doogiespace

2007-09-18T22:37:00.000+01:00

Too much

2007-09-08T10:58:00.000+01:00

I have learned a lesson.

When things get too much for you and you find yourself despairing, make a list of all the problems, things that you need to do, things that you need to resolve and things that are worrying you. It will make for tough reading. Try to tackle just one of the things on the list - the easiest, or the least worrying is fine. Then in the coming days and weeks, refer back to the list to see if you still feel the same; and cross off the things that are no longer problems. Of course, you can add new things too.

Now here's the lesson: the end point is not to cross everything off the paper. The end point is getting to the point that you don't care what's on the paper any more.

:-)

Well well well

2007-02-14T13:17:00.000Z

09 F9 11 02 9D 74 E3 5B D8 41 56 C5 63 56 88 C0

That is all.

Pesky evidence

2006-06-29T12:05:00.000+01:00

From the Beeb as the High Court informs the government that locking people up with no evidence and no conviction is a tad problematic:

'Home Office Minister Tony McNulty said the government would try to overturn the ruling in the Court of Appeal.
"We do really seriously feel that the interest of public safety far outweighs the rights of particular individuals who are incredibly dangerous but there's not that evidential base there."'

Hmm. Let's try:

'Tony McNulty is a baby-raping murderer but there's not that evidential base there.'

Okay, I think I get it. Lock 'im up!

Bush is quite smart

2006-05-10T16:51:00.000+01:00

I don't very much like George W Bush, the eleventy-twelfth President of the Untied States; but I'm beginning to think he's got a pretty good political brain. He is a liar, but he offsets it by being demonstrably gullible, and the net effect is that he is a "man of the people" whom the people allow to mislead them. He holds unpleasant, fundamentalist views, but he expresses them calmly while making sure there are other voices more frightening than his, and thereby places himself in a mock centre-ground. He lacks natural oratory skills, but has successfully painted that as a virtue rather than a failing, thereby rendering the erudition of his opposition a failing rather than a virtue. He also understands that however intellectually unpalatable the policy - pre-emptive war, torture, occupation, detention without trial - there is a limit to the newsworthiness of opposition to it: the longer you carry on regardless, the less concern anyone will have for what you're doing.

His policies are repugnant and the actions of his administration reprehensible. But he ain't stupid.

Avoid being tagged and branded

2006-04-20T16:31:00.000+01:00

Renew your passport now, before the government activates the New Pass Laws and forces you to be interviewed, fingerprinted, scanned, logged, chipped and numbered forever.

Clickety ↑
Do it now. Really. This is important.

Tiger Woods is a spaz

2006-04-12T17:42:00.000+01:00

Apparently Tiger Woods is in trouble for referring to himself as a spaz in a TV interview.

Social discourse, in this country and in the US, is undermined by people who take offence on behalf of an unknown other. This problem stems from laziness. We don't look at discrimination as something to be engaged with, or beaten; we instead formulate a set of rules - politically correct language being part of them - to insulate us from having to think about the reality of discrimination.

By similar thought-avoidance we end up with policies like "zero tolerance", where teachers are relieved of the burden of having to discipline or instill respect, and are simply forced to mete out a standard punishment for every shade of transgression.

There aren't simple answers to these problems. We actually do have to think.

An example of broken discourse leaps to mind. Some years back, I was reading a gay porn message board (as I am wont to do), and came across an entertaining exchange of messages. The board was, as is often the case on the internet, populated by people from a variety of cultures and countries; and as is also often the case, the lingua franca was English (oh the irony).

It so happened that an Italian man, whose English was reasonable but not perfect, was in the market for some pictures of black men. He wrote his request as best he could, using the Italian word "negro" (black) because he obviously didn't know the English.

As one might predict, up popped an outraged native English speaker who railed against this racist reference to "negroes". He was eventually placated. But what completed the picture neatly was the followup comment. "I think the phrase you're looking for is 'African American'".

There is the lack of thought which results in a misinterpretation of what was meant by the word "negro"; but there is also the result of learning by rote, which causes a person to believe that the language rules that his culture have decided upon in order to avoid dealing with discrimination are the universal solution. The rules that tell him instinctively that a black person = an African American, when in reality it's a black person, and if you want to classify him, you're going to have to engage with him and find out how he describes himself.

In Tiger Woods' case, you should probably call him a spaz.

2006-03-08T08:47:00.000Z

You can safely assume you've created God in your own image when it turns out that God hates all the same people you do.

Anne Lamott 1954.

Schnooze

2006-02-14T13:33:00.000Z

Bad law based on half truths

2006-02-13T22:37:00.000Z

It is difficult to be anything but disillusioned by the lying, cheating and stonewalling of the government over the ID cards bill, and even more so by the fact that it seems destined to bring them victory.

Not only will the cards not protect us from terrorists (suicide bombers don't need fake identity documents), will not prevent identity theft (I don't need to present ID to buy stuff with your credit card on the net), will not stop benefit cheats (they fake their circumstances, not their identity), will not curb illegal immigration (asylum seekers won't qualify for a card, and smuggled individuals will continue to avoid identity checks) and are not necessary for travel (the ICAO agreement on biometric passports requires only a photograph, despite what the government repeatedly implies), but they also won't work. Smart card technology is not able to hold the amount of information required; as a result the central database simply cannot work the way the government describes it, since it relies on non-database checks in many situations; and the concatenation of multiple forms of ID into one will make us less secure, not more, because it will become a single trusted standard, and yet, as a physical item, will be able to be forged. Not to mention the huge risk of attempting to implement the world's largest full-population database system (by several orders of magnitude) when you have one of the world's worst track records for IT project management. It's a recipe for disaster.

Rather than engage honestly with these problems, time and again we have had obfuscation and circular arguments, deliberate confusion and truth avoidance. For example, the poll cited as showing that 70% of the public is in favour of the scheme never actually asked that question - it asked people to differentiate between different options on the assumption that a scheme of some sort was already going to happen. The £1.7 billion we are told can be saved by defeating identity fraud includes not only the £500m that transactions with lost or stolen credit cards cost the issuing banks, and £400m estimated for customs fraud which is unrelated to ID theft, but also the current £62m cost of ID checks carried out by the government! Yet both of these are trotted out time and again, as if repetition were somehow proof.

This web of deceitful justification seems to be the unintended result of private-sector management consultants gaining too much leverage in Downing Street, thereby producing policy to suit business objectives rather than good governance. A business is a fundamentally different animal from a government, in command and control, in inclusivity and choice, and in responsibility and action. It is not unreasonable that many large companies should introduce compulsory ID cards and maintain extensive employee records. But it is unreasonable that the government should do so, because it is the government of all the people. A condition of employment is not equivalent to a condition of citizenship. We are neither employees nor customers of the state; our relationship as individuals with government is complex, and cannot be shoehorned into commercial models. It is time the government realised that.

Cartoon violence

2006-02-07T22:10:00.000Z

I'm sure the world is grateful to Mawli Abdul Qahar Abu Israra, who was kind enough to speak to the BBC whilst protesting in Afghanistan against a cartoon which he almost certainly hadn't seen:

"They want to know whether Muslims are extremists or not. Death to them and to their newspapers."

Well that should do it, right enough.

It is an essential part of many organised religions to embrace and extend the faith of their followers, so that their unthinking acquiescence encompasses not only articles of faith, such as the existence of a god, but also simple, human rules, such as what can be eaten, or indeed what can be drawn. That books like the Bible and the Koran can be used as the basis for such massive systems of control is testament to the great ingenuity of the human, in the part of the preacher, and the sheer stupidity of the human, in the part of the follower.

Da Vinci versus Da Vatican

2006-01-23T13:14:00.000Z

I would like to pay tribute to two people who appear to be unfamiliar with the cleansing effects of irony.

Marc Carroggio, Opus Dei's press officer in the US, had this to say recently about the impending release of the film of the book:

"An interesting question is whether this movie should be only for adults. Any adult with a minimum of education can distinguish reality from fiction. But when history is manipulated, you cannot expect a child to make proper judgments."

Riiight. Religious education in schools, anyone?

Meanwhile Cardinal Tarcisio Bertone (as translated by the BBC) spoke out last year in response to the worldwide popularity of Dan Brown's book:

"The book is everywhere. There is a very real risk that many people who read it will believe that the fables it contains are true."

Hello? Pot? Kettle?

A well kent name

2006-01-18T17:52:00.000Z

Well, as long as they print 'em, I'll link 'em!

I was the recipient the other day of only my second ever piece of unsolicited Christian opinion as a result, I assume, of one of the recent letters. It's not difficult to find my full address even if you only have my surname, it being so unusual. So I received a copy the other day of a publication called decision - the magazine of the Billy Graham Evangelistic Association. No covering note. I think they thought it spoke for itself.

Out of politeness I gave it a quick read, but it was mild in comparison to the other piece of domestic evangelism mailed to me some years ago as a result of a talk I gave about sexuality in the Bible. That one was fabulous - a proper rant, not only with hilarious assertions of fact from Biblical "history" but even some direct personal attacks. Hand-written, of course; but with a proper pen, not a crayon, so it was someone loose in the community.

Anyhoo, every public act is a political act, as I always quote (but not sure from whom); so perhaps politics isn't dead after all, it's just becoming personal.

I must protest in the strongest terms

2006-01-16T08:48:00.000Z

It appears that I may be entering another prolific phase with the old letters-page rants. And it's subtle, but there does seem to be a kind of theme emerging. Can't quite put my finger on it.

As someone once said, hell is reserved for those who believe in it; and the lowest rung of hell is reserved for those who believe they'll go there if they don't.

Revised recommendations

2006-01-14T13:18:00.000Z

Everyone should read Michael Cunningham's Flesh and Blood at least once. I've bought it for about six different people so far.

'What else should we read or buy?' I hear you ask. Well, thanks for asking, it's sweet of you. Have a look up there ↗ for the doogielikes page which should help you make the right decisions in the retail opportunity that is life.

Shameless self-promotion

2006-01-12T21:56:00.000Z

I have to say I'm quite taken with this chap's ideas:
Different outlook on decency
(a letter in today's Edinburgh Evening News).

Actually it seems that this missive is not an isolated incident. He's got a whole back catalogue of letters to the editors that he keeps over there ↗.

Beautiful Thing

2006-01-11T20:20:00.000Z

The uplifting and shirt-lifting play Beautiful Thing is on a limited run in London just now, opened yesterday, on until 11 Feb. My friend Neil is the producer, so go and see it and support live theatre! (And enjoy yourself too, obviously.)

Clickety for tickety ↓

There's a box of autumnal shades by me bed.

The satisfaction of newness

2006-01-10T22:10:00.000Z

There comes a time in every man's life when he thinks to himself, wait a minute, not only is my website woefully out of date, but I no longer find my confessional blogging style comfortable, and it's beginning to annoy me. What's more, I live with my partner, our lives are happily intertwined, and none of my old angsts fit any more. I'm really quite contented.

This is that time. I am that man.

So excuse me while I metaphorically remove the cling-wrap from the packaging of my new online presence, conveniently allowing the price sticker to fall into the bin with it, and marvel at the cleanliness of the design. Feelings of consumer guilt are mixed with feverish excitement. Inside, the perfect bound manual is twice the size of the product, and everything is pristine.

Don't bother with the instructions. Let's just turn it on and see what it does!