Pledge

Elections are all very well, but each one seems a little less sane than the last and the current charade seems to be the worst of the lot. Even the acting is crap. Although charades are not supposed to be taken seriously we are surely entitled to a touch of sparkle from the political furniture - or candidates as we tend to call them. 

I’m sure we are losing the democratic plot here. Or maybe, ghastly thought,  this is the plot. Of course plotting is what democracy is all about, but we are where we are and due vote democratically are we not? Apart from the electoral fraud, gerrymandering and rigged voting system of course.

Made-up-on-the-hoof promises seem to be all the rage at the moment but people keep making fun of them. Mark, Mac and Demetrius have posts on this most popular and topical comedy.

These soundbite-sized promises are mostly... or should I be calling them pledges?  Don’t political poseurs refer to their promises as pledges or has that word been tossed overboard because it reminds everyone of furniture polish?

Anyhow, nobody but a party loon would believe their promise/pledges and even then he or she would have to be a fringe loon. Imagine being a fringe loon. Cut off from the cynics at the centre, cut off from the great mass of uninterested normal folk, cut off from everything that makes life worth living. Crikey it’s a grim thought isn’t it? There should be a charity for them.

Speaking of charity, I’m hoping someone will promise free marzipan for pensioners. Something seasonal to go with the winter fuel allowance we are forced to spend on Christmas booze in order to kindle some inner warmth and maybe even a hint of goodwill. It’s not that I’m particularly fond of marzipan, but it has that distinctive seasonal aroma of almonds - or cyanide as we chemists often call it.

So what will the loons promise next I wonder, because I really don’t have high hopes for a cornucopia of marzipan. Cracking down on bad things, pouring money into good things and generally avoiding anything which might tax... oops, wrong word... and generally avoiding anything which might cause political offence.

So what could cause political offence apart from almost any serious discussion on any subject?

...nope I’m struggling with that one.

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I am an immigrant

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/a/ab/Bundesarchiv_Bild_175-S00-00326,_Fl%C3%BCchtlinge_aus_Ostpreu%C3%9Fen_auf_Pferdewagen.jpg

I am an immigrant. I was born in a country that no longer exists. My mother was born in a different country that also no longer exists.

I think there should be some system to control immigration, just as cars should have brakes, accelerators and steering wheels.

I do not think it is acceptable for the multi-party Establishment to use Goebbels' technique of the oft-repeated Big Lie to confuse economic planning with racial prejudice.

We are seeing the limitations of democracy as the people's ignorance and gullibility are used to undermine their future.

But I think the liars will win.


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Infestation in the ivory tower

Education dons gather for pre-prandial sherry in the Senior Common Room

In the Mid-Western United States, we have species of cicadas, which are referred to ’17-year locusts’. Every 17 years, the grubs emerge from the tree trunks where they feed, grow wings and swarm, mating as they go. The mess and noise that result are impressive.

There is a species of middle manager with a similar life-cycle. These are the education reformers, who emerge from the darkness every decade with a plan and a promise to fix all problems in the system. They are a parasitic and destructive organism.

While not technically predatory, they will scavenge weaker and more timid creatures. For that reason, their preferred habitats are the fields of Mathematics and Science. There, they are able to clear great swathes of space and build large numbers of flimsy and unusable structures in short periods of time.

Just before the extent of the actual damage becomes known, they retreat safely into academia, full of grant funding, and rest until the next generation emerges.

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Lost bomber

We were walking in the vicinity of Ecclesbourne Valley today, well-known locally for its heritage railway. The area is mostly rolling farmland rather than the limestone hills we prefer, but pleasant walking on a lovely sunny day.

Not far from the path on Bullhurst Hill is a memorial to the crew of a Whitley Mk V twin-engined bomber which crashed there in 1944. It's a sombre sight set in a large field with no obvious reason why the aircraft might have crashed. A reminder of just how young the airmen were too. From Peak District Air Accident Research

The crew had flown a night cross country navigation flight and were returning to their home base at Ashbourne when the aircraft dived into the ground only a few miles short.

Following the crash three of the crew could not be accounted for and were assumed by No.42 OTU to have "disappeared with the aircraft which went fifteen feet into the ground". On the 1st August the vicar of St Saviour church in Ashbourne, Canon Farrow, took the memorial service for those who had died after which he held a committal service at the crash site.

Sgt William Smith was buried at Ashbourne cemetery only a few miles from the crash site and Sgt Maurice Lyon was buried at St Helens Cemetery in Lancashire.

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A strange, subterranean battle

source

Every now and them something bright, clean and optimistic seems to show itself through the shifting fogs of repressive nonsense. Sometimes the ugly honking of professional liars dies down. For a while real life takes over. As it should of course.

It has become so easy to ignore the liars and find things out for ourselves. Or at least identify those many areas of uncertainty which the liars claim to be certain. Isn’t it easy to find worthwhile comment on virtually any issue? Isn’t it noticeable how rarely many of us go to the mainstream media for worthwhile comment?

So what does it all mean?

I don’t know.

Then what is the point of this post?

Simple – you can go elsewhere can’t you? Click. I am not a guru and neither are you. We don’t need them do we - you and I?

That’s the point – we are breeding vast numbers of savvy people, far more than we ever had before. Folk who don’t always have the facts and the arguments at their fingertips, but in one sense they know far more than most people knew only twenty years ago. Not only that, but they know how to flesh out anything of interest with a click or two.

This quiet upheaval seems to have upset the old paternalistic way of doing things, the assumptions about managing people, about politics, democracy, who tells and who listens. Who tells these days? Who listens?

Old style class rule with its unidirectional media cannot deal with it. Millions of savvy people are now collectively smarter than the elites because they are connected, interested, experienced and capable. The elites don’t have time to be interested or capable. They only have time to suck the teat of their sponsors. They think savvy can be dealt with by opinion surveys.

They muddle through by listening to a host of special advisers who do have the time to become passably savvy, but there are only a few of them while there are vast numbers of savvy folk out there – a host of virtual polymaths unrestricted by national boundaries.

Out there on the web are millions of years of personal experience. Think about that for a moment – millions of years of personal experience all available for sharing.

The old ways are creaking and the elites and their sponsors are furiously attempting to wind back the clock with a plethora of prohibitions, narratives, entertainments and controlling policies. Anything to keep the virtual polymaths at bay. It’s a strange, subterranean battle.

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Herlock Buxton

Back in 1975 John Swallow visits 73 year old Herlock Buxton, who has never left the village of Elton in Derbyshire during his lifetime, except for a single trip to Derby when he was a boy.

Elton is a tiny village not so far from where we live. Very pleasant and set in fine walking country, but how anyone could spend their entire life there I don't know. Presumably he didn't think enough of Derby to go back - ever.

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Kill the old

... is a slogan I saw on the back of an upper deck bus seat in the 1980s. Shocking, but perhaps only just: after all, we have killed the young unborn in their millions, especially since 1967.

Now we face a demographic imbalance that will ravage the Welfare State and cripple us with taxes, as this article explains.

Or to put it visually:

Same story as in Japan, except there they still make something other than City bonuses:

Why does the Government encourage us to eat healthily? We should all do like Ken Clarke.


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