To All My Republican Friends And Family

I know you are not happy right now.  I understand that you think the world has come to an end and the republic is about to fall.  You have profound distaste for the man who just won four more years in power and you are dead certain that the American dream is over.

I've felt your pain, I really have.  Two terms of W nearly drove me around the twist.  I couldn't even watch the guy on TV without flipping him off and cursing the moment of his conception.  How could Americans be so blind, so stupid, as to elect such a slimy brainless twit TWICE?  Does that sound familiar?

You will never convince me of the wickedness of my ways and I will never shake your beliefs.  I'm OK with that.  We still send each other Christmas cards and e-mails with pictures of the kids and go out of our way to visit, because that's what friends and family do.

However we also sit in front of glowing screens, plugged into the echo-chamber that is the Internet, slavishly inhaling only the opinions we want to hear; entrenching our ideologies behind bulwarks of people who agree with us and "facts" that align to our beliefs.  We are safe there.  Comfortably numb and convinced that if only They Would Listen To Reason then the world would be filled with rainbows and unicorns.  Not going to happen.

Not long ago my partner and I sat down to dinner with one of my cousins and her husband.  Politically they are  slightly to the right of The John Birch Society and I am just to the left of Abbie Hoffman (or so we all assumed).  After a fine meal we strayed into the danger zone of politics.  We knew we disagreed on absolutely everything from healthcare to Islam, guns to immigration and figured the only common ground we would ever find was an acknowledgement that we were all carbon based life-forms.

Two-hours of back and forth discussion ensued but not a single voice was raised in anger; no black eyes or busted chairs.  We listened to each other and as the evening wore on we started saying things like, "Yes, I see your point" and "I never thought of it that way".  By the time the coffee was finished and we were gathering up the coats we had come to the unexpected realization that none of us hated America, wanted Communism to sweep the land or had any particular fondness for pundits screaming at each other on the evening "news".

My dear Republican friends.  My loving conservative family.  Let's have dinner.  Let's go to a ball game or a shooting range (I'm pretty good with a shotgun and a box of clay pigeons).  Let's play music; take a holiday together and, for all of our sakes, let's talk about politics and religion.  We may never agree but that doesn't mean we don't care deeply about each other and the country we all call home. 

"...however little we may like or trust each other, we're on the same crew. Got the same troubles, same enemies and more than enough of both. Now we could circle each other and growl, sleep with one eye open but that thought wearies me. 

I don't care what you've done. I don't know what you're planning on doing, but I'm trusting you. I think you should do the same, 'cause I don't see this working any other way."

-Dr. Simon Tam (Sean Maher) from Firefly

Open letter to the guy sitting in the BA lounge at T5 talking to his screaming crotch-fruit on his iPad

You are a fucking asshole with a defective social responsibility gene and every single person within a 50 yard radius is imagining sticking pitchforks into your eyes.

The fact that you have reproduced fills me with horror.  Your genes will pollute the planet for at least another generation and the universe will be a significantly worse place because you and your spawn are in it.

Talking baby-babble into the tablet screen while simultaneously texting on your iPhone further illustrates your utter lack of normal human empathy.

Steve Jobs, you have left us a mixed legacy.

Steve Jobs: so long but not goodbye

Apple will, of course, survive and in the short to medium term keep producing interesting, innovative products but the passion from the top will be gone.  Steve lived and breathed Apple.  He sweated the small stuff.  I don't care how fanatical an Apple fan you are, if you have an Apple logo tattooed on your ass and you named your kid Newton, no one loves Apple more than Steve.

As cult figures go he was a pretty unassuming one but there was never any doubt about who was at the controls.  He was brilliant, yes, but brilliance in Silicon Valley is fairly common.  Where Steve was at his best was finding people who were also True Believers who could bring to fruition his vision of simple, elegant, utilitarian design melded with graceful functionality.

In the Church of Apple there were, of course, heretics, myself among them.  We bemoaned the lack of proper integration with Active Directory, the poor Exchange support, the general lack of any kind true enterprise vision.

At the end of the day Apple doesn't need enterprise because they own the hearts and minds of employees who are already using Apple products at home.  Any company with a "Windows only" mentality is finding it increasingly difficult to keep Apple products out.  Apple has entered the enterprise environment from the bottom up.  Employees are demanding that the products at work are as easy to use and fully integrated as the ones they use in there personal life.  Locking employees down to a Windows World that with every passing day seems more anachronistic is not a good idea if you want competitive, creative people working for you.

Not saying that you can't be creative on a PC but people are used to the full integration of the Apple ecosystem.  Companies that are not able to provide the same functionality within their infrastructures look like lumbering relics of a pre-broadband world.

Apple has long been criticized for being a religion not a computer company.  However, I think the analogy is closer to that of a home-town sports team:  you celebrate their triumphs, agonize over their screw-ups , complain about their management decisions and the price of hot-dogs at the games but when all is said and done, you still wear their jerseys and call them "my team".

Now the manager is retiring after a long and successful run and of course things will never be the same- nothing ever is.  The past 20 years will probably be remembered as "the good old days" and all of us geeks of a certain age will bore the next generation with our stories of the mighty Jobs who hit for six each time he stood at the crease.

What we must not lose sight of here is that Steve Jobs is a very ill man.  One can assume that nothing less than impending doom would cause him to leave Apple.  Pancreatic cancer is a death sentence for almost anyone and the fact that Steve has been struggling along since at least 2004 with the disease is a testament to his fortitude and determination to remain at the helm.  Surely this must have been a crushing decision for him because apart from stepping away from the company he loves it also acknowledges his own mortality. 

I cling to the sanguine expectation that the predictions of his demise are not true, that Steve finds a way to rally and produce a turn around like he did all those years ago with Apple.  This time however he is up against tougher competition than Microsoft, HP and Google combined.  This is the fight of his life, for his life and he will probably need a miracle to pull it off.  I hope his hat is not out of rabbits.

To all the gun nuts criticizing the UK for having an "unarmed population unable defend itself"

Did you every stop to consider that for every shopkeeper with a shotgun there would be fifty street punks with pistols?  A right to bear arms cuts both ways.

As bad as it has been in London, running gun battles would have been far, far worse.

If London is calling, you better hang up (then bolt the doors, hide the children and board up the windows)

The US is paralyzed by vitriolic party politics, the world economy is circling the drain and gangs of thugs have set London aflame.  The fourth horseman should be on his way any day now.

As is often the case I was out of town when shit started getting real.  My dingy hotel room in Copenhagen had no Internet so I was forced to glean what little information I could from the microscopic screen on my Blackberry.  Even at such a reduced size it was readily apparent from the outset that the mob was ruling.  Cops in riot gear were being routed by hoddies hurling rocks, terrified shoppers were barricading themselves into toilets and black smoke rose high above burning shops, homes and police cars.

At first I was somewhat amused and even sympathetic.  After all, like big cities everywhere London has a large number of disenfranchised residents living on the margins and one of their own was blown away by a bunch of armed cops.  Maybe it’s payback time.  However it quickly became clear that this unrest wasn’t politically motivated.  Yes, the spark that set it off came from a small demonstration against the killing but what has followed has lacked any clear rational except avarice and blind greed.

One must only look at the types of shops being targeted and the clear organization behind the looting to see that what we are experiencing is a systematic smash and grab operation perpetrated by opportunistic thugs.  London gangs, the same ones that hold entire boroughs hostage with their omnipresent turf wars, set aside their differences for a free-for-all of ultra-violence organized, ironically, using the preferred tool of white-collar criminals, the Blackberry. 

Take for example one participant interviewed by The International Herald Tribune.  19 years old, lives on a council estate, only learned to read three years ago, never had a job, doesn’t go to school, lives on Job-Seeker’s allowance, and spends each and every day at home watching telly.  He saw what was happening and thought he best go and  “...get my penny's worth!” and joined the mob.  He feels somewhat morally superior to his compatriots because he “only” stole a £120 jumper.  He says he wants a job and then whines that, “No one will give me a chance.”  Yeah, funny that.

Did society fail this kid?  Probably, but he has equally failed society.  

A friend of mine equated the rioters with Palestinians being brutalized by Israel and felt that what is happening in London is just the beginning of a larger upheaval.  She spoke of the frustrations of being trapped in poverty while surrounded by wealth and urged me to revisit Maslow's Hierarchy of Needs.  While I love my friend dearly and hold her opinions in high regard I am disinclined to agree with her assessment.

Firstly, there is an ocean of difference between a nation of people being deliberately deprived of liberty by an oppressive regime and London street gangs.  Last time I checked the UK is still nominally a liberal democracy, albeit one with low social mobility and there is still a huge social safety net of programs available to move people out of poverty and protect the most vulnerable.  Sure the systems are far from perfect but income disparity in and of itself is no justification for burning the local news agent's shop.

I would like to know exactly where on Maslow's ladder you would have to be in order for your desires for mobile phones and televisions to outweigh your needs for food and shelter. Those fuckers weren't stealing to feed their families, they were stealing because they are greedy yobs with feelings of entitlement.  

Nor were they taking to the streets to overthrow an evil dictatorship or stop a war or save public access to higher education.  There are causes so dear that the only Right and Good option is to man the barricades.  If I saw even a hint of that, or sensed that there was something deeper at work here other than mindless wanton carnage, then I would grab my arm-band and gas mask and be out there too.

Lacking any evidence to the contrary, I am compelled to agree with the assessment of this shop owner that these savages are nothing more than feral rats- an appropriate and wonderfully evocative phrase that I am already over using. 

I may be turning into a misanthrope but at least I am a selective one.

Sad

Against a backdrop of London burning, the global economy about to tank again, wars in more places than I can name, this story about a gay couple being forcibly broken apart and one partner deported makes me unbelievably sad. 

http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2011/08/09/BAO71KKPEC.DTL

The little things make the big things look all that much worse.

New York you fucking ROCK!

Same sex marriage approved in New York:

http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/nation/la-na-new-york-gay-marriage-20110625,0,650746.story

Slowly, with agonizing deliberation and halting steps, the US is being pulled out of the shadows of bigotry.

Or maybe not.

My feelings about America can be summed up in this one article and the comments posted about it: a wellspring of pride followed by crushing embarrassment.  Reading some of those responses solidifies my views that religion is a poison that rots from within, causing blind, unthinking adherence to primitive dogma and poor grammar.

A victory, yes, but the struggle continues.

This is SOOOOO British

Council builds a fence through a goal post:

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-york-north-yorkshire-13873091

I am a very bad person

Union Station, Los Angeles.  I'm waiting for my train to Santa Barbara seated on an iron bench in a small garden-like appendage attached to the main building.  I'm playing with my new phone; trying to make it release a voice mail that it has locked away for safe keeping.  It's LA warm, a particular kind of  heat that is produced by relentless sunshine bouncing off too much concrete.  My sleeves are rolled up and my eyes covered by shades darker than welding goggles.

A small woman, jeans, trainers, backpack, tan, a fluffy white blanket (or is it a coat?) clutched close, shuffles my way.  My city RADAR starts to blink: "Homeless confrontation immanent!  Shields up!"  She sits down next to me on the edge of the bench.  I'm curious to see what her pitch is going to be: honesty or creativity.

"Excuse me sir, I'm homeless and..."  Honesty it is.  I shoot her a glance, look her up and down, without really looking, turn back to my phone and say, "No.  I'm not giving you anything."

She stares at me.  I replay what I said in my head.  "I'm not giving you anything."  Nada.  No money, no help, no kindness, no form of respect or decency.  You, my friend will get nothing from me.  I have deliberately and with malice aforethought cut the rope between us.  

She deflates like a balloon.

"OK."  She says quietly, "Well, thanks anyway.  I just wanted to get some food, man."

A few thousands years pass.  There are voices screaming in my head.  The phone in my hand makes a tiny cracking sound as my grip on it tightens. 

Slowly, with palatable sadness, she gets up and walks, pigeon-toed to the take-away window of the outdoor cafe.  She stands for a while, ignored and invisible.  A plastic water jug sits to her right.  She takes a large Styrofoam cup from the counter and after filling it, drinks with both hands.

She weaves her way through the small post-lunch crowd.  Asking no one for a hand out, making no eye contact, she slips past the last table and into the station proper.

I watch all this feeling like I have just given Jesus a vinegar soaked sponge.  I have also ripped apart my one (and only) aphorism: "You can't help everyone so you help the one standing in front of you."

Temporarily abandoning my quest to listen to my voice-mail I gather up my luggage and roll it into the main hall, trying to look causal as I search for the homeless woman.  She had at most a five minute head-start but a large train station provides ample cover for a small person.

I slip down a side passage and pull up behind an ornately tiled pillar. Still wearing my sunglasses I pretend to contemplate the departure board while scanning for the woman.  I spot her off to the left and behind me, standing in front of a bank of vending machines. 

She is walking up and down; peering intently at the contents.  From time to time she stops, puts her hand out and touches the glass with her finger.  People go up to the machines, put money in, press buttons, retrieve their snacks, her dinner, from the tray.  She watches them but says nothing.

I open my wallet. I'm hoping for a tenner.  That seems right.  I have $26.  A twenty, a five and a one.  I pull out the cash; looking back around I see she is still there, still moving between the machines.  I fold the bills, palm them in my right hand and step out from behind the pillar.

She is walking toward me.  I freeze.  Paralyzed by shame; caught in the no man's land between cowardice and bravery, feeling at once outrageously foolish and exposed as the guilt-riddled child of privilege that I am.  

She passes without looking at me and exits through a white-washed stucco archway into the blazing LA sun.

I stand there blinking, unsure whether or not to follow, wondering if some unknown eyes behind hidden video cameras have been watching this entire farcical tableau and are, even now, directing burly men in black baseball caps to take me into custody.  They would undoubtedly ask me questions that I would feel ill-equipped to answer:  "Yes officer, the woman had approached me and asked for money and yes I followed her and spied on her from behind a pillar and yes, that money in my hand was for her but I assure you, my intentions were anything but nefarious. "

Would they believe me?  No.  I had a hard time believing it myself.  Under the circumstances, the advisable course of action was to retreat and hope for the early arrival of my train.

Back at the departure board and, as luck would have it, my platform number appeared.  Turning to make my way to the boarding ramp, I come face to face with the homeless woman.  She is clutching a dollar bill and staring at me with blank eyes.  We walk past each other, or rather, she walks past me, as I have again become locked in my feet of clay.  She gives me another sideways glance and continues to the vending machines.

Shot through with self-loathing, naked to the horror that I am not only heartless but a coward, I limp to my train; for the next three hours I contemplate throwing myself under it. 

What a bastard.

A corporate whore says goodbye to Twitter

I have just decided to kill off my Twitter account because they, like ATT, Amazon and Yahoo have become the government's bitch.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/technology/2011/may/29/twitter-anonymous-user-legal-battle

For those of you who think that this is not such a big deal, keep in mind that every single thing we do (in the UK) is being monitored:

http://www.guardian.co.uk/uk/2009/mar/02/westminster-cctv-system-privacy

Photography is a crime:

http://www.bjp-online.com/british-journal-of-photography/news/1644048/jail-photographing-police

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/7888301.stm

And b-list footballers can get a court order to gag the press:

http://www.guardian.co.uk/politics/2011/may/23/ryan-giggs-injunction-mp

We are well past the Slippery Slope stage and well into Worse Case Scenario territory.  I realize that this is all a matter of perspective.  At least we don't have a Great Firewall of China and mobile execution vans but we can be put in jail for exposing military malfeasance like civilians being ripped apart by machine guns from a chopper.  

Deleting my Twitter account and refusing to do business with Amazon doesn't damage those companies in the least- they never even knew I existed in the first place.  I can't change the world but I can change my behavior so that I avoid companies with whom I have moral misgivings. 

Or can I?  In an interconnected multinational world it is nearly impossible to be free from complicity in corporate crimes and nearly every element of our lifestyle makes the world a slightly worse place for everyone.  Let's take a few examples:

Within swiping distance are laptops and an MP3 player from the hip and friendly IT company, Apple, who just so happen to treat their factory workers "like machines."

At the foot of the sofa sits an old CRT TV that, when it finally blows its tube is going to land like a small toxic bomb on those poor wretches who have to dispose of it.

There are two dead-tree editions of newspapers lying on the floor and over a hundred books on the shelf; nearly all could be replaced by a Kindle but as stated before, I will never do business with Amazon again.

Half the income that keeps our flat ticking over and us squarely in the middle class comes from a company whose dominance of the commodities markets keep profits and prices high and whose recent history involves dealings with apartheid South Africa and circumventing oil embargoes with to Iraq.

The other half of our income pie comes courtesy of the lowest form of corporate slime: advertising and PR.  While we might not actually run hell, we'll make sure it looks good in the media.

Between the two of us we will probably take 19 short and long haul flights this year- down from past years when I alone would rack-up 40-50.

While I'm on this roll of true confessions I should mentions that our fridge is leaking coolant, we wantonly use an electric kettle for our tea and just yesterday I used the oven to reheat a single slice of pizza because we do not have a microwave.  Our windows aren't double paned, (from where I sit I can see the tissue paper my partner stuck between the cracks in the windowsill) and despite the fact that I have a perfectly good bicycle, I still take the tube to work.

Given all this it is truly laughable that I am professing to take a stand against the moral turpitude of Twitter.  I profess to abhor hypocrisy and yet here I am, throwing stones in my own house of glass.

It doesn't make what Twitter has done any less reprehensible and deleting my account is still  the Right Thing To Do.  However, until I decide to move off the grid, ditch my job and volunteer full-time for Amnesty International, my collective sins are no worse than theirs.  It is, of course, a hell of a lot easier to click a link that says "delete account" than one labeled "change your entire life".  But, one energy saving bulb at a time, that is what I am trying to do.

Wisconsin is broke? Not so much.

I am shocked, SHOCKED I say, that a Republican governor may have exaggerated his state's financial crisis in order to advance his own agenda.

http://tinyurl.com/3hkx87r

Republican Scorecard (ongoing)

At this point I don't think they are even pretending to be anything other than Pure Evil.

In Maine the GOP is looking to roll-back child labor laws by allowing under-20s to receive less than minimum wage, raise working-time caps on school days and allow 50+ hour work weeks when school is not in session.

http://www.rawstory.com/rs/2011/03/31/maine-republicans-seek-to-loosen-child-labor-laws/

What could possibly go wrong?

Hertz Marble Arch: DO NOT RENT FROM THEM!

I show up to pick up my car; as a Gold member it should be waiting for me, nicely warmed and with a small chocolate on the dashboard (not really).  I am greeted by an admittedly nice woman who should have been home in bed with her cold and not spraying germs on the customers and staff.  My car?  Nowhere to be seen.  We search.  For 20 minutes the agent and I wander in and out of rows of cars until we find the car I reserved, totally trapped in the dead centre of a hundred other vehicles.

Back at the desk I ask to add another driver.

"That will be £9 per day"

"I'm a Gold member, it's free."

"Not in the UK it's not."

10 minutes of arguing back and forth gets me nowhere.  The charge is added by the system and they can't wave it (like fuck they can't).

"Fine, forget it, just get me my car."

"It will take a bit of time..."

45 minutes later they manage to fish my car out and I go down to inspect it.  It's ancient (by rental standards) and covered with scratches.  I ask for another one.  No dice.  It's the last one of that type in stock.  Fine, upgrade me.  Certainly, that will be another £20 per day.

I just about lose it but they know I'm fucked.  What am I going to do?  I need this particular car (estate) to haul a bunch of furniture back from Devon and I know, as they do, that there is no where else I am going to get one three days before Christmas.

Defeated, I drive away.  Three miles later I wonder why it's still freezing in the cab.  After fiddling about with the dials and buttons I discover that the fan only works on full-blast.  Great.  I have a choice between blistering hot or freezing cold.  This is shaping up to be a fun holiday.

I have just finished sending Hertz a sternly worded letter but I know it will disappear down a rabbit hole.  All I can do now is tell as many people as humanly possible to avoid renting from Hertz in general and the Marble Arch branch in particular.

All Hertz needed to do was wave the second driver fee (like they say they do in their T&Cs) and they could have kept my good will and prevented me from slagging them on my blog, Twitter, Yelp and any other site I can find.  I'll tell my friends and family about how fucked up they are and pass the word to our corporate travel people.  At the end of the day, they didn't get my £45, won't get my normal six rentals a year from now on and maybe even lose a few more customers to boot.

As I told the drones behind the counter: you can't just treat people poorly and get away with it anymore, the Internet is a huge megaphone and if someone gets fucked over by a company, a pile of people are going to hear about it.  Or at least the three people who read this blog.

Not this time Amazon

I just finished all my on-line holiday shopping without giving a penny to Amazon; it wasn't nearly as difficult as I thought it would be.

Normally, 99% of all the cash I drop on gifts throughout the year goes to Amazon.  With friends and relatives dotted around the world, Amazon makes it easy for me to point-and-shoot presents wherever and whenever I need to send them.

Not this time.

With very little effort I managed to circumvent Amazon completely and still get all my December Pagan Holiday shopping done.  In fact, I enjoyed the diversity of my new Amazon-free lifestyle.

If you too are looking for a way to avoid free-speech stifling Amazon, check out these sites instead:

Support a truly worthy cause at Amnesty International UK


Amazingly cool stuff from the Museum of Modern Art in New York

Speaking of museums, The British Museum also has a good on-line selection

The perennial favorite of nerds everywhere: Think Geek

Great travel gear and of course, a great magazine: National Geographic

If you decide that everyone has too much stuff, throw a few bob to people who actually are saving lives:

St. Mungo's UK homeless services

Unparalleled bravery: Royal National Lifeboat Institution

IMHO one of the most worthy organizations ever created in the history of the human race:  Medecins Sans Frontiers

My point is, fuck Amazon, if they want to cave into government pressure then there is no reason that we need to send them any dosh ever again.

"If Amazon are so uncomfortable with the first amendment they should get out of the business of selling books."  -Julian Assange

Amen to that.

Hypocrisy Continues

Visa and MasterCard won't let you donate to WikiLeaks but donating to the KKK is still A-OK:

http://tinyurl.com/2682pu2

WikiLeaks Mirrors

The main site is getting hit by DoS attacks but can still be reached by IP:

http://213.251.145.96/

Currently there are over 1300 mirrors and they can be found here:

http://wikileaks.challet.eu/mirrors.html

Boycott Amazon NOW!

Hello Amazon?  Do you sell dictionaries?  Open one up and read me the definition of "irony".  Great.  Now find a copy of the US Constitution and take a look at the first amendment- it says something about freedom of the press and of speech right?  You guys are all for that aren't you?  I mean, if it weren't for the First Amendment you'd mostly be selling cat calendars and bibles.  You are pretty much the digital embodiment of the power of printed word so you'll excuse me when I say:

What the FUCK are you doing pulling WikiLeaks from your servers?!

Especially, I might add, since a corrupt old fuck like Joe Lieberman told you to?  Joe Fucking Lieberman?  The poster-boy for spineless self-interest and political pandering?  Are you fucking serious Amazon?  Give yourself a slap and grow a pair.

You people owe your very existence to the principles you are now denying.  You have caved to pressure from a government that got its ego bruised.  Would you pull Howl, The Catcher in the Rye or The Grapes of Wrath if some crooked Senator asked you to?  The government didn't like what those books said either and managed, with the complicit support of weak-willed sheep such as yourselves, to have them banned.

In light of your staggering act of political cowardice, let me just say that even though it is going to make my holiday shopping about 1000% more difficult, Amazon you will not be getting a single dollar or pound of my cash for the foreseeable future.

I know you don't give a shit- that's your problem.  You'll never notice that I didn't drop $250 on books and a new Kindle but the one or two people that read this blog will- as will my friends and their friends and my colleagues at work and so on.  Goodwill squandered is not easily replaced.

It is an exaggeration to say we have nothing to fear but fear itself, but correct to say that we have lots to fear from cowardice.
        - Brendan Keenan

Total so far

The Republican's are not even technically in control of Congress yet but they have already chalked up some impressive victories:

• Extending tax cuts to the super rich- all over but the shouting
• Raising the inheritance tax threshold to $5 million- all but done
• Keeping "Don't ask, don't tell" in place- check
• Block health care for 9/11 rescue workers- check
• Blocking a sensible path to citizenship for illegal immigrant students- check
• Killing the new arms control treaty- in progress
• Revoking or gutting (more so) health care reform- you betcha, stay tuned

Take my word for it, the US is doomed.  The next two years will be host to an unprecedented display of right-wing excess and insanity.  Obama will be a one-term President and his Tea-Party endorsed successor will preside over a cataclysmic shift toward an American Theocracy.

The US is an empire in decline, ruled by religious madmen, well armed and looking for a fight.  They have become their enemy not by coercion or force but by choice and willful ignorance.  Shouting and waving banners they walked happily into the flames.

To the Barricades

For the past 90 minutes a police helicopter has been hovering over our building, keeping an eye on the mass of protesters trying to push their way to Westminster: the campaign against raising student fees continues apace. 

I have to admit, as much as I like a good street protest, I haven't thrown my lot in with the students on this one.  The reason is quite a simple one and can be summed up like this, "fuck-'em, I had to pay for college, so can they."  Not very liberal of me I know but there you have it.

Thankfully my budding conservationism was quashed when I took the time to look back over the reality of my college years.

I entered college at 19 and when I walked out at 34 I was lumbered with $34,000 in student loan debt.  I had another $30,000 piled on my credit cards- most of which was accrued while I was in school and underemployed.  $64,000 in debt for a photography/art history major pretty much guarantees a lifetime of indentured servitude to Uncle Sam and Visa.

Luckily before I was forced into bankruptcy or faking my own death, I landed an IT job, discovered a stack of money in a college fund my parents had forgotten about and through an amazing loophole in US tax law, managed to get every penny of my withholding tax for 1999 returned to me.  Thus, within a year of moving to London I found myself completely debt free for the first time ever.

Woo hoo.

Without that perfect storm of a good job, found cash and a tax break there is no way I could have ever, ever, paid of those debts.  Far from paying my own way, I managed to land three huge Get Out of Debtors Prison Free cards and I hit them like a semi with no breaks.

Given these humbling revelations I've revisited my knee-jerk reaction to the UK student protests and come to the conclusion that a state sponsored free-ride for college is not in the best interests of the students or the country.

WTF?

Higher education should be subsidized, tuition should be kept under control and there should be need-based grants for those who can't afford the fees but I still feel that the students should contribute something to their education.  Even if that something is having to work in the school bookshop three days a week.  Let me explain.

My evil ex-girlfriend, the Norwegian, gets free education for life at nearly any school she chooses anywhere in the world.   This sounds great but the reality is that she developed an expectation of entitlement that has kept her gainfully unemployed and living the life of a perpetual student.  I don't know where she is now exactly, I'm hoping living in a cardboard box behind a strip-club, but I can tell you that in the 10 years we were in contact she had a grand total of one job that could pay her bills.  The rest of the time was spent in school accumulating degrees and boyfriends.

Am I bitter and jealous?  You bet.  Yet if I push aside the anger, I find even more anger.  Beneath that comes the same kind of self-righteous rage I hear spewing form the mouths of Torries when they talk about how hard they work to provide for their families while we give free houses to immigrants.

Somebody had to pay for my evil-ex to spend her life playing in the academic sandbox because fuck knows she didn't.  On top of that, she contributed not at all to anyone else's education because she was too busy leaching the system.  It wasn't  like her family was destitute: they owned three fucking Stradivarius violins for Christ's sake!

Granted, I shouldn't let the experiences of one spoiled child taint my world-view but unfortunately it does.  A university education should be available to anyone with the intellectual ability to pursue it but giving everyone a blank-cheque leads to complacency.  Means tested grants and loans coupled with tuition caps can keep higher education affordable to both those who are in the classroom and those in the work-force paying the bills.

No shame

Let me get this straight: Republicans are extending tax cuts to the rich (and "middle-class" people making $200K) and yet they are screaming about the deficit being too high?

They hold up jobless benefits for people who can't afford food for their kids so that their rich patrons can have another stack of cash?

Poor people spend the extra money you give them and rich people save it- which provides more short and mid-term stimulus to the economy?

Never could I have imagined that my disgust for the American Right would be greater than what I felt during the Bush years- how wrong I was.

If there is a hell, these people are going there.