Long time no update...
Sorry, but every now and then, my account seems to be frozen. Yay. When the credit card bill turns up, there's the SG services payment, so I come back and find my password changed or something... Am I THAT forgetful? Or is it an automated service? Or has someone hacked me? Or what?
No matter: back once again is the renegade master.
I quit smoking.
I got love.
I'm going to China.
Sorry, but every now and then, my account seems to be frozen. Yay. When the credit card bill turns up, there's the SG services payment, so I come back and find my password changed or something... Am I THAT forgetful? Or is it an automated service? Or has someone hacked me? Or what?
No matter: back once again is the renegade master.
I quit smoking.
I got love.
I'm going to China.
In Gaza, the settlers are protesting violently, and the Israeli Defence Force are clashing" with them.
Unlike when Palestinians (or pro-Palestinian internationals in the past) have protested, this time the IDF don't seem to "clash" with live ammunition...
Of course, for humanity's sake, I hope I'm not speaking too soon.
Unlike when Palestinians (or pro-Palestinian internationals in the past) have protested, this time the IDF don't seem to "clash" with live ammunition...
Of course, for humanity's sake, I hope I'm not speaking too soon.
I wonder what woman I'd be...
I knew it.
Such a paltry icon of alternative sensibilities...
I knew it.
Such a paltry icon of alternative sensibilities...
I have allergies; sort of a hayfever thingy, a bit of asthma, that sort of thing.
Hayfever is one of the worst. Summer means less Excitement and sunny fun, more a species of irritating nasal twitching, tickling, shorter breath and unknown red birthmark-like patches appearing in the skin of my back. Delightful.
My body has this terrible way of reacting to the most mundane benign object, on the shaky grounds that they sort of look like pathogens - bacteria, viruses, whatever. To give my immune system a voice and consciousness for a moment...
Sir, incoming pollen.
What? Scramble all mucus!
Sir, it's just pollen.
How can we be sure? Remember that time when we sneezed? Where's my mucus, dammit!?
That was on your orders, sir. The incoming pollen particles show now threat to the body. Are you sure you want that mucus, sir?
Yes! Dammit, don't answer back. Give 'em a broadside of snot! Engage the conjunctivitis!
[sighs]Engaging conjunctivitis, sir...
See, my body's immune system is stupid. I have these useful defences for the dangerous stuff (you know, if we didn't actually defend ourselves against cold, they'd kill us? That's why immuno-deficiency is such a terrible thing.), but they over-react and attack things that they have no business attacking.
Oh my gods!! Quick, restrict the airways! Seal all bronchioli! Incoming moth-wing scales!!!
Sir, they're no threat.
Ensign, you're relieved of duty! I will not stand for your insubordination. We could all be killed by these moth-wing scales!
[mutters]We will all be killed if he seals the airways...
So, anyway, I take antihistamines. It's the histamines that are responsible for this allergy reaction. They need to be kept in line. Let them get out of hand and they'll do helpful things like close your trachea so you can't breathe in the "deadly" (i.e.: harmless) pollen. So I have to suppress the stupid things with drugs each day.
The thing is, I can't blame them too much. Pollen is a small, invasive particulate foreign body, much like the bacteria and poisons my body is thinking it's reacting to. So drugs are the best way forward.
Now, why do I blather on about this?
It struck me last night as I sneezed in the fragrant air of Hyde Park, listening to the sirens wail by in the mist - the West is my body, the police are my immune system.
(This works for other large cultures/societies, but the "West" is where I live.)
We need the police to keep us from dying from crimes left out of control. There are always strange people who want to damage others in some way - whatever their reasons; poverty, ideology, revenge, insanity - so I need my immune system to protect me from illness.
But - I don't need my immune system to protect me from harmless exotic entities, the entities that just don't fit in with the body's idea of what should be here.
The police, our governments, their armed forces, private security concerns at airports - all react well to real threats. Of course, sometimes we get sick because a pathogen has invaded the West's body despite the best efforts of our immune system. We couldn't keep them out, and when they got in, we didn't spot that they were dangerous. Oops! Well, bodies get sick. Sometimes we need help and medicine to get better. All natural and part of living in a world with individual bodies.
What concerns me is that our policing forces sometimes get a little allergic. They react to non-threatening entities in much the same way as they do to the real threats, usually on the basis that the "offending" entity resembles another, truly dangerous, entity.
Look out! A man wearing a warm jacket in summer - and hes carrying a bag!!! Better kill him!
Now, we need our police to look out for threats, of course. What body survives without an immune system? A very isolated body, perhaps? Sealed in a bubble away from pathogens. Not a very good way to live. So we have to have our immune system. But what species lets the immune system become the controlling part of the body? Should I let the anti-bodies, histamines and white blood cells run my life? What kind of mind do they have?*
Histamines in charge would be like stopping taking my medicines. I'd splutter and sneeze at every hint of dust or pollen. Bee stings would kill me. Tiny particles of dust from moths' wings would make my throat seal up and suffocate me. At worst, I'd die - at best, I'd have to live in isolation as if I had no immunities at all.
So, we have serious threats from nasty people who want to use violence as a method of getting their point across. Yes, set the police on them: the Army, Navy and Airforce too. Go get 'em! But do we give more power to these forces to operate without check? Should we let them become more important than the people they are here to protect?
NO.
*Well, literally, they have none, but for the purpose of this metaphor let's let them be a bit more sentient in their actions, okay?
Hayfever is one of the worst. Summer means less Excitement and sunny fun, more a species of irritating nasal twitching, tickling, shorter breath and unknown red birthmark-like patches appearing in the skin of my back. Delightful.
My body has this terrible way of reacting to the most mundane benign object, on the shaky grounds that they sort of look like pathogens - bacteria, viruses, whatever. To give my immune system a voice and consciousness for a moment...
Sir, incoming pollen.
What? Scramble all mucus!
Sir, it's just pollen.
How can we be sure? Remember that time when we sneezed? Where's my mucus, dammit!?
That was on your orders, sir. The incoming pollen particles show now threat to the body. Are you sure you want that mucus, sir?
Yes! Dammit, don't answer back. Give 'em a broadside of snot! Engage the conjunctivitis!
[sighs]Engaging conjunctivitis, sir...
See, my body's immune system is stupid. I have these useful defences for the dangerous stuff (you know, if we didn't actually defend ourselves against cold, they'd kill us? That's why immuno-deficiency is such a terrible thing.), but they over-react and attack things that they have no business attacking.
Oh my gods!! Quick, restrict the airways! Seal all bronchioli! Incoming moth-wing scales!!!
Sir, they're no threat.
Ensign, you're relieved of duty! I will not stand for your insubordination. We could all be killed by these moth-wing scales!
[mutters]We will all be killed if he seals the airways...
So, anyway, I take antihistamines. It's the histamines that are responsible for this allergy reaction. They need to be kept in line. Let them get out of hand and they'll do helpful things like close your trachea so you can't breathe in the "deadly" (i.e.: harmless) pollen. So I have to suppress the stupid things with drugs each day.
The thing is, I can't blame them too much. Pollen is a small, invasive particulate foreign body, much like the bacteria and poisons my body is thinking it's reacting to. So drugs are the best way forward.
Now, why do I blather on about this?
It struck me last night as I sneezed in the fragrant air of Hyde Park, listening to the sirens wail by in the mist - the West is my body, the police are my immune system.
(This works for other large cultures/societies, but the "West" is where I live.)
We need the police to keep us from dying from crimes left out of control. There are always strange people who want to damage others in some way - whatever their reasons; poverty, ideology, revenge, insanity - so I need my immune system to protect me from illness.
But - I don't need my immune system to protect me from harmless exotic entities, the entities that just don't fit in with the body's idea of what should be here.
The police, our governments, their armed forces, private security concerns at airports - all react well to real threats. Of course, sometimes we get sick because a pathogen has invaded the West's body despite the best efforts of our immune system. We couldn't keep them out, and when they got in, we didn't spot that they were dangerous. Oops! Well, bodies get sick. Sometimes we need help and medicine to get better. All natural and part of living in a world with individual bodies.
What concerns me is that our policing forces sometimes get a little allergic. They react to non-threatening entities in much the same way as they do to the real threats, usually on the basis that the "offending" entity resembles another, truly dangerous, entity.
Look out! A man wearing a warm jacket in summer - and hes carrying a bag!!! Better kill him!
Now, we need our police to look out for threats, of course. What body survives without an immune system? A very isolated body, perhaps? Sealed in a bubble away from pathogens. Not a very good way to live. So we have to have our immune system. But what species lets the immune system become the controlling part of the body? Should I let the anti-bodies, histamines and white blood cells run my life? What kind of mind do they have?*
Histamines in charge would be like stopping taking my medicines. I'd splutter and sneeze at every hint of dust or pollen. Bee stings would kill me. Tiny particles of dust from moths' wings would make my throat seal up and suffocate me. At worst, I'd die - at best, I'd have to live in isolation as if I had no immunities at all.
So, we have serious threats from nasty people who want to use violence as a method of getting their point across. Yes, set the police on them: the Army, Navy and Airforce too. Go get 'em! But do we give more power to these forces to operate without check? Should we let them become more important than the people they are here to protect?
NO.
*Well, literally, they have none, but for the purpose of this metaphor let's let them be a bit more sentient in their actions, okay?
"Been so long - I forgot what it's like..." Big Black / Stinking Drunk
Well, I'm back. Sunny London. Can't leave the conflicts behind though. Suicide bombing in the UK? Who'd have thought it? Well, Scotland Yard did say it was a matter of "when, not if" back in September 2001.
Anyway - tired, upset stomach, jet lagged, dirty. I'll just wait till tomorrow before I post my next.
Well, I'm back. Sunny London. Can't leave the conflicts behind though. Suicide bombing in the UK? Who'd have thought it? Well, Scotland Yard did say it was a matter of "when, not if" back in September 2001.
Anyway - tired, upset stomach, jet lagged, dirty. I'll just wait till tomorrow before I post my next.
Pictures from Palestine:
Routinely, homes are demolished by armoured bulldozers - supplied by Caterpillar, who have still refused to accept any responsibility for the death of Rachael Corrie the US citizen who was deliberately crushed to death by one such machine after talking with its driver.
The Palestinians want to live in peace. They build homes with their families, and the Israeli army is ordered to destroy them. No warning is given. The first that the home-owners know is that the giant tank-like bulldozers (often accompanied by US-supplied main battle tanks) arrive and start smashing the walls down. From anecdotal accounts, I heard of several families who died in such actions.
Not only homes are destroyed by the Israeli army. The specially-built military bulldozers demolish schools, too. Even if this is not part of a plan to destroy the education available to the Palestinians, it is obvious that persecution of this scale isn't going to endear the Israelis to their neighbours.
Life for the people of Palestine has to go on. When their homes and schools are destroyed, they move on and try to live. The greatest resistance to the constant oppression by Israeli forces that they can make is to continue to live.
These are just some pictures of the aftermath of an Israeli military bulldozer. If peace-workers had been present, it is likely that these homes would have stodd just a while longer - but when the Israeli Army are prepared to deliberately crush US peace workers to death in order to destroy Palestinian homes, nothing is certain.
The International Solidarity Movement (also see the ISM's main site) tries to make living a little easier by using their international status to negotiate with the Israeli forces. Sometimes it works. Sometimes the Israeli soldiers arrest ISM volunteers, sometimes they shoot them. We can't be there all year, in all of Palestine.
Routinely, homes are demolished by armoured bulldozers - supplied by Caterpillar, who have still refused to accept any responsibility for the death of Rachael Corrie the US citizen who was deliberately crushed to death by one such machine after talking with its driver.
The Palestinians want to live in peace. They build homes with their families, and the Israeli army is ordered to destroy them. No warning is given. The first that the home-owners know is that the giant tank-like bulldozers (often accompanied by US-supplied main battle tanks) arrive and start smashing the walls down. From anecdotal accounts, I heard of several families who died in such actions.
Not only homes are destroyed by the Israeli army. The specially-built military bulldozers demolish schools, too. Even if this is not part of a plan to destroy the education available to the Palestinians, it is obvious that persecution of this scale isn't going to endear the Israelis to their neighbours.
Life for the people of Palestine has to go on. When their homes and schools are destroyed, they move on and try to live. The greatest resistance to the constant oppression by Israeli forces that they can make is to continue to live.
These are just some pictures of the aftermath of an Israeli military bulldozer. If peace-workers had been present, it is likely that these homes would have stodd just a while longer - but when the Israeli Army are prepared to deliberately crush US peace workers to death in order to destroy Palestinian homes, nothing is certain.
The International Solidarity Movement (also see the ISM's main site) tries to make living a little easier by using their international status to negotiate with the Israeli forces. Sometimes it works. Sometimes the Israeli soldiers arrest ISM volunteers, sometimes they shoot them. We can't be there all year, in all of Palestine.
An Israeli soldier has been convicted by a military tribunal of the manslaughter of a British peace worker in the Occupied Territories on the West Bank (Palestine) in January 2003.
Taysir Hayb was found guilty of shooting Tom Hurndall, 22, a member of the pro-Palestinian International Solidarity Movement. Hurndall died in a London hospital in January 2004 after lying in a coma for nine months.
Human rights groups maintain that Israel has used excessive force to quell Palestinian unrest, and very few cases in which Palestinian civilians have been shot have led to convictions.
Hayb, who the army initially said was a private, shot Hurndall while the activist was helping Palestinian children cross a street to avoid gunfire in the southern Gaza town of Rafah, a hotbed of a Palestinian revolt in territory Israel has occupied since the 1967 Middle East War.
Read the whole article from Reuters as posted on MSN Today for the UK.
Most tragic (to your humble narrator) is the fact that Tom's death is being reported internationally, while human rights groups generally agree that hundreds if not thousands of ordinary Palestinians have been killed by the Israeli government's occupying forces - yet their stories are rarely brought to light.
Tom's family have a website - take a look.
In this humble narrator's opinion, the justifiably scared Israeli government is going too far to apply collective punishment to all Palestinians for the crimes of a few militants.
Justifiable, because when you illegally occupy your neighbour's country for 50+ years, you have to be scared that they'll fight back. When you kill children and innocents for the crimes of a minority of insurgents, you have to expect more resistance, more retaliation. The answer to rebellion is never to oppress the rebelling people, it's to ask Why are they rebelling?
Our media are not helping either - but this news is strangely welcome, if it only raises awareness of the terrible human rights abuses being commited by a nation's government that aspires to be a big player in international politics.
Too much to report, and I don't want to do it here. There are people trying to have fun, you know?
I'm coming home in a few days, maybe I'll sort out a link to the write up I'm going to give the last few days. Maybe not. we'll see.
I'm coming home in a few days, maybe I'll sort out a link to the write up I'm going to give the last few days. Maybe not. we'll see.
Back once again. All went smoothly enough.
I'm looking at 1984 with an eye to making a new fiction rant citing it for my metaphors. Stay tuned.
I'm looking at 1984 with an eye to making a new fiction rant citing it for my metaphors. Stay tuned.
Funeral to attend in another town, so no posts for a few days. Let's hope it goes smoothly, no-one gets hurt, no-one tries to break it up or anything. Rubber bullets and tear gas are not the answer to mass grief. People have been killed by "non-lethal" ammunition.
Round here, crowds can get treated like riots.
Everyone's a little afraid of each other, and when you're afraid for long enough it seems to turn into violence and hatred or depression and suicide.
Round here, crowds can get treated like riots.
Everyone's a little afraid of each other, and when you're afraid for long enough it seems to turn into violence and hatred or depression and suicide.
