stress-related. So I went through all the things that are going on in my life to identify the stressor.
I don't really have any stressful goings on in my life right now though.
Not compared to what's happened in the last couple of years.
Himself and I have reached a plateau of calm right now.
Of course, when I eventually figured it out, it's so blindingly obvious I can't understand why I didn't realise it.
It's election stress!!
Not that I'm involved in electioneering. For the first time in my life, I have a job which forbids me to be involved in the democratic process.
I am closely following two sets of elections, which are being fought by all the people I have worked with and cared for and fought with and yelled at and laughed with for the past twenty years.
And ironically (or maybe I am just the biggest election Jonah in the world), for the first time in my life, my friends and colleagues and comrades and fellow adventurers are poised to win both sets of elections.
No wonder I am weeping with the stress of the hope of it all.
Thank goodness I am not involved this time.
I would be a basket case.
Speaking of hope, this morning, I watched some of Obama's Cairo speech.
Into history he walked, loping onto the stage in that incredibly rangy relaxed way he has. Speaking in front of 3,000 people who must be so relieved to see a man who is supposed to be their enemy but who looks just like them. Quoting their holy book back to them so eloquently. Speaking about duty, the way their Muslim faith does.
I am not alone in my hope.
I listened to Michael Moore on the radio this week. He was being interviewed about GM. He was in no mood to forgive them their Flint sins. The interviewer asked him whether he was hopeful. He said he was full of hope for the future, because his new President was sly as a fox, and he reckoned if anyone could steer America back on track it was him.
Was this how my parents felt in 1961?
Himself was born 92 days after Kennedy was assassinated, the world was probably still grieving. I came along six years later, among the last of the Gen-Xers. With a few small fillips, we have only experienced a paucity of vision and leadership in our lives.
We have lived through the 73 Oil Crisis, the Northern Ireland conflict, the Quebec question, Reaganomics, Mulroney and NAFTA, Thatcherism, US meddling in Central and South American democracy, the hunger strikes, the ozone layer, the fall of Communism, continuous conflict in the supposedly civilized Mediterranean region (Basque separatism, Cyprus, Yugoslavia, Israel-Palestine, Algeria, Libya), Bush I, Monica Lewinsky, Bush II, 9-11+ other bombings, two wars over oil, the failure of the New Labour dream, the destruction of democracy in Haiti, Tianamen Square, the continual rearrangment of the rubble that is Afghanistan, the rape of the continent of Africa by disease and colonialism, and the gradual disintegration of trust in all of the political and public institutions we were (well I was, Himself is a total anarchist at heart) taught to believe in - politics, religion, public services, charitable organizations, educational institutions and most of all, the benign shadow of the Land of the Free.
Now we are nearly middle-aged, as well as the beginnings of chronic back/leg/joint-ache and the growing finality of the realisation that we will never ever be rich/idle/debt-free, we are facing into global warming and peak oil and the dismantling of the welfare state model round about the exact time we will be needing a nursing home bed.
No wonder I have a headache.
I have had my hopes dashed so many times...
Today though, I am only going to think about the fact that this time next week, the wheel may have turned a little bit towards my way of thinking.
Saturday, April 25, 2009
CAW take their medicine
It appears that the CAW did the deal with Chrysler yesterday.
Tough times. All that fighting in the newspapers last week about how the company was spinning the benefits package wrong turned out to be true. According to the G&M:
The concessions, including cuts to health-care coverage, vacations, bonuses, incentives to buy Chrysler vehicles and other benefits, met the company's target of reducing labour costs by $19 an hour, CAW president Ken Lewenza said last night at a news conference at a Toronto hotel.
The CAW had me (and probably a lot of decent Canadians) convinced that the benefits package was all going towards paying for healthcare for elderly workers who needed heart bypasses. And now I hear they were getting cheap cars.
Cheap effin' cars! They've been holding out on a deal so they can buy cheap effin' cars? Why don't they just sneak the parts out of the factory and build their own cars during their vacations?
Yes, I know that would be wrong. And nobody that works in an Ontario auto-manufacturing facility would ever do that.
Silly Chrysler. If I were them, I'd have spun that part of the story... not the snowbirds healthcare story.
It stands to reason. If you want to divide and conquer, you have to create 'deh scorn' for the other side among the hoi polloi.
The snowbird health issue created 'deh jealousy', which is a useful divide and conquer strategy, but because it was about healthcare, it also created a 'hmmm, maybe I shouldn't dump on this because some day it could be me' factor. Because everyone wants to move somewhere warm with free healthcare when they're old.
Not very useful.
However, as we all know now, nobody wants a deal on a Chrysler. Now that I know they were holding out on that, I HAVE DEH SCORN.
Watching this public relations fight is like watching two drunk people mud-wrestle with their eyes blindfolded.
Dreadful application of the basic principles of a hearts and minds strategy.
Well, thank goodness for the deal I suppose.
The company is saved for another while.
Oh no, that's right, my tax dollars have to be handed over first.
Well, at least they're not going to be used to pay for people I don't know to get cut-price Chryslers.
Or. Fiats. Or Alfa Romeos.
You expect the banks to rip you off and fuck you over. You do.
But not the unions.
I am done with the Third Estate, until the model is changed and everyone can join a union, any union, and there are no more private clubs for 'certain' workers.
Done.
Tough times. All that fighting in the newspapers last week about how the company was spinning the benefits package wrong turned out to be true. According to the G&M:
The concessions, including cuts to health-care coverage, vacations, bonuses, incentives to buy Chrysler vehicles and other benefits, met the company's target of reducing labour costs by $19 an hour, CAW president Ken Lewenza said last night at a news conference at a Toronto hotel.
The CAW had me (and probably a lot of decent Canadians) convinced that the benefits package was all going towards paying for healthcare for elderly workers who needed heart bypasses. And now I hear they were getting cheap cars.
Cheap effin' cars! They've been holding out on a deal so they can buy cheap effin' cars? Why don't they just sneak the parts out of the factory and build their own cars during their vacations?
Yes, I know that would be wrong. And nobody that works in an Ontario auto-manufacturing facility would ever do that.
Silly Chrysler. If I were them, I'd have spun that part of the story... not the snowbirds healthcare story.
It stands to reason. If you want to divide and conquer, you have to create 'deh scorn' for the other side among the hoi polloi.
The snowbird health issue created 'deh jealousy', which is a useful divide and conquer strategy, but because it was about healthcare, it also created a 'hmmm, maybe I shouldn't dump on this because some day it could be me' factor. Because everyone wants to move somewhere warm with free healthcare when they're old.
Not very useful.
However, as we all know now, nobody wants a deal on a Chrysler. Now that I know they were holding out on that, I HAVE DEH SCORN.
Watching this public relations fight is like watching two drunk people mud-wrestle with their eyes blindfolded.
Dreadful application of the basic principles of a hearts and minds strategy.
Well, thank goodness for the deal I suppose.
The company is saved for another while.
Oh no, that's right, my tax dollars have to be handed over first.
Well, at least they're not going to be used to pay for people I don't know to get cut-price Chryslers.
Or. Fiats. Or Alfa Romeos.
You expect the banks to rip you off and fuck you over. You do.
But not the unions.
I am done with the Third Estate, until the model is changed and everyone can join a union, any union, and there are no more private clubs for 'certain' workers.
Done.
Thursday, April 23, 2009
The Estates are crumbling
Is it just me, or has anyone else noticed that the three of the four Estates, a kind of early social partnership invented by the French, are crumbling.
I am working on the assumption that we accept the concept of the Fourth Estate.
And then there's one still doing quite well.
I bet you can't guess which one!!
I am beginning to realise that my entire world, my intellectual world that is, is framed by French Revolutionary philosophical constructs. And now that we seem to be going back to some kind of strange post-pre-Revolutionary version of society, it has me all a flutter intellectually.
The Estates were of course the clergy, the nobility, and the commons, the Rest of France.
And the Fourth Estate was the press. Or the meeja, as we call it nowadays.
Let's just take a quick scan and see how they're all doing.
The clergy we can pretty much agree on, I think.
They gradually lost relevance and by default power when people started to get educated and realise that hell was a concept rather than an actual destination.
An interesting side bar to this was that through the power of the replacement place of worship - television - people also found out that they weren't the only little boy that was buggered in the sacristy and consequently felt entitled to get very angry about it.
Which sped up the decline.
The Second Estate, otherwise known as the nobility, gradually lost some of their stranglehold on power and capital. There were various reasons for this, some of the more famous ones include: parliamentary democracy, the American Revolution, the Industrial Revolution, the Crimea, in-breeding, the Somme Offensive, Communism.
They were gradually replaced by the common or garden rich. Also known as capitalists, or industrialists. Or self-made men.
Now known as the super-rich.
For the purposes of this post, we shall consider the nobility and their replacements the same.
After a long period of retrenchment driven by WWII, the GI Bill, and the creation of the welfare state, they are ON THE WAY BACK!
Why do I say that?
According to the Marquis de Vauban, a famous 17th century French engineer (and blogger for his time), the French population around 1690 consisted of 10% beggars, 50% near beggars, and 30% badly off.
Which left 10% who had most of the money.
That would be Estates 1 and 2.
And apparently it got worse before the Revolution, as there was a major recession followed by a period of high inflation caused by flagrant spending and a major increase in government debt.
Which generally enables a cash grab by those with the wherewithal to do it, i.e. the super-rich.
Nowadays, according to the UN, the top one percent of the world’s adult population owns 40% of the world’s wealth, while the top 2% owns over half and the top 10% owns 85%.
Which means, ehm, huh, blah di blah.... lookee see... seems that annoying 10% still has the lion's share of what's left of the planet.
And this was three years before the recent kick off of the latest major recession.
Which as we all know is resulting in stimulus packages and quantative easing (i.e. the printing of a lot of greenbacks and loonies), which will presumably result in ..... a period of high inflation blah blah blah....
I wish we could just call it the fucking cash grab it is and move on.
As I said, one of the Estates is still doing okay.
The Third Estate, known as the Rest of France, is the Estate I gave my heart to at an early age.
As we all know, it eventually became the Communes or Commons, which took advantage of the rampant inflation and poverty caused by the recession to seize power in 1789 and chopped enough heads off the other two to get some changes rammed through.
Mankind, well those of us born without a silver spoon in our mouths, entered a period of stability-ish.
In France, parliamentary democracy ensued and spread, along with capitalism, colonialism, the bustle skirt, culture for the masses, some dreadful poetry about nature and a few other things. (I'm synopsising here obviously)
It couldn't last.
Eventually, the poets had to grow up and get a real job. The military-industrial complex grew up on the backs of the workers. Markets were created for a load of inventions through the clever use of inter-locking treaties that impelled Europe into many many wars over some geo-politically important carbon-based energy resources (also known as the Alsatian coal mines).
However, some luck ensued for the hoi polloi. Eventually one of these wars became about FREEDOM. And consequently took so many working people to win, it forced through reasonable equality for our grandparents.
Yesirree bob.
It took a long time, some tyranny, some setbacks, and the subjucation of everyone east of the Danube for seventy years, but eventually the Third Estate prevailed.
Their victory over the Second Estate complete, the Communards all went home, went to school, got big jobs and grew big bellies.
And drove big cars.
That took a lot of gas.
Here in Canada their children are known as the Canadian Auto Workers.
They had it good for a while.
But times change, and the whell turns.
And they are fucked now.
And rightly so.
And not just because they make crap cars.
And this is an irrelevant sidebar, but if I ever go to Ireland again and have to sit in a restaurant and be told that I am a traitor to the working class...
By some bloke with a Donnybrook accent...
I will SCREAM.
The reason I am not up for the CAW right now, even though my heart is very sore on their behalf, is because they forgot where they came from.
The Third Estate was 'the rest of France'.
Which translates into the rest of us.
Not some of the rest of us.
All of the rest of us.
Dudes - don't think you're going to get my support by running a campaign that accuses the rich of dividing the working classes and setting us against each other, when you lot were the ones who drew the line down the middle of us with a big $79 felt tip pen.
And are prepared to lose 10,000 jobs rather than rub out the line.
DON'T.
Not only did you show them the weak spot.
You were so friggin' hubristic you forgot we can all see the line too.
I'm too depressed to go on right now.
Goddamn it and I still have to weep over the decline of the clippable newspaper (and by default truthful journalism).
I am working on the assumption that we accept the concept of the Fourth Estate.
And then there's one still doing quite well.
I bet you can't guess which one!!
I am beginning to realise that my entire world, my intellectual world that is, is framed by French Revolutionary philosophical constructs. And now that we seem to be going back to some kind of strange post-pre-Revolutionary version of society, it has me all a flutter intellectually.
The Estates were of course the clergy, the nobility, and the commons, the Rest of France.
And the Fourth Estate was the press. Or the meeja, as we call it nowadays.
Let's just take a quick scan and see how they're all doing.
The clergy we can pretty much agree on, I think.
They gradually lost relevance and by default power when people started to get educated and realise that hell was a concept rather than an actual destination.
An interesting side bar to this was that through the power of the replacement place of worship - television - people also found out that they weren't the only little boy that was buggered in the sacristy and consequently felt entitled to get very angry about it.
Which sped up the decline.
The Second Estate, otherwise known as the nobility, gradually lost some of their stranglehold on power and capital. There were various reasons for this, some of the more famous ones include: parliamentary democracy, the American Revolution, the Industrial Revolution, the Crimea, in-breeding, the Somme Offensive, Communism.
They were gradually replaced by the common or garden rich. Also known as capitalists, or industrialists. Or self-made men.
Now known as the super-rich.
For the purposes of this post, we shall consider the nobility and their replacements the same.
After a long period of retrenchment driven by WWII, the GI Bill, and the creation of the welfare state, they are ON THE WAY BACK!
Why do I say that?
According to the Marquis de Vauban, a famous 17th century French engineer (and blogger for his time), the French population around 1690 consisted of 10% beggars, 50% near beggars, and 30% badly off.
Which left 10% who had most of the money.
That would be Estates 1 and 2.
And apparently it got worse before the Revolution, as there was a major recession followed by a period of high inflation caused by flagrant spending and a major increase in government debt.
Which generally enables a cash grab by those with the wherewithal to do it, i.e. the super-rich.
Nowadays, according to the UN, the top one percent of the world’s adult population owns 40% of the world’s wealth, while the top 2% owns over half and the top 10% owns 85%.
Which means, ehm, huh, blah di blah.... lookee see... seems that annoying 10% still has the lion's share of what's left of the planet.
And this was three years before the recent kick off of the latest major recession.
Which as we all know is resulting in stimulus packages and quantative easing (i.e. the printing of a lot of greenbacks and loonies), which will presumably result in ..... a period of high inflation blah blah blah....
I wish we could just call it the fucking cash grab it is and move on.
As I said, one of the Estates is still doing okay.
The Third Estate, known as the Rest of France, is the Estate I gave my heart to at an early age.
As we all know, it eventually became the Communes or Commons, which took advantage of the rampant inflation and poverty caused by the recession to seize power in 1789 and chopped enough heads off the other two to get some changes rammed through.
Mankind, well those of us born without a silver spoon in our mouths, entered a period of stability-ish.
In France, parliamentary democracy ensued and spread, along with capitalism, colonialism, the bustle skirt, culture for the masses, some dreadful poetry about nature and a few other things. (I'm synopsising here obviously)
It couldn't last.
Eventually, the poets had to grow up and get a real job. The military-industrial complex grew up on the backs of the workers. Markets were created for a load of inventions through the clever use of inter-locking treaties that impelled Europe into many many wars over some geo-politically important carbon-based energy resources (also known as the Alsatian coal mines).
However, some luck ensued for the hoi polloi. Eventually one of these wars became about FREEDOM. And consequently took so many working people to win, it forced through reasonable equality for our grandparents.
Yesirree bob.
It took a long time, some tyranny, some setbacks, and the subjucation of everyone east of the Danube for seventy years, but eventually the Third Estate prevailed.
Their victory over the Second Estate complete, the Communards all went home, went to school, got big jobs and grew big bellies.
And drove big cars.
That took a lot of gas.
Here in Canada their children are known as the Canadian Auto Workers.
They had it good for a while.
But times change, and the whell turns.
And they are fucked now.
And rightly so.
And not just because they make crap cars.
And this is an irrelevant sidebar, but if I ever go to Ireland again and have to sit in a restaurant and be told that I am a traitor to the working class...
By some bloke with a Donnybrook accent...
I will SCREAM.
The reason I am not up for the CAW right now, even though my heart is very sore on their behalf, is because they forgot where they came from.
The Third Estate was 'the rest of France'.
Which translates into the rest of us.
Not some of the rest of us.
All of the rest of us.
Dudes - don't think you're going to get my support by running a campaign that accuses the rich of dividing the working classes and setting us against each other, when you lot were the ones who drew the line down the middle of us with a big $79 felt tip pen.
And are prepared to lose 10,000 jobs rather than rub out the line.
DON'T.
Not only did you show them the weak spot.
You were so friggin' hubristic you forgot we can all see the line too.
I'm too depressed to go on right now.
Goddamn it and I still have to weep over the decline of the clippable newspaper (and by default truthful journalism).
Friday, February 27, 2009
Breakfast Roll Man abandons the Soldiers of Destiny... the muesli parties are on the rise
I despair of my countrymen.... frigging despair...
This is splashed across all the papers this morning:
"An opinion poll conducted by Millward Brown IMS for today’s Irish Independent shows Fine Gael on 30 per cent (up three points since the last election), Fianna Fáil 25 per cent (down 17 points), Labour on 22 per cent (up 12 points)...."
"According to the poll, Fianna Fail would lose anything up to 30 Dail seats if an election was called today. The findings are stark: just over one-in-five voters think their leader is doing a good job; one-in-10 are satisfied with the Government.
The plight of the 'Breakfast Roll Man' -- the group of newly prosperous Celtic Tiger cubs credited with sealing the last election for Fianna Fail -- appears to have mirrored the party's recent misfortunes. The most marked drop in support has been among young professionals in the 25-34 and 35-49 age categories, who are abandoning the party in their droves."
The corruption, the cronyism, and the pathetic inability to look after the sick, the vulnerable and the less well to do in our society was okay while you had a job and could borrow on your property portfolio's value, was it?
But now you're not doing so well, it's time to get rid of Fianna Fail.
RATS..... LEAVING THE SHIP.... SHOULDN'T BE ALLOWED... GRUMBLE GRUMBLE GRUMBLE....
This is splashed across all the papers this morning:
"An opinion poll conducted by Millward Brown IMS for today’s Irish Independent shows Fine Gael on 30 per cent (up three points since the last election), Fianna Fáil 25 per cent (down 17 points), Labour on 22 per cent (up 12 points)...."
"According to the poll, Fianna Fail would lose anything up to 30 Dail seats if an election was called today. The findings are stark: just over one-in-five voters think their leader is doing a good job; one-in-10 are satisfied with the Government.
The plight of the 'Breakfast Roll Man' -- the group of newly prosperous Celtic Tiger cubs credited with sealing the last election for Fianna Fail -- appears to have mirrored the party's recent misfortunes. The most marked drop in support has been among young professionals in the 25-34 and 35-49 age categories, who are abandoning the party in their droves."
The corruption, the cronyism, and the pathetic inability to look after the sick, the vulnerable and the less well to do in our society was okay while you had a job and could borrow on your property portfolio's value, was it?
But now you're not doing so well, it's time to get rid of Fianna Fail.
RATS..... LEAVING THE SHIP.... SHOULDN'T BE ALLOWED... GRUMBLE GRUMBLE GRUMBLE....
Tuesday, February 03, 2009
Saturday, December 06, 2008
To Coalesce or not to Coalesce
I can't be bothered trying to write about the mess that's going on in Canadian politics right now, so just read Jeffrey Simpson's article from the Globe and Mail this morning. It just about sums up what's going on.
http://www.theglobeandmail.com/servlet/story/RTGAM.20081205.wsimpsonessay1206/BNStory/specialComment/home/?pageRequested=1
Alternatively, if you want a sense of what real Canadians think, you can read this article by Rick Mercer, from the same organ.
http://www.theglobeandmail.com/servlet/story/RTGAM.20081205.wPOLmercer1205/BNStory/politics/home
With apologies to Knut fans.
Actually, the best comment I've read on all of this recently was from some Joe Bloe writing on the G&M site, who said what he wanted to see was Harper and Dion gone, replaced by Prentice and Ignatieff. Then we could get back to normal and watch them wiggle their stupendous eyebrows at each other across the floor of the House.
He he he...
http://www.theglobeandmail.com/servlet/story/RTGAM.20081205.wsimpsonessay1206/BNStory/specialComment/home/?pageRequested=1
Alternatively, if you want a sense of what real Canadians think, you can read this article by Rick Mercer, from the same organ.
http://www.theglobeandmail.com/servlet/story/RTGAM.20081205.wPOLmercer1205/BNStory/politics/home
With apologies to Knut fans.
Actually, the best comment I've read on all of this recently was from some Joe Bloe writing on the G&M site, who said what he wanted to see was Harper and Dion gone, replaced by Prentice and Ignatieff. Then we could get back to normal and watch them wiggle their stupendous eyebrows at each other across the floor of the House.
He he he...
Saturday, November 01, 2008
Monday, October 13, 2008
It must be chilly in hell tonight
If anyone had told me two years ago that British Prime Minister Gordon Brown would save the stock market by nationalising the banks on the day that Paul Krugman won the Nobel Prize for Economics I would have laughed.
I would have.
And remember boys and girls, Queenie and at least four of her New Canadian friends can't vote tomorrow, so please, if you have one, use it for us, if not for yourself.
I don't think any of the four would go blue, if you're interested.
I would have.
And remember boys and girls, Queenie and at least four of her New Canadian friends can't vote tomorrow, so please, if you have one, use it for us, if not for yourself.
I don't think any of the four would go blue, if you're interested.
Sunday, October 12, 2008
Being Thankful is difficult in the current world paradigm
No, I'm not going to talk about the world economic crisis.
Charlie Brooker wrote the piece I was going to write, so I don't need to do it now.
He of course wrote it much better than I would ever have done.
He of course doesn't have to weave tales of domestic bliss and gardening into everything he publishes, which makes it easier.
But still...
... I know when I'm in the presence of writing genius.
geneflects sortof...
I had to look up the spelling of that word. I don't often have to do that, but when I do, I always find I'm trying to put a U in the word somewhere.
I wonder why that is?
You'd think I'd be trying to put an I into the word.
I'm not going to talk about reality television either.
When did you change to accentmonkey.com? How posh!!! I'm all jealous now...
Even though I love So you think you can dance?, which is what we watch over here in Canader.
It's too early in the season to have an opinion on it, apart from the obvious one which is why are all the contestants from Ontario? Which I'm not going to address because the answer is that Ontario is where all the funding for extra-curricular youth activities is spent, because Ontario decides the government.
And I don't want to get into politics tonight.
Apart from one thing I need to say: the Canadian election is actually very interesting this time around, because we get to choose between:
the Tories: who are bastards according to everyone you talk to, even Tories, but who did actually did foresee some of this mess and tightened some, possibly relevant, banking rules just in time - not difficult in banking-conservative Canada though (it costs $3 to take money out of your bank account with another bank's ATM here, I kid you not) - so no big kudos for the grey eyed robot and his lackeys out there,
the Liberals: who have a John Bruton type geek leading them, but have a very interesting Green Shift policy that would shift the economy's taxation system to a carbon tax based one with reductions in income tax and investment in green jobs. Which is a great idea as far as I can make out, but which of course is really scary now because no one knows whether they'll have a job in a year's time. Unfortunately, the policy is incomprehensible when explained in a thick Quebec accent so nobody understands it except its author, Stephan Dion, soon to be former leader of the Liberal party (although this man won the leadership against Bob Rae and Ignatieff, so who knows....)
the NDP, which is doing pretty well right now touting their usual business bashing stuff. People are getting it this time round of course. But they have a strange and inevitably pro-business take on energy, i.e a cap and trade approach, which is obviously a curved ball thrown in to demand blind obedience from the intelligent yet committed NDP voter (or else the outcome of the Canadian Auto Workers' union having five seats on a four seat energy policy committee),
the Bloc, who were supposed to die this election, but who are having far too much fun picking on Harper for cutting cultural funding just before the election to leave the party on time (and of course, where would they go, now that money to spend on good parties has been withdrawn),
and the Greens, who were on 13 per cent last time I checked, which means they are going to fuck the numbers up for everyone else in their version of the Nader approach to saving the planet. Why don't Greens just vote for other people? Instead of trying to be in charge? It would work. Honest.
Results on Wednesday morning with your oatmeal for all you international political junkies. Will Canada be a weathervane for the lumpen prols worldwide? Probably. Will the prols save us? Probably not.
Not a lot to be thankful yet.
Charlie Brooker wrote the piece I was going to write, so I don't need to do it now.
He of course wrote it much better than I would ever have done.
He of course doesn't have to weave tales of domestic bliss and gardening into everything he publishes, which makes it easier.
But still...
... I know when I'm in the presence of writing genius.
geneflects sortof...
I had to look up the spelling of that word. I don't often have to do that, but when I do, I always find I'm trying to put a U in the word somewhere.
I wonder why that is?
You'd think I'd be trying to put an I into the word.
I'm not going to talk about reality television either.
When did you change to accentmonkey.com? How posh!!! I'm all jealous now...
Even though I love So you think you can dance?, which is what we watch over here in Canader.
It's too early in the season to have an opinion on it, apart from the obvious one which is why are all the contestants from Ontario? Which I'm not going to address because the answer is that Ontario is where all the funding for extra-curricular youth activities is spent, because Ontario decides the government.
And I don't want to get into politics tonight.
Apart from one thing I need to say: the Canadian election is actually very interesting this time around, because we get to choose between:
the Tories: who are bastards according to everyone you talk to, even Tories, but who did actually did foresee some of this mess and tightened some, possibly relevant, banking rules just in time - not difficult in banking-conservative Canada though (it costs $3 to take money out of your bank account with another bank's ATM here, I kid you not) - so no big kudos for the grey eyed robot and his lackeys out there,
the Liberals: who have a John Bruton type geek leading them, but have a very interesting Green Shift policy that would shift the economy's taxation system to a carbon tax based one with reductions in income tax and investment in green jobs. Which is a great idea as far as I can make out, but which of course is really scary now because no one knows whether they'll have a job in a year's time. Unfortunately, the policy is incomprehensible when explained in a thick Quebec accent so nobody understands it except its author, Stephan Dion, soon to be former leader of the Liberal party (although this man won the leadership against Bob Rae and Ignatieff, so who knows....)
the NDP, which is doing pretty well right now touting their usual business bashing stuff. People are getting it this time round of course. But they have a strange and inevitably pro-business take on energy, i.e a cap and trade approach, which is obviously a curved ball thrown in to demand blind obedience from the intelligent yet committed NDP voter (or else the outcome of the Canadian Auto Workers' union having five seats on a four seat energy policy committee),
the Bloc, who were supposed to die this election, but who are having far too much fun picking on Harper for cutting cultural funding just before the election to leave the party on time (and of course, where would they go, now that money to spend on good parties has been withdrawn),
and the Greens, who were on 13 per cent last time I checked, which means they are going to fuck the numbers up for everyone else in their version of the Nader approach to saving the planet. Why don't Greens just vote for other people? Instead of trying to be in charge? It would work. Honest.
Results on Wednesday morning with your oatmeal for all you international political junkies. Will Canada be a weathervane for the lumpen prols worldwide? Probably. Will the prols save us? Probably not.
Not a lot to be thankful yet.
Charlie tells us it's over, so it must be over.
The inimitable Mr. Charlie Brooker, from the Guardian today... the only person who was more scared reading The Road than I was, for which I will love him forever.
Great. I go on holiday, turn my back for a few weeks, come back and what has happened? The banks are on fire and we're at war with Iceland. As I type these words (on a Friday morning, fact fans), Sky News is zooming in on a screen full of red flashing numbers, apparently willing them to fall yet lower. The problem is a lack of confidence, they keep saying, cutting away every so often to show a big plunging downward arrow or a shot of a City trader holding his head in despair.
I'm a bit sick of that whole holding-his-head-in-despair schtick, to be honest. It's about time they tried something more spectacular. Surely it's time for a revival of that great cliche of the 1930s, the ruined City whizzkid hurling himself out of the window? The credit crunch high dive.
Extra points if you manage to pull a backflip on the way down, or crack your jaw on a window cleaner's cradle somewhere around floor 35. The ultimate high score goes to the first one who manages to successfully update his Facebook status using an iPhone seconds before slamming into the pavement. "Danny is plummeting to his doom." Click here to tag him in a photo.
Is this the end of the world? If so, it's a bit more boring than I'd imagined. So far, it's been an invisible apocalypse. Poke your head out the window and there's little evidence of charred debris. Perhaps that's yet to come. Like I say, I'm writing this on Friday morning. By the time you read it, it'll be Monday. Maybe we're already bartering with coloured pebbles or fighting over water or something.
Still, there's no point in worrying. If we're going to be plunged into some kind of barbaric medieval dark age, I might as well be philosophical about it, because there's no way I'll survive more than a month. I'd be hopeless at fighting over basic resources and don't have any essential manual skills, such as the ability to hunt and skin rats. Perhaps I can learn the lute and become a minstrel, or perform bawdy jigs in exchange for pennies. Assuming there are any pennies. Hey, maybe just before all currency is finally declared worthless we'll get to experience the whole wheelbarrows-full-of-worthless-banknotes thing, like they did in Germany just before the war. That'd be a blast.
It all seems particularly bizarre, because just over a week ago I was in Las Vegas, as part of a US road trip I'm writing up for the Travel section. The casino put me up in an outrageous suite the size of a millionaire's bachelor pad. It had a pool table, a butler, and a shower in the lounge with a lapdancing pole in the middle of it. The windows looked out over the Las Vegas strip; specifically over the multimillion-dollar fountain show at the front of Bellagio. I visited a nightclub full of pricks who danced around tossing banknotes in the air, then returned to the suite, which alongside a pool table and a butler, also came equipped with about six gigantic, wall-mounted HD plasma TVs, every single one of which was screaming bad news about the economy. I felt like I was trapped inside a terrifying satirical sci-fi flick.
And it had to happen, obviously. For years, money was just appearing from nowhere, or so we were told. People bought houses and bragged about how the value kept zooming up, and up, and up. In fact they didn't seem to be houses at all, but magic coin-shitting machines. It was all a dream, a dream in which you bought a box and lived in it, and all the time it generated money like a cow generates farts. Great big stinking clouds of money. And none of it was real. And now it's gone. Your house is worth less than your shoes, and your shoes are now, in turn, worth less than your mouth and your arse. Yes, your most valuable possessions are now your mouth and your arse, and you're going to have to use both of them in all manner of previously unthinkable ways to make ends meet, to pay for that box, the box you live in, the one you mistook for an enchanted, unstoppable cash engine. I hope you've got a nice kitchen. Maybe that'll take your mind off things. And sell that Alessi smoothie maker while you're about it. You can't afford fruit any more. It's tap water at best from now on. It's good for you! Really, it is.
All of it was a dream. All that crap we bought, all the bottled water and Blu-Ray players and designer shoes and iPod Shuffles and patio heaters; all the jobs we had; all the catchphrases we memorised and the stupid things we thought. Everything we did for the past 10 years - none of it really felt real, did it? Time to snap out of it. Time to grow our own vegetables and learn hand-to-hand combat with staves. And time, perhaps, to really start living
Great. I go on holiday, turn my back for a few weeks, come back and what has happened? The banks are on fire and we're at war with Iceland. As I type these words (on a Friday morning, fact fans), Sky News is zooming in on a screen full of red flashing numbers, apparently willing them to fall yet lower. The problem is a lack of confidence, they keep saying, cutting away every so often to show a big plunging downward arrow or a shot of a City trader holding his head in despair.
I'm a bit sick of that whole holding-his-head-in-despair schtick, to be honest. It's about time they tried something more spectacular. Surely it's time for a revival of that great cliche of the 1930s, the ruined City whizzkid hurling himself out of the window? The credit crunch high dive.
Extra points if you manage to pull a backflip on the way down, or crack your jaw on a window cleaner's cradle somewhere around floor 35. The ultimate high score goes to the first one who manages to successfully update his Facebook status using an iPhone seconds before slamming into the pavement. "Danny is plummeting to his doom." Click here to tag him in a photo.
Is this the end of the world? If so, it's a bit more boring than I'd imagined. So far, it's been an invisible apocalypse. Poke your head out the window and there's little evidence of charred debris. Perhaps that's yet to come. Like I say, I'm writing this on Friday morning. By the time you read it, it'll be Monday. Maybe we're already bartering with coloured pebbles or fighting over water or something.
Still, there's no point in worrying. If we're going to be plunged into some kind of barbaric medieval dark age, I might as well be philosophical about it, because there's no way I'll survive more than a month. I'd be hopeless at fighting over basic resources and don't have any essential manual skills, such as the ability to hunt and skin rats. Perhaps I can learn the lute and become a minstrel, or perform bawdy jigs in exchange for pennies. Assuming there are any pennies. Hey, maybe just before all currency is finally declared worthless we'll get to experience the whole wheelbarrows-full-of-worthless-banknotes thing, like they did in Germany just before the war. That'd be a blast.
It all seems particularly bizarre, because just over a week ago I was in Las Vegas, as part of a US road trip I'm writing up for the Travel section. The casino put me up in an outrageous suite the size of a millionaire's bachelor pad. It had a pool table, a butler, and a shower in the lounge with a lapdancing pole in the middle of it. The windows looked out over the Las Vegas strip; specifically over the multimillion-dollar fountain show at the front of Bellagio. I visited a nightclub full of pricks who danced around tossing banknotes in the air, then returned to the suite, which alongside a pool table and a butler, also came equipped with about six gigantic, wall-mounted HD plasma TVs, every single one of which was screaming bad news about the economy. I felt like I was trapped inside a terrifying satirical sci-fi flick.
And it had to happen, obviously. For years, money was just appearing from nowhere, or so we were told. People bought houses and bragged about how the value kept zooming up, and up, and up. In fact they didn't seem to be houses at all, but magic coin-shitting machines. It was all a dream, a dream in which you bought a box and lived in it, and all the time it generated money like a cow generates farts. Great big stinking clouds of money. And none of it was real. And now it's gone. Your house is worth less than your shoes, and your shoes are now, in turn, worth less than your mouth and your arse. Yes, your most valuable possessions are now your mouth and your arse, and you're going to have to use both of them in all manner of previously unthinkable ways to make ends meet, to pay for that box, the box you live in, the one you mistook for an enchanted, unstoppable cash engine. I hope you've got a nice kitchen. Maybe that'll take your mind off things. And sell that Alessi smoothie maker while you're about it. You can't afford fruit any more. It's tap water at best from now on. It's good for you! Really, it is.
All of it was a dream. All that crap we bought, all the bottled water and Blu-Ray players and designer shoes and iPod Shuffles and patio heaters; all the jobs we had; all the catchphrases we memorised and the stupid things we thought. Everything we did for the past 10 years - none of it really felt real, did it? Time to snap out of it. Time to grow our own vegetables and learn hand-to-hand combat with staves. And time, perhaps, to really start living
So if I didn't do it, and your dad didn't do it, and you didn't do it, then who did it? The fuck-up fairy?
'Utter carnage' is how one trader described events as he caught the train home from Canary Wharf on Friday
Yeah whatever, go on...
More than £600bn has been wiped from the value of shares of companies listed on the FTSE 100 since it climbed to 6,732 on 15 June 2007. Now the index is trading at around 4,000, a 40 per cent slump in 12 months,
By my calculations that is 4.553 to the power of -7. Of course, I don't know what that means. I think it means that every point of the FTSE was worth 4.5 Billion before. So the FTSE used to be worth 30,294 billion. So now the FTSE is worth 18,000 billion.
Yep. They're right.
59.4177.
I thought you rounded it down if it was less than five?
That will have a big impact on the value of pensions
Yes, they told us that at work.
Mark Otswald, an analyst at Monument Securities, describes the last few days as 'sheer, bloody panic. The Western financial system is breaking down.'
They didn't tell us that.
Apocalypse now? 'Let's hope not,' says Gerard Lyons, chief economist at Standard Chartered
Hear hear, Gerard...
they don't know how bad things are going to get, so the temptation is to dump assets, no matter what.'
They always trot out that line, don't they. I always wonder who 'they' are.
The first priority is to free up the money markets where banks lend to each other to ensure there is sufficient credit around to lend to businesses and mortgage borrowers. Ominously, that isn't happening,
I wonder where the money is ending up.
David Frost, director-general of the British Chambers of Commerce, says: Companies are being squeezed and capital expenditure will be cut
Oh well, that's all right then. Capital expenditure is planned for and paid for in advance, by the government sometimes, isn't it.
Many businesses are already low on cash because of higher costs - such as fuel bills - and weakening consumer demand
Aaah, is that so.
(I saw three Hummers in the carpark at the superstore in Spryfield today... I swear to god I did).
The bank also charged £35,000 in fees. Derek Simpson, general secretary of the Unite union, says: 'The banks are trying to hoard cash and squeezing everyone down the chain
Aha. The banks are hoarding cash are they? There's a surprise.
September, there was a net outflow of $72bn from American mutual funds, and the figure for this month could be even higher.
In Britain, retail investors have held their nerve, although there was a £500m outflow in August
I have no idea what this means. But it sounds important.
But hedge funds are major sellers. That is happening for one of two reasons: either because banks are making margin calls, where they ask for more security as debt becomes dearer to service, or because investors are taking fright and cashing in their chips.
This is where I started to get interested. Why does the journalist not know why this is happening? He's already pointed out that the banks are hoarding cash.
Rich individuals, including Russian oligarchs, are also selling, in particular where loans are secured against equity stakes in companies under their control. As stock prices fall, banks are demanding more security from tycoons, many of whom have tied up their wealth in shares
If I were the banks, and I had totally fucked things up, and broken all the rules, and destroyed the meaning of the word trust, and been cast out in the street, and had to break back in and sit in the corner snivelling and begging, until I got the shrug that meant you had gotten away with it for about fifteen minutes, I would be hoarding too, obviously,
Ukrainian oligarch and iron ore miner Kostyantin Zhevago was forced to sell a 20 per cent stake in metal company Ferrexpo last week because of the steep fall in the price of commodities. Russian billionaire Oleg Deripaska has sold 20 per cent of Canadian car parts maker Magna
To whom have these people had to sell their said to be one time ill-gotten gains?
who bought 20 per cent of Magna?
and why was it not on the news?
Or did I miss it?
When the world's wealthy elites are forced to sell shares, it not only adds to the downward pressure on financial markets, but also takes spending power out of the economy, with spin-off effects for sectors as diverse as luxury goods, property and investment in jobs
Why? Do the people that buy them not have any fun ever? Do they just sit and count their money?
Who could these people be?
Who doesn't like to have fun?
The Depression of 80 years ago was compounded by the fact that wealth was controlled by an even narrower spectrum of society than today; the effect of wealth destruction for a few was felt disproportionately by the rest of the population. Nevertheless, a version of that nexus exists today
What does this mean? It is counter-intuitive to me? Surely if a wider range of people have money the risk is spread? Am I missing something important about percentages here?
I was never any good at gambling.
Oh no!! I get it now. It's the same as I think, it's just too academic for me to understand it.
the insurance companies have escaped relatively unscathed, and fears that they might have to sell shares to increase their solvency ratios to make good a decline in equity prices appear overdone.
In 2001-02, British insurers such as Standard Life were forced to sell equities to meet capital adequacy requirements, but today insurers are less vulnerable.
Ahaaa!!!! This has happened before.
But not to the banks.
That's why it's terrible this time.
Of more concern are the potential liabilities hanging over credit default swaps, a huge unregulated sector that few people know about or understand.
Does anyone know what a credit default swap is?
Over the last 12 years, the value of the CDS market, where these contracts are traded like other derivatives, has grown to $55 trillion. CDSs have been used to insure risky mortgage bonds, as well as the debt of collapsed institutions such as Lehman Brothers. The worry is that insurers and banks that underwrote these instruments will not be able to meet their liabilities.
And they are?
With judgement, and perhaps a little luck, the financial crisis that has enveloped the world can be brought under control via a global rescue plan, but the aftershock will almost certainly be with us for years to come.
Yes, boys and girls, that's the end of the article. I swear to god it is. And there are no comments.
Investopedia says that a credit default swap is
A swap designed to transfer the credit exposure of fixed income products between parties.
The buyer of a credit swap receives credit protection, whereas the seller of the swap guarantees the credit worthiness of the product. By doing this, the risk of default is transferred from the holder of the fixed income security to the seller of the swap. For example, the buyer of a credit swap will be entitled to the par value of the bond by the seller of the swap, should the bond default in its coupon payments.
So in the case of Lehman Bros, they sold 'toxic something or others' and then they did a credit swap with someone else. The someone else gets the insurance. And then the insurance company can sue Lehman Bros for the pay out costs when the 'toxic something or other' collapses.
So the government is buying the toxic something or others so that means the government will have to guarantee the creditworthyness of the product.
So how will the government do that? Does it have to guarantee it to itself and just take the hit?
Why on earth would anyone do any of this?
If I am reading this article right, somebody has done this to the tune of $55 trillion.
This is the teenage equivalent of being in so much trouble that it's worse than the time that despite your best efforts at being sorry the cops rang the house in the middle of the night after they'd picked you up when you were puking up on the street purely to wake your parents up straight after they'd finally gone to sleep right after they had had an argument.
You'd think someone would fucking understand the pain they're all in, wouldn't you.
I do.
he he he
What has to happen now is that trust has to be re-established.
How many times have I heard that this month.
And now I finally understand
Who do YOU trust?
With the greatest respect to Richard Wachman and Tim Webb.
Yeah whatever, go on...
More than £600bn has been wiped from the value of shares of companies listed on the FTSE 100 since it climbed to 6,732 on 15 June 2007. Now the index is trading at around 4,000, a 40 per cent slump in 12 months,
By my calculations that is 4.553 to the power of -7. Of course, I don't know what that means. I think it means that every point of the FTSE was worth 4.5 Billion before. So the FTSE used to be worth 30,294 billion. So now the FTSE is worth 18,000 billion.
Yep. They're right.
59.4177.
I thought you rounded it down if it was less than five?
That will have a big impact on the value of pensions
Yes, they told us that at work.
Mark Otswald, an analyst at Monument Securities, describes the last few days as 'sheer, bloody panic. The Western financial system is breaking down.'
They didn't tell us that.
Apocalypse now? 'Let's hope not,' says Gerard Lyons, chief economist at Standard Chartered
Hear hear, Gerard...
they don't know how bad things are going to get, so the temptation is to dump assets, no matter what.'
They always trot out that line, don't they. I always wonder who 'they' are.
The first priority is to free up the money markets where banks lend to each other to ensure there is sufficient credit around to lend to businesses and mortgage borrowers. Ominously, that isn't happening,
I wonder where the money is ending up.
David Frost, director-general of the British Chambers of Commerce, says: Companies are being squeezed and capital expenditure will be cut
Oh well, that's all right then. Capital expenditure is planned for and paid for in advance, by the government sometimes, isn't it.
Many businesses are already low on cash because of higher costs - such as fuel bills - and weakening consumer demand
Aaah, is that so.
(I saw three Hummers in the carpark at the superstore in Spryfield today... I swear to god I did).
The bank also charged £35,000 in fees. Derek Simpson, general secretary of the Unite union, says: 'The banks are trying to hoard cash and squeezing everyone down the chain
Aha. The banks are hoarding cash are they? There's a surprise.
September, there was a net outflow of $72bn from American mutual funds, and the figure for this month could be even higher.
In Britain, retail investors have held their nerve, although there was a £500m outflow in August
I have no idea what this means. But it sounds important.
But hedge funds are major sellers. That is happening for one of two reasons: either because banks are making margin calls, where they ask for more security as debt becomes dearer to service, or because investors are taking fright and cashing in their chips.
This is where I started to get interested. Why does the journalist not know why this is happening? He's already pointed out that the banks are hoarding cash.
Rich individuals, including Russian oligarchs, are also selling, in particular where loans are secured against equity stakes in companies under their control. As stock prices fall, banks are demanding more security from tycoons, many of whom have tied up their wealth in shares
If I were the banks, and I had totally fucked things up, and broken all the rules, and destroyed the meaning of the word trust, and been cast out in the street, and had to break back in and sit in the corner snivelling and begging, until I got the shrug that meant you had gotten away with it for about fifteen minutes, I would be hoarding too, obviously,
Ukrainian oligarch and iron ore miner Kostyantin Zhevago was forced to sell a 20 per cent stake in metal company Ferrexpo last week because of the steep fall in the price of commodities. Russian billionaire Oleg Deripaska has sold 20 per cent of Canadian car parts maker Magna
To whom have these people had to sell their said to be one time ill-gotten gains?
who bought 20 per cent of Magna?
and why was it not on the news?
Or did I miss it?
When the world's wealthy elites are forced to sell shares, it not only adds to the downward pressure on financial markets, but also takes spending power out of the economy, with spin-off effects for sectors as diverse as luxury goods, property and investment in jobs
Why? Do the people that buy them not have any fun ever? Do they just sit and count their money?
Who could these people be?
Who doesn't like to have fun?
The Depression of 80 years ago was compounded by the fact that wealth was controlled by an even narrower spectrum of society than today; the effect of wealth destruction for a few was felt disproportionately by the rest of the population. Nevertheless, a version of that nexus exists today
What does this mean? It is counter-intuitive to me? Surely if a wider range of people have money the risk is spread? Am I missing something important about percentages here?
I was never any good at gambling.
Oh no!! I get it now. It's the same as I think, it's just too academic for me to understand it.
the insurance companies have escaped relatively unscathed, and fears that they might have to sell shares to increase their solvency ratios to make good a decline in equity prices appear overdone.
In 2001-02, British insurers such as Standard Life were forced to sell equities to meet capital adequacy requirements, but today insurers are less vulnerable.
Ahaaa!!!! This has happened before.
But not to the banks.
That's why it's terrible this time.
Of more concern are the potential liabilities hanging over credit default swaps, a huge unregulated sector that few people know about or understand.
Does anyone know what a credit default swap is?
Over the last 12 years, the value of the CDS market, where these contracts are traded like other derivatives, has grown to $55 trillion. CDSs have been used to insure risky mortgage bonds, as well as the debt of collapsed institutions such as Lehman Brothers. The worry is that insurers and banks that underwrote these instruments will not be able to meet their liabilities.
And they are?
With judgement, and perhaps a little luck, the financial crisis that has enveloped the world can be brought under control via a global rescue plan, but the aftershock will almost certainly be with us for years to come.
Yes, boys and girls, that's the end of the article. I swear to god it is. And there are no comments.
Investopedia says that a credit default swap is
A swap designed to transfer the credit exposure of fixed income products between parties.
The buyer of a credit swap receives credit protection, whereas the seller of the swap guarantees the credit worthiness of the product. By doing this, the risk of default is transferred from the holder of the fixed income security to the seller of the swap. For example, the buyer of a credit swap will be entitled to the par value of the bond by the seller of the swap, should the bond default in its coupon payments.
So in the case of Lehman Bros, they sold 'toxic something or others' and then they did a credit swap with someone else. The someone else gets the insurance. And then the insurance company can sue Lehman Bros for the pay out costs when the 'toxic something or other' collapses.
So the government is buying the toxic something or others so that means the government will have to guarantee the creditworthyness of the product.
So how will the government do that? Does it have to guarantee it to itself and just take the hit?
Why on earth would anyone do any of this?
If I am reading this article right, somebody has done this to the tune of $55 trillion.
This is the teenage equivalent of being in so much trouble that it's worse than the time that despite your best efforts at being sorry the cops rang the house in the middle of the night after they'd picked you up when you were puking up on the street purely to wake your parents up straight after they'd finally gone to sleep right after they had had an argument.
You'd think someone would fucking understand the pain they're all in, wouldn't you.
I do.
he he he
What has to happen now is that trust has to be re-established.
How many times have I heard that this month.
And now I finally understand
Who do YOU trust?
With the greatest respect to Richard Wachman and Tim Webb.
Cross-posting from the Farm
Farmer Brown found an article in The Washington Monthly that I loved.
Here it is:
There are some great comments on this article, isn't it funny that already, online newspapers have found a way to tap into the great forum that is the human need to hours every day in the schoolrooms of their childhood...
The McCain/Palin ticket is "historical" on several levels.
First POW/First Sow (with lipstick even.)
First pill popping, beer heiress, trophy wife/First Dude.
Oldest ever/Dumbest ever.
Fought for the U.S/Wants to secede from the U.S.
Air jockey dad/Hockey mom.
Joe 12 homes/Joe Six pack.
Maverick/Moose hunter
That's all I can think of, I invite others to come up with more
You suck too.
You do.
If you haven't already realised, this is an article about the McCain/ Palin ticket.
I wonder if they have an article about the banking crisis?
http://www.washingtonmonthly.com/archives/individual/2008_10/015130.php
I do link, but I'm not going to do it before I explain why.
Here it is:
There are some great comments on this article, isn't it funny that already, online newspapers have found a way to tap into the great forum that is the human need to hours every day in the schoolrooms of their childhood...
The McCain/Palin ticket is "historical" on several levels.
First POW/First Sow (with lipstick even.)
First pill popping, beer heiress, trophy wife/First Dude.
Oldest ever/Dumbest ever.
Fought for the U.S/Wants to secede from the U.S.
Air jockey dad/Hockey mom.
Joe 12 homes/Joe Six pack.
Maverick/Moose hunter
That's all I can think of, I invite others to come up with more
You suck too.
You do.
If you haven't already realised, this is an article about the McCain/ Palin ticket.
I wonder if they have an article about the banking crisis?
http://www.washingtonmonthly.com/archives/individual/2008_10/015130.php
I do link, but I'm not going to do it before I explain why.
Saturday, September 06, 2008
Zogby's Walmart voters
Colombo tracked down this blog post about the US elections recently. Pretty good stuff.
http://sweatingthroughfog.blogspot.com/2008/09/some-on-left-understand-palin.html
Although, having burrowed further into his blog, he's a little Christian for me. However, Christians aren't all bad, now are they. There are worse people in the world.
Conservatives for one thing.
http://sweatingthroughfog.blogspot.com/2008/09/some-on-left-understand-palin.html
Although, having burrowed further into his blog, he's a little Christian for me. However, Christians aren't all bad, now are they. There are worse people in the world.
Conservatives for one thing.
Friday, July 25, 2008
Humae Vitae - differing perspectives
From today's Irish Times:
FORTY YEARS ago today, Pope Paul VI issued probably the most controversial encyclical letter in the history of the Catholic Church. In Humanae Vitae, he reaffirmed the Church's official ban on artificial contraception, stunning the Catholic world at a time when there were strong expectations of some easing in the traditional teaching.
I was talking about this subject with some friends last night. Telling them about the Contraceptive Train events that took place in Ireland in the late sixties/ seventies (can't remember the exact date), and one of them told me a story about a couple getting married in Nova Scotia in the sixties.
The woman was Catholic, so they had to go to the priest for the talk.
Same deal in Ireland.
The priest explained the rhythm method to them.
Same deal in Ireland.
The priest then told them that the rhythm method was pretty unreliable, so what they needed to do was go to the doctor and get a pill (which you could get back then) that 'regulated' the rhythm.
NOT the same deal in Ireland.
In Ireland, the priest was too busy telling you that the rhythm method was to be used only for the mystery of procreation.
In other words, you could only use the rhythm method to conceive.
Not to not conceive.
There was no talk of the miracle pill that you could get to regulate your rhythm.
No sirreebob.
If you wanted talk of that, you had to go see that communist-anarchist-sinner, Dr. Paddy Leahy.
Canada... deep in its soul there is an innate decency and respect for the intelligence of its citizens that we didn't have for a long long time in Ireland ...
A country that gives Dr. Henry Morgentaler the Order of Canada for his contribution to society, knowing that a large chunk of citizens will be annoyed about it is a good country.
No wonder half the Irish medical graduates from the sixties moved here to practice.
Medicine that is.
Not the rhythm method.
FORTY YEARS ago today, Pope Paul VI issued probably the most controversial encyclical letter in the history of the Catholic Church. In Humanae Vitae, he reaffirmed the Church's official ban on artificial contraception, stunning the Catholic world at a time when there were strong expectations of some easing in the traditional teaching.
I was talking about this subject with some friends last night. Telling them about the Contraceptive Train events that took place in Ireland in the late sixties/ seventies (can't remember the exact date), and one of them told me a story about a couple getting married in Nova Scotia in the sixties.
The woman was Catholic, so they had to go to the priest for the talk.
Same deal in Ireland.
The priest explained the rhythm method to them.
Same deal in Ireland.
The priest then told them that the rhythm method was pretty unreliable, so what they needed to do was go to the doctor and get a pill (which you could get back then) that 'regulated' the rhythm.
NOT the same deal in Ireland.
In Ireland, the priest was too busy telling you that the rhythm method was to be used only for the mystery of procreation.
In other words, you could only use the rhythm method to conceive.
Not to not conceive.
There was no talk of the miracle pill that you could get to regulate your rhythm.
No sirreebob.
If you wanted talk of that, you had to go see that communist-anarchist-sinner, Dr. Paddy Leahy.
Canada... deep in its soul there is an innate decency and respect for the intelligence of its citizens that we didn't have for a long long time in Ireland ...
A country that gives Dr. Henry Morgentaler the Order of Canada for his contribution to society, knowing that a large chunk of citizens will be annoyed about it is a good country.
No wonder half the Irish medical graduates from the sixties moved here to practice.
Medicine that is.
Not the rhythm method.
Tuesday, July 01, 2008
The Frequent and Vigorous Quarterly, Issue 2
I picked up a copy of this in a coffee shop in Antigonish months ago, stuck it in the front pocket of my laptop bag, and forgot about it until I was rummaging for something to read on the bus the other day.
It's Issue 2 of a creative writing collective endeavour, which is always a good thing to pick up and read.
Inside the front cover, it states 'our title is derived from The Broom of the System, by David Foster Wallace. Please don't tell and get us into trouble. Instead, read it.'
DFW is all about the importance of ignoring the telly and its malign influence on literature and focusing on earnest self-expression, if I remember The Infinite Jest correctly. I haven't read The Broom of the System, maybe I'll try to find it.
Right so.... earnest self-expression. No telly. Just philosophical thought and literature.
From a group of English students in SFX, by the way.
Switch off your irony button, Queenie, and read on.
I thought some of the stuff was pretty good, actually.
There was a pretty good short story by someone called M Johnston, about a kid in a supermarket who gets one over on the nasty manager. It was funny and well written, which is something Queenie has never managed to pull off.
And there was a poem called The Tibetan Monk which I really liked - interesting theme, really interesting structure, great rhythm. It reminded me of the early poetry of one Gavin Kostick, a heady mix of classical themes and political thought.
Then there was another short story that had its roots in the old Oisin and the land of Tir na nOg myth that I didn't really get, and a transcript of MSN sex talk that we'll just skip over and some very nice photos, particularly one by Philippe Mineau that I really liked, and then I got to Pride of an iPod Generation.
Which I read.
Then I read again.
Then I read again.
And I'm thinking to myself.... if this is David Foster Wallace-inspired then this is not ironic.
And if that is the case, then some gentle teasing of the author is definitely in order.
I hope he doesn't mind.
Yes, of course he was a boy.
But I will start by saying I accept that we were all that young, arrogant in an 'ever-so-slightly tongue-in-cheek kind of way' soldier at one time.
I'm sure you'll all remember those days boys and girls, fellow passengers on the tail end of GenX....?
Circa 1988 - 94.
Round about the time we saw Public Enemy perform on Trinity College cricket pitch.
Anyways, I thought I'd share iPod man's wisdom with you.
"I come from the generation that, like every other generation, has a vivid history full of grand achievements and terrible horrors. I saw the rise of reality tv. I watched slow but sure acceptance of rap music. I was taken aback by horrid terrorist acts. I was even lucky enough to watch the progression of razor blades from one to the oh-so-necessary six bladed razors that are available today."
Well, correct me if I'm wrong but I think Public Enemy playing on the cricket pitch of a four hundred year old university would be defined as 'acceptance'. And I think it happened the year you started Grade Primary, sweetie.
I'm assuming the author was born in or around 1988, if he's iPod Gen.
I think what you might have witnessed was the commercialisation of rap music, dear.
I will grant you reality tv. You are entitled to that terrible horror. I don't remember reality tv when I was growing up. They just had shows called drama, and documentaries, and current affairs programs, and movies, when I was growing up.
I do remember watching an angry mob of Republicans drag two British soldiers out of a car, beat them to a pulp and then shoot them in the head when they drove their car into a funeral procession live on the news one time. But that doesn't really count as reality tv, as nobody had to audition to be in the car.
Also, to be petty about it, I'm pretty sure that guy from Gillette had four blades in his razor when I was growing up.
But I can't be definite. I'd have to ask a guy. Anyways, I think you were probably being ironic.
I thought you weren't supposed to be ironic...
Am I being too mean? I'm not meaning to be. I'm just feeling old and grouchy these days, trapped as I am between baby boomers and GenY, stuck with a dirty planet, rising air travel costs and no friggin' pension to look forward to when the end times come.
Anyways, back to the text...
"Every generation has their moments, we have plenty of history books to remind us of that, but I feel that we, the media-dubbed iPod generation, have done more than what historians will write down. What do you notice when you compare the people your age to those say, ten years your senior? Twenty years? Thirty years?"
According to an article I found on The Times online, the iPod generation is comprised of people under 26 (today). iPod stands for 'insecure, pressured, overtaxed and debt-ridden'.
That's just about everyone I know, when you think about it.
Perhaps the iPods are the generation that are annoyed about it.
Or more accurately, the iPods are the generation that weren't expecting it to be so.
Bless'em.
Nothing like a decade of recession in your teens to give you that edge on expectations.
Thanks, Mr. Haughey*, you served me well in retrospect.
* Mr. Haughey was an Irish PM who lorded it over us all during a recession in the eighties. Subsequently, we found out that he was using other people's money to live like a king. Irish people got very mad when they found out, but then realised that that was the way to go, and so a good chunk of them got on that bandwagon. Consequently, Ireland is facing another recession right now, but it's okay, the economy is structurally sound, so it won't be like the eighties again.
Anyways, I'm sure you're dying to know what our young author sees when he compares himself to us thirty-somethings and forty-somethings...and fifty-somethings. (anyone older is not worth a comparison, I think, or maybe he was straitened by the word count).
"You may not agree with me, but what I see is nothing short of amazing. I see a generation who almost never looks first at race or gender, who (almost unbeknownst to them) have environmentally friendly routines in their everyday lives, and who are extremely accepting of gay and bisexual communities. There are exceptions and there always will be, but when I compare us to a decade prior (that would be me - Queenie), I feel that we are vastly superior in these areas. Now I cannot speak for our generation globally, this is merely a tiny spot on the planetary spectrum, but does that make it any less significant?
And there you were, wondering why Queenie was picking on some poor, inarticulate little X-er.
Queenie don't pick on no one unless they're askin' for it.
And this kid is ASKIN' FORIT!
Only the fact that I still remember once telling the Queen Dad that my generation was very unlucky because all we had was Thatcher and emigration and war, and his generation got to do the sixties, and him laughing his ass off and saying, I did the sixties in rural Ireland, Queenie, and before that I had to do the fifties there, and me then realising that all generations ARE THE SAME in many ways, is keeping the gloves on.
Soon to be global spokesman for the iPod generation-man should not have used the word superior.
What the word 'superior' says to me is that iPod man may not see colour or gender or sexual orientation when he looks at people, but that's because he's too busy counting the wrinkles on people's faces and judging them thus.
Mr. iPod forgets to mention the Queen Parents generation when he was comparing. I remember the Queen Mum making compost, recycling paper, separating waste, making her own bread, growing vegetables and doing all kinds of other 'green' things way back before there was any mention of green, because it saved money and reduced what went into the bin and was healthy and useful, etc.
How would the iPods compare to that, eh?
Take a pass on the gap year round the globe travel and maybe it'll be a 1-1 draw.
Anyways, back to the text...
"I am an optimist, and like Delta Goodrem* says 'I don't see the point in being anything else'. I firmly believe that we are the most accepting, equal and green generation that the world has ever seen. We have the previous generations (and fantastic programs like Degrassi and Captain Planet of course) to thank for that, but we also have ourselves. I hope that you agree with me and I pray that the next generation will be able to say the same."
*Star of Neighbours, for those of you that don't recognise the name, but today's Neighbours, not the Neighbours we watched in the eighties. A sort of modern-day Kylie if you like. Slight bending of the DFW no-telly rule, too, if you ask me.
Yes well, thanks for the nod to us oldarses for our minor role in the production of the superior generation of which you are a proud member, Mr. iPod. I'm not sure it bolsters your earlier points regarding our malign influence on the world, but that's okay. We take our manna where we can get it.
I truly hope you are the most accepting, equal and green generation that the world has ever seen, cos God knows, you're going to have to be...
I also truly hope that you are an inspired fifth columnist within the community of The Frequent and Vigorous Quarterly, and that the point of your piece is to undermine the David Foster Wallacian theory behind the publication.
Otherwise, I'm a heading 'er for the compound right now. Before you tackle me to the ground and put me on an icefloe with all the other old people.
It's Issue 2 of a creative writing collective endeavour, which is always a good thing to pick up and read.
Inside the front cover, it states 'our title is derived from The Broom of the System, by David Foster Wallace. Please don't tell and get us into trouble. Instead, read it.'
DFW is all about the importance of ignoring the telly and its malign influence on literature and focusing on earnest self-expression, if I remember The Infinite Jest correctly. I haven't read The Broom of the System, maybe I'll try to find it.
Right so.... earnest self-expression. No telly. Just philosophical thought and literature.
From a group of English students in SFX, by the way.
Switch off your irony button, Queenie, and read on.
I thought some of the stuff was pretty good, actually.
There was a pretty good short story by someone called M Johnston, about a kid in a supermarket who gets one over on the nasty manager. It was funny and well written, which is something Queenie has never managed to pull off.
And there was a poem called The Tibetan Monk which I really liked - interesting theme, really interesting structure, great rhythm. It reminded me of the early poetry of one Gavin Kostick, a heady mix of classical themes and political thought.
Then there was another short story that had its roots in the old Oisin and the land of Tir na nOg myth that I didn't really get, and a transcript of MSN sex talk that we'll just skip over and some very nice photos, particularly one by Philippe Mineau that I really liked, and then I got to Pride of an iPod Generation.
Which I read.
Then I read again.
Then I read again.
And I'm thinking to myself.... if this is David Foster Wallace-inspired then this is not ironic.
And if that is the case, then some gentle teasing of the author is definitely in order.
I hope he doesn't mind.
Yes, of course he was a boy.
But I will start by saying I accept that we were all that young, arrogant in an 'ever-so-slightly tongue-in-cheek kind of way' soldier at one time.
I'm sure you'll all remember those days boys and girls, fellow passengers on the tail end of GenX....?
Circa 1988 - 94.
Round about the time we saw Public Enemy perform on Trinity College cricket pitch.
Anyways, I thought I'd share iPod man's wisdom with you.
"I come from the generation that, like every other generation, has a vivid history full of grand achievements and terrible horrors. I saw the rise of reality tv. I watched slow but sure acceptance of rap music. I was taken aback by horrid terrorist acts. I was even lucky enough to watch the progression of razor blades from one to the oh-so-necessary six bladed razors that are available today."
Well, correct me if I'm wrong but I think Public Enemy playing on the cricket pitch of a four hundred year old university would be defined as 'acceptance'. And I think it happened the year you started Grade Primary, sweetie.
I'm assuming the author was born in or around 1988, if he's iPod Gen.
I think what you might have witnessed was the commercialisation of rap music, dear.
I will grant you reality tv. You are entitled to that terrible horror. I don't remember reality tv when I was growing up. They just had shows called drama, and documentaries, and current affairs programs, and movies, when I was growing up.
I do remember watching an angry mob of Republicans drag two British soldiers out of a car, beat them to a pulp and then shoot them in the head when they drove their car into a funeral procession live on the news one time. But that doesn't really count as reality tv, as nobody had to audition to be in the car.
Also, to be petty about it, I'm pretty sure that guy from Gillette had four blades in his razor when I was growing up.
But I can't be definite. I'd have to ask a guy. Anyways, I think you were probably being ironic.
I thought you weren't supposed to be ironic...
Am I being too mean? I'm not meaning to be. I'm just feeling old and grouchy these days, trapped as I am between baby boomers and GenY, stuck with a dirty planet, rising air travel costs and no friggin' pension to look forward to when the end times come.
Anyways, back to the text...
"Every generation has their moments, we have plenty of history books to remind us of that, but I feel that we, the media-dubbed iPod generation, have done more than what historians will write down. What do you notice when you compare the people your age to those say, ten years your senior? Twenty years? Thirty years?"
According to an article I found on The Times online, the iPod generation is comprised of people under 26 (today). iPod stands for 'insecure, pressured, overtaxed and debt-ridden'.
That's just about everyone I know, when you think about it.
Perhaps the iPods are the generation that are annoyed about it.
Or more accurately, the iPods are the generation that weren't expecting it to be so.
Bless'em.
Nothing like a decade of recession in your teens to give you that edge on expectations.
Thanks, Mr. Haughey*, you served me well in retrospect.
* Mr. Haughey was an Irish PM who lorded it over us all during a recession in the eighties. Subsequently, we found out that he was using other people's money to live like a king. Irish people got very mad when they found out, but then realised that that was the way to go, and so a good chunk of them got on that bandwagon. Consequently, Ireland is facing another recession right now, but it's okay, the economy is structurally sound, so it won't be like the eighties again.
Anyways, I'm sure you're dying to know what our young author sees when he compares himself to us thirty-somethings and forty-somethings...and fifty-somethings. (anyone older is not worth a comparison, I think, or maybe he was straitened by the word count).
"You may not agree with me, but what I see is nothing short of amazing. I see a generation who almost never looks first at race or gender, who (almost unbeknownst to them) have environmentally friendly routines in their everyday lives, and who are extremely accepting of gay and bisexual communities. There are exceptions and there always will be, but when I compare us to a decade prior (that would be me - Queenie), I feel that we are vastly superior in these areas. Now I cannot speak for our generation globally, this is merely a tiny spot on the planetary spectrum, but does that make it any less significant?
And there you were, wondering why Queenie was picking on some poor, inarticulate little X-er.
Queenie don't pick on no one unless they're askin' for it.
And this kid is ASKIN' FORIT!
Only the fact that I still remember once telling the Queen Dad that my generation was very unlucky because all we had was Thatcher and emigration and war, and his generation got to do the sixties, and him laughing his ass off and saying, I did the sixties in rural Ireland, Queenie, and before that I had to do the fifties there, and me then realising that all generations ARE THE SAME in many ways, is keeping the gloves on.
Soon to be global spokesman for the iPod generation-man should not have used the word superior.
What the word 'superior' says to me is that iPod man may not see colour or gender or sexual orientation when he looks at people, but that's because he's too busy counting the wrinkles on people's faces and judging them thus.
Mr. iPod forgets to mention the Queen Parents generation when he was comparing. I remember the Queen Mum making compost, recycling paper, separating waste, making her own bread, growing vegetables and doing all kinds of other 'green' things way back before there was any mention of green, because it saved money and reduced what went into the bin and was healthy and useful, etc.
How would the iPods compare to that, eh?
Take a pass on the gap year round the globe travel and maybe it'll be a 1-1 draw.
Anyways, back to the text...
"I am an optimist, and like Delta Goodrem* says 'I don't see the point in being anything else'. I firmly believe that we are the most accepting, equal and green generation that the world has ever seen. We have the previous generations (and fantastic programs like Degrassi and Captain Planet of course) to thank for that, but we also have ourselves. I hope that you agree with me and I pray that the next generation will be able to say the same."
*Star of Neighbours, for those of you that don't recognise the name, but today's Neighbours, not the Neighbours we watched in the eighties. A sort of modern-day Kylie if you like. Slight bending of the DFW no-telly rule, too, if you ask me.
Yes well, thanks for the nod to us oldarses for our minor role in the production of the superior generation of which you are a proud member, Mr. iPod. I'm not sure it bolsters your earlier points regarding our malign influence on the world, but that's okay. We take our manna where we can get it.
I truly hope you are the most accepting, equal and green generation that the world has ever seen, cos God knows, you're going to have to be...
I also truly hope that you are an inspired fifth columnist within the community of The Frequent and Vigorous Quarterly, and that the point of your piece is to undermine the David Foster Wallacian theory behind the publication.
Otherwise, I'm a heading 'er for the compound right now. Before you tackle me to the ground and put me on an icefloe with all the other old people.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)