in praise of being late

(spoiler: contains gross generalisations to the point of being racist.)

the holocaust, we all know it well for sure. but what is often glossed over is what made it quite so successful. how did those darned nazis get all those fine upstanding german citizens to look so avowedly the other way? and what was it about the italians that led 80% of italian jews to see the other side of the third reich whereas the figure is reversed north of the alps?

lots has been said about the various assimilatory practices of italian jews but, like, whatever. an important point missed by the majority of historians is the fact that italians just aint sticklers, they cannot abide rules, enforcers thereof and the people that listen to them (ok, I going on hearsay here but, hey, the I.I.B.A (international institute of the blogging arts) says hearsay is ok, ok? lets just say these folks aint for quitting (cigarettes, with the aid of a smoking ban, say) easy.

the germans, on the other hand, well, we all know just what hearsay has to say of those fine fellows. sticklers to a man, i tell you, not a rule-bender amongst the lot of ‘em. thus when the third reich made rules like “it is henceforth illegal to be nice to jews” they had no choice but to follow said rules and be horrible (even if they didn’t really want to be horrible at all).

much similarly could be said for today’s situation vis-à-vis the environment. no one wants to destroy the rainforest, pollute rivers, kill cuddly polar bears, etc. but ‘the rules’ (specifically the ones about returning profits for shareholders & untrammelled growth being ‘a good thing’) tell us that we have to. so we do. thusly ensuring our very own premature destruction. (not sure how, or why, you would time your own destruction, but hey ho)

so there we have it. the evidence is in. following rules, being on time, getting that gold star, puts you but a short scuttle away from mass-murder. the only way you can follow rules and not become an utter bastard is if you know exactly what those making up said rules are thinking/ doing and more importantly why. and just how many of us can say that? the only other alternative is to weigh up every rule you come across through you very own 'justice filter' and who has the time to do that? even then it is prone to failure as, in our globalised world, right and wrong are not so clear cut and those in power have a way of repositioning goalposts in a way that is frankly unsettling.

i, for one, will never be knowingly on time again!

coal spill?

reports reach us here of an environmental catastrophe on the scale of exxon-valdez, if not worse. strangely there is little told of it on the major american news services who seem to be more interested in obama taking his top off (check for yourself). 

the only places that seem to be remotely interested are in the blogosphere, no surprise there. of course the coal industries attempts to convince us that coal is clean have nothing to do with this, oh no. 

thanks, as ever, to pz myers for the heads up.

Editorials from Hell's leading daily newspaper, The Dis Brimstone-Daily Pitchfork

Editorials from Hell's leading daily newspaper, The Dis Brimstone-Daily Pitchfork

here's the post again (new to this linky thingy).

OUT & PROUD!

out and about

i have had enough of living in the closet, i am coming out and i want the world to know! see here for details. some web-mates of mine (no, i don't actually know them but what does that matter in this day and age?) have started a campaign for anyone that is even mildly offeded by obama's stage sharing w/ rick warren to come out in protest. so there you go. any gentlemen friends of mine who wish to take up what will doubtlessly be a rare opportunity ( if my recent past is anything to go by), get in touch...

we're all going to hell!

you sure are.

oh yeah, check this shit out too! it's a hoot!

informing your atheism

i'm on the atheist blogroll so i suppose i might as well tell you why. most atheists, i'm sure, have good reasons for becoming atheists (aside from being born one, of course). unless they are atheist for the simple reason that everyone around them is, not that i have a problem with that, it worked for religion long enough.

the reason i am an atheist is primarily twofold. reason number one i discovered thanks to a medical condition. now before you all jump down my throat, i'm not angry with my creators for my condition, my parents could not have known it would happen anyway (boom, boom). but, what my diabetes did open my eyes to is what happens to you when you die.

the fact that none of us like the idea of ceasing to exsist is basically religions sole selling point - the old 'it makes you a better person' schtick loses its strength with every holy book-inspired death. i believe i've talked before about experiencing death before, for those who missed it: knock yourself out. suffice to say, it is not as exciting an experience as it is reported to be.

why i am so sure i have no eternal soul is my aforementioned medical condition. for those readers unaccustomed to the ins and outs of type 1 diabetes. i have to replace my insulin by myself (my pancreas having been 'taken out' by my own immune system). this can, on occasion lead me to have less sugar in my blood than is optimal. but wait, here's the rub: when my blood sugar levels drop i become a different person. and i aint just talking mood swing, oh no, i'ma talking diminished responsibility here folks; i change.

how does this inform my atheism? well just stop and think a wee mo, i am supposed to have within me an inviolable soul. a spirit, if you will, that not only makes up who i am, in a very deep and real sense, but also survives death. now, i asks ya, how can something that supposedly survives death not even survive a hypo(glycemic attack)? - i hope to follow this up by looking into diabetes vis-a-vis religious belief surely i'm not the only on to have reached this conclusion?

reason number two is a more ecumenical matter. and it is this: why would an all-powerful creator of the universe, creator of immovable objects and unstoppable forces, need to rely on emotional blackmail? aside from my firm belief that no relationship should be started (or continued) on the basis of emotional blackmail, why resort to it at all? i mean come on, this is the best you can do? hurl empty (and faintly ridiculous) threats and promises about?

what kind of a god worth praying to does that? what kind of a god creates a world full of evidence that contradicts his very own words and then threatens eternal punishment for the crime of disbelief?

it would be a very sick joke if it wasn't so funny and somewhat mirthful if it weren't so very ill.

update: ego vs love

you remember i said that our egos developed over the rather harsher climes of our early life 'pon plains of africa? well, i may have been a teeny, weeny bit mistaken. interestingly, the place i got the original idea also lends itself to this further bit of revision. i know, i know if i got the original idea from the book that also has this bit in it why didn't i just write it right in the first place? and to be honest i have absolutely no idea. it's probably got something to do with the fact that i'm a complete imbecile.

in steve taylor's book the fall he discusses how (and why) the human ego came about. it wasn't so much that it came about as a result of the harsh conditions of our early life at all. in fact, research has suggested that our primitive lives were a whole bunch easier than they are for most of us now (we apparently only spent about 1/5 of our time collecting food, the rest was our own, so much for advanced western civilisation!). it was only with the invention of agriculture and the resulting excesses of calories, which quickly became profits, which turned into armies. that ego really came into its own. think about it, what good is an ego if you have to share everything? i put my hands up, if steve is right (and he usually is) then i was wrong.

evolutin high-falutin'

new proof of evolution has been discovered! it's your mum! (or your dad if you're male) yup, this one's pretty rock-solid, all you need do is grab ahold of the parent that is the same sex as you, stand together in front of a mirror and viola! do you look exactly the same? no? thought not. do you know why? it's because you are a mix of your mummy and daddy (and a couple of mixtakes thrown in for good measure) and, as such, you have evolved from them! this is just one example of the very fact of evolution in action! proof if ever proof were needed!
-thanks to Brandon Creasy.

the other major proof i can think of off the top of my head are dogs. yup our furry best friends are one of the strongest proofs of evolution available. there is the fact that their mitochondrial DNA has been traced back to 3 east asian wolves. all the doggies in the world, rotties, chihuahuas, jack russels, the lot- all go back to three turkish bitches! if evolution was a fairy tale we'd be sharing our homes with some very fearsome characters indeed!

Ego Vs Love

today we will be discussing something of my very own personal philosophy(TM). i have come to opinion that we all have two choices in life (obviously you've no doubt be given more than two things to choose between your whole life what i'm talking about is the general direction those choices lead you). that is the choice to decide between going down the wide, bendy road of ego or the straight, narrow path of love (biblical, no?).

as a result of the way your brain is designed (to look after yourself, first and foremost) it is ALWAYS easier to choose ego over love (ok, ok, i can't actually cite research here, it's more of a gut feeling, but i'm more than sure it holds in the real world). ego is the urge you get to hoarde, to make sure you're looked after, even at others expense. love is the (somewhat lesser) urge to share and make sure everyone else is ok, even at your own expense.

but buyer beware! you ego resides within you, to all intents and purposes it IS you and as a result the egotistical path will always be, for some reason, infinately more acceptable (which is what makes it so much easier). so why not just stick to the good ol' wide road of ego? why not look after yourself? it sure does make a lot of sense, right?

wrong. it may SEEM like the easy road, it may even be paved with good intention, but it is also a road strewn with lies, profit and empty promise. war, capitalism (read: expoitation) and good old fashioned greed are all fed by ego (why shouldn't I be rich & powerful?). the only way to avoid these most horrible of things is to work to supress our egos which should (as if by magic) allow the love to shine on through (there may be more to it than this but what do i look like, a prophet?).

now before you go getting all upset for me accusing you of casting asunder the world and all that is in it just for looking after yourself please be assured this is not your (or anyone else's) fault. to discover why we are perhaps tne way we are we must look back (as always) to 'our' childhood (creationists look away now) that's right folks, we going back, back 'pon plains of africa! yes you see growing up, as our species did over a multi-million year period, times was tough. basically, tings was tough all over. this meant we needed our egos just to survive, without them we wouldn't even be here to discuss the subject.

however, my point is we are no longer scraping a living off the serengeti, i like to think we've come along a ways since then (not much, admittedly, but a ways at least). what with our mod-cons life's a lot easier than it was. so we no longer require our egos. they have become an impediment and like a lot of things past (racism, sexism, homophobia & intolerance of any stripe) ego is something we could well do with leaving behind.

on a practical note, i find that trying (and it can be) to love everybody (yup, all of them) is the way forward if you are serious about defeating ego. this (for obvious reasons) can be very difficult. however, it is worth the effort. if you can truly inculcate within yourself a deep and genuine love for your fellow man (+ all our carbon-based friends) one's life is, almost instantly, made a whole lot easier, more fun and more worthwhile in all manner of different ways. it sure makes working in the library a hell of a lot more rewarding, lets just put it that way.

speaking of which this article is brought to you courtesy of Hackney Libraries(TM), well I say that, they were paying me whilst i sat here and wrote it, they didn't actually ask me. but then, in loving them, i feel they would have wanted me to write this instead of getting on with my work, know what i mean?

apology

calling all septics! i am very sorry for laying into over the last two posts (i would stop addressing you as septics but it's part of my cultural heritage). in recompense i shall list a few stateside blogs that show you are not all the selfish lords of darkness you are accused of being (by me).

The Free Slave

Field Negro

Manifesto Joe's Texas Blues

Beggars Can Be Choosers

Angry Black Bitch

An Average American Patriot

Distributor Cap NY

Godless Liberal Homo


this is, by no means, an exhaustive listing. it is merely a taster of just how groovy the u.s. can be (if it puts its mind to it!) and an example of my favourites.

i hope u(.s.) can forgive me.

holy fuckries batman!

check this shit out. can you adam and eve it? corp. exec. pay in the u.s. is now (on average) 475 times the average shop-floor wage. 475x?!? my dear likkle baby jesus! and i bet you're all wondering what it is blighty-sides no? 22x, in ol' nippon it's only 11x! (and i always thought the swedes were the fairest people on the planet!). so the country that rought you FREEDOM(TM) and THE WAR ON TERROR(TM) now brings you NIGHTMARE EGOMANIA!!!(TM). fucking brilliant. what will those UTTER WANKERS(TM) think of next?

my apologies to any american readers. i personally abhor racism of any kind (but then you'd know all about that wouldn't you? - sorry, i can't stop myself!) and cannot abide generalisations especially of the 'entire people' kind. i do, of course, realise that many of you are wonderful light-filled human beings not to be judged on the attitudes of your countryfellows. however (come on, you knew it was coming) you did: a) fuck up the entire planet, for all of us. b) defeat communism, again fucking it up for the rest of us, somewhat. c) defeat the enlightenment, if it wasn't for about half of you we could happily tell the remaining monotheists to "stop being so silly, c'mon no one really believes that whole god thing anymore" but, no, in a spectacular trinity of fuckribility you even manged to stuff up the one cast-iron achievement of the west, the death of god.

thank you. thank you all so very, very much...still it's not all bad news (spoiler: contains fascist nonsense).

thanks to BeggarsCanBeChoosers.

monkey worship!

bibles at the ready? then we'll begin. gen 1:27: "so god created man in his own image...". i'll repeat that for those at the back (that means you sarah): created man in his own image. funny that, cause when i look in a mirror you know what i see? something that looks very much like an overly upright ape. all the way down to the hair, nails & a-hole. what could possibly be gwan? is it all just an expression of our over developed egos? (surely not!) or is the creator of the universe an old geezer with a beard and a hernia?

thanks to the manga bible for the inspiration!