The other day I saw one of those Tweet-battles that erupt on the social media network. On reflection, it may have been a skirmish rather than fully fledged war, but so it goes. Teeth were bared, feelings hurt and fingers danced on keyboards. The subject of this latest exchange of fire was immigration and population numbers, the argument being the obvious one that immigration is okay because Britain has plenty of room.
Nine square miles to each person, trumpeted a leftie who objected (as the caring, sharing left must) to any statement that uncontrolled immigration is bad for the UK. 'Go up in a plane and see for yourself,' he finished up his 140 character rejection of what many may see as common sense. Lots of room so let everyone in, no questions asked!
This is the sort of thinking that gets left-leaners into so much hot water so quickly. It's playing with numbers that are neither accurate or even sensible.
It may seem obvious to you that a statement like 'one person for every nine square miles' suggests that going up in a plane would show vast tracts of land with just one person in it. You would overfly a piece of land measuring three miles by three miles and spot a solitary waving figure. Possibly waving to say "Have you seen anyone else? I can't find anyone and I'm lonely." I suggest the reality is that at this time of year shopping malls and streets and pubs are jam-packed full there are millions who have deserted their nine-square miles and headed into places where you can't even see a cat let alone swing one. You'd fly for hours and not see anyone because they are all queueing for Santa's grotto.
To the left however, once a ridiculous figure is stated there is rarely an attempt to look at the facts and come up with the real number. The argument made and the point won, in their view, however ridiculous it seems. Anyway, to put this into the realm of some sort of accuracy, the total official population of the UK according to the 2011 census is 63,182,000 in an area of 94,525 square miles, which gives around 668 people per square mile.
I presume that some of those square miles are water, bog or even steep-sided mountains, which would concentrate those numbers more.
I should say here in defence of our light-thinking leftoid that the concentration of people is far greater in London and much less in the Outer Hebrides, where I expect there are indeed nine square miles where you'd be hard pressed to find even a sheep waving. I'm not sure though that all the immigrants so beloved by our socialist friends will want to go and live off the coast of Lewis.
Here's a second problem. Note the words "official population of the UK according to the 2011 census" because there is anecdotal evidence that the figure is far different. I know, this is in the same territory as 'one person for every nine square miles' but the truth is what is official from two years ago has long been overtaken by more people arriving and apparently, not all being recorded.
(This reminds me of a story I was once told by a former army officer about a squaddie stationed in Germany who wanted to change his name. The CO of the unit asked the man to bring in his passport and advised he ought to bring in his wife's passport too. "She hasn't got one," the soldier said. "She's never had one." Of course, the army had flown the soldier and his missus to Germany without going through passport control, but it emerged that the man's wife couldn't have a passport as she had no country of birth. She had been born on a freighter at sea and smuggled into the UK, where she grew up without ever being on any official books. This was the first time the issue of nationality had come up for her. Okay, that's one person, but add her to the half-dozen of illegal entry cousins about which an Asian man told a BBC news programme and we begin to see that the official figures are at least seven out.)
If as some say Britain has far more people here than officially recorded then letting more in seems a bit dangerous. I don't mean dangerous as in the weight of bodies on the surface but dangerous in the way that overcrowding raises tensions, stretches resources (we don't for example leave injured or ill illegal immigrants on the streets; we put them in the same queue for hospital places you face) and makes those anti-fraud gestures over benefits look pathetic.
"We can afford it," say people who, with their casual disregard for numbers, have no idea where money comes from and how much things cost. But then, if you support a political ideal that prints money and throws it at everything then perhaps it doesn't matter.
I mean, you can always spend another billion to solve the problem. Actually, it never 'solves' the problem but merely re-orders it into different package, but that's whole other story. Let's go back to the spend, spend, spendathon of finding another billion to make everything perfect, or at the very least perfectly acceptable.
A billion is a fabulous number because it my be beyond your scope of understanding. It's just, well, a lot. But let me explain how much 'a lot' actually is.
A day is 86,400 seconds, so a million seconds is just under twelve days from now. Therefore, if you are spending a pound a second (and government departments can outdo that, easily) it takes you nearly two weeks to clock up a spend of a million quid.
But governments don't deal in millions. They do billions as a matter of routine. Now a billion is, in the UK, a million times one million. So that's a million lots of 12 days at our spending rate of a pound a second. Twelve million days equates to almost 32 years.
Think of it: thirty-one-and-a-bit years of spending a pound a second. Morning, noon and night, every day. Every single day, whether you want to or not. You spend because every second of that time -- half of some people's lives -- demands such consistency to hit the desired 'target.'
But people glibly talk about big numbers as if they are 'achievable,' or they talk about big numbers as if they are vast open areas that easily accommodate humans. Either way, they are vague ideas but fine for winning political arguments. We print money, we spend, we are happy. Therefore we print a real lot and spend wildly and we are even happier.
In fact, if you overfly the UK you will see, every nine square miles, little piles of banknotes fluttering in the breeze. Go on, get in a plane and look for yourself.
Friday, 13 December 2013
Thursday, 12 December 2013
Meet Cliff Edge
Funny old world. You steam along doing what has to be done and then you meet Cliff Edge.
Cliff Edge however, despite the use of capitals here, isn't a person. If he was, you might find way to get past him. No, cliff edge is what you reach when you can't go any further on the road of progress.
Cliff edge is when you have done everything you can and you face a crisis. Traditionally (and in this I mean a recent tradition) the 'cliff edge' occurs in taxation where the tax-payer meets a point where a small increase -- or step -- leads to a huge loss. Or fall, if you prefer. Usually it is a tax-payer moving into a bigger tax band but as he or she has just entered it at the very bottom the corresponding penalties are enormous.
I know... we shouldn't talk about taxation as a penalty. What was I thinking? It's obviously a boon to society because now the feckless can be plied with free cash. For heaven's sake, where's my socialist upbringing?
But putting taxes aside there is another cliff edge we are increasingly encountering. It's the one on the road to progress, and I don't mean fiscal progress towards the nirvana of millions of people who don't do anything being rewarded generously by the state from taxation imposed on the fewer numbers who work. No, this is about progress in matters mechanical and achievements achievable.
I was once talking to some students and they were a little gob-smacked to learn from me that by and large all the major discoveries in science have been done, and they were done between about 1875 and 1925 or so. In a window of a little over fifty years human beings came up with how to generate electricity, the internal combustion engine, radio and television, heavier-than-air flight, the telephone, splitting the atom, plastics and a whole host of 'smaller' inventions and triumphs that make life what it is today.
I do accept that matters like glass and paper and stainless steel came before this time and the discovery of DNA and use of fibre-optics came after. There's a whole bunch of things we did before 1875 that are important and work continued after 1925 on many exciting issues. But the essential point is this small slice of history was the window in which we saw huge advances in the everyday things we have and use. It was a turning point for the world. Many of the achievements listed in the previous paragraph you will encounter every day (though possibly encountering rapidly-splitting atoms may not be good, even if our kissy-lovey world has kindly given regimes like the one in Iran the green-light to carry on trying to split them over the heads of other nations.) Anyway, the point is you use the technology of this golden age of invention and discovery every day.
Oh no, what about tinterwebz? Surely not, you cry! There's something that has come along that your golden age didn't have. Okay, well it relies on the telephone, and electricity shielded with plastics, radio waves and probably an adaption of television technology.
But, but... wait... my keyboard contains aluminium!
Oh yes, aluminium. The Greeks knew about it and could be made by 1840, though if it hadn't been for improved ways to efficiently smelt the mineral in the 1880s thanks to electricity, we might not use it much these days due to the expense.
My argument is that when it comes to the things we use we have already done the hard stuff. A lot of what we get now, such as the ubiquitous mobile phone, is an adaptation of things we already had. That doesn't mean we don't redefine and adapt, but it does mean we owe an enormous debt to the bewhiskered men (and resolute women) who made the breakthroughs.
So, why are we at a cliff edge? Well, we can't take the next step. We made the engine and we made aircraft and we made rockets and we made computers and we put a man on the moon and...
And nothing much more. We aren't likely to go back to the moon because of the cost, and anyway we are too busy banning lightbulbs and shouting at people to save energy. The next step is at the cliff edge and we don't fancy the effort to take a leap over it. Sure we can teeter and inch forward but it isn't really step forward again. The spirit and energy that drove man to make huge discoveries has largely gone, and been replaced with the ability to write memos to each other.
We don't like entrepreneurs and pioneers and adventurers any more, because they consumed resources and colonised people and spent money that would be far better off going to the poor who are struggling to watch TV on piddling little 40 inch plasma screens and could really do with a hand out so they can have a new 50 inch screen.
I could argue with myself that all this is irrelevant because we don't know what else to invent or discover, but then if we don't look we won't see. There is also the problem that probably a lot of those pioneers and discoverers broke all sorts of health and safety rules and ignored diversity in their workplace and almost certainly didn't fully support unionised labour. They were just so... well, so selfish.
Fortunately for us however the view from the cliff edge is wonderful. Providing we don't start thinking we ought to take a leap into the unknown we can feel quite safe.
Cliff Edge however, despite the use of capitals here, isn't a person. If he was, you might find way to get past him. No, cliff edge is what you reach when you can't go any further on the road of progress.
Cliff edge is when you have done everything you can and you face a crisis. Traditionally (and in this I mean a recent tradition) the 'cliff edge' occurs in taxation where the tax-payer meets a point where a small increase -- or step -- leads to a huge loss. Or fall, if you prefer. Usually it is a tax-payer moving into a bigger tax band but as he or she has just entered it at the very bottom the corresponding penalties are enormous.
I know... we shouldn't talk about taxation as a penalty. What was I thinking? It's obviously a boon to society because now the feckless can be plied with free cash. For heaven's sake, where's my socialist upbringing?
But putting taxes aside there is another cliff edge we are increasingly encountering. It's the one on the road to progress, and I don't mean fiscal progress towards the nirvana of millions of people who don't do anything being rewarded generously by the state from taxation imposed on the fewer numbers who work. No, this is about progress in matters mechanical and achievements achievable.
I was once talking to some students and they were a little gob-smacked to learn from me that by and large all the major discoveries in science have been done, and they were done between about 1875 and 1925 or so. In a window of a little over fifty years human beings came up with how to generate electricity, the internal combustion engine, radio and television, heavier-than-air flight, the telephone, splitting the atom, plastics and a whole host of 'smaller' inventions and triumphs that make life what it is today.
I do accept that matters like glass and paper and stainless steel came before this time and the discovery of DNA and use of fibre-optics came after. There's a whole bunch of things we did before 1875 that are important and work continued after 1925 on many exciting issues. But the essential point is this small slice of history was the window in which we saw huge advances in the everyday things we have and use. It was a turning point for the world. Many of the achievements listed in the previous paragraph you will encounter every day (though possibly encountering rapidly-splitting atoms may not be good, even if our kissy-lovey world has kindly given regimes like the one in Iran the green-light to carry on trying to split them over the heads of other nations.) Anyway, the point is you use the technology of this golden age of invention and discovery every day.
Oh no, what about tinterwebz? Surely not, you cry! There's something that has come along that your golden age didn't have. Okay, well it relies on the telephone, and electricity shielded with plastics, radio waves and probably an adaption of television technology.
But, but... wait... my keyboard contains aluminium!
Oh yes, aluminium. The Greeks knew about it and could be made by 1840, though if it hadn't been for improved ways to efficiently smelt the mineral in the 1880s thanks to electricity, we might not use it much these days due to the expense.
My argument is that when it comes to the things we use we have already done the hard stuff. A lot of what we get now, such as the ubiquitous mobile phone, is an adaptation of things we already had. That doesn't mean we don't redefine and adapt, but it does mean we owe an enormous debt to the bewhiskered men (and resolute women) who made the breakthroughs.
So, why are we at a cliff edge? Well, we can't take the next step. We made the engine and we made aircraft and we made rockets and we made computers and we put a man on the moon and...
And nothing much more. We aren't likely to go back to the moon because of the cost, and anyway we are too busy banning lightbulbs and shouting at people to save energy. The next step is at the cliff edge and we don't fancy the effort to take a leap over it. Sure we can teeter and inch forward but it isn't really step forward again. The spirit and energy that drove man to make huge discoveries has largely gone, and been replaced with the ability to write memos to each other.
We don't like entrepreneurs and pioneers and adventurers any more, because they consumed resources and colonised people and spent money that would be far better off going to the poor who are struggling to watch TV on piddling little 40 inch plasma screens and could really do with a hand out so they can have a new 50 inch screen.
I could argue with myself that all this is irrelevant because we don't know what else to invent or discover, but then if we don't look we won't see. There is also the problem that probably a lot of those pioneers and discoverers broke all sorts of health and safety rules and ignored diversity in their workplace and almost certainly didn't fully support unionised labour. They were just so... well, so selfish.
Fortunately for us however the view from the cliff edge is wonderful. Providing we don't start thinking we ought to take a leap into the unknown we can feel quite safe.
Wednesday, 11 December 2013
Bang, bang, you're alive!
The other day I was in a discussion with a left-leaning relative. Now if you have read my ramblings here you may be aware I don't think much of the left. I will for now avoid listing all their hypocrisies and devious ways because to be honest it gets boring recounting what is already obvious to anyone who can think, so let's move on. The important thing to know is this relative, apart from thinking socialism will one day magically solve all the problems it has failed to solve in the past, is a good person.
As fate would have it the young man works in advertising, and in fact some of his greatest successes have been to help persuade people to pay for things they enjoy. As we all have to pay for things we don't like, it comes as a refreshing change to cough up for something that gives pleasure. But hey, that's the evil of capitalism for you, right? Socialism would never approve of such a horror.
Anyway, the conversation moved round to guns, which may seem odd in a society that technically doesn't have them. Plenty of people in Britain do, and some of them are law-abiding citizens. But as I say, the impression is we in these islands ought not own a weapon that uses gunpowder to propel a small piece of metal.
Ought not perhaps, but a lot of people are armed and it isn't just in the major cities. A taxi-driver in a small town once told my wife he had found a gun on the back seat of his cab after fare paying passenger got out, which he turned in to the police.
My relative was shocked when I said I would own a gun if I could. Not you understand to leave on the back seat of taxis or even to shoot innocent people. But I would want it for a degree of self-protection on the basis of defending the people I love against someone breaking in to my home. I am not sure I could shoot someone but if push came to shove and it was an illiterate yob or me or my family at risk I admit that my feeling is the illiterate yob ought to be persuaded to go away. As wise words might not be enough to deter IY the gun would come in handy.
It wouldn't be a toy. The important thing would be to learn how to shoot accurately, how to clean and load the weapon, how to be responsible with it. My family would learn too how to use it and treat it with care. I may even feel a gun would be useful when various hordes are rampaging the streets looking for food and may think my family's food ought to be theirs, but that's a dark future yet to be visited on us.
My relative was adamant, in a nice way as he is a kind person at heart, that guns are bad and lead to evil. Apparently in the left-view guns equal terrible things, though it is okay for agents of the state to be well armed and have those with the correct line of thinking able to carry the sort of weapons that you can't have. He didn't believe entirely that as we gradually see more government power it means more guns, though only on one side but not the other. Yes, yes, I know... I hear the lefty whines that the bigger government is the more they are on our side, which of course is why they act in a superior fashion, make decisions based on whim and chatter and live separate lives to you and me.
But the age old fear of bullets or ballots raises its head again. You would have to ask would I have a gun to influence the ballot box? Not at all, because I no longer believe the ballot box brings good government. It brings people to power who want power at any price and allows them to make very good living for themselves while handing out orders to those who are denied. Me having a gun wouldn't change any of their selfish desires so I leave them to count the ballots as they wish and manipulate (or ignore) laws to allow voting fraud.
Oh yeah, that happens but hey, let's not talk about it too much.
A gun is not the embodiment of evil. Not in the way that controlling people to make them slave away and staying cowed while tossing them distractions (bread and circuses, anyone?) is evil on a grand scale. A gun is, in the end, a tool and like all tools it has to be maintained and treated with care. It isn't a political position, or a statement of 'manliness.'
If a dark future is visited on us, and it may be closer than we would like given the sort of decisions our elected leaders make so liberally, a gun would be a tool that may save a life I care about. Of course, I could just call up an agent of the state and ask, nicely, if they would mind coming round to save me and mine. But maybe the phones are out, the agents of the state have run away and are in hiding, or even if I ask they could respond: "We'd send someone over but they're probably in the baying mob outside because everyone is as equally hungry."
Using a handy tool to stay alive may well be no bad thing at all. But before you get excited and think I am bristling with weapons I have to say I obey the law as it is: I don't have a gun at all, other than a fake 1847 pepperbox pistol for when I dress up in my steampunk top hat and goggles and victorian walking cane. As the gun has no moving parts and solid barrels I don't have to clean it, so that's an advantage.
On the other hand I might get into taxi one day and find a gun on the back seat, dropped by some low-life or would-be terrorist. I really hope it's a fully loaded Glock, is all I can say.
As fate would have it the young man works in advertising, and in fact some of his greatest successes have been to help persuade people to pay for things they enjoy. As we all have to pay for things we don't like, it comes as a refreshing change to cough up for something that gives pleasure. But hey, that's the evil of capitalism for you, right? Socialism would never approve of such a horror.
Anyway, the conversation moved round to guns, which may seem odd in a society that technically doesn't have them. Plenty of people in Britain do, and some of them are law-abiding citizens. But as I say, the impression is we in these islands ought not own a weapon that uses gunpowder to propel a small piece of metal.
Ought not perhaps, but a lot of people are armed and it isn't just in the major cities. A taxi-driver in a small town once told my wife he had found a gun on the back seat of his cab after fare paying passenger got out, which he turned in to the police.
My relative was shocked when I said I would own a gun if I could. Not you understand to leave on the back seat of taxis or even to shoot innocent people. But I would want it for a degree of self-protection on the basis of defending the people I love against someone breaking in to my home. I am not sure I could shoot someone but if push came to shove and it was an illiterate yob or me or my family at risk I admit that my feeling is the illiterate yob ought to be persuaded to go away. As wise words might not be enough to deter IY the gun would come in handy.
It wouldn't be a toy. The important thing would be to learn how to shoot accurately, how to clean and load the weapon, how to be responsible with it. My family would learn too how to use it and treat it with care. I may even feel a gun would be useful when various hordes are rampaging the streets looking for food and may think my family's food ought to be theirs, but that's a dark future yet to be visited on us.
My relative was adamant, in a nice way as he is a kind person at heart, that guns are bad and lead to evil. Apparently in the left-view guns equal terrible things, though it is okay for agents of the state to be well armed and have those with the correct line of thinking able to carry the sort of weapons that you can't have. He didn't believe entirely that as we gradually see more government power it means more guns, though only on one side but not the other. Yes, yes, I know... I hear the lefty whines that the bigger government is the more they are on our side, which of course is why they act in a superior fashion, make decisions based on whim and chatter and live separate lives to you and me.
But the age old fear of bullets or ballots raises its head again. You would have to ask would I have a gun to influence the ballot box? Not at all, because I no longer believe the ballot box brings good government. It brings people to power who want power at any price and allows them to make very good living for themselves while handing out orders to those who are denied. Me having a gun wouldn't change any of their selfish desires so I leave them to count the ballots as they wish and manipulate (or ignore) laws to allow voting fraud.
Oh yeah, that happens but hey, let's not talk about it too much.
A gun is not the embodiment of evil. Not in the way that controlling people to make them slave away and staying cowed while tossing them distractions (bread and circuses, anyone?) is evil on a grand scale. A gun is, in the end, a tool and like all tools it has to be maintained and treated with care. It isn't a political position, or a statement of 'manliness.'
If a dark future is visited on us, and it may be closer than we would like given the sort of decisions our elected leaders make so liberally, a gun would be a tool that may save a life I care about. Of course, I could just call up an agent of the state and ask, nicely, if they would mind coming round to save me and mine. But maybe the phones are out, the agents of the state have run away and are in hiding, or even if I ask they could respond: "We'd send someone over but they're probably in the baying mob outside because everyone is as equally hungry."
Using a handy tool to stay alive may well be no bad thing at all. But before you get excited and think I am bristling with weapons I have to say I obey the law as it is: I don't have a gun at all, other than a fake 1847 pepperbox pistol for when I dress up in my steampunk top hat and goggles and victorian walking cane. As the gun has no moving parts and solid barrels I don't have to clean it, so that's an advantage.
On the other hand I might get into taxi one day and find a gun on the back seat, dropped by some low-life or would-be terrorist. I really hope it's a fully loaded Glock, is all I can say.
Tuesday, 10 December 2013
Mind the gap
Over the years, it has become obvious that despite all the stern efforts at mind-control and making us drones behave, there is a gap growing in society. I'd call it a schism but I went to Secondary Modern so I can't spell it, in which case I will stick with a gap which suggests you can close it. Schism is too much like ravine and sounds unbridgeable.
I am not sure it is bridgeable. The gap we have is between levels of thought and attitude and although we may be berated for not having as much unconditional love for other groups and ethnicities as our superiors might like we find it hard to understand what they are thinking. It's a gap that seems to grow every day, one way or another.
Yesterday I read of a man who was arrested, held and had his computer seized because he posted jokes online about Nelson Mandela. I can see this is a sensitive subject: a 95-year old man dies in another part of the world having, some will suggest, once been in jail for reportedly terrorist related offences. The world's media and the great and good leaders go into overdrive and eulogies and praises pour in. For all I know about South Africa such adulation may well be deserved. I know some people say the Rainbow Nation has turned out to be a violent society that hasn't come to terms with its past and thus not found a place in the modern world, but I am merely repeating what is said.
Given that the police may be called if I make a joke about the man's death (and before you reach for the batphone to summon the law, please note that I wouldn't) I won't say a word. But I am troubled that the police have been wrenched away from enforcing Facebook terms and conditions and required to check out some not-very-funny attempts at humour.
I don't really think a lot of jokes about people dying are all that funny. When much younger I used to hear jokes about people going to heaven and challenged at the Pearly Gates (not a sister of Bill, before you ask) but to be honest they weren't funny. Listening to a painfully told tale of why Sherry, Penny and Fanny couldn't get past St Peter were, well, painful. But arrest? Taking of DNA? Seizing of property?
I think this action is a bridge too far, and it will never cross the growing gap.
This poor man's tribulations were the result of someone -- a local councillor who saw the jokes -- calling the police. There I would suggest is the gap I am talking about. A person thinks something is funny when it might not be and another person apparently thinks it is an offence to make jokes about a dead person. The gap is between two people who see the world differently, and increasingly there are sections of us seeing the world differently.
I may (or may not) see South Africa as a shining example of multi-racial harmony and prefer not believe those stories of increasing numbers of murders and rapes in that part of the world. I have never been to SA though I did have a relative who emigrated there and was happy enough behind the high walls and iron gates round his house. I do believe South Africa is a beautiful country and I am sure it will continue to make progress.
However another gap emerges here between those that say something and those who say 'don't say anything.' The gap is between those who think one thing and those who think another, and that bastion of freedom known as speech is duly checked and restricted in order to achieve harmony. We are told our parliamentary system is based on debate where one person (or group) puts forward one view and someone (or some other group) counters it, and from this a general truth emerges. It's an important principle of democracy that with discussion a gap can be bridged. It might prove a rickety old bridge that can't take any weight, but an effort has been made to join two sides.
While I doubt whether this joke-teller and this councillor could have entered into a meaningful debate I do think the gap between their points of view is one of attitude, and this troubles me more. Attitudes are entrenched, despite all the concerted efforts to tell us otherwise. In fact, I'd go so far as to say that the more anyone insists we adjust our attitude the more we dig our heels in our our side of the gap.
Yes, we could exchange views and agree to disagree. Or I could call the police and demand the full weight of law, or at least the threat of it, be applied.
I would therefore suggest that the person who called in the agents of the state has one mindset and it could not tolerate the thoughts of another. A gap then of huge proportions, and it is everywhere we look. We are assailed daily with suggestions or demands or orders to correct our thinking, but there are people who are told to obey and conform and accept that don't see it that way at all.
These people may ask, with some good cause, why we are so hell-bent on trying to make one mind where there are many. The actions of this councillor in calling for police intervention is troubling because we would like our elected councillors to be thoughtful people who can recognise that there are many shades in society.
But this ill-considered action means the gap has grown a little more between different factions. The 'us and them' divide has been increased a tiny bit more. People who thought that balance and fair play and even tolerance suddenly find themselves a bit further away from an opposing and even authoritarian point of view. The thoughts of one has upset the feelings of another, and something must therefore be done using authority and invested power.
For me these gaps are growing, because we increasingly see those of one attitude trying to insist that their view is the only view possible, and any other opinion is forbidden.
There was a time when people might react to poor jokes with the crushing: "Do you know any with funny endings?" But today jokes are deemed political statements with dubious intent and contain thoughts that must be eradicated in order to ignore the gap at our feet.
I have my views, but please don't get me started on why the chicken crossed the gap.
I am not sure it is bridgeable. The gap we have is between levels of thought and attitude and although we may be berated for not having as much unconditional love for other groups and ethnicities as our superiors might like we find it hard to understand what they are thinking. It's a gap that seems to grow every day, one way or another.
Yesterday I read of a man who was arrested, held and had his computer seized because he posted jokes online about Nelson Mandela. I can see this is a sensitive subject: a 95-year old man dies in another part of the world having, some will suggest, once been in jail for reportedly terrorist related offences. The world's media and the great and good leaders go into overdrive and eulogies and praises pour in. For all I know about South Africa such adulation may well be deserved. I know some people say the Rainbow Nation has turned out to be a violent society that hasn't come to terms with its past and thus not found a place in the modern world, but I am merely repeating what is said.
Given that the police may be called if I make a joke about the man's death (and before you reach for the batphone to summon the law, please note that I wouldn't) I won't say a word. But I am troubled that the police have been wrenched away from enforcing Facebook terms and conditions and required to check out some not-very-funny attempts at humour.
I don't really think a lot of jokes about people dying are all that funny. When much younger I used to hear jokes about people going to heaven and challenged at the Pearly Gates (not a sister of Bill, before you ask) but to be honest they weren't funny. Listening to a painfully told tale of why Sherry, Penny and Fanny couldn't get past St Peter were, well, painful. But arrest? Taking of DNA? Seizing of property?
I think this action is a bridge too far, and it will never cross the growing gap.
This poor man's tribulations were the result of someone -- a local councillor who saw the jokes -- calling the police. There I would suggest is the gap I am talking about. A person thinks something is funny when it might not be and another person apparently thinks it is an offence to make jokes about a dead person. The gap is between two people who see the world differently, and increasingly there are sections of us seeing the world differently.
I may (or may not) see South Africa as a shining example of multi-racial harmony and prefer not believe those stories of increasing numbers of murders and rapes in that part of the world. I have never been to SA though I did have a relative who emigrated there and was happy enough behind the high walls and iron gates round his house. I do believe South Africa is a beautiful country and I am sure it will continue to make progress.
However another gap emerges here between those that say something and those who say 'don't say anything.' The gap is between those who think one thing and those who think another, and that bastion of freedom known as speech is duly checked and restricted in order to achieve harmony. We are told our parliamentary system is based on debate where one person (or group) puts forward one view and someone (or some other group) counters it, and from this a general truth emerges. It's an important principle of democracy that with discussion a gap can be bridged. It might prove a rickety old bridge that can't take any weight, but an effort has been made to join two sides.
While I doubt whether this joke-teller and this councillor could have entered into a meaningful debate I do think the gap between their points of view is one of attitude, and this troubles me more. Attitudes are entrenched, despite all the concerted efforts to tell us otherwise. In fact, I'd go so far as to say that the more anyone insists we adjust our attitude the more we dig our heels in our our side of the gap.
Yes, we could exchange views and agree to disagree. Or I could call the police and demand the full weight of law, or at least the threat of it, be applied.
I would therefore suggest that the person who called in the agents of the state has one mindset and it could not tolerate the thoughts of another. A gap then of huge proportions, and it is everywhere we look. We are assailed daily with suggestions or demands or orders to correct our thinking, but there are people who are told to obey and conform and accept that don't see it that way at all.
These people may ask, with some good cause, why we are so hell-bent on trying to make one mind where there are many. The actions of this councillor in calling for police intervention is troubling because we would like our elected councillors to be thoughtful people who can recognise that there are many shades in society.
But this ill-considered action means the gap has grown a little more between different factions. The 'us and them' divide has been increased a tiny bit more. People who thought that balance and fair play and even tolerance suddenly find themselves a bit further away from an opposing and even authoritarian point of view. The thoughts of one has upset the feelings of another, and something must therefore be done using authority and invested power.
For me these gaps are growing, because we increasingly see those of one attitude trying to insist that their view is the only view possible, and any other opinion is forbidden.
There was a time when people might react to poor jokes with the crushing: "Do you know any with funny endings?" But today jokes are deemed political statements with dubious intent and contain thoughts that must be eradicated in order to ignore the gap at our feet.
I have my views, but please don't get me started on why the chicken crossed the gap.
Monday, 9 December 2013
The road to hell is paved with good weedkiller
Years ago I had a neighbour who was somewhat ahead of his time. Had he been born forty years later he could have been in the vanguard of some revolutionary young idealists, determined to change the world -- or make everyone suffer in the process.
This man, who I will call Dave, had been in the police force. He had, no doubt, served his community well in his time in uniform but he was retired when we moved in next door to them. He was still active, and being active made him want to interfere in other people's lives. Dave was the sort of man who would offer good advice that he had no intentions of following himself; he would have made a good modern lefty in that he could dispense instructions for what you should do but neglected to follow them for himself. All the while he would say he only did it because he cared.
Dave was outwardly a genial chap in many ways but it soon became clear he had fallen out with members of his family and was disrespectful to his wife. I doubt he did anything bad to her but he would airily dismiss what she might say in front of other people and according to some accounts he wasn't nice to her at home. More than that, he liked to interfere in other people's lives -- and certainly in their gardens.
It wasn't unusual to come home and find Dave had climbed into our garden (as he did with other neighbours) and do something to the plants. He would clear what he deemed to be weeds or trim a rambling plant you may have liked. The worst aspect was he would clamber over the fence (no, wait, he forced it down to get in) and then apply weedkiller where he thought it was needed. Given that we did not use weedkiller anywhere in our garden this wasn't the best news we wanted.
One day when everyone was out he brought his weedkiller round and 'watered' a glorious, bright evergreen hedge between ourselves and the neighbour on the other side. The hedge developed terminal brown patches, which upset both my wife and I and the old guy we shared the hedge with. "The weeds were getting out of hand," Dave said imperiously when asked if he had done it. You see, that was his attitude in that something had to be done no matter how damaging it was. He was just the man to do it, too.
The trait of the left is just the same: nothing can allowed to simply be if you have something to hand with which you can poison a few healthy, if untidy, plants.
(The man's attitude was summed up when he started feeding our dog some gravy that made our pooch fart badly. When I asked him not to do it his response was: "We'd get used to it." Trust me, dog flatulence isn't something you want to get used to, but Dave knew best.)
Dave's greatest moment of interference was when one autumn morning he got up early and as day dawned he was up another neighbour's apple tree collecting the fruit, apparently on the basis that he hated to see things go to waste and he thought the family at number 57 had no right to let the fruit go uncollected on their own tree. As he never spoke to this family (they had fallen out some time before) he hadn't bothered to ask if they were going to collect the apples. Dave came to a conclusion all on his own and went ahead before anyone was up.
However Mr 57 and his wife slept at the back of the house and as the man opened the curtains that bright morning he was astonished to see Dave up the apple tree in 57's back garden, helping himself. Cue a storm of colourful shouting for Dave to remove himself at once.
Of course Dave had been a policeman and had, as far as coppers needed, a rudimentary grasp of the law. However trespassing apparently wasn't one of them, or rather if it was then it was the intention was all that mattered. Dave intended to make his surrounding world better his way so perhaps he thought that property and trespass were irrelevant. Again, a good solid left-wing trait we see all too often. Your property belongs to them when it suits them.
We eventually moved away from Dave and his unhappy wife and I believe they moved too, possibly to fresh pastures where neighbours could get a free weedkiller and apple collecting service even if they didn't want it.
Lucky them, and lucky weedkiller manufacturers to have their own champion. Thanks to people like Dave I expect there won't be a single weed or even a flower between the paving stones on the road to hell.
This man, who I will call Dave, had been in the police force. He had, no doubt, served his community well in his time in uniform but he was retired when we moved in next door to them. He was still active, and being active made him want to interfere in other people's lives. Dave was the sort of man who would offer good advice that he had no intentions of following himself; he would have made a good modern lefty in that he could dispense instructions for what you should do but neglected to follow them for himself. All the while he would say he only did it because he cared.
Dave was outwardly a genial chap in many ways but it soon became clear he had fallen out with members of his family and was disrespectful to his wife. I doubt he did anything bad to her but he would airily dismiss what she might say in front of other people and according to some accounts he wasn't nice to her at home. More than that, he liked to interfere in other people's lives -- and certainly in their gardens.
It wasn't unusual to come home and find Dave had climbed into our garden (as he did with other neighbours) and do something to the plants. He would clear what he deemed to be weeds or trim a rambling plant you may have liked. The worst aspect was he would clamber over the fence (no, wait, he forced it down to get in) and then apply weedkiller where he thought it was needed. Given that we did not use weedkiller anywhere in our garden this wasn't the best news we wanted.
One day when everyone was out he brought his weedkiller round and 'watered' a glorious, bright evergreen hedge between ourselves and the neighbour on the other side. The hedge developed terminal brown patches, which upset both my wife and I and the old guy we shared the hedge with. "The weeds were getting out of hand," Dave said imperiously when asked if he had done it. You see, that was his attitude in that something had to be done no matter how damaging it was. He was just the man to do it, too.
The trait of the left is just the same: nothing can allowed to simply be if you have something to hand with which you can poison a few healthy, if untidy, plants.
(The man's attitude was summed up when he started feeding our dog some gravy that made our pooch fart badly. When I asked him not to do it his response was: "We'd get used to it." Trust me, dog flatulence isn't something you want to get used to, but Dave knew best.)
Dave's greatest moment of interference was when one autumn morning he got up early and as day dawned he was up another neighbour's apple tree collecting the fruit, apparently on the basis that he hated to see things go to waste and he thought the family at number 57 had no right to let the fruit go uncollected on their own tree. As he never spoke to this family (they had fallen out some time before) he hadn't bothered to ask if they were going to collect the apples. Dave came to a conclusion all on his own and went ahead before anyone was up.
However Mr 57 and his wife slept at the back of the house and as the man opened the curtains that bright morning he was astonished to see Dave up the apple tree in 57's back garden, helping himself. Cue a storm of colourful shouting for Dave to remove himself at once.
Of course Dave had been a policeman and had, as far as coppers needed, a rudimentary grasp of the law. However trespassing apparently wasn't one of them, or rather if it was then it was the intention was all that mattered. Dave intended to make his surrounding world better his way so perhaps he thought that property and trespass were irrelevant. Again, a good solid left-wing trait we see all too often. Your property belongs to them when it suits them.
We eventually moved away from Dave and his unhappy wife and I believe they moved too, possibly to fresh pastures where neighbours could get a free weedkiller and apple collecting service even if they didn't want it.
Lucky them, and lucky weedkiller manufacturers to have their own champion. Thanks to people like Dave I expect there won't be a single weed or even a flower between the paving stones on the road to hell.
Sunday, 8 December 2013
How much is that toxic in the window?
Last month in the United Sates (no, please bear with me here, as I fully accept not everything in the world happens in the US of A) a professor was accused of racism by some of his students. Why was he racist, you ask? Well, given that racism is everything nowadays it must be obvious that he had made some terrible accusation about the origin of ethnic people, or suggested that some were by the dint of having different colour skin, less able to do the tasks set.
But no, he hadn't. He had just done his job in helping teach the young.
He corrected their work. He committed the cardinal sin of correcting grammar, spelling and punctuation. This action was, it was claimed by some students, a form of "micro-aggression."
No, I shit you not. He had the temerity to correct their work and the reaction from a group of his students was to accuse him of racism.
At this point you will think that Mr Val Rust of the University of California at Los Angeles' Graduate School of Education and Information Studies had made derisory comments on their work that clearly made hackles rise. Apparently not. He was concerned, as any teacher should be, about the quality of their ability to communicate accurately. As Rust said to his colleagues in a letter: "I have attempted to be rather thorough on the papers and am particularly concerned that they do a good job with their bibliographies and citations, and these students apparently don't feel that it is appropriate."
His attitude to wanting his students' work to be clear and correctly identified however made the youngsters tremble with indignation. According to them in a letter they read in a public meeting (in front of Mr Rust, who was required to listen to what was said as part of the everlasting quest for fairness): "There are documented and undocumented stories of a hostile and toxic environment for students of colour here in Moore Hall and throughout the campus."
I am inclined, being the old git that I am, to wonder aloud if the documented stories they lay claim to had been properly researched and the accompanying bibliographies and citations were accurate. Or could it be it is the "undocumented" that are far more interesting to them?
Also, it has to be said that unless they know that Rust was a guilty party in this it isn't his fault there are undocumented stories. Usually in the real world these are called rumours or hearsay or even lies, but no matter. If he wasn't part of the great undocumented it wasn't his fault.
But the important thing is to protest. At a sit-in demonstration students recounted their experiences (and probably their feelings too) of racial discrimination while others listened. According to the University newspaper: "Some said they wanted the university to investigate these incidents and provide additional funding for improving campus climate."
Ah, here we are getting to the nub of the matter: "Additional funding" is needed. Money, which in a lefty-orientated world solves everything. I presume that this extra funding has to come from people's pockets and I presume too that the students would howl with anger if their fees rose as a consequence. So, someone else can fund this from our favourite magic money tree. You might also think (stupidly, like me) that "campus climate" is what the students contribute towards all the time. If there is nastiness in the air I suspect it is not solely driven by marks on a paper submitted to a professor.
I do suspect that a sloppy student or two thought they could get away with a sub-standard use of English, and thought that its is the same as it's or that there and their are interchangeable on a whim. I also wonder, privately, if these were students doing the "Information Studies" part which is a nice way of saying it's okay to theorise about watching youtube and surfing the 'net where language is what you can away with. U kno wot I mean man, LMAO!!!
Rust also said there had been a conversation between two students in class over "critical race theory" which he allowed by not stopping the discussion. The interpretation of this is: two 'students' were busy talking instead of working and getting hot under the collar but he didn't intervene, fearing if he did he might be seen to side with one or the other. I would imagine that would be very toxic.
By the way as I have taught, I do know just what might trouble him here: I once had a lad from the horn of Africa shouting across a large room at two lads who came from nowhere near Africa over some comment stirred by a blast of loud music and how he was going to sort them out because one of this pair had whispered "I bet your mother would like that sort of music." I wouldn't call it a conversation as such but I did intervene, telling one to calm down and the other two to stop winding up their classmate. And no, I didn't mark their work because none of them ever did any work to mark in the few lessons I had them. So no toxic going on there then.
'Toxic' is one of those fashionable words that bounces round, batted by those who like to talk, or shout, about race issues. I have to say I didn't particularly admire any of my three 'students' and anyway I am not sure they could spell toxic if asked. But we see increasingly there is a toxic atmosphere in the world and this must be countered. Probably by more money.
I do know that everything has a price and even the most vile and toxic attitudes can be changed my more funding. In fact, I suspect that all toxicity on this campus can be removed by having speech-and-look monitors on each corner, checking nothing is said, nothing inferred. This way no feelings will be hurt and no toxic gases released, other than from too much curry the night before.
And if these damned professors would stop marking students' work as if it was important, da yoof wouldn't need to maintain a toxic attitude towards them, either.
But no, he hadn't. He had just done his job in helping teach the young.
He corrected their work. He committed the cardinal sin of correcting grammar, spelling and punctuation. This action was, it was claimed by some students, a form of "micro-aggression."
No, I shit you not. He had the temerity to correct their work and the reaction from a group of his students was to accuse him of racism.
At this point you will think that Mr Val Rust of the University of California at Los Angeles' Graduate School of Education and Information Studies had made derisory comments on their work that clearly made hackles rise. Apparently not. He was concerned, as any teacher should be, about the quality of their ability to communicate accurately. As Rust said to his colleagues in a letter: "I have attempted to be rather thorough on the papers and am particularly concerned that they do a good job with their bibliographies and citations, and these students apparently don't feel that it is appropriate."
His attitude to wanting his students' work to be clear and correctly identified however made the youngsters tremble with indignation. According to them in a letter they read in a public meeting (in front of Mr Rust, who was required to listen to what was said as part of the everlasting quest for fairness): "There are documented and undocumented stories of a hostile and toxic environment for students of colour here in Moore Hall and throughout the campus."
I am inclined, being the old git that I am, to wonder aloud if the documented stories they lay claim to had been properly researched and the accompanying bibliographies and citations were accurate. Or could it be it is the "undocumented" that are far more interesting to them?
Also, it has to be said that unless they know that Rust was a guilty party in this it isn't his fault there are undocumented stories. Usually in the real world these are called rumours or hearsay or even lies, but no matter. If he wasn't part of the great undocumented it wasn't his fault.
But the important thing is to protest. At a sit-in demonstration students recounted their experiences (and probably their feelings too) of racial discrimination while others listened. According to the University newspaper: "Some said they wanted the university to investigate these incidents and provide additional funding for improving campus climate."
Ah, here we are getting to the nub of the matter: "Additional funding" is needed. Money, which in a lefty-orientated world solves everything. I presume that this extra funding has to come from people's pockets and I presume too that the students would howl with anger if their fees rose as a consequence. So, someone else can fund this from our favourite magic money tree. You might also think (stupidly, like me) that "campus climate" is what the students contribute towards all the time. If there is nastiness in the air I suspect it is not solely driven by marks on a paper submitted to a professor.
I do suspect that a sloppy student or two thought they could get away with a sub-standard use of English, and thought that its is the same as it's or that there and their are interchangeable on a whim. I also wonder, privately, if these were students doing the "Information Studies" part which is a nice way of saying it's okay to theorise about watching youtube and surfing the 'net where language is what you can away with. U kno wot I mean man, LMAO!!!
Rust also said there had been a conversation between two students in class over "critical race theory" which he allowed by not stopping the discussion. The interpretation of this is: two 'students' were busy talking instead of working and getting hot under the collar but he didn't intervene, fearing if he did he might be seen to side with one or the other. I would imagine that would be very toxic.
By the way as I have taught, I do know just what might trouble him here: I once had a lad from the horn of Africa shouting across a large room at two lads who came from nowhere near Africa over some comment stirred by a blast of loud music and how he was going to sort them out because one of this pair had whispered "I bet your mother would like that sort of music." I wouldn't call it a conversation as such but I did intervene, telling one to calm down and the other two to stop winding up their classmate. And no, I didn't mark their work because none of them ever did any work to mark in the few lessons I had them. So no toxic going on there then.
'Toxic' is one of those fashionable words that bounces round, batted by those who like to talk, or shout, about race issues. I have to say I didn't particularly admire any of my three 'students' and anyway I am not sure they could spell toxic if asked. But we see increasingly there is a toxic atmosphere in the world and this must be countered. Probably by more money.
I do know that everything has a price and even the most vile and toxic attitudes can be changed my more funding. In fact, I suspect that all toxicity on this campus can be removed by having speech-and-look monitors on each corner, checking nothing is said, nothing inferred. This way no feelings will be hurt and no toxic gases released, other than from too much curry the night before.
And if these damned professors would stop marking students' work as if it was important, da yoof wouldn't need to maintain a toxic attitude towards them, either.
Saturday, 7 December 2013
Feelings are a piece of cake
The Chicago Tribune carried the following report recently, and something in it strikes me as significant.
"A Colorado bakery owner illegally discriminated against a gay couple when he refused to bake a wedding cake for the pair last year because of his Christian religious beliefs, a judge ruled on Friday.
Administrative Law Judge Robert Spencer ordered Jack Phillips, owner of Masterpiece Cakeshop in suburban Denver, to accommodate sex-couples or face fines and other possible penalties.
“At first blush, it may seem reasonable that a private business should be able to refuse service to anyone it chooses,” Spencer wrote in his 13-page ruling.
“This view, however, fails to take into account the cost to society and the hurt caused to persons who are denied service simply because of who they are.”
The case involves Charlie Craig and David Mullins, who said Phillips refused to bake a wedding for their wedding celebration when they went to his shop in 2012. The couple was wed in Massachusetts, one of 16 U.S. states that have legalized same-sex marriage, but wanted to have a celebration of their nuptials in Colorado.
Colorado allows civil unions for same-sex couples, but defines marriage as between one man and one woman. Phillips refused to bake the cake, saying his Christian beliefs prevented him from doing so.
The American Civil Liberties Union filed a complaint with the Colorado Civil Rights Division, which ruled that Phillips had violated a state law barring discrimination at public accommodations based on race, gender or sexual orientation. On Friday, Spencer upheld the commission’s findings."
I am fascinated by law and, in another time and space and given the choice of destiny, I might have chosen some branch of the law to pursue as a career. I would do this because I believe properly structured laws provide the essential foundation of society. I may disagree with various views and opinions but they are just that; they remain ideas which I might support or reject but it is laws that require me to comply. If I do not like them while I have to obey, I do have the right to press my representatives for a change in the law that troubles me.
But let me go back to this ruling in the States. Bearing in mind I am not a lawyer, nor am I American and I do not have any qualifications to raise any legal points on this, it still troubles me.
I do not and will not enter into any debate about gay marriage. If a government passes a law we must assume it has been properly debated (though there is some view that parliament is guilty at times of making laws that are ill-considered, knee-jerk twitches to some current fad) and we trust it will be applied equally to all of society within the framework of the legislation. We know it's not, but that is another issue to be explored another time. The system we have is one of law and as such gay marriage has, in the UK, passed into law. Nothing more to say about that.
However this is about Colorado and has been made clear that while gay marriage is not lawful in that state, and the couple in question went to another state to be declared married, the United States –– being a collection of entities with their own laws under an agreed umbrella –– ensures the commonality that a marriage in one state is upheld in another. For example, you can't get married in say New Jersey and find that Arizona has unmarried you.
So these two men are married because that it is agreed across the fifty states. End of.
The ruling though isn't about this; it is about a man refusing to make a cake.
Now I do not know why these two men went to this baker and I do not know what words passed between them. I do not know if the married couple were 'making a statement' or whether they genuinely went into the shop and asked for a decorated cake because it was their nearest store. They may have requested something specific on the icing (what the Americans call frosting) which the baker objected to. They may have wanted it obvious in some way it was a celebratory cake for two men as men having a sexual union. No idea, and not relevant.
The baker refused to take the order, and while my understanding is that a shop-owner can refuse to serve a person (though this may be British law and agreed by the judge here) it always seems odd in a competitive economy that anyone turns down business. From my viewpoint, that's his prerogative.
At some point the baker, who has certain beliefs, made it clear he wouldn't make the cake for whatever reason. Had he said he could not fulfil the order for a reason allied to being too busy or not wanting any more commitments, one supposes the two men would have gone elsewhere. No disrespect to the baker but one cake may be much like any other. Ingredients apart, naturally.
This man however said no and probably cited his presumably firmly held beliefs to justify his action. I was not in the place at the time so I do not know what passed between the three and though this may have been fully explored in court, it's not within my knowledge. let us just say there was a disagreement.
Now I have been into shops and endured not very good service. Once or twice I have said something but most of the time I have left and simply resolved not to shop there again. I presume that this couple had the same option but they chose instead to file a legal complaint.
Once the legal process is begun, it has to be carried to a point where what might be called satisfaction by one or other party (or even both) is reached. After all, this did not presumably carry any act of physical intimidation, no violence took place, nor any theft or fraud resulting in financial loss. Unless this event has been badly misreported, those actual crimes did not figure in the court case. This was apparently about hurt feelings.
The judge said that. "Hurt caused to persons," he made clear. People had endured hurt feelings.
Now this is what troubles me: the law is responding to feelings and not to anything actual.
If I went into a shop and I was called a twat to my face (I suspect once on a holiday in North Wales the locals in the shop spoke about me in some derogatory terms in their language, but what the hell?) I might say something back about who was the bigger twat and leave. They wouldn't be getting my custom again and I am sure I would tell family and friends not to shop there if they could help it. But I am not sure I would think it worth my while to advertise I had 'hurt feelings' because, frankly, who cares?
I am not a delicate flower, nor am I emotionally upset when not liked by people I don't like. But here were two grown men who found it necessary to show their hurt and, worse than that, found a judge who put their feelings above all else. But then we don't have many judges it seems these days who say "get out of my court and stop wasting my time."
I am not sure here what the "cost to society" is either. The judge believed there was and maybe his ruling explained how and why. Fair enough: his job is to look at this case closely.
But if this is solely about hurt feelings then the law, that bedrock of society, is far more flimsy than I thought possible. On this basis we can all have 'hurt feelings' and nothing much would get done, I suspect, because we would all be too busy checking our feelings for possible hurt.
The judge did his job, but he did in my opinion do it poorly. But then, I wasn't there so I can't really say. All I can say is my feelings for the solidity and reliability of law have been hurt.
Very badly hurt, but I am not complaining.
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