Heatwave over
Ah yes our beloved heatwave is now gone. Well it's still warm and muggy but no sunshine. Which means that it's gone. Oh we get used to good things so easily don't we?
I have a neighbour who cannot seem to get their housealarm off. I'm calling the police. And they'll be coming out to look at it. the weird thing is that it looks like the neighbours are in.
I'm supposed to be preparing for a BBQ - and the boys staying over. It's such a shame that i don't have any camera really. Tomorrow they'll be chopping up squirrels and i won't be able to take any photos of them doing this.
I'm going through the local newspapers and am at time in my life when i don't understand the point of newspapers any longer beyond the total number that we appear in at the end of the month.
It's been three days into my annual leave. It all feels rather surreal. I'm still going to work - or where i work - everyday for a run. I see the cars of the people who work there. I run in the forest, much the same way i would if i were working. Except that i don't go back into work of course. I see the door is open because the weather is so warm. I think we imagine that we're saving birds and telling people how much the RSPB matters in the grand scheme of things. I'd like to think that, but the numbers of birds are still falling and things are still getting worse. I think, perhaps it's a bit like a steamer turning round. Only in the past two years have people understood the reality of where we are - but what's the point? With countries like China...and India hellbent on thrashing themselves to bits...
Why can't the West say - our development model is toxic, it's shite...
I was talking to Alan today about this.
Why do have racists living in the most deprived conditions - because the Western development model works on the premise of cheap everything at the point of production and the most you can sqeeuze out of people at the point of consumption. It's really really horrible. If you can make something really cheaply and then sell it for a king's ransom, essentially, you're a success. So it doesn't matter that a mother does something for free - that she gives her child all the love she can give it. If it doesn't contribute to the economy, if you cannot put a value on it, it's worth nada.
Back to the housing estates. People are KEPT in housing estates on the delusion that ONE DAY a mass production plant will roll up outside their homes and start employing them. Of course they can only employ them to do things which require no skill because they have no skills. But because they can do this in some godforssaken 3rd World Country at a twentieth of the rate, this ain't gonna happen here. So the inhabitants of these housing estates are fed on the soma of TV and the dole, and are told that their politicians are doing something about it.
Lovely.
Except the politicians are forgetting something. That these are people, not machines. You cannot put someone in cold storage and expect that they'll sit their quietly. No. And in a place like Northern Ireland where people have been beating each other up for the past 800 years, its even less likely. Racism falls on fertile ground in places like this. It is easy to focus people's resentment onto something which has no bearing on the real cause of their unhappiness.
It is even easier to convince people that they can feel good doing something awful to other people, to displace that awful feeling they have themselves. And so it goes...
I really must get ready for the BBQ now. It's only a couple of hours to starting time. I'm hoping that the rain will stay away. And after that, maybe the sun might even come out. We can always hope.
It's all we have.
I have a neighbour who cannot seem to get their housealarm off. I'm calling the police. And they'll be coming out to look at it. the weird thing is that it looks like the neighbours are in.
I'm supposed to be preparing for a BBQ - and the boys staying over. It's such a shame that i don't have any camera really. Tomorrow they'll be chopping up squirrels and i won't be able to take any photos of them doing this.
I'm going through the local newspapers and am at time in my life when i don't understand the point of newspapers any longer beyond the total number that we appear in at the end of the month.
It's been three days into my annual leave. It all feels rather surreal. I'm still going to work - or where i work - everyday for a run. I see the cars of the people who work there. I run in the forest, much the same way i would if i were working. Except that i don't go back into work of course. I see the door is open because the weather is so warm. I think we imagine that we're saving birds and telling people how much the RSPB matters in the grand scheme of things. I'd like to think that, but the numbers of birds are still falling and things are still getting worse. I think, perhaps it's a bit like a steamer turning round. Only in the past two years have people understood the reality of where we are - but what's the point? With countries like China...and India hellbent on thrashing themselves to bits...
Why can't the West say - our development model is toxic, it's shite...
I was talking to Alan today about this.
Why do have racists living in the most deprived conditions - because the Western development model works on the premise of cheap everything at the point of production and the most you can sqeeuze out of people at the point of consumption. It's really really horrible. If you can make something really cheaply and then sell it for a king's ransom, essentially, you're a success. So it doesn't matter that a mother does something for free - that she gives her child all the love she can give it. If it doesn't contribute to the economy, if you cannot put a value on it, it's worth nada.
Back to the housing estates. People are KEPT in housing estates on the delusion that ONE DAY a mass production plant will roll up outside their homes and start employing them. Of course they can only employ them to do things which require no skill because they have no skills. But because they can do this in some godforssaken 3rd World Country at a twentieth of the rate, this ain't gonna happen here. So the inhabitants of these housing estates are fed on the soma of TV and the dole, and are told that their politicians are doing something about it.
Lovely.
Except the politicians are forgetting something. That these are people, not machines. You cannot put someone in cold storage and expect that they'll sit their quietly. No. And in a place like Northern Ireland where people have been beating each other up for the past 800 years, its even less likely. Racism falls on fertile ground in places like this. It is easy to focus people's resentment onto something which has no bearing on the real cause of their unhappiness.
It is even easier to convince people that they can feel good doing something awful to other people, to displace that awful feeling they have themselves. And so it goes...
I really must get ready for the BBQ now. It's only a couple of hours to starting time. I'm hoping that the rain will stay away. And after that, maybe the sun might even come out. We can always hope.
It's all we have.
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