 |
| Freedom from Want - Norman Rockwell |
Charity is a cold grey loveless thing. If a rich man wants to help the poor, he should pay his taxes gladly, not dole out money at a whim…………..………In a civilised community, although it may be composed of self-reliant individuals, there will be some persons who will be unable at some period of their lives to look after themselves, and the question of what is to happen to them may be solved in three ways - they may be neglected, they may be cared for by the organised community as of right, or they may be left to the goodwill of individuals in the community. The first way is intolerable, and as for the third: Charity is only possible without loss of dignity between equals. A right established by law, such as that to an old age pension, is less galling than an allowance made by a rich man to a poor one, dependent on his view of the recipient’s character, and terminable at his caprice.
-Clement Atlee
-Clement Atlee
Montana
ReplyDeleteAre you sure that quote is right? It all seems to be very muddled, like it was thrown together by some Looney Tune.
Didn't you mean this?
Charity is a brilliant device, which presents the modern capitalist with many new business opportunities and tax advantages. You have to be rich to help the poor and our new charity-shelters could help you stay richer for longer by avoiding taxes and allowing the government to dole out top-ups from the public purse. There is always plenty for everyone, as long as you are rich enough to deserve it. In a civilised community, composed of individuals and their lovely families (and not some idiotic notion of "society", there will be millions of dole-cheat scum who will be unable throughout their lives to stop themselves from milking the system and sponging off the lovely rich, and the question of what is to happen to them may be solved in three ways. They may be exterminated, they may be put to work in the houses of the rich, or they may be sold on the international slave-markets. The first way is the simplest, and as for the third: Capitalism has always thrived on unregulated slavery, however it is shipped and smuggled around the world to lands far, far away. A right established by law, such as that to an old age pension or benefits or a welfare state, is less efficient and more pernicious than an allowance made by a rich man to a poor one, dependent on his view of the recipient’s character, and terminable at his caprice.
So, join us in The Third Big Tent movement and just take your money from the till marked "Taxpayer Receipts" on your way out.
You know it makes sense.
You've never had it so good.
Morning all.
ReplyDeleteHa,very good Atomboy but you forgot to mention that charities are a 'front' for the administration and do their bidding. So instead of having in-house experts and knowledge just outsource this function to an existing charity and pay them a stipend. So when the recipients of this charity suffer from government policy who will stick up for them? Not the charity for sure, they are in the pockets of the government. This of course ties in with 'small government' as well. A win-win for all! (who matter, as for the rest....)
We all know this is the situation just spelling it out.
Atomboy,
ReplyDeletehow on earth did you get hold of the DMillibandEMillibandAbbottBallsTheotherone's generic victory speech?
And here's a D'oh! quote from Alexis de Tocqueville:
“Does anyone imagine that Democracy, which has destroyed the feudal system and vanquished kings, will fall back before the middle classes and the rich?”
Right that is me on the wagon, I am such a pillock when I am drunk, and urgh the morning after, just doesn't seem worth it anymore. :(
ReplyDeleteMorning all ;)
ReplyDeleteOK a bit more puff today, (Jen - ah, yes, the Doctors - this bug is a killer, thankfully now at the really snotty stage. If I'd been able to hack the Champix experiement giving up smoking, I swear it would have gone by now)
but I've films to watch - starting with my all time fave - Forbidden Planet.
Montana - nice to see the hatchets re-interred last night ;)
Deano: (waving 'hello')
Atomboy: excellent ;) OF course, the leaked Cameroon comment (leaked my eye, more like delibertely put out there to try and influence the Labour leadership contest) 'Feck' to cameroon and to all of them.
Back in a wee while folks.
Morning Spencer - apols if I was 'heavy handed' in my DV diatribe the other day. I know I did say it at the time, but, I liked what you had to say in reply very much.
Jen - you were not 'a pillock' - you were fine ;)
ReplyDeleteFret ye not thyself x
@Jennifera
ReplyDeleteWrong choice. I exercised self control and didn't drink anything last night and I have still woken up feeling like shit. The virus I had a couple of weeks ago must be hanging on...
As for charity, as a worker in the charitable/voluntary sector, I would just say that Atlee was mostly right but he missed something out.
Tomorrow I will have worked for ten years at the same place, first as a part time practical worker and then as a full time organiser, supporting older people.
In that time I have never known if my job was secure because we get contracts from the council to provide the service year by year. Any year it could get cut and the worse things get the more likely it is that we will be.
The irony is I work with retired people but have never had any pension package in my non-contract.
So not only are the elderly people who have come to depend on our project at risk of it being whisked away at any time, my and my two co-workers could be out of a job in April, and the most security any of us will ever get is another year...
@LaRit
ReplyDeleteNo apologies needed. My fault entirely. On some of the Bidisha type representation threads I waded in and was a bit surprised to get reactions from people like Bella as if I was arguing for putting women in purdah or something.
After a while though, I realised that a lot of the people making similar sounding arguments to me were actually unregenerate sexists who had learned to parrot equal opportunities rhetoric to disguise their real agenda.
I had noticed the American Right do that on race (calling Obama a racist against whites and all that) but had not realised that reactionary sexists had adopted the same tactics, having been out of the fray for a while.
But now I am aware of it, so I do understand why feminists might react that way, if I am not very careful to express myself clearly. So my fault.
Spencer
ReplyDeleteI had noticed the American Right do that on race (calling Obama a racist against whites and all that) but had not realised that reactionary sexists had adopted the same tactics, having been out of the fray for a while.
I was quite surprised the first time I noticed people doing that, and variations on the theme of (although not so brazen) "I used to be an old Labour voter, now I agree with Griffin" or a simpler "What about the menz".
Good Grief. Did anyone hear the extract from Chris Mullins book on r4 this mornin? It's his diary from 2007(?) deals with the latter day's of Blairs Govt. The atmosphere sounds like a chaos combo of a bad company mixed with a failing school. I doubt that the inner corridors of power have changed much with the Coalition's arrival.
ReplyDeleteWhy are politicians so craven? Mullins of course paints himself as the only honest man in a house of rogues...
Hi Martyn.
ReplyDeleteYeah, they might be dim but they are cunning.
Ooh! I just spotted a couple of evangelists doorstepping houses down the street.
ReplyDeleteI do hope they come here! Otherwise I will have to get back to tidying up the flat.
Urgh. I think hair of the dog might be in order.
ReplyDeletePhilippa, hope all is well with you.
Jen
ReplyDelete"I am such a pillock when I am drunk"
Heh. Funny that - doesn't affect anyone else in the slightest.
;-)
Spencer
ReplyDelete"After a while though, I realised that a lot of the people making similar sounding arguments to me were actually unregenerate sexists who had learned to parrot equal opportunities rhetoric to disguise their real agenda"
Amen to that! And as you say, they may be 'dim' but they are 'cunning'.
apols in advance for the following, but it's another area in which the same tactics are used.
Another example is the hijacking of the health debate by the same 'unregenerate sexists'. Men suddenly became 'victims' of a 'sexist health system' which 'gave precedence' to women's health, which of course is nonsense. Division by class has always been the bottom line.
The fact remains, working people's (traditionally men's) health came very low on the agenda and a system wherein the macho culture of ignoring one's own health needs was (and still is) a mark of masculinity, predominated. Women were considered an annoyance who were treated as serial complainers, who 'imagined' all kinds of complaints. Women like my Nanna (and millions of women like her) who were parked inperpetuity in the twilight zone of long-term addiction to drugs such as Valium and Librium by middle and upper class 'health professionals' who saw the lower classes as less than human.
The reality of medical students using medical text books as late as the early 90's, in which female anatomy was at best, approximate, to the chronic shortage of midwives, to maternity services being the very first thing to be culled in the cuts, to the fact that new drugs and cures are still tested almost exclusively on men.
The massive investment in trying to reduce deaths from Breast Cancer and Cervical Cancer was a very late development and took years and years of campaiging by women to be taken seriously. Even 18 years ago, I doubt whether Jade Goody would have had to endure a terrible early death from cervical cancer as she would have had smear tests from the onset of sexual activity, probably in her teens (as did I and it saved my life) Now, because an erosion of funding into women's health has been taking place, irrespective of sexual activity, young women aren't being offered smear tests until their 20's. I expect also that we will see an increase in these deaths over the coming years.
And the persistence of 'macho' culture as well as a lack of concern by the medical profession, is condemning many men (and young men) to suffer unduly from testicular cancer. I know of two, who in their early 30's have both lost a testicle, because neither they nor their doctor's took the discovery of a 'lump' seriously.
Thauma
ReplyDelete"Urgh. I think hair of the dog might be in order."
Bloody Mary with celery, horseradish, Tabasco and (secret ingredient - a dash of dry sherry) on its way over to you.... works wonders :-)
Hiya Bitterweed!
ReplyDeleteStill haven't composed my e-mail.... crap, I think is the word for it!
Am going to try and make the get together at the end of Sept. Not too far for me to go.
And me of course, I perfectly well behaved when piddled ;)
La Rit
ReplyDeleteor - slug of cognac, orange juice and a beaten egg - whipped till frothy always works for me.
Jeeeezus!
ReplyDeleteBitterweed "Heh. Funny that - doesn't affect anyone else in the slightest."
ReplyDeleteOn the contrary, I find that the more I drink the more reasonable and eloquent I become.
Hair of the dog ?
ReplyDeleteOne Cider. Very Chilled. (Not White Lightning though... it's worse than crack.)
Spencer
ReplyDeleteThat's funny because I feel exactly the same yet when subject to peer review it turns out I can be a complete c@nt.
Funny old world !
Sheff that sounds bloody awful.
ReplyDeleteI wonder how much more shit will be revealed as time marches on....
ReplyDeleteTony Blair secretly courted Robert Mugabe in an effort to win lucrative trade deals for Britain
So much for the 'ethical' foreign policy they were trumpeting so loudly at the same time. Makes you wonder who the present incumbents are courting.
jen - it sounds awful but is remarkably delish. And has the virtue of being a proper breakfast.
ReplyDelete@LaRit,
ReplyDeleteI suspect that we are going to disagree in some fairly profound ways, but so long as we are disagreeing on what I mean rather than because I am inadvertently sounding like some whining sexist that is fine by me.
Where I think we might disagree is that I think there are times when there are "tactics" and there are times when the debate has actually been skewed to ignore real problems that men face, not always caused entirely by other men.
The point you make about testicular cancer is a good one. And I can't argue with what you are saying about cervical cancer. By coincidence the daughter of the freind who split her partners head open with a bowl died of cervical cancer aged 22. Her funeral was by far the most distressing I have been to.
At risk of feeding your rage about the system I will tell you a story about a good friend of mine who went to an elderly male doctor in Norwich because she was getting migraines.
He told her that "God has given you a womb to be filled," and suggested that the reason she was getting migraines was that she had not had children at her age.
Never mind. I reckon male doctors will be a real rarity in a few years.
SheffP:/Jen:
ReplyDeleteI think that sounds really good! I love advocaat, which I believe has raw eggs in it!
Martyn:
Clearly you have a delicate constitution ;)
Bitterweed;
White Lightening/White Ace any of those chemical ciders are deadly. Wasn't there a doctor who was so concerend at how quickly it killed street drinkers he tried to get it banned by the govt. and of course, the Govt. being in the pocket of the Distillers did nothing, in fact I think his life was made intolerable by some very shady individuals representing the distillers.
Sheff
ReplyDeleteCourting Mugabe - not, I think, paricularly at variance with Blair's particular ethic.
As to the current ethic dictating politics here today it clearly places value on the few - they alone are worthy ofconsideration. Not much different to the moral values of some of the religius.
Wall to wall sunshine here - have a happy day everyone.
Bitterweed "That's funny because I feel exactly the same yet when subject to peer review it turns out I can be a complete c@nt."
ReplyDeleteWell, I find the best policy is not to submit the subject to peer review. Or to look back on the previous night's posts, come to that.
Sheff's concoction doesn't sound too bad, but I'll pass on the Bloody Mary (although ta for the thought!) as I don't like tomato juice.
ReplyDeleteAs it is, I've just opened a bottle of red. Sunday lunch coming up soon. Yes, I know it's Monday, but I didn't have it yesterday as at a party.
"Womb to be filled" - arsehole.
Spencer, a very fine and splendid way forward. It conveys a refreshing singularity of purpose and dedication to the fundamentals of getting proper pished, and sod everything else.
ReplyDeleteLa Rit - I read the same article (?) Grim...
....Advocaat - isn't that a Dutch liquer made out of crushed lawyers ??
@Sheff
ReplyDeleteCould I despise that shit head more? I didn't think so but...
What is missing in that report is any mention of Robin Cook. Indeed it sounds a bit weird that Blair is dealing with this himself rather than the foreign office or department of trade (whatever it was called at the time).
Did he go over Cook's head? The concept of an ethical foreign policy was Cook's not Blair's idea. Looks like he was sidelined right from the start.
Right, I'm off to see if a four-pack of Italian lager-beer will get rid of my man-flu.
ReplyDeleteAnd remember folks:
ReplyDelete"Beer: so much more than a breakfast drink"
Thauma
ReplyDeleteI have a copy (1969) of a text book on psychiatry in which it is claimed that male impotence is caused by the frigidity of his partner.
Not very helpful to men or women.
The Spanking Cure
ReplyDeleteA study by Russian scientists says that spanking a person with a cane can release endorphins into the brain and, therefore, be a good treatment for any number of mental ailments, from depression to sexual hang-ups, to alcoholism. The study seems to suggest that the age-old practice of corporal punishment in schools may actually have some value, after all.
Leni
ReplyDeleteI remember back in the 60's reading a psychiatry text book belonging to a friend who was studying the subject that said girls/women shouldn't masturbate as it ruined 'proper' penetrative sex.
monkeyfish "..don't forget..in Guardian World, Bidisha is a feisty, gay Asian female, which ticks at least 3 heavily weighted victim/identity boxes.."
ReplyDeleteI'm hardly likely to forget it. I got put in to pre-mod for putting up a version of "the list" (my own as I was not initially aware that Rapid Eddie had compiled a fuller version) on one of those threads.
And I think you are right. More, it is a sign of success. If racists in the states (and now here) are whining about being discriminated against they have at least accepted that there is something wrong with discrimination. It is unimaginable that right wing racists would have argued this way thirty years ago. The whole ground of the argument has moved.
Ditto sexists. And I think there are a lot of feminists for whom that is quite a difficult problem because there are some popular tenants of some varieties of feminism that are in fact myths.
The crude one which started this discussion, that basically men are violent and women are not so any violence can be traced to a male cause (so Thatcher becomes a male identified woman, and not a proper woman) is a crude version, not seriously argued by many people nowadays, but it is an argument I have had, quite seriously, with plenty of feminist friends in the past.
Only recently I *seriously* upset an American feminist (for the second time) who is simply unable to accept that most common cause of death for women in the US is not violence but things like heart disease and cancer. That the most common cause of death is male violence seems to be an article of faith with her, and to produce evidence that it is complete nonsense, not a way to argue but an attack on that faith.
These are extremes, but as we head into the middle ground then I am sure that there are things I think are myths which LaRit and others will believe to be true. Or at least our analysis of why they are true or not will differ.
There is space and reason for debate, I would suggest.
As for Sid, yes he does have grounds for a moan. But I suspect that he is not having it on CIF very often, rather that Mail or Times reading reactionaries find it convenient to pretend to be Sid or speak for Sid in order to strengthen their position. Because if you were to examine their position you would find that they don't have half as much to moan about as they think they do.
Taking Bitterweeds excellent advice. Not only need a beer for brunch, but is a necessity !
ReplyDelete@LaRit
Yep, male macho image when referred to Doctor's is far too common. I havn't seen a Doc in over 10 years, and havn't bothered registering yet in our village. So guilty as charged ur honour !
@Leni Got a link for that?
ReplyDeleteAs it happens I wrote a book on a very similar theme (called "Corrective Therapy") once. It was set in Austria around the time of Freud. I meant to do a sequel which brought Pavlov into it but never got round to it.
Leni
ReplyDeleteI can see it might release endorphins in the spanker - but the spankee? All being spanked with a cane released in me was fury and a bloody minded desire to rebel and become even more insubordinate than I already was.
Spencer
ReplyDeleteHealth is a crucial touchstone - I don't think we are going to disagree - your examples are enough for me to know that we aren't. I had a friend who died at 36 from cervical cancer, whether her symptoms were ignored by her doctor, or whether it was her own self-neglect, I'll never know. It was a preventable death and even now, I find it hard to believe she's dead.
It is more harrowing because it is entirely preventable and probably was in the case of your friend's daughter.
I too have a propensity to ignore my own health in what I would say is a very 'masculine' way.
Health serves as a useful microcosm of how Society works. Within that are all the levels of discrimmination and mythical stereotypes: wrt Women's health, as a woman, I see how it affects me and those of my sex, but I also see how it affects all of us, women AND men and that there is a real need to re-evaluate health in realtion to class.
It's not 'rage against the system' which fuels me. Examining Male/Female health aside, the problem with the health system per se is that it is skewed by Class and the perception that exists (both amongst patients AND medics) is that health professionals are almost exclusively drawn from the middle/upper middle classes and that extremely old-fashioned sense of 'Doctor knows best' is embedded in our collective consciousness. Medecine is still viewed as the preserve of the ruling orders (with the exception of an old school mate of mine, who went to the same Comprehensive as me and is now an emminent heart surgeon).
"I reckon male doctors will be a real rarity in a few years" - I don't think so ;) and I hope not. In my local practice we have very good, committed male and female GP's. I trust them equally!
Also, I don't think women who practise medecine are all perfect either - I was sexually assaulted as a 20 year old student by a predatory female GP, I knew what she was doing to me was wrong, but that unspoken code "Doctor knows best" overruled everything else and I carried the experience of that violation around with me for nearly 18 years before I spoke about it.
I do Quite often grope me 'balls' though - just to check of course
ReplyDeleteBitterweed
ReplyDeleteI'm going to try and dig that one out. I've lost count of the times I've given street drinkers money and begged them not to buy that lethal shit.
"....Advocaat - isn't that a Dutch liquer made out of crushed lawyers ??" I think that'll be the tipple of choice in the German "Cannibal" restaurent ;)
If you're going to the fridge, can you get me one? Cheers!
@Spencer
ReplyDeleteStep forward, 'Jacqueline Masterson'! Is that you?
Leni/Sheff
ReplyDeleteI can see it might release endorphins in the spanker - but the spankee?
Possibly it depends on whether you're being spanked voluntarily?
All being spanked with a cane released in me was fury and a bloody minded desire to rebel and become even more insubordinate than I already was.
So it did have a good effect then. ;-)
LaRit - that's terrible about the GP - have you gone back and reported her?
http://english.pravda.ru/science/health/7950-whipping-0
ReplyDeleteSpencer - link.
@Peter, Yeah, that is me.
ReplyDeleteSheffP
ReplyDeleteBlair and Mugabe - now there's a big surprise - not. (I can't read those Independent articles for too long, the hideous moving adverts either side literally give me a headache)
Leni
The Spanking Cure??
Bloody hell, I bet that was a well-thumbed tome down at the Bullingdon Club!
@Spencer
ReplyDeleteSorry, the book sounded interesting so I looked it up on Abe. Hope you don't mind being outed.
The baboons lived in the mountains of Cape Town long before humans took up residence, but development has forced the unlikely neighbours into increasingly closer contact.
ReplyDeleteDuh....
Thanks Leni. Fab stuff. I am a bit miffed that this Speransky guy didn't give me an acknowledgement, as I clearly anticipated his research!
ReplyDeleteThauma
ReplyDeleteShe's probably long dead or in a nursing home, hopefully suffering late-stage Alzheimers.
It did leave me with a long lasting fear of Doctors and I'm sure it's more common than people realise.
Tascia
Keep checking - it's important!!!! And GET YOURSELF REGISTERED!!!!! (That's an order from a feminist!!)
@Peter J.
ReplyDeleteNot at all. Actually I do mind being outed as I have a (very) straight job. Unfortunately the editor of Nexus at the time who is a nice bloke but all over the place put my real name rather than my pen name on something that went out. So if you google my real name you get my books amongst other things.
I am not ashamed of my literary masterpieces. It just might not help me get a new job in the rather PC social care world. That is my only issue with it.
@Monkeyfish
ReplyDeleteSorry, I did reply to your post but mine appeared briefly and then vanished into the ether. Do they come back when they do that here?
Sheff:
ReplyDeletethe drunken baboons - brilliant. Poor old Earl Spencer and the uber Rich - they retreat to their exclusive enclaves to escape the unwashed masses and are at the mercy of maruading Baboons!!
"Lunch parties in the garden are now just impossible," a homeowner complained. "It is so unrelaxing. Rather than chatting over our meal, we are looking over our shoulders and bolting the food as quickly as we can before it is stolen. We can't even leave a window open in summer. We are under siege."
Sorry, but that just makes me laugh ;0)
Dunno..but I just lost another one too..I'm gonna try and repost both then give up completely
ReplyDeletePost 1
ReplyDelete#After a while though, I realised that a lot of the people making similar sounding arguments to me were actually unregenerate sexists who had learned to parrot equal opportunities rhetoric to disguise their real agenda.#
Why do you say they learned to "parrot" equal opportunities rhetoric?...if equal opportunities rhetoric were equal to the task..ie. if it could be evaluated against some objective standard, then it wouldn't be liable to distortion and appropriation by any disingenuous cunt who came along and fancied muddying the water.
What they do isn't a distortion or aberration; it's the logical consequence of adopting a relativist approach to inequality and an any-size-fits-all / create-your-own personalised-identity-then-bitch-about-it credo...of course what is never made explicit is the fact that certain identities, victims and causes are 'privileged' within the whole scheme...naturally, we're just supposed to 'know' this..to have absorbed it into our subconscious as good liberals and so when some well-off middle-aged geezer pops along and gives it "yeah..but what about the menz?", there are no objective grounds for saying "fuck off..you're not even part of the discussion"
...best you can do is tell him he's a troll, straying off topic or link to some highly disputable figures which highlight, say, the 'pay-gap'..of course if you take the latter course, he will link to some equally contentious figures 'proving' there is no such thing.
All in all, it's a most unsatisfactory way of approaching anything..but that is what relativism does; provides an infinitely elastic way of stretching any argument to destruction.
Given that this is the case...and particularly given that so many of these articles are written by very comfortable middle-class Oxbridge graduates with an agenda...you might think that mention of class might be a way out of some of the confusion...dream on...suggest that say Bidisha is a little out of touch with the average punter in the street (average here denoting state-schooled, non Oxbridge, about average income..possibly even male)..and see where that gets you..
"this post has been deleted by the moderator"
..don't forget..in Guardian World, Bidisha is a feisty, gay Asian female, which ticks at least 3 heavily weighted victim/identity boxes...while Sid the out of work brickie (left school at 16 with a nondescript set of qualifications) is a middle-aged white male...and just look at what'll be coming his way if he ever moans about cheap Polish labour putting him out of a job...he then gets promoted to xenophobe/racist..fuck me..he might as well be Donald Rumsfeld as far as CIF's concerned.
See..when you think about it, maybe Sid does have grounds for a bit of a moan...but not on CIF..at least not after the moderators have 'put him straight'.
Spencer:
ReplyDeleteYou dark horse!!
@Spencer
ReplyDeleteI'm glad - I really should have thought about it more, so sorry anyway. I assumed that it was some sort of franchise name, with various authors doing the actual work.
Anyway, the books all seem to get four or five stars in the Abe ratings, and prices go up to £67.51 plus shipping...
Post 2
ReplyDeleteHere's another cracker..Nesrine Malik..another feisty female..and Muslim...big ticks all round..
#In banning Moroccan women from a pilgrimage in case they are prostitutes, Saudi Arabia is failing in its Islamic duties#
Now, it might be thought reasonable to suppose that the concept of "Islamic Duty" might under equally valid interpretations include killing the infidel or chucking Jews off cliffs...but any post suggesting such an 'outrage' could only issue from an ignorant racist..oops..not racist..('Muslim' isn't a race...sits back feeling smug)..so not 'racist'..but something pretty bad.
Said poster might then object..but I'm only going by what it says in the Quran...and of course he/she would be perfectly right..yeah?..Fuck off..no chance
What that poster hasn't absorbed in the unjustifiable piece of liberal wishful-thinking which says that 'moderate muslims' are big big players in the identity stakes...you must only ever say nice stuff about them. So..if you take a view of religion which concludes that the whole thing is a right load of childish bollocks, you must be a bigot because you can't simultaneously think that while lavishing praise on moderate muslims..or any other fuckin religion.
Now it's certainly true that from a 'neutral' point of view moderate and fundamentalist muslims differ only in their interpretation of a 'divine' text...furthermore, the fundamentalist interpretation would generally seem the more obvious (certainly literal) one...it might also seem obvious that since moderate muslims are critical of their more extreme co-religionists based purely upon exegesis of a text...then they are equally liable to criticism on the same basis...yeah?...Fuck no...you're forgetting the identity league table.
So, as it happens, while I may indeed favour a moderate muslim stance on most things...I can't justify this...it's simply that I, like all non-sociopaths, prefer a non-violent outcome of disputes..I favour the moderate stance out of personal advantage...I sure as fuck don't surrender my right to call them fuckin stupid for their beliefs..or indeed any other person of 'faith' who believes their superstitions merit consideration in terms of legislation or public policy.
So we're left with a situation which more or less forces any 'reasonable' poster to conclude that there is indeed a coherent concept known as "Islamic duty" and Saudi Arabia is not living up to it...perhaps because it has been very busy recently fulfilling its duty to spread Wahabbist ideology wherever possible through the UK state school system..who knows?
Whatever it is...it is certainly hard to see how atheism or rather secularism can dovetail with the Guardianista brand of liberalism? Fairly early on when I was posting on CIF, I made a comment along the lines of "I don't give a fuck what people get up to behind their own doors..they can worship who or whatever they like, sit around playing Nintendo, watch Larry King or fuck each other stupid..just as long as their hobby doesn't ever interfere with me or force a change in legislation"...I got told this was 'racist' and 10 minutes later, it disappeared...of course if I'd only been aware at the time of the hierarchy (or tyranny) of victimology or identity, I'd never have been so naive.
@Monkeyfish,
ReplyDeleteOh yeah, the one I was replying to has gone!
MonkeyFish
ReplyDelete"given that so many of these articles are written by very comfortable middle-class Oxbridge graduates with an agenda...you might think that mention of class might be a way out of some of the confusion...dream on...suggest that say Bidisha is a little out of touch with the average punter in the street (average here denoting state-schooled, non Oxbridge, about average income..possibly even male)..and see where that gets you.."
This is of course all part of the 'game'. Class is the issue and whilst we are all left squabbling and fighting from repsective corners, once again, those that rule remain comfortably aloof. Hmmmmm.....
Well they were there for about 10 seconds or so
ReplyDelete".suggest that say Bidisha is a little out of touch with the average punter in the street (average here denoting state-schooled, non Oxbridge, about average income..possibly even male)..and see where that gets you.."
ReplyDeleteThanks LaRit.
The bit in reply to that was along the lines that I am unlikely to forget that as I was put into pre-mod for putting up a version of "The List" (I was not aware of Rapid Eddie's at first so compiled my own) on one of the threads where she was whining about "representation."
Spencer
ReplyDeleteSome claim that Bruno Bettelheim spanked some of his patients. I am guessing that if this is true it had something to do with his thesis on the victim identifying with th values of the oppressor. He may just have been an angry sadist of course.
Something like 10 years ago a psychologist/therapist was accused of encourage men and women to spank their partners as part of his curative regime. (Can't remember name)
There have been many forms of 'cognitive therapy' based on physical violence through out the centuries.
@Leni
ReplyDeleteSigh, oh well. Maybe I can claim ground breaking psychiatric work in making the patients wear rubber?
Spencer
ReplyDeleteYes indeed - a break through. I anticipate improved mental health all round.
Perhaps you could collaberate with the Russians and win international fame.
http://www.angelfire.com/oh4/ChurchofGodAssoc/Greetings.html
ReplyDeleteSpencer
This is link to Christian spanking - for those stuck at a stage of their spiritual development.
I came across all this when I was working with an abused boy - his parents (Christians) claimed beating him was 'an approved therapy' You would be quite amazed by the numbers of people who believe this. There are some real oddballs in the 'therapeutic' community.
Generally they are just violent people looking for justification.
Thanks Montana.
ReplyDeleteHank jr told me it was a bad idea to open that third bottle of red. Shows how much he knows.
Here's a cooking tip for you all - never check the best before date on the base of a tub of gravy granules until you've properly secured the lid.
Off to clean up the kitchen now.
Have just restored a couple of Monkeyfish posts that Blogger had decided were spam ... they'll be upthread somewhere!
ReplyDeleteHank - gravy granules? Learn how to make proper gravy FFS!
ReplyDeleteAnathema.
@Leni Very funny. Or maybe not so funny if this nonsense had anything to do with the boy getting abused. Mind you "Ms Kathy" is at pains to say that her spiritual therapy is for adults.
ReplyDeleteThere is a long history of Christians using religion to justify what is obviously a sexual desire. The most recent I can think of is that hysterical Tory candidate who was also an evangelical minister in Brentwood, telling the women in his congregation that God meant them to be spanked or he would not have given them such fleshy bottoms or some such.
Tories. Might be a bunch of bastards but they have always been the most entertaining political party by a mile.
Spencer - I love the way the religious people use "God obviously designed things this way" to justify, well, just about anything.
ReplyDelete@Monkeyfish I don't disagree that this is an inevitable consequence of arguing on this ground. I would see it as more positive than you do though.
ReplyDeleteWhen I see right wing Americans whining that it isn't fair and that they are being discriminated against it seems to me a sign of how much things have changed. Thirty years ago right wing racists in the US would not be arguint that because to do so is to implicity accept that there is something wrong with discrimination.
And with affirmitive action/positive discrimination there will be real examples that they can point to. So, yeah there are changes to make and not all their points are wrong per se. But mostly I think it is a sign of just how far the ground has moved. They would like to be arguing that black people are inferior but they have lost that argument so they are forced to whine about their group having it hard. The ground had moved beneath their feet.
Ditto with the sexists though I think that there are more generally held feminist ideas (not held by any means by all feminists but certainly by the sort that seem to be in the ascendency at the Guardian) which are myths, and thus quite vulnerable to these charges at times.
That doesn't alter the fact that I genuinely believe in equality and am against discrimination (one of the great failings of mainstream feminism, IMO has been a long term discrimination against transgendered people) and that some of the people arguing along similar lines quite clearly do not.
They are just using it as a tactic because they have lost the argument that women are inferior/precious bunnies in need of protection or whatever it is they really think.
I'll try posting this rather than expanding now.
Trying to work out why Blogger decided MF's posts were spam ... can only assume that the Cif mods did the coding.
ReplyDeletethauma One of my favorite all time cartoons was a Christmas card I had years ago. Wish I still did.
ReplyDeleteIt depicted a perplexed looking missionary in a big cooking pot surrounded by savages. A witch doctor type in a leapord skin loin cloth, festooned with necklaces of teeth etc, was saying:
"Ah, but if your God did not mean you to be eaten, why did he make you out of meat?"
Spencer - think I've seen that! Was it Gary Larson (? - the Far Side guy) by any chance?
ReplyDeleteThauma, didn't see my lost post in the spambox, did you?
ReplyDeleteNot the version I saw (different style) I think the company that made it were called Heretic Cards.
ReplyDeleteSpencer - no, they were all MF. I'll have another look....
ReplyDeleteAfternoon all....
ReplyDeleteThauma (and Monkeyfish)
If I had to guess about the spam thing, I'd probably say it was the use of the 'hash' key when quoting.
It does seem to appear in the vast majority of spam I come across. Also, Giyus uses it all time too!
So let's see...
ReplyDelete#'if I had to guess, I'd say it was probably the use of the # key when quoting'#
???
maybe not then!
ReplyDeleteInteresting things happening outside.
ReplyDeleteAbout 2-300 black youths just processed up the road shadowed by a police van. Not something that happens here normally.
A few stragglers just went by (running) with their own squad car escort.
Something to do with Carnival, I guess. Last year I got a North London line train and a similar number poured off the North London Line at Holloway. Perhaps this group have been thrown off the train. Strange thing is you can't get the train to Kensal Rise from Holloway.
I will go shopping in a sec and see if there is anything happening at Archway, which is the direction they went in.
Spencer - nothing in the spam filter from you ... although if you started off with a Monkeyfish quote I might have inadvertently deleted it as he'd tried to repost the same comments several times.
ReplyDeleteSorry if I did! I'll be careful about checking the author in future....
"Thirty years ago right wing racists in the US would not be arguing that because to do so is to implicity accept that there is something wrong with discrimination."
ReplyDelete..or possibly because thirty years ago this relativist/ identity narrative had not had the mainstream exposure it has had since...it certainly wouldn't have been 'aired' unchallenged and with a consensus of legitimacy as it is these days...perhaps they were simply unaware of it
..or possibly because at the time, just as now, blacks Americans tended to be at the bottom of the heap economically..what you might term 'working class'...and maybe class still retained some legitimacy then..that being the case, prosperous right wing Americans would look pretty fuckin stupid claiming discrimination in a narrative which centred on class...however when the agenda is based around identity..all bets are off...anyone and everyone's a victim
Don't get me wrong. I know women, black Americans and Muslims in the UK suffer discrimination...I simply feel that the way we discuss it, ie against a backdrop of identity and relativism, is never gonna help..it's actually disempowering and opens the door to any smartarse with a made-up hard luck story to jump aboard at will with a "well what about me"
Not sure..but I got the notion from your post..kinda reading between the lines.. that you regard this 'way of thinking' as having contributed to an improvement in integration and equality..rather than a bi-product or parallel development..do you?
"Ah, but if your God did not mean you to be eaten, why did he make you out of meat?"
ReplyDeleteOriginal of that one may be The Reluctant Cannibal by Flanders and Swann . About fifty years ago ...
Back from shopping. The kids have all disappeared like the morning dew. Very strange.
ReplyDelete@Monkeyfish
Yes I do think identity politics have done some good, quite a lot of good at times. Without oppressed groups making a fuck of a lot of noise about being oppressed then they don't tend to see a lot of change IMO.
On the other hand, I also think that this comes at a heavy price. One you have highlighted. It legitimises anyone with an imagined grievance.
I posted something on CIF about this recently am fucked if I can remember where so can't retrieve it.
The other even bigger price, IMO is that you get what I call "opression point politics" in which the idea that those who are opressed being the best placed to talk about their oppression (obviously something in that) to they being right and others wrong, either about what to do about that oppression or in extreme cases about anything.
So if someone is a woman they have more legitimacy than a man, if they are a black woman more legitimacy than a white woman and so on. The more opression points you have the more right you are in this way of looking at the world (which happens although no one would support it expressed in those terms).
One of the obvious problems with that is that being oppressed does not mean you have a good strategy for combating it. It just means you know how it feels. Stupid people get oppressed. Racist, sexist, facist people get oppressed. Their solutions are not correct because of the reality of their oppression.
I'm continuing in case length was the reason the other post vanished.
ReplyDeleteAnd there is a third problem which I think is most clearly seen in US affirmative action type solutions. In the US things have changed over the last forty or fifty years. There is now a strong black middle class and for some the barriers are much less. The problem as I see it is that affirmative action etc has helped the people who least needed it.
It has helped people to escape from the ghetto but in the mean time the ghettos have become worse rather than better places to live.
I have seen this a lot. The people who take advantage of such programmes tend to be those most likely to have done alright for themselves anyway, leaving the rest behind in an situation that is unchanged or worse than it was before.
A freind of mine lived in a house in a housing coop that was designated as the "black" house. They had to find a black person to share with them in order to combat disadvantage. The woman who he and his house mate chose (from a small pool) was an architect.
I said at the time, what the fuck is that about? How does an architect, albeit a black female architect need cheap housing more than a white guy working at Sainsburys?
As it happens she turned out to be a mad sociopath but that is another story.
But on the other hand, look at the transformation of attitudes to gay people over the last few decades. Identity politics, it seems to me, has been the key driver in transforming society in respect of gay rights and acceptance of gay people (however incomplete that might be).
So yes, I think that identity politics can and do contribute to a more equal society. But I also think you have to pay a price for that. And that there is no guarantee that identity politics will be positive. Negative examples are not hard to find.
Bitterweed
ReplyDeleteA link for you
re: the White Ace - not quite the full story, but pretty interesting stuff.
K all, back a bit later on.
kizbot
ReplyDeleteI know you never look in here..better things to do etc..just like to say..saw waddaya...absolute comedy plutonium
Bank holiday...no oppsition...kiz and Bru in the other team's box...the keeper's been sent the wrong way...kiz (unselfishly) squares the ball...it's an open goal..surely..surely..it must be...
...and yet somehow the Muscles from Brussels contrives to get the wrong side of the ball and launches it 90 yards down field into her own net..
Fuck knows why I ever take the trouble to take the piss outta you two...all you two need is enough rope...sit back and wait...the next thing you know you've strung yourselves up like a couple of turkeys.
"I play a long game"...intones the respected political analyst...perhaps indicating a degree of prescience and strategy...so unlike all those 'fly-by-night' flbberty-gibbeters who take up so much valuable room on 'serious' threads...or so one might think
...for newcomers to the scene...I can reliably inform you that "I play a long game" is actually a reference to the pool table in the canteen at the Co-op in Scunthorpe...she just isn't that coordinated and takes a while to clear the balls.
seriously kiz...you need some new material...this victimology / abuse trope is wearing a bit thin...I don't think you've got anyone convinced
Feel free to pretend you haven't read this btw...but if you do...just don't make some reference to it at a later date in some whining attempt to attract sympathy..kinda gives the game away...and it wouldn't be the first time.
Spencer
ReplyDeletecheers for response..get back to ya
In next week's Observer Supplement, Simulcra Monthly: Our columnists fire their Gravy Recomendations over the 38th Parallel and hit Entirely the Wrong Continent.
ReplyDeleteSpencer
I might add that - in all probability - an equal number of socialists and Tories have outed themselves since the political Rubicon of late eighties Aids crisis - it has been inherently to the best interests of Consertvatives to embrace homsexuality as an identity issue.
There is still a pecking order in idiennidy politics....
"There is still a pecking order in idiennidy politics...."
ReplyDeleteyes there is...and I'd like to stake a claim for those of us who are forced to live under bridges, pulling the wings of flies for kicks...which is apparently my situation...when will we see justice?
There is no justice... just us.
ReplyDeleteLobster anyone ?
Just got this documentary from Countercurrents. Part 3 paints a very depressing view of what's likely to happen to global economics in the near future - and also doesn't provide answers - so feel free to ignore this post . It is interesting though.
ReplyDeleteAm I the only one who finds Norman Rockwell creepy?
ReplyDeleteNice version of the lobster, BW.
Am I the only one who finds Norman Rockwell creepy?
ReplyDeleteNo you're not Thauma!
Two potentially good progs coming up on C4:
Despatches on modern slavery in the UK, followed by I am a Slave, a drama about it.
Laters
Montana
ReplyDeleteThanks x
Thanks Sheff, watched the first and third. A very US-led sequence of US guilt. Their adjustment ≠ rest of worlds though...
ReplyDeletePaul
ReplyDeleteSling me an email at hardbjorn@googlemail.com would ya ?
Cheers.
evening all
ReplyDeletewhere's james when you need him?
right getting ready for a night out with the 30 pure bred berber horses, amazonian guards and the psycho dwarf (silvio) that is the honoured guest of "mad dog" Ghedaffi round the evening off in a tent what more could you want in berlusco's Italy.....maybe I could do a few million euro deals with the colonel.......
second thoughts I settle for an evening with you fuckwits...far more entertaining......;)
Just put up a couple of short story links in the Untrusted Reads Lit section if anyone's interested. The Dead and The Aleph.
ReplyDeleteOh Gandolfo, I expect the horses are lovely! Not fair to them to put them in the same para as the rest.
ReplyDeleteThink James was around a bit earlier ... saw a "Brazil"....
I'm here - I posted earlier!
ReplyDeleteIs this thing even on....??
Yes.
ReplyDeleteThauma
ReplyDeletemust say the amazonian guards are freakin me out a bit scary.......but maybe it's the army fatigue-70s ray bans combo.......
tell james if you *see* him before me to call his *mates* ;) in milan.... big cleaning job needs doing in rome------- NOW!
god you're spookey james......
ReplyDeleteGandolfo
ReplyDeleteIf this gallery of buffoons we call world leaders were not so dangerous they would be very entertaining.
thauma I expect the horses are lovely!
ReplyDeleteAh but has he got any toads?
I don't want to go back to work tomorrow. Why can't we have bank holiweeks?
Leni hi
ReplyDelete...indeed on the sort of benny hill end of the spectrum of comedy....at a stretch
spencer hi
.......as yet no toads mentioned but rest assured if they are you'll be the first to know!
Hiya James! Saw your posts earlier ... but couldn't remember if they were from today or yesterday in my still somewhat fragile state....
ReplyDeleteWith you on the holiweeks Spencer.
Have just re-read The Aleph. Does this remind anyone else of anyone?
I saw, however, that Daneri's real work lay not in the poetry but in his invention of reasons why the poetry should be admired.
OK - good to know, Thauma. Cheers.
ReplyDeleteGandolfo - phone call made, although I expect this one may be a little out of my friends 'sphere of influence' though...
More piano than you can shake a goodanmn stick at !
ReplyDeletehttp://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8f8E2v33r-c&feature=rec-exp_stronger_r2-2f-39-HM
Ok that's me done.
ReplyDeleteQuite a good piece by Ha Joon Chang, over at the G, believe it or not....
ReplyDelete...page not found James...
ReplyDeleteHmmm, cheers BW.
ReplyDeleteWill try again, here.....
That seems to have worked.
ReplyDeleteNot sure what that was about!?
Fuckinell. The dog has just said, "Mam".
ReplyDelete(She wanted out.)
Gandolfo:
ReplyDeleteAny chance of a pic of those horses?
;)
@James,
ReplyDeleteIt is a good article. Strangely quiet on the right wing troll front too. Someone said that they must have been given the night off by Tory HQ on account of the bank holiday.
Reckon that's it.
I'm getting sidetracked by stupid fuckers who want to bring the 11 plus back.
Not because I failed it or anything...
Thaum
ReplyDeleteThat's impressive, but as far as dogs talking go, I'm pretty sure that 'sausages' is the holy grail.
Spencer
Yeah, I noticed the lack of right-wing-nutjobbery too.
Ha Joon Chang's generally a pretty good writer on the failings of the global capitalist system. His 'Bad Samaritans' is well worth a read if you get the chance!
La Rit. Horses: white v black
ReplyDeleteHope this helps.
Just listened to BW's piano thing ... reckon they are psychic. No other explanation.
ReplyDeleteSheffpixie - thanks for the good video Another Bubble About to Burst. Interesting that it appears to have been made for ABC Australia.
ReplyDeleteA good introduction to the GFC !
Spencer said...
ReplyDelete@James,
It is a good article. Strangely quiet on the right wing troll front too. Someone said that they must have been given the night off by Tory HQ on account of the bank holiday.
Reckon that's it.
Partly that, and partly that it strikes at a central thesis of the right: that neoliberalism may result in more inequality, but at least it's a bigger pie so people wind up bigger off.
But he's citing growth figures to suggest that actually, we had more growth when things were less neoliberal. Only part-way through the article and expect some quibbling about this, but most of the frothers wouldn't have the figures or understand them anyway. It's mostly just the usual jibes against socialism, when the article isn't about socialism.
I'm just checking the link 'cos my first post of the day usually gets the "404 error" treatment!
ReplyDelete@hevers
ReplyDeleteOh, I think you are crediting the RWT's with far too much subtlety.
True the article isn't about socialism but the fact that it is about less controls coincidentally meaning less growth should be enough to set them off. It is a stake through the heart of their very belief system.
It isn't as if their rampages are that logical usually, is it?
So I am just surprised that there are not more rants about "socialism" because what else are they going to attack it for?
Hello everyone: I'm back on the old kit having caused an almighty train wreck on the new laptop.
ReplyDeleteI was deleting some stuff that I thought I didn't need and accidentally consigned "microsoft office" to the ether which means I don't have "word" or "exel" or "powerpoint"
My brother-in-law dropped by and had a pop at restoring it but all I've got now is a window saying "this needs a CD Rom in order to be installed"
I called my sister but she doesn't have the original CD 'cos she's connected to a commercial network and all their kit is loaded up identically and then rolled out as a package.
On top of all that in attempting to restore the program it was necessary to go back to the date I deleted it and therefore the original default settings, which means that the new wireless internet connection no longer functions either!
Needless to say, it's my own stupid fault for faffing around with stuff that I don't understand.
Anyway, we are where we are.
My sister says she has a link to the software she loaded onto her son's laptop, so I'm thinking one option might be to go back and delete the existing one yet again (since there is no way of getting the original CD Rom) and just downloading an updated package.
Does that make sense?
Chekhov
ReplyDeleteIt does. Although I suspect that downloading an updated version ain't going to be cheap.
(office is about £100 isn't it?)
According to todays Sunday Times the ConDem Government is about to give Local Authorities the powers to discriminate in favour of British nationals when it comes to the allocation of social housing.Didn't however go into to much detail as to exactly how that would be implemented.For surely asylum seekers should be exempt from that insofar as they are given accomodation whilst their claims are being heard.Whilst those who are successful should IMO be a priority .
ReplyDeleteWith regard to all other immigrant categories my understanding is that they have to live in this country for a year before they can apply for social housing.And then after that they'll only be a priority if like British nationals they're families with childre,elderly or vulnerable through ill health.
Earlier in the news there was a story about an unemployed couple from the Czech Republic with seven children who came to the UK which under EU law they have every right to do.And they've been given a 3 bedroom council house which they're complaining isn't big enough.Now if the ConDems change the rules a British family will automatically be given priority over this Czech family because they aren't asylum seekers.So the only options for this family would be to either find a home in the private sector or return to their own country.
The issue of the allocation of social housing is massively contentious in many working class communities.And it's one that IMO the Left either avoids addressing or simply responds to by saying we need more social housing to match demand-which we do.But in the allocation of social housing isn't it right that British people should get priority over those immigrants who are not asylum seekers?
@chekhov
ReplyDeleteIf you've done a system restore, then you should have got the deleted Office files back. Check if you now have the Office folder in program files, and Word and Excel in the Start menu, for example, to make sure.
If the files are restored, then you shouldn't need a physical CD, but a CD key; a number that activates a copy of Office. If your sister had a corporate installation, then she should be able to get a key from her IT support people. This sort of thing must be happening all the time, so she should ring them and say what happened, and they'll advise.
Spencer said...
ReplyDelete@hevers
Oh, I think you are crediting the RWT's with far too much subtlety.
True the article isn't about socialism but the fact that it is about less controls coincidentally meaning less growth should be enough to set them off. It is a stake through the heart of their very belief system.
It isn't as if their rampages are that logical usually, is it?
So I am just surprised that there are not more rants about "socialism" because what else are they going to attack it for?
Well, they can quibble over the growth figures, and one or two are trying to do that. For example by citing Labour in the Seventies, which is comical because Labour back then inherited a nightmare situation of the economic hit bequeathed by Heath plus the nasty stagflation of the oil shock, and did rather better than Thatch under similar conditions.
But various tenets of the right have been assaulted by reality of late. In the debate we are talking about, you get people rabbiting on about that old strawman "OMG, you can't have complete inequality!!" when of course no one is arguing for it, but it's missing the point anyway because the solution is not necessarily redistribution via benefits etc. but the state acting to support job creation.
Which... is also anathema to the right. But aside from the fact some of our rivals have had some success with it, we don't really have much choice any more since the banks lost interest in lending to business.
Once you point that out, once again the more "thinking" of the righties go very quiet...
soz, in the post above it should be complete equality, not inequality...
ReplyDelete@James Dixon and PeterJ: thanks for the tips.
ReplyDeleteI'm aware that buying the new stuff off the shelf could be quite expensive but according to my sister, the software she downloaded onto he son's computer can be shared three ways without extra expense.
I could be wrong about that and come to think of it the same thing must apply to her network, so it makes sense to find out if there is a number that activates a copy of Office.
However I'm also thinking that since one of their computers is no longer on their network they might not want to divulge a "CD key" for security reasons.
@chekhov
ReplyDeleteAh, OK, she must have bought a family licence pack that lets you use the same software on three machines under one ID. Get her to give you the licence key from her son's version, and try it on yours.
Look, I know this is all very fucking erudite and serious but this nearly made I shit my undercrackers.
ReplyDeletehttp://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GlecDNdOti8
Sorry.
Normal service will be resumed asap
@PeterJ: yeah that's the general idea I supposed.
ReplyDeleteHowever I hang about with a bunch of fuckwits, so what would I know;)
@PeterJ: I think that is exactly what she suggested but before I can do that I have to get rid of the window that won't bugger off!
ReplyDeleteThe only option I can think of is going back and deleting the original program yet again.
Paul
ReplyDeleteThe allocation of social housing is contentious - we do not have enough of it.
What happens in other EU countries when Brits move there for work ?
Is there an EU directive ref. housing when EU citizens move from one country to another? I will go in search of info.
Many EU seasonal workers - and others - live in multiple occupation situations - they do not all get council houses.
Housing in Britain is a mess. Private sector complely skewed value wise - matched to employment oportunities - and the buy to let market forcing up rents.
Chekhov
ReplyDeleteSorry you are still having poota problems.
"Normal service will be resumed asap "
ReplyDeleteThere is no such thing as "normal service"!
You know that as well as I do!
Hello Leni: yes I'm having some "pooter problems" but they are pretty small beer in the grand scheme of things!
ReplyDeleteLeni, Chekhov, hello. You still around? Just caught up with the last couple of days. Do you think it's okay to leave comment around at night, or wait until those people are around that you want to "discuss" things with?
ReplyDeleteA quiet song.http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uCfKc7uvRic
Habib
ReplyDeleteHello. I always read the end of the previous thread and pick up on things which interest me me or reply if appropriate.
Try leaving post for someone currently absent. They may well read and respond as and when .
Leni, seems rather unfair if they might find the point acerbic, leaving it hanging there for so long. When one wakes up, one has cooled down and can, perhaps make a more reasoned post. :-)
ReplyDeleteHabib
ReplyDeleteOvernigt acerbity can seem bitter in the morning.
The TTD song has reminded me of a Nigerian man I saw on tv perhaps 10 years ago. I have never forgotten him. He had his tiny plot of land taken from him - he was beyond despair. His eyes were empty - he desribed himself as a 'nothing man' He wore a pink hat. Close my eyes and I can see him.
I'm still around if you want to make a point, habib.
ReplyDeleteAnother quiet song.
ReplyDeleteStill here, habib.....
ReplyDeleteStill another quiet song.
ReplyDeleteoneforyouhabib
ReplyDeleteA song never heard.
ReplyDeleteoblivious
ReplyDeleteNice Lloyd Cole song, habib. You've got a classic postcard in return.
Treat it as a peace offering. Or not. Up to you.
I would if I were you. You've no artillery and your snipers aren't properly armed.
Christmas 1914 doesn't happen every day.
Here's a hindi song about life going on, pretty much, as it should.
ReplyDeleteOr, rather, does. Sometimes, some people find themselves in the wrong place at the wrong time and not accepted, Just have to shut up and make the best of things.
ReplyDeleteWell, there's a turn up for the books, seems like habib is happy to make snidey comments about people when they're not around, but hasn't got the guts for a row when they turn up.
ReplyDeleteWho'd have thought that the guy who first turned up on here to apologise to me for making snidey comments on Waddya to get himself into Hermione's gang would expose himself on here as a repeat offender?
Nite habib
ReplyDeletex
Always a song for the audience.
ReplyDeleteI was, perhaps Shylock a little too long, I can only apologise.
ReplyDeleteEnjoy your days.