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Not the Nine O'Clock News
Oct. 21st, 2005 09:59 amOh, this is just creepy.
In other news, James didn't do a damn thing while I was away. Not. One. Thing. Oh well, at least it's not that bad but seriously, I did kind of want to take a couple of days off next week and now I'm kind of afraid to. Well, I'll see how far I get on the backlog today. I should know by lunchtime if I can go on holiday or not. I'm guessing so, seeing as most of it was piddly stuff anyway (so why couldn't he have just filed a few things? Guess since that's my job now, he doesn't have to. 'Cover' apparently means 'I'll only do it if it's really urgent').
First glimpse of the Metro for two days. The weather has gone intensely screwed, hasn't it? We barely have time to wring the last drop of media interest out of one hurricane before another one comes along and flattens some other part of the world. It makes a nice distraction from, I don't know, weeding out the corruption and incompetence that made the devastation caused by Katrina so much worse than it had to be. And, in fact, every other piece of crap that happens in the media. Oh, people apparently want to see heart-rending tales of people suffering a long way away so that they can put a few quid into a charity somewhere and feel like they're Good People. And don't get me wrong -- they are good people, or at least they're better than the people who don't give at all on some weak-arse premise like "Well, most of the money's not going to the needy people anyway". Because some of it is, and a half a loaf is better than none (though I suppose I can understand not wanting to give money to bureaucrats who couldn't manage money if their lives depended on it). It's a combination of schadenfreude and a ploy to make themselves feel all generous and prosperous.
I want real news. I want to know why the government's still pushing these ID cards when they're expensive, supported by a buggy system and generally useless. I want to know why anti-terrorism laws are being used to keep dissenting but overall peaceful voices out of the Labour party conference and keep pedestrians off cycle paths. I want to know why people are being arrested for wearing T-shirts, be they Cradle of Filth ones (two people on record as having been arrested for wearing these under anti-hate laws) or anti-Blair sentiments. I really want to know why all the money that could be used to promote reduced emissions, better healthcare, better anti-drug campaigning, better education and generally a better standard of living is going to fund that unsanctioned bloodbath in Iraq. I want to know all these things, but no one who really knows will tell me. Why? Because they're ashamed of the answers, probably.
I want the answers anyway. I want, just for once, for these people who run our world to own up to what they're doing. I want them to be held accountable. I want them to either stand up and give the people valid reasons for what they're doing -- ones that are open to debate, thank you -- or I want them to admit that what they're doing is wrong. Even if they still refuse to back down from the idiotic mess they're making of society as a whole, the very least they could do is admit to us why they won't do the right thing. People have a right to answers like this.
Yet they don't think they do, because the people in charge tell them that they don't have the right to those answers. We don't have constitutionally guaranteed freedom of speech (though fat lot of good it's doing the Americans); the only place we have a voice is in the polling booth, and what happens after we get out of it and discover that we have been lied to? Do we rise up righteous and demand to know why the hell we were lied to? Do we use the mouths and brains we were born with to pry the truth out of these eejits so that we can make an informed decision about who runs our country? Do we take down the lying, warmongering, borderline dictatorial regimes and replace them with someone who will, at the very least, not lie, cheat and backstab at every opportunity without giving some kind of reason?
No. Instead, the vast majority of us accept that our news is going to forever consist of natural disaster coverage, the occasional blurb about the horrible things terrorists are doing and celebrity gossip like Sarah Jessica Parker allowing her wardrobe to be held hostage by her four-year-old Beatles-obsessed entitlement brat. Oh, and sport. Can't forget the sport. Bah fucking humbug to the news. There need to be more Spider Jerusalems on newspapers.
Right. Have ranted. Feel better. Back to work.
In other news, James didn't do a damn thing while I was away. Not. One. Thing. Oh well, at least it's not that bad but seriously, I did kind of want to take a couple of days off next week and now I'm kind of afraid to. Well, I'll see how far I get on the backlog today. I should know by lunchtime if I can go on holiday or not. I'm guessing so, seeing as most of it was piddly stuff anyway (so why couldn't he have just filed a few things? Guess since that's my job now, he doesn't have to. 'Cover' apparently means 'I'll only do it if it's really urgent').
First glimpse of the Metro for two days. The weather has gone intensely screwed, hasn't it? We barely have time to wring the last drop of media interest out of one hurricane before another one comes along and flattens some other part of the world. It makes a nice distraction from, I don't know, weeding out the corruption and incompetence that made the devastation caused by Katrina so much worse than it had to be. And, in fact, every other piece of crap that happens in the media. Oh, people apparently want to see heart-rending tales of people suffering a long way away so that they can put a few quid into a charity somewhere and feel like they're Good People. And don't get me wrong -- they are good people, or at least they're better than the people who don't give at all on some weak-arse premise like "Well, most of the money's not going to the needy people anyway". Because some of it is, and a half a loaf is better than none (though I suppose I can understand not wanting to give money to bureaucrats who couldn't manage money if their lives depended on it). It's a combination of schadenfreude and a ploy to make themselves feel all generous and prosperous.
I want real news. I want to know why the government's still pushing these ID cards when they're expensive, supported by a buggy system and generally useless. I want to know why anti-terrorism laws are being used to keep dissenting but overall peaceful voices out of the Labour party conference and keep pedestrians off cycle paths. I want to know why people are being arrested for wearing T-shirts, be they Cradle of Filth ones (two people on record as having been arrested for wearing these under anti-hate laws) or anti-Blair sentiments. I really want to know why all the money that could be used to promote reduced emissions, better healthcare, better anti-drug campaigning, better education and generally a better standard of living is going to fund that unsanctioned bloodbath in Iraq. I want to know all these things, but no one who really knows will tell me. Why? Because they're ashamed of the answers, probably.
I want the answers anyway. I want, just for once, for these people who run our world to own up to what they're doing. I want them to be held accountable. I want them to either stand up and give the people valid reasons for what they're doing -- ones that are open to debate, thank you -- or I want them to admit that what they're doing is wrong. Even if they still refuse to back down from the idiotic mess they're making of society as a whole, the very least they could do is admit to us why they won't do the right thing. People have a right to answers like this.
Yet they don't think they do, because the people in charge tell them that they don't have the right to those answers. We don't have constitutionally guaranteed freedom of speech (though fat lot of good it's doing the Americans); the only place we have a voice is in the polling booth, and what happens after we get out of it and discover that we have been lied to? Do we rise up righteous and demand to know why the hell we were lied to? Do we use the mouths and brains we were born with to pry the truth out of these eejits so that we can make an informed decision about who runs our country? Do we take down the lying, warmongering, borderline dictatorial regimes and replace them with someone who will, at the very least, not lie, cheat and backstab at every opportunity without giving some kind of reason?
No. Instead, the vast majority of us accept that our news is going to forever consist of natural disaster coverage, the occasional blurb about the horrible things terrorists are doing and celebrity gossip like Sarah Jessica Parker allowing her wardrobe to be held hostage by her four-year-old Beatles-obsessed entitlement brat. Oh, and sport. Can't forget the sport. Bah fucking humbug to the news. There need to be more Spider Jerusalems on newspapers.
Right. Have ranted. Feel better. Back to work.
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