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I believe, very strongly, that it is a main purpose of government to take money, in the form of taxes, from those who receive very much more than they need. I believe furthermore that a portion of that money should in conscience be spent on providing support for those who through illness, injury, age, incapacity or the non-availability of suitable employment, are unable to support themselves. I believe this is a worthier goal than assisting already obscenely wealthy mega-corporations to become even wealthier, and I think the current miniscule percentages of actual benefit fraud that have been widely reported an entirely acceptable price to pay for a system that leaves nobody in poverty. (Not that we have such a system, but we could.)
I find it incomprehensible that anyone in a position to pay taxes would begrudge any such disbursements. To me it seems clear that the heart of any truly patriotic Briton (or American) should swell with pride at the thought that that portion of his or her hard-earned money which to its owner can only be a superfluity is being compassionately used by the government to bring comfort to those in desperate need, is adding to his or her country's lustre as a haven of true Christian values. From a national point of view, after all, there can be no such thing as "other people's money"; we are all citizens of the United Kingdom, and if we enjoy the benefits of that citizenship, then we likewise bear the responsibility. Tax once paid is no longer "yours" or "mine", but the property of the country, administered, wisely or otherwise, by the duly elected government of the day.
And since the entire political philosophy which goes by the name of "conservatism" is entirely opposed to all this, I believe that conservatives are not fully cognisant of the fundamental functions of government, and are therefore not competent to take part in it and should be excluded from the electoral process on that ground.
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I believe that honesty is not always the best policy.
This will doubtless be offensive to some, and will confirm others in their opinion that I spend too much time with my fictional Nyronds. Let me explain. There is, in my perception, a sharp division in our society between what we say and what we do, between our description of ourselves and the reality. We talk as if truth, absolute honesty, were the ultimate good, as if we were all scrupulously veracious in all our dealings, and as if anyone who falls short of that standard were fit only to be cast into outer darkness. In fact, our world runs far more on lies and lies-by-omission than it does on truth. Money is based on an untrue statement, that there is sufficient actual wealth in existence to support every single unit of currency used in trade. Credit is a definite statement that one has money which does not exist and whose future existence is not guaranteed. Relationships which function all the time on the basis of absolute truthfulness are, I submit, rare, and people who can sustain them exceptional. In my last job we were called upon to mislead our customers, indvidually and collectively, to conceal the truth and to lie, on a regular basis, and I have lived long enough to know that the same thing happens in many other fields of employment. Fiction is the literal opposite of truth, and it is perhaps the thing we do best in the world, and certainly a major source of sustenance for the soul.
I would never claim that truth is bad, or that lying should be encouraged. Truth, however, is an absolute, and like all absolutes is harmful if taken to excess. I think most people are happiest when they are allowed to determine the amount of truth they have to deal with, and allowed to keep those illusions and false (or unverifiable) beliefs that sustain them. I will never agree, as someone posted on Facebook, that "anything which can be destroyed by the truth should be." That is absolutist rubbish, as much as claiming that marriage is between a man and a woman and can never be otherwise. Nothing is that simple with human beings, nor should it ever be.
Not really wanting to be argued with on this one.
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I ate it when it gets Ot. Where's the middle ground between "cold wet and miserable" and "too hot to move"? What happened to that? Oh yes, climate change. Silly me. We have people coming this weekend for a rehearsal for ![[info]](http://l-stat.livejournal.com/img/userinfo.gif?v=92.1) eintx's sets at DFDF, at which she has kindly allowed us to assist. This will be the only chance we have to play together before the con, and some of the other guests I've never played with before, so I'm a little nervous. Also the place is a tip again, there are piles of laundry waiting to be done (some of which could be outside drying if I'd only had the spare spoons to put them in the machine this morning) and to make a long story short it is entirely the wrong time for it to be Ot. I've had several ideas for thinky posts over the past few days, but none of them have remained with me. Maybe they'll come back to me in the stilly and less Ot watches of the night, and I will triumphantly blat them out and then discover that I said it better when I had the exact same idea in 2004. How do you know when you've said all you'll ever have to say, when the well is dry and there's nothing left but increasingly dull rehashing of past effusions? I don't know if I've had a new thought since the eighties. In the meantime, there's the yogurt ad where the friend says "Come on, what's your secret?" and the incredibly youthful-looking woman says "Ladies..." and I can't help thinking of Countess Bathory. I suppose that, such as it is, is a new thought. And House is coming to a final end this week, and the Radio Times reviewer expresses the hope that he will go out exactly the same as he came in, that eight years of trauma, drama, horror, pain and general life will not have changed the protagonist of this story in any way at all. Certainly any change now would seem to be too little too late, but I can't help thinking that some point or other has been missed. We'll see. These ramblings brought to you by a feeling that I ought to be doing something, only it's too Ot.
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Before the Sky box pointed out that I'd asked it to record two other channels and it only had one pair of hands, thank you so much. Maybe they'll repeat it again.
And it occurred to me. You can make, say, an alien planet using thousands of pounds worth of computer hardware, populate it with hundreds of CGI extras, whip up a futuristic soundtrack using Cubase and all the latest virtual synths, and have the finest actors in the land pasted into it all emoting their socks off, and if you're all good at your jobs it'll look and sound jolly impressive. And that's fine.
But if you can make an alien planet in a grimy, stuffy soundstage on a wet Thursday afternoon with two dozen milk crates, a roll of silver foil, a collection of alleged musical instruments cobbled together from old wartime radar equipment and that bloke off Z Cars, on a budget of whatever's left over at the end of the month...that's magic.
It may not be fair, but that's the way it is. That's why we're jaded. That's why the more amazing CGI becomes the more people kvetch about how unconvincing it is. Nobody complained about Milk Crate Planet being unconvincing, and it wasn't because we were all eight years old. Not all of us were.
We'll happily allow a stage conjuror to misdirect us and be amazed when he pulls a flower out of our ear. But if we ever come to think that he might be trying to tell us the magic's real--that actual supernatural forces are involved--then it's a very different story, and it'll be a cold day in hell before he convinces us. And while we're at it, we never really believed that thing with the milk crates either. I mean, it was obvious.
You can't unopen people's eyes, or undestroy their innocence. Maybe, when it's all gone smash, and travelling troupes of players go from city to ruined city reciting old Dixon Of Dock Green scripts on sets improvised from non-biodegradable milk crates, a new generation will recreate the old Punch-and-Judy glamour in which performer and audience are complicit, and nobody will be standing at the back saying loudly "It's not real, you know." And maybe in time there'll be a new Television Centre, and no Thatcher this time to wreck it and turn it into just another business.
Well, I can hope.
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We have, on the face of it, been doing not too badly for people in our situation.
That is about to change.
My DLA ceased in February. Apparently I was notified last September, but I have no memory of that. In February I got a letter saying they wanted to pay it into an account, and so I assumed from that that they still wanted to pay it, and I only managed to work myself up to confront that last week, which was when I found out I was no longer entitled. With new criteria coming in I doubt if I'll be eligible. And today I had The Letter from the government to say I will be "migrated" from incapacity benefit to the new Employment and Support Allowance, which it's frankly vanishingly unlikely I'll qualify for, and which has been described by the independent organisation Benefits and Work as "the most bewildering, unfair and badly designed benefit since the abolition of the workhouse." I've seen nothing anywhere to mitigate that judgment.
You all know what I think of this government and its approach to work and benefits, but this goes deeper than politics. If I'm right and I don't succeed in reclaiming both DLA and ESA, this will carve a huge chunk out of our income and make life extremely problematical.
I have no objection to getting a job, but apart from the fact that opportunities near here are (as they are everywhere) severely limited for an unskilled warm bod, I still have to deal with the depression and CFS, which can't be cured but only managed, and also care for Jan who needs someone around pretty much all the time.
I've contacted the Independent Living Centre, who helped me get the DLA and also got Jan her proper rate, and they will be in touch at some point.
Good thoughts and prayers would be very welcome. And if anyone has felt like buying our albums and books and hasn't got around to it yet, now would be a very good time...
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Trying out an app. It asked me for the title of my new song, and because that isn't the way I work, I put "Don't Know Yet," and what emerged was one of those annoyingly jaunty keep-your-chin-up patter songs, like the world needed another one of those. ANyway, see what you think.
EDIT: bugger. "It's All For The Best" from Godspell. Oh well, never mind.
Don't Know Yet
Verse
Many years ago a man I used to know set off on a quest for adventures
Wanted to be free, ran away to sea, looking for a life that was fair.
A few years
Later he returned, weather-worn and burned, with a set of balsa-wood dentures
He couldn't chew walnuts, but what did he care?
He went and took another chance, dabbled in finance, played around with stocks and debentures,
Made a pile of cash, lost it in the crash, now he hasn't got much to spare.
I asked him
What could he tell me, what clues could he sell me,
And this was the advice he had to share:
You've got to...
Chorus
Buckle up your belt, play the cards you're dealt, pick up every cue that they hand you,
For better or for worse, not here to rehearse, it's the only chance that you'll get
And if you
Make a bunch of friends going round the bends, folk who'll never misunderstand you,
The choices you make you will never regret
And when you
Have to take the fall, crash into the wall, get to feel that life has unmanned you,
Take a breath and then try it once again, the only way to win is to bet.
You'll find it more pleasant to live in the present,
Don't sweat the stuff you don't know yet.
Verse
Now, me, well,
I was always scared, never really dared, used to think my life had been planned out,
When I was at school, only played the fool, thought I was along for the ride,
But still I got my GCE, went for a degree, sadly though it never quite panned out,
The views of my teachers did not coincide,
And though I thought I did my best, ended up depressed, living on a government handout,
Dreams have turned to dust, life has been a bust, not to say a blow to my pride,
And what has it taught me, what tricks has it bought me,
Which if I'd only known I might have tried?
You've got to...
Chorus
Buckle up your belt, play the cards you're dealt, pick up every cue that they hand you,
For better or for worse, not here to rehearse, it's the only chance that you'll get
And if you
Make a bunch of friends going round the bends, folk who'll never misunderstand you,
The choices you make you will never regret
And when you
Have to take the fall, crash into the wall, get to feel that life has unmanned you,
Take a breath and then try it once again, the only way to win is to bet.
The past is no mystery, so learn from my history,
Don't sweat the stuff you don't know yet.
Bridge
The world is full of riddle and enigma
And things that it's assumed we ought to know
But ignorance should never be a stigma
Just work with what you pick up as you go...
Verse
You know some
People think it odd not to have a God, looking to their father in heaven,
Wake up every day, look around and say, there has got to be something more,
They have a fast and then a feast, bowing to the east, swallowing the bread with no leaven,
Or worshipping Nergal, Astarte or Thor,
Some others find it rather fun, thinking there is none, gave it up before they were seven,
Never saw the need for a holy creed, never understood what it's for
But if you go seeking what truths they are speaking
You'll find them mighty similar at the core;
They'll tell you...
Chorus
Buckle up your belt, play the cards you're dealt, pick up every cue that they hand you,
For better or for worse, not here to rehearse, it's the only chance that you'll get
And if you
Make a bunch of friends going round the bends, folk who'll never misunderstand you,
The choices you make you will never regret
And when you
Have to take the fall, crash into the wall, get to feel that life has unmanned you,
Take a breath and then try it once again, the only way to win is to bet.
For all of our striving, the future's arriving,
Don't sweat the stuff you don't know yet.
Outro
The truth that we'll find then, will boggle the mind then,
Don't sweat the stuff we don't know yet.
Did you like this song, or have I got it wrong?
I'm not upset...
I just don't know yet.
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I think Jim Burns is a very good artist, and he lives somewhere near us as well, but I'm currently extremely angry with him and his FB friends, and I'd better explain why by way of a PSA (and this I am going to copy across to the other blog as well).
One sure way to get my goat, one absolutely dead cert if you want a frothing, ranting Zander, is to talk about stupid people as if they're niggers, or Yids, or pooftahs. (I use these words without apology, because that is the level of prejudice we are talking about.) A lesser breed to be purged from the race, in other words. To talk about someone who has died because they made a mistake as if it were an occasion for rejoicing, to mention Darwin as if he would approve, these things are big no-noes around me, and the more you mean it as a joke the less funny it becomes.
It's not that I believe you're stupid. Quite the contrary. I know I am, but I don't believe you are. But I believe that we are all prone to stupidity on occasion, and to talk about it as if it were something that only happened to other people, or as if it were an undesirable genetic trait, is exactly on a par with believing that "the only good Injun is a dead Injun" and approving the petrol-bombing of immigrants' houses, as far as I'm concerned. It's elitist, it's smug, and it's nasty.
A woman died because she believed it might be possible to live without food. I don't know if she had a family. The Daily Mail article didn't say. But that someone loved her and is sorry she's gone is highly probable, and to see Mr Burns and his friends sniggering about it in FB and saying to each other in mock concern "am I being harsh?"...well, there we are. I'm sure they won't miss me. Just another stupid person vanished from their lives. They might even celebrate, as they would if I had died.
Let me be clear. Just talking about people being stupid is not a problem, even laughing about it. The capacity to laugh at ourselves is important, as long as we know that that is what we are doing. When "stupid people" and "us" become two separate groups...when there is rejoicing over the death of a human being because she was not as clever as "we" are...that is beyond my personal pale. Even if it's meant to be funny. Because it isn't.
So. I hope this doesn't cause anyone problems, but if it does, so be it.
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Many shows on telly are dispensing with them entirely, or reducing them to the bare minimum of a title card and a musical sting (The Secret Circle is my favourite of those, very Jonathan Boakes-y) but I kind of like a full-on opening credit sequence with proper music. Game Of Thrones is the clear winner here, if it counts as winning when the opening credits are more fun to watch and listen to than the show.
Others that I've noticed:
Dexter: turns an ordinary early-morning routine into something scary and transgressive that I really don't like watching, just with close shots and some heightened colour. Music is the perfect combination of creepy/jaunty.
True Blood: DO NOT COME TO THE SOUTH OMG WE ARE NOT KIDDING IT IS ALL KINDS GROSS DOWN HERE AND YOU'LL PROBABLY DIE. If that was what they were aiming for, it's brilliant. I can't listen to the music without hearing my filk, but it complements the images nicely, except that I fancy the songwriter was probably not aiming to make the object of his affections run screaming from the room and take the first plane back to Boston. Or Britain. Or anywhere.
Fringe: another of these minimalist ones, but the producers have demonstrated the advantage of this form by making about five completely different versions, depending which universe or time frame they're showing this week. Last night's was excellent.
Lost Girl: straightforward montage/voice-over, but what I love about this one is the way the music starts quiet, builds up a great driving momentum, launches into the main theme and stops dead after one bar. It just makes me smile.
What kind of opening sequence would you want for either (a) the story of your life so far, or (b) a story you'd like to see televised?
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I posted something on the new blog that would certainly have got me into arguments if I had done it here. Not religious or political as such, but certainly a triggery issue for others as for me, and not one I'm going to be swayed on. So this is good.
On the other hand, it's been borne in on me that for those who like seeing my more thoughtful posts but don't like the arguments, and/or who don't need to spend time trawling for another blog, this is a no-win situation. If I only post the thoughtful stuff in the Library, where I'm not asking for restraint, then that's as bad as it was here, but with the added bonus of being hard to find. I'm going to have to think some more, and maybe modify my position a bit.
In the mean time, I got a piece of spam just now which I deleted. The text ran something like:
I got to show you this picture in attachment. I can't tell who gave it to me sorry but she sure looks like your ex-gf. But who's that dude?
The assumptions embedded in these three ungrammatical sentences boggle the mind. Like, if there were anyone in my past whom I would describe as an "ex-gf"--if a bot can find my email then it can probably ferret out my marital status, I'd have thought. I've long reconciled myself to the idea that keeping *all* my personal information to myself is a fool's dream. That horse has set up its own stables in the next town and is undercutting me. So I feel vaguely insulted when it becomes clear that spambots don't even bother to check, say, my gender or my age.
But creepier than that...suppose I had an "ex-gf" and she had been photographed with a "dude"...what the frod business is it supposed to be of mine? That's what "ex" means. Former. As in, not any more. As in, over. Does this spambot imagine me to be some twisted stalker sort of person? What exactly am I being incited to do to this imaginary "dude"? Suppose just for an instant I was a jealous, sexist, sadistic-in-not-a-nice-way sort of macho man, someone who fancies himself as a Warrior type, say, and I got this spam. I wouldn't need to open the picture (which obviously I know was actually a horrible virus, so I didn't touch it thank you) for my mind to start working on the possibilities. Men can gear themselves up into homicidal rages over nothing, and this implies something that isn't nothing, if you see what I mean. This spam, without even succeeding in its object, could get some innocent man's legs broken, or worse, and what could happen to some equally innocent woman honestly doesn't bear thinking about. I'd be surprised if there hadn't been an episode of Law and Order about it already.
What a world.
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Last babble 
