The love of Doom

Initially I want to emphasise one single point, this is not a profession of platonic love for Marvels Latverian dictator Victor Von Doom   (just so any geek chic enthusiast seeing the headline knows straight away!)





No, not that at all! This is rather a brief musing on our propensity for revelling in despair and doom and gloom. Having just read a BBC article on the 'apocalypse' of failing antibiotics one was moved to comment when  it finished with this sentence:

"We have to be aware that we aren't going to have new wonder drugs coming along because there just aren't any."

One understands the argument that drugs are becoming resistant. Though one is led to wonder how such resistances ever occur when Gps guard them like they are protecting the gold stored in Fort Knox, - but I digress.

The point about that sentence (quoted above) is the absolute negative certainty of it. How do they know? They can suspect their will be no new drugs, no clinical improvements, but they cannot know. The human race is ingenious and strives for improvement all the time. Technological advances are swift and staggering. One cannot deny well constructed empirical evidence on drug resistance. at the same time one cannot reject future improvements - the future has yet to happen and that is very much the point.

It is not just here though. This is a mere singular example of our propensity for negativity. Watch mainstream media channels or flick through newspapers and they are doom laden. Misery it would seem sells. Talk of failure/doom/disaster and unopposable changes to life are abundant.

Life is short enough. Let's, just for once be optimistic instead of focusing on the doom - laden after all as Oscar Wilde once said:

 “We are all in the gutter, but some of us are looking at the stars.” 

For the sake of any geek-chic types who made it through the morass of jumbled thoughts above it seems only fair to counterbalance the presence of one Mr Doom with the presence of a chap who is optimistic about the future and sees the potential in human ingenuity.



FANTASTIC!

the refulgent joy of the pun

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/magazine-21011778

Apparently some people don't enjoy a good, or if we are to be realistic about this often not so good pun apparently. This is surely a shame.

Would one really want to miss out on such shining gems as 'Time flies like an arrow. Fruit flies like a banana.' or the equally awe inspiring 'Did you hear about the Buddhist who refused Novocain during a root canal? His goal: transcend dental medication.'.

Doubtless a few reading those will have groaned inwardly and perhaps even outwardly. Yet there is a certain joy in them, no matter how bad. Puns take a certain mental agility to construct and a playful love of linguistic acrobatics that any logophile or linguaphile worth their metaphoric salt must appreciate.

Besides without such wonderful one liners we wouldn't have this punderful collection from the indomitable Groucho Marx;

http://www.digitaldreamdoor.com/pages/quotes/grouchomarx.html

God help the poor! (the government almost certainly won't)

As an Englishman it goes against ones abiding cultural principles to discuss personal fiance openly or even really to put ones self at the centre of a post. However this will (unusually it is to be hoped) be a personally based piece. It takes a lot to push the conservative (with a small c) mild English to this point but this government is achieving it.

The breaking point has come in the whole 'stivers versus shirkers' debate that the Conservative (large political c) commentators have chosen to frame the debate over the state of welfare in this country. They are looking to cap benefit rises at 1% for the next  3 years. At the same time they say they are doing this for 'strivers' who go out to work to feed their families etc because as they frame it why should the 'shirkers' with their 'curtains drawn, laying in bed whilst others work' be equally well remunerated. You might think this is a sound argument, why shouldn't working people earn more than non- workers? only seem fair right?

EXCEPT!

Except that 1% applies to working families tax credits, to allowances that are given to people in poorly paid jobs who work often long hours for not much and need that extra money to supplement their lowly (earned) income. How is this helping strivers?

Another great way to cut the deficit apparently was to freeze wages in the public sector until April 2013 and now they want to limit rises the to 1%.

So if you work in the public sector - so called striving - you've had no pay rise for 2 years, when you do it will be well below inflation and any top-ups you might have got for low income will also be well below inflation. Effectively meaning a long term pay cut - for 'stivers'.

Originally the government said we had to reduce the deficit so austerity was needed. Then they said to people in the private sector - look how well remunerated public sector workers are - let's do something about it for balance. Not let's do something about poor pay in the private sector by the way- let's pull every body's wages down rather than striving for bettering things.

Then they said to all working people - look how 'well off ' people on benefits are (they're not at all one has experienced it in away few politicians have or will), let's cut their money.

Disabled groups have had cuts to their support. The levels of ability for working have been manipulated so that its harder to not work if disabled.

Before the last election our esteemed PM to be used the mantra 'we're all in this together'. That would be a mite more believable oh chinless wonder if MP's weren't currently mooting themselves a 32% pay rise (aren't they the sort of parasitic public sector workers with gold plated deals you promised to target? No? My mistake then!)

So let's not get at each other. Let's not focus on how much someone else has and how we can take it of them to make ourselves feel better. let's not be a society fuelled by bitter resentful schadenfreude. Instead let's work out how we can get more people into work that pays well, gives them worth and helps society generally.

In the meantime perhaps this should be our anthem

http://www.last.fm/music/Mike+Harding/_/God+Help+the+Poor

If you're wondering how this relates to an interjection of the personal as suggested at the start - it was written by a public sector worker who recieves tax credits to supplement a low income for working a 40 hour week who resents being branded a shirker by the inheritors of millions who've never known a days privation in their lives.

http://www.independent.co.uk/voices/comment/the-welfare-bill-a-government-of-millionaires-just-made-the-poor-poorer--and-laughed-as-they-did-it-8443619.html

New year's no resolutions

Every year people ask what your resolutions are. It's as though they emphatically expect them to be made. The concept of not making them seems anathema to many. Yet it isn't really clear why. The delineation of the years into calendrical months on a cycle that we pass is an artificial human construct. We like to mark the passage of that difficult concept 'time' itself by having a sense of control over it and contain it within a structure we have created.

We also like to mark out events within that artificial structure - hence the festivities each time a 'new year' comes round. Few stop to think that if we weren't artificially marking this time the world would still revolve, the sun still rise & set and nature would continue oblivious. No; we like to feel a sense of something momentous occurring around us.

By having that sense of the momentous we are then prompted to review our own circumstances, encouraged possibly to be critical of them and then finally, as we have a momentous staging post to work from, do something about it - or resolutions. typically they involve quitting things - smoking, drinking, over-eating or the pursuance of things - better health through exercise, weight loss, a push towards academia, knowledge broadening.

All seem to come with the inherent caveat of our own inadequacy without the resolution. Yet most are broken and or forgotten by spring. Why is this? Are we inherently poor at sticking to our resolve, is it low will power? Are we unable to perform to targets. Or were we setting ourselves impossible targets?

Most likely of all seem the concept that possibly just possibly the resolutions were an unnecessary distraction. We know what we want or need to achieve. Often too we are comfortable as who or what we are. There will be no diet in my home prompted by the ghastly vision of size zero models looking like escapees from a POW camp, nor will those horrendous self-esteem affirming magazine articles that proliferate at this time of year (that have exactly the opposite effect) have any impact.

Most of us know the basics. Eat a balanced nutritious diet. Exercise. Don't over-indulge. Pursue the things that interest you. We don't need New Year to tell us this. These are everyday sensible lifestyle choices. No resolution will enhance them if we already know and understand them.

Perhaps the greatest resolution I will make this year is not to resolve anything at all.