TV Presenters.

IT is getting ridiculous. We used to have real people on TV presenting the news and suchlike. No more. It has become a freakshow. They are all constrained to look "well". Botox, plastic surgery and hairpieces are now obligatory. They all talk alike and none of them seems at all like the average person you might meet in the street. TV is a poorer and poorer reflection of life and is becoming like Hollywood - a fantasy dream world of relevance only to a small minority of the population.

Political Readymeals

Do you like cooking?  TV is awash with cookery programmes encouraging us into the kitchen. Kitchen manufacturers spend endlessly to persuade us to install new kitchens. And some of us do both. But! Sales of readymeals grow and grow.We all like the convenience of fast food . We don't want to be endlessly in the kitchen struggling with ingredients and processes.
And so with politicians. They can't for the most part grapple with the complexities of life. Things are complicated and getting harder. Politicians are not the most able people to start with and work is not their favourite pastime. Politically - they can't cook. So what? So they buy a political readymeal- an -ism,  an ideology. Signup to be a something and the pain of thinking goes away. Life is easy, the party tells them what to think and do. Time to relax and reap the rewards.
And these are the people who are governing us. You can't get into government except through a political party. You and I mostly lead our lives well away from political parties, very few of us are members and we would seldom seek their advice or assistance. But they govern us. And they are fed on political readymeals. They have not the slightest idea of how we live, of what we seek or of how to help. Politics is debased to party politics and it needs to change.

For "Justice" read "Financial Compensation"

Every day it seems there are folks being interviewed on the news over some issue announcing in sombre terms that they are only doing whatever in pursuit of justice. Supine journalists nod wisely and move on. Not a one seems ever moved to ask the proper question. "How much are you looking for in compensation?" That is the normal response from you or me but journalists it seems have not thought of that. (They could at a stretch say that they got the interview on condition that they did not ask that question). Think about it.

Historians not Idealogues

Today Eric Hobsbawm died at the age of 95. Good Innings. However - while practicing as a historian and writing many history books he was first and last a Marxist. This undermines and nullifies the content of his writing. We can not be expected to take seriously history writing from persons who start out with an ideology which distorts everything they write or say. The problem is widespread and there are all sorts of historians at work whom we should ignore. On the right we have the likes of Niall Ferguson and Michael Burleigh. Do not read work by any historian who is noticeably attached to an -ism. Historians should end by making some useful suggestions, they should not begin by having a fixed view of what they are about to explore.

Sad Sight

Walking through my university campus today I came upon a very sad sight. Two young students with all to explore and investigate before them  manning a stall giving out religious literature! Why? Or alternatively why go to university? If you buy in to some supernaturally infused world view clearly a university has little to offer you. Poor kids.
Point was amplified in the library where I spotted a book entitled Catholic Bioethics. How can complex practical issues be helped by a uniquely sectarian supernatural world view?

A Sad State

The USA are agonizing over healthcare. Most states already have reasonably affordable provision. USA has about 300 million citizens represented nationally by several hundred congressmen and women and 100 senators. These folks it seems might come to a decision to join the rest of the world in recognizing effective healthcare as a citizen' natural right - or not as they might choose. But not so. Having thought that they had made a decision the matter is now referred to a tiny group of party politically partisan people who will second guess the decision of the people in the light of an ancient text written by and for a small group of plutocrats over 200 years ago. How sad is that?

Think Tanks

A contradiction in terms, close to what is often called an oxymoron. Think tanks by and large don't think. They write reports and come up with novel wheezes to support the views of the folks who pay the bills. They can't afford to think or they might come up with something the funders would hate. All supposed think tanks start out knowing the answer and avoid troublesome thinking. If a think tank tells us something it is because they were paid to. It is just like advertising and in way that is exactly what it is. It would be nice to have an actual think tank looking at problems but we never will get that.