Journal Entries
Two more related things
Posted Sep 16, 2003
From http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/england/london/3107756.stm
"He told BBC News Online: "I have just brushed my teeth with mineral water. It is like living in the Third World.
Ummm... no. In the Third World they're lucky to have muddy, parasite-ridden water with which to brush their teeth. I don't think they can get hold of Evian or Perrier there.
"Only two weeks ago we had the power cut. I'm pretty browned off with living in south London."
It's south London you're in. *South* London. Muppet.
Ok, so a lot of us reading this live in that most complicated of human constructs - a city. Cities by and large live on the edge of failure. It only takes one little thing to bring down the whole thing and really, really put the mockers on your day. Of course, if people were willing to pay a little more in the way of taxes I reckon the thing could run a little more smoothly, but of course they're not. And yet when their routine is kiboshed by a mains break or a power cut, they want it fixed NOW and without having to pay for it.
Doesn't add up, people. If you want to live in something as complicated as a city and have all the pleasures and amenities which go along with it, you've got to put up with a few inconveniences now and again.
What also doesn't add up is the amount which people pay in tax here in the States, and the amount of services they expect from the ever-dwindling sum of money. This partly a factor in the recall of California Governor Gray Davis. It's certainly a factor in the budget shortfalls which so many states are facing right now.
States are therefore having to cut services, and generally speaking, the people who need those services the most are the people who can least afford to lose them and can do little about it.
When a family falls on hard times does it say to its elderly relatives 'We can't afford to look after you any more, you'll have to make your own way.' Does it say the same to its handicapped son or daughter and throw them out on the street? Does it say to its son or daughter in school 'Sorry, we can't afford to buy books for you any more, you'll just have to go without schooling.'
Of course not - that would hardly be the Christian (or decent) thing to do, would it? That however is what so many towns, cities, and states are doing here because they haven't got enough money for everything.
A family would pull its belt in a bit and forgo a few pleasures, but it wouldn't tell the people who depend on it to bugger off and fend for themselves.
Makes you wonder just what brand of Christianity the right wing moral 'majority' - the ones who believe that their money should remain theirs, and government should have none of it - think they're practicing, cos it ain't the kind of Christianity I was taught at school.
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Latest reply: Sep 16, 2003
Two related things
Posted Sep 8, 2003
It's September 8th, and America is gearing up for what is likely to become its annual mawkfest. I'm talking about the anniversary of the attacks which happened on September 11th 2001.
Those attacks were a ghastly crime and I have buckets full of sympathy for the families of the people who were killed and for the people who were injured and whose lives were put on a whole nother track as result. What I don't have any more time for are the people who are letting their emotions get in the way of reason - people who are letting their heart rule their head (I'm sure, for instance, many of us recall the online petition to have the second film of the Lord of the Rings trilogy renamed because a number of people claimed to be offended by the title - The Two Towers).
I feel that many of the people who were directly or indirectly involved with this attack are wallowing in self pity to an extent which is not merited, and the rest of the country is going along with it because they're too scared to say anything to the contrary for fear of angering a '9-11 survivor'. Yes, I've heard more than one person describe themselves as such, as if it was a badge or a medal to be worn for everyone to see.
That won't garner them any special treatment from me. In all the years of IRA atrocities against the people of Northen Ireland and to a leser extent, the UK mainland, I don't ever recall anyone saying something like 'I'm an Omagh survivor'.
Death is inevitable. The moment a being is born, the only thing which can be said about it with any certainty is that it will die - maybe sooner, maybe later. Maybe from natural causes, maybe from a disease, maybe violently. Some forms of death are harder to bear than others, but the death of oneself and of ones friends and family must be mentally and spiritually prepared for and accepted if one is to live a fruitful and content life. To drag out interminably the pain and anguish is not a Good Thing.
In Dallas this weekend there was a commemoration (did I get all those 'm's right?) of 9-11 which involved a flag for each person who died - an American flag, conveniently forgetting that many of the people who died were not American. Then there's the couple whose son - a fireman - died in the WTC collapse. They recently found out that being a bone marrow doner, a lab had a vial of his blood 'on file', which they have (or plan to, I'm not sure which) buried in a grave, thus giving them 'a place to go to be with him'. And 'closure'.
Closure. I think that is becoming one of the most misused, and frankly dangerous concepts of today. And it all comes back to the fact that in our protected, cotton wool world with all kinds of medicine to keeps us healthy and alive for longer than ever before, so many of us (particularly urban-dwellers like myself it must be said), are seperated from death and all kinds of unpleasantness. Even to the ridiculous extent of police officers and soldiers suing their employers because of on-the-job stress. If you can't stand the heat...
Sometimes there will be no closure. One has to be strong enough in onesself to move on with ones life and let it pass. Not to dwell upon it. If a person should feel that some kind of commemoration is necessary, remember - less is more. Something subdued and dignified.
I've never been a violent person - as a schoolboy I was a wimp and a weed who would rather run than fight. I still prefer negotiation to fisticuffs, but these days I'll stand my ground and I always stand up to bullies. The idea of being a soldier is not one that has ever appealed to me, and the concept of war is quite unfathomable to me. All things military are not a part of my life or thinking. However, I've always been moved by the Festival of Remembrance from the Albert Hall on the evening before Remembrance Day each year, and by the gathering at The Cenotaph in Whitehall. I used to watch (or listen to) both of them each and every year - something I can't do so easily now I'm in Texas, and the words spoken during the service always bring a tear to my eye:
They shall grow not old as we that are left grow old.
Age shall not weary them, nor the years condemn.
At the going down of the sun, and in the morning,
We will remember them.
Simple, dignified, solemn.
+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
The second item is a result of the American government's reaction to the attacks. A hacker called Adrian Lamo currently has a federal warrant out for his arrest.
Adrian is a grey hat hacker - he finds security holes in the systems of comapnies and organisations, then breaks in and leaves some kind of 'calling card' letting them know that they're vulnerable. He doesn't steal any information, he doesn't alter any settings. I believe that he also often lets them know what should be done to make their system secure. A benefit, you'd think.
In this instance he got into the computers of the New York Times and found that he was able to view for instance, the social security numbers of all their contributors, and the NYT has some pretty big name people writing for it.
Apparently they didn't care for this and have used the measures put in since the 9-11 attacks to press federal charges against him.
I'm glad to say that he's a very level-headed man and is not going to let the might and the injustice of a frenzied, bullying government roll over him without a fight. The FBI tried to intimidate his parents and sent agents to their house with his arrest warrant - he doesn't even live there! They wanted to search the house, and his mother quite rightly told them to come back with a search warrant.
Here's a link to his story so far, which includes a link to the phone interview he gave to the presenters of this show. Unfortunately, some of you (myself included) won't be able to watch it since we've banished Windows Media Player from our system (or you never had it there because you use a Mac 
).
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Latest reply: Sep 8, 2003
Nice work if you can get it
Posted Sep 3, 2003
Y'know, I'm really digging this new way of being self-employed - selling stuff on eBay. It's almost like being a songwriter and getting PRS cheques in the mail.
I heard an interview with Chris Rea not long after the release of his 'Road to Hell' album in which he said that because it was his first really successful album, he realised one day that he was making money even while he was asleep because of the royalties being racked up in sales and airplay.
So let's compare be an eBayer to being a musician. Going out and buying the stuff that Mrs Gosho and I sell is akin to going into the studio with a bunch of songs ready to record - that's the time consuming part. Once that's done and either the record is in the shops or the goods are listed on eBay, it's all up to the punters - either it sells or it doesn't.
Let's say I want to go on holiday. As a self-employed removal man, when I didn't work I didn't get paid, so if I took a week off, I simply didn't earn anything that week, and since there were only so many moves I could do in a day or in a week, and only so many people who needed my services, I couldn't necessarily take on extra work in the preceding weeks to make up for lost income.
This is very different. If we want to go away for a couple of days, we just have to plan ahead so that no auctions end on those days. Same thing if we want to go away for a week. But the advatage of what we're doing now is that we *can* find extra stuff to list before we go away in order to make up for lost income, and since Mrs Gosho uses a piece of software to 'pre-list' auction items and then upload them to eBay in one hit, it would even be possible to start listing items a week before we came back from holiday, assuming we could put the software onto a disc, and have access to both a computer and an internet connection while we're away 
Discuss this Journal entry [37]
Latest reply: Sep 3, 2003
Oh please, will you just shut up about your bloody holiday!
Posted Sep 3, 2003
Don't you just hate it when a radio or tv personality goes away for a couple of weeks, and then spends their first five days back telling us all about all the great places they saw, all the great times they had, all the great things they did, and all the great people they met, whilst the rest of us have been slogging through the summer only dreaming about a holiday, whilst half the country is living from paycheque to paycheque, and whilst many folks don't even have a paycheque 
The bloke who presents the morning show on our local NPR station has been banging on for the last two hours about all the stuff he did in Berlin over the past three weeks, and playing all kinds of Berlin-related and German music, including 'Tomorrow Belongs to Me' (am I mistaken in believing that was a Nazi propaganda song?), and that Madeleine Kahn song from Blazing Saddles - 'I'm Tired' 
I know that he's going to be doing this for the rest of the week - he always does.
Bloody Peter Powell used to do the same kind of thing - every Friday he'd sign off telling us all about the great things he was going to do at the weekend, and every Monday he start his show with the words "Well, I had a great weekend".
Not that I used to listen to Peter Powell you understand 
Discuss this Journal entry [98]
Latest reply: Sep 3, 2003
Is this the REAL axis of evil?
Posted Sep 3, 2003
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/magazine/3200699.stm
Ok, let me give you my views about this story.
Firstly the picture at the top - aren't they two of the most unpleasant people you can think of?
"The US Army - which partly sponsors the show's makers, the New York-based Children's Television Workshop"
It does? Well that seems to fly in the face of everything I've ever believed Sesame Street to be - co-operation and collaboration before confrontation.
"Iraqi prisoners were treated to repeated playings of the ditty at ear-splitting volume by US psychological operations officers intent on encouraging their captives to submit to questioning."
Geneva Convention anyone?
"The programme - which is already aired in more than 120 countries - has been praised by the US State Department officials who have been set the task of turning the tide of anti-Americanism."
If you want to turn that particular tide, just stop sending your damn troops and covert operators into places they don't damn well belong!
"...the "people we need to talk to do not even know the basics about us. They are taught to distrust our every motive. Such distortions, married to a lack of knowledge, is a deadly cocktail."
Distortions? I don't think so. The current administration's motives concerning foreign policy are to be *thoroughly* distrusted.
"The cute, squeaky-voiced puppet Elmo has just been sponsored by Wall Street firm Merrill Lynch to explain business to American pre-schoolers."
I always knew that little twerp was not to be trusted
"...such as in South Africa where we introduced an HIV-positive character because of the Aids problem there... Indeed, the Muppet character Kami - while enthusiastically received in Takalani Sesame - was seen as so offending American morals that a group of influential Republican politicians issued a letter calling for Sesame Street not to introduce a similar storyline to its domestic shows.
Why does that not surprise me? Offending *whose* morals? The rest of the world is not burying its head in the sand over HIV - there's been an HIV character in Eastenders for years, getting across the idea that there needn't be a stigma to it and that you can live with it. If a few right wing bigots can't live with that idea they should get back to the 19th century where they belong.
"So perhaps the US government officials are mistaking the generous spirit and scrupulous fairness of Big Bird as exclusively American virtues."
Try telling that to President Bush. Every time he opens his damn mouth he spouts a bunch of bulls**t about freedom as if the only place in the world that had any was America, and as if everyone in the world wanted the kind of 'freedom' that Americans have. The freedom to watch what you want on tv? No - the advertisers mostly see to that by not advertising on shows they don't like, which is why we've got 700 channels and nothing worth watching. The freedom to read about world events in the news or see them on tv? No - American media doesn't know that anything exists outside American borders. The freedom to elect who you want? No - big business sees to it that the people *it* wants are elected and that they do *its* bidding whilst in office. The freedom to believe what you want politically without fear of bullying government retribution? One word - McCarthyism.
"Melanie Killen, a colleague of Professor Fox, recently found that children around the world share a body of values which cut across cultures. "That has surprised many people," says Professor Fox."
Pre-bloody-cisely.
Jim Henson must spinning like a top in his grave.
Discuss this Journal entry [21]
Latest reply: Sep 3, 2003
There is only one thing worse than being Gosho, and that is not being Gosho
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