The Flame vs The Shame

Ray Bradbury got it wrong in 'Fahrenheit 451'.

Book burning is a noisy activity
that always causes alarm. 

The quieter way to kill a culture 

is less to burn it's books,
but to shame people into not reading them,
or make literacy the object of fear and superstition,
the better to stop new ideas being written.

A Dog Eared Quotation

'Outside a dog a book is a mans best friend.
Inside a dog it is too dark to read.'-Groucho Marx

The Height Of Choice

We all built soapboxes
on which to share our felt experience.

We all have choices about what to say
when we suffer. Whether to project it out
through other collectively stressed situations
and shout so others can't hear themselves?

Or with our increased height listen apace,
take in the views we are offered, in conversation
and raise others to a new shared space?

Investment Banking;

Utopian lives for the few who work
and live in luxury high rise steel and glass cages,
mining the future for money.
Dystopian present times for the masses.
Consumerism is in all, it becomes everything.
Science fiction dramas are played out in secret
with theoretical maths to make money
by weaving worm holes in the fabric of hope
that pull taut the hidden strings in the hopes
of the many of an improved ordinary life.

More Is The New Less

Schools output is definitely up
more exams, more rules,
more talk from more fools
who think they know more,
and show they know less
every time they speak. More to eat,
the easier to become obese,
inflated by short term expectation.

In The Modesty Olympics

no medals were awarded,
no national anthems were sung
and nobody claimed their prize,
beyond praise for giving
each other encouragement.

Joined Up Government

This is how Government fat cats would think,
with thanks to here.