Great Turn-Offs Of Our Time (7)

More phrases that hide what the speaker really means

'It is important to contextualise the matter......  '

means to bury the bad news of poor workmanship
by a government and/or civil service in among detail
that has no merit of being mentioned in the news
because the news agenda is about incompetence,
rather than pointing up what people do adequately.

Mathematics For Dummies

Facts x Self Importance* = News

*This is usually an ontological argument,
where the higher the level of importance
of the individual to the individual involved
the more the news is proof to less important
people of the worthiness of those in the news....  

Great Turn-Offs Of Our Time (6)

It is not often I swear in writing,
but I do not need to apologise for the following.....

When a politician wants to apologise
for their previous actions 'being inadequate'
what are they actually apologising for?
Being seen to be inadequate and unsympathetic?
Or actually being so piss-poor at their job
that they would have been sacked for what they did,
but none of their contemporaries wanted their job
and their position makes them too powerful to fail?

Grab 'Em By Their Wants

Capitalism is just as much a 'command economy'
as Communism and Socialist economies have been.

The difference is that in the latter the government
stood for something collective that could be agreed with
or communally opposed, albeit with difficulty.

But in the former commands come from a cartel
where choice is what is highlighted,
which quietly usurps all collectivism,
and rewrites us by our wants to prove to us
that we agreed with the majority all along.

Whither Altruism?

Whatever 'it' is we are all in it together,

but clearly there is more money in it 
for some of us than there is for others.

On Being Sociably Anti-Social

Because subconscious parties are the easiest to quietly slip into,
stay on the edge of, and the easiest to leave un-noticed.

The Me(dia) Generation

I-Phones and mobiles are wonderful things,
they tell the young-the folks who use them most-
everything about the world they want to know.

Except how to be, and restfully listen,
whilst in the presence of an older person.

Quantifying Pain Is A Painful Business

One of the phrases I find most sickening
is 'I only want to help the most hurting'.
The phrase sickens me whether the pain to be relieved,
or left be, is in animals or in humans.

Who would genuinely grade other people's pain
in order to say mostly to themselves, nobody else,
'Person or animal X or Y is not in enough agony
for me to want to relieve them of their pain.'?

And yet that is what is meant by declarations
of helping the only most hurt must mean.
That is if the idea means anything.....

And if the phrase is practically meaningless
to the person saying it, then that is even worse.

Lesson For Life

My next educational course is to be
'Teach Yourself Misanthropy',
where first I learn to dislike other people.
Then to be consistent I dislike myself,
and all I have done, as much-if not more
than I have developed my dislike of others.

And I will teach myself this progressive dislike
on my own because who else could teach it
effectively enough for the lesson to be for life?

The alternative is to study the paintings of Edvard Munch
until my eyes hurt with the pain he expresses through line,
and his choice of colours.

Democracy Repackaged (In A Flexible Membrane)

 American poet John Godfrey Saxe said, more or less, 

“Laws are like sausages, they cease to inspire respect
in proportion to how much we know about how they are made.”

I knew about pork barrel politics, 
where not only is the ballot not secret 
but those in power openly procured men's votes* 
with cured meats presented for them to eat.

Bur rarely had I thought that the legislators
would take the meat processing further,
where passing of a law became like making a sausage. 
And the skin of the intestines of an ox or a sheep,
or a goat if the law was written on vellum, 
became the prefered means of disguising 
a multitude of sin and compromise.

We are what we profess to believe in. 



*women got the vote in in 1920, long after the ballot became secret.
It cannot have been pleasant for women to have neither the vote,
nor property rights, and to be de facto the property of their husbands
and fathers, but those very husbands and fathers were hardly 
the free agents that having vote suggested they might be.

Wanting To Pleasing People

is a disease that whole societies are built upon.
We can only be cured of it when we are prepared
to be so unpopular that it might well be
that nobody cares what eventually happens to us.

People can still care because they choose to,
but without the need to please it is not a disease
and there is definitely no such thing as society.

A Reflection On Blind Spots

Mirrors do not, in themselves, encourage narcissism
-they merely expose human beings to the condition
particularly to the humans who are least likely to recognise
their self absorption when it stares them in the face. 

Boxing Up The Future

With genetic modification the new squarer fingerprint
will become as inevitable as the squared off mind 
which is unable to think outside it's new box,
this new irreversible scientific paradigm
is also going to box in the future, indefintiely.

I am Pro-Choice

but even I fail to understand
how to abort my portion of the universal shame
at what my existence has cost the world
compared with what it should have cost,
and how much less effort it should have taken.

And even if I could have aborted my shame
and cost the less that I was meant to,
I still don't know that nobody would have felt
'dumped on' for the effects of changing my choices.

My Online (Past) Life

I signed an online petition
and the petitioner wrote back to me,
starting with the phrase
'You too can be be part of History'.

I deleted the message, unread.

I decided that I would rather have life in the present
than be part of some anonymous strangers past
-I have had enough of those already.  

Restful Old Haunts

Now the world cup is over the wild dogs of Russia
-who had to be tidied away from the visiting fans-
can return to their previous haunts, at the fringes of human society.
There they can recreate their noncompetitive, but hierarchical, peace. 

Us - Them = Rest?

The currency of life is money and time.
Before the invention of debt it was time
which with nearly no time pieces to measure it,
was practically infinite.

When money and time are well invested
they create a sense of longevity rewarded.

When they were used to dis-invest in others
whilst appearing to do the opposite,
then other people become the foot-soldiers
in an undeclared war in which all life is devalued
-because war degrades everything it touches.

We like to pretend that employers are people.
People who contract to exchange their money
for their employees time and labour.
But whatever image employers project,
the value of their money comes in how
their employees can now afford debts
that they can pay off later.

But people still have to think for themselves
if their lives are not to be devalued
by shrinking bargaining powers
for over-hyped opportunities.

Hiding in Broad Daylight

When the Bastille Day fireworks go off
I will not wonder why my dog hides from them,
in a narrow space underneath my bed.

I am one of many who rarely finds that safe distance
from the headlines in the national press
that explode everyday over my head,
telling me about stuff about which
I cannot change the course or nature of.

The difference between me and my dog
is that he hides once a year from the fireworks;
I hide everyday I seek to hide in broad daylight.

But within me and outside of me I still seek
to change daily that which really will change.   

An Apolitical Blues

Dig deep enough into human history
and you will find that every last little bit
of what has been recovered so far
is so loaded with literal and metaphorical triggers
that all of it should have warnings attached.

But dig that far and we still have choices;
either endless triggers until our nerves are shot
-from even creating the warnings to make it safe-
or an improvised amnesia beyond all means of repair.

If we prove stronger than our troubles suggest we are
we will still find the slack and grace to manage everyday life.
That will mean being less political to survive.

I Used To Like The Interval Programmes

on BBC television, whether the films were of  windmills, 
kittens playing with wool, knitting, the potters wheel, 
or a field being ploughed among many others. 
But like many parents and children who were new
to the medium I should have been more careful 
about what I let my brain be exposed to. 

Whether At Home Or Abroad

Mind Your H's, P's and T's.

Please use your 'Hello's, 'Please's and 'Thank you's carefully.

Whether you are somewhat lost, or merely lost for words,
life will take better care of itself through these graces
than you ever thought possible. 

Least Said, Least Mended, Least Harm Done?

'So much lying in marriage was merely a matter of keeping quiet'

-'We Need To Talk About Kevin', Lionel Shriver.

Maybe more more marriages would be improved
if speech were minimised to what was needed,
whether what was needed was a lie or the truth.

Collaborators

often don't know whose side they are on.

Particularly when they are kept rather busy,
by their efforts to avoid being divided
by the crossfire from all sides. 

Press The Button For Self-Realisation

Near the exit of my local supermarket
there is a waist height pillar with buttons on it
where shoppers can express how they felt
about their shopping experience up to that moment.

At my last visit I was ecstatic
at not finding what I went in for
-for realising I didn't need it.

I pressed the 'happy' button
-it was the perfect use of my time
and I did not begrudge them a minute of it.
   

No Place To Hide When We Need It Most

When humiliation strikes us
it takes us by surprise,
which is why resisting
being overwhelmed by it
proves so hard.

When we have no place to hide
-least of all inside ourselves-
it strikes and hurts us the hardest. 

Eight Rules For Running A Country

When I first read the following it was headed
'Eight Ways to Destroy a Relationship'.

As I read it it, it became clear to me
that the same rules could easily be
adapted as eight ways to run a government
or manage an openly biased media outlet
-particularly if they were consistent enough
and also claimed to be doing the opposite.

See what you think......

1. Be abusive: As well as physical abuse, this includes put-downs, sarcasm, negative and hurtful comments, deliberately withholding affection, stonewalling, refusing to talk, and repeatedly threatening to leave the relationship.

2. Be defensive: Individuals who are always on the defensive are so wrapped up in protecting themselves that they rarely grow in their relationships with others. They won’t admit that they have faults and so end up committing the same mistakes again and again. This eventually destroys the relationship.

3. Be critical: While there’s sometimes a place for the occasional remark, if you’re always complaining and pointing out their flaws then you’ll soon undermine your partner’s self-esteem. In all areas of life, a critical person is an unattractive person.

4. Be always right: If you’re always right, the other person’s always wrong – and who wants to feel that they have nothing to contribute, or their point of view is stupid, unwanted and wrong.

5. Be narcissistic and selfish: The person who always has to have their own way in life, or who’s only interested in their own needs and desires has little to add to a relationship.

6. Be dishonest: Trust is at the heart of all good relationships. If you can’t be real and honest, or are not dependable, then there’s no foundation for a strong relationship. This includes being unfaithful or hiding the whole truth.

7. Be superior: If you’re quick to judge others or to put people down, or you think that you are better than everybody else (more intelligent, prettier, cooler etc) then you’re setting yourself up for a lifetime of heartache. For although we all have strengths, and we may excel at times, each person is unique and is worthy of respect.

8. Be controlling: A relationship’s a gift. That person’s not your property. They’re allowed to be themselves, with their own views and beliefs. They don’t answer to you; and they don’t have to change themselves. They’re autonomous and free – and they’re not there to be controlled.  

The Myth Of Sisyphus Modernised (2)

Because man is the most restless of all animals

And in spite of being 0.01 % of the worlds species 

is driven by natures cycles to go far faster than those cycles do

And eliminate more of every species in the process
than he ever knew were there.

Popular Turn Off's (6)

'Our prayers and thoughts go with......
(insert name of disaster/suffering people here)'.

The phrase is used by people who don't pray,
and whose thoughts of doubtful consistency,
sufficient that anyone who does think or prays says
'they don't do either and will repeat the phrase
until nobody cares because nobody is listening'.

Fake grief multiplies and subsides
with same ease as fake relief,
whilst any enduring sense of loss
is understood more far more quietly.

Restoring The Grace In Cheapness

I was not quite 'born second hand'
but as a child and an adult
most of what I have owned
has been well pre-owned and pre-used,
and much bedded-in before my life with it.

By the time I get a thing it could be
anything from second-hand to tenth-hand.
I am likely to be the last get the use out of it.

All of what I have had required input
from human hand and and eye for it to be
still fit for my use of it. I wish I could thank
those that made what I find still fit for use
for their hand in keeping my life more solvent
and me looking half like those around me.

The Secret Democratic Deficit

“World War III will be a guerrilla information war. 
With no divisions between military and civilian participation.” 
-Marshall McLuhan

-it looks like we are there already, and the civilian awareness 
of the militaristic applications of what civilians do and say 
are unknown to them, which is how the military like it.  

Mutuality Through Exchange?

The uncertainty in all markets is the level of mutuality.
The less assured the level of mutuality with each transaction 
the more closed the market actually is, 
compared with how open it appears to be..... 
                                                                   
When the assumption is left to become an absolute
it creates and perpetuates hidden gains for the vendor
 at the buyers expense. Such gains must remain hidden 
for the market to not get openly labelled 'rigged' or 'broken'....