Vivat Libertas

(Yes, I like shiny pictures, deal with it.) First off, an apology for me not having blogged very much at all. I've had exams and things and some personal stuff has been getting in the way, so blogging has become an even lower priority than it already was. Sorry about that, to the few people who read my stuff. Anyway...I have some ideas for this post, but no coherent plan. My brain's been in a bit of a weird place and doesn't seem to enjoy working properly - which isn't the greatest thing on earth when you're sitting exams that will play a part in determining your future. I suppose it was all triggered because of my strange and rather cool relationship with conspiracy theories. On the one hand, I don't trust the mainstream media due to shoddy journalism and its giving bigotry and idiocy a place to run rampant. On the other hand, I always, always check claims made by "alternative" sources (which range from trustworthy to absolutely, laugh-out-lou...

My head is a weird place - oh, it's weird enough just by virtue of sitting on top of my neck, but what goes on inside it is even weirder. I spin wild, ludicrous stories there, fragments of ideas and scenarios flashing into my head. Memories, breaths of memories, touch the surface of my mind. One did so last night, as I went to bed...I remembered an English lesson, one we'd had last term, I think, a group discussion. I fucking hate those things. Not because I hate discussing things, but because I hate groups  - there's nothing quite like a committee of stupid, uninformed people for obstructing progress. And there are a lot of stupid, uninformed opinions flying around. We tried having an open discussion, I remember, where everyone was equal and we were left to self-govern. Nothing happened. Nobody wanted to discuss anything, so the teacher loudly and proudly crowed that we needed a leader, and promptly appointed someone to exercise this role. I countered that if we'd ...

Ah, the good old GCSE English lesson. Thank the nonexistent god, a lack of options and the fact that I really suck at English that I'm not doing it for A-Level. We sit in the great, white classroom with light streaming through the windows and the ancient radiators practically thrumming with heat, with a book and a folder crammed with notes opened in front of us; I flip through the pages, desperately searching for the last few drops of creativity, imagination, passion, intelligence, life , that make me love literature - for, despite being a philistine, I do like to read - while the teacher drones on in the background; sometimes I scribble down notes, though most of the time I can remember it. Hell, I could just look  at it and start thinking hard. That reminds me, though, of the questions we're supposed to do - core questions, extended questions, essay questions, a never-ending succession of questions upon questions - and the advice the teacher gave us, not to think, just to...

So, in the interests of posting something when I haven't done for almost a week, I decided to do my own take on something people who more often than not are childless do: try to pass down their distilled wisdom, or lack of it, to an imaginary child. For various reasons I'd probably be a very, very shitty parent, but I'll try my best anyway. 1. Think for yourself. Always. 2. Everyone is your equal and just as capable of suffering as you are, so treat them well. 3. Don't be scared of an idea until you've properly researched it. 4. Some things may seem like your fault because you were involved in them, but if you weren't the aggressor, they probably weren't. It's difficult sometimes not to blame yourself for them, but remember that they weren't your fault and it'll save you a lot of heartbreak. 5. Things don't get better of their own accord, so work for them now. 6. Somewhere out there are people who love you and support you and woul...

Not all Americans are idiots. Not all Chinese are evil and/or communists. Not all Germans are Nazis. Not all Greeks are lazy. Not all Israelis are fascists. Not all Italians are cads like Berlusconi. Not all Poles want to take your jobs. Not all Russians are communists/corrupt/evil/criminals. I think I've got most of the stereotypes down, but the point I want to make is that you can't generalise about entire nations . In every country there are the cruel, the lazy, the stupid and the greedy, that's true, but there are also the kind, the hard-working, the clever and the generous. That's just the way of people. If you spent time around them, you'd change your ways. Why am I preaching to you about this? Because I hate it. It makes me feel physically sick to see people talked about like that. You do not get an entire country full of fascists. You do not get an entire country full of saints. You have the good and the evil (if there are indeed such things) and ...

This is shamelessly stolen from The Truth About Victoriana , which I highly suggest you check out if you have time - or even if you don't. Common Rationalizations (i.e., excuses) used when applying SOCIAL DARWINISM ... • it is simply the rules of the economic market ... supply & demand! • Business is business! • Since when does Christianity apply to business? You cannot apply the Golden Rule to economics! You apply it to everyone and anything else, but NOT business! • Of course it is okay to take over other businesses and cause owners to suffer! That's just plain business! (he/she wasn't a good business person anyway, they couldn't do ___________, etc.) • Who cares how many unemployed may result from the decision to import those things that local farmers used to grow!? It makes more economic sense to go after a buck! (these are only a few examples, there are TONS of them that were operating during the Victorian Age and, sad to say, these same types of excuses are ...

It's weird how sometimes you overlook the most obvious things, isn't it? I'm an Israeli atheist raised in a vaguely Jewish family and I go to a Christian school in England. It's weird seeing those cultures mixed up...I knew very little about Jesus, or really about Christian teaching, before year 7, yet having sung in a choir I can relate to things which poke fun at churches and perhaps the Anglican tradition in general. I'm quite happy to poke fun at Jewish mothers, then immediately start laughing at the English stereotypes I can relate to (pretty much all of them, then, except I don't like tea). It comes to mind that I wouldn't have been able to link all this were it not for the fact that I grew up in a multicultural society. If I'd never come to England, or if I'd rejected one set of traditions altogether, I'd never have understood some of the things I do today. It's a bit of a random argument for multiculturalism, I guess - opening you...

All right. I'll take some time off from politics and revolution and wind everything down 'til October or so. I'm not going on hiatus, but updates will be less frequent and likely less political, though I can't promise anything. Last night I went to see Crazy for You  at the Regent's Park Open Air Theatre...at least, I tried  to see it. As anyone who was also there would know, they had to cancel the performance due to rain. A shame, in other words. Still, what I did get to see of it was sheer Gershwin fluff...right up my alley, in other words, though I'd never admit it. I might be going to try and see it again on Friday - keeping my fingers crossed! Come Saturday I'm joining in with this Voce Sanctis event to sing Come ye sons of art  by Purcell . It's quite a big thing for me, since apart from joining in with the Really Big Chorus one time (and doing a little thing with the Harrow Philharmonic Choir , though that was with some people from school) I...

Hi. I'm a teenage girl; I don't claim to be ordinary or average, and some - perhaps many - would call me a freak, but I'd like to think that I'm recognisable as a human being and a member of Western society. I count on my fingers sometimes, but I'm also good at maths. I can go from normal to bitch in 0.5 seconds, but I try not to because I'd like to be a decent human being, thank you very much. I don't always act sentimental and weepy, nor do I act passive-aggressively. I've made stupid mistakes, but I've tried my damnedest to fix them and move on with my life. I don't go in for soppy stuff or cheesy pick-up lines, and I try to communicate my feelings rather than expecting everyone to be psychic. As long as my lungs are fine, I can breathe perfectly damn well  without a guy, thank you very much, and I certainly don't need him to "complete me". I do want to be loved - I won't deny that - but it's pretty low down on my list ...

I spend way too much time on Twitter, I'll admit. I follow all sorts of left-wing types, especially those who believe in revolution as the only way forward (it isn't, and it may actually make the problem worse given the ah... messy  transfer of power involved) and shun consumerism like it's going out of style. They have an agenda - that much is obvious. Everyone has an agenda. Theirs involves shunning human weakness - presumably it is unbefitting of a revolutionary. Meanwhile, when the mainstream media does  pick up on those people (if ever), they're characterised either 1) as brave freedom fighters who could never put a foot wrong or 2) as one step above terrorists, and sometimes not even that. As for the people who know them, the people who are closest to them? They may describe them as being obsessed with power/freedom/whatever. It can be scary to see someone that fired up about something. I will tell you a home truth now. It will seem obvious to you after I ...

I'm sick of liberals and I'm sick of conservatives. I'm sick of Labour and I'm sick of the Tories. I'm sick of the Republicans and I'm sick of the Democrats. I'm sick of fascists and I'm sick of anarchists. I'm sick of the Left and I'm sick of the Right. I'm sick of people refusing to look at the facts, in fact cheerfully ignoring them when they get in the way of political ideologies. I'm sick of people making shit up because it's easier to blame an ancient conspiracy than admit that there's no-one to blame. In fact, I'm sick of people - liberal, conservative, Labour, Tory, Republican, Democrat, fascist, anarchist, left, right - not looking at the truth. I've always believed that you can only fix the world if you actually know what's going on in it. It makes sense, right? If I didn't accept the truth of basic principles, like needing oxygen to respire, I'd die pretty quickly. If you don't understan...

At the end of the day, at the end of that long road, fine words are just those: fine words. Empty rhetoric. Nothing more. And perhaps for a time they will soothe you and paper over the cracks in your consciousness. But if you've looked into the darkness where nothing looks back...that fine rhetoric does very little. Only logic, a powerful, blinding logic, will help, and that logic is difficult to come by. In other news, I have my results for C2 and P2 - both 100% A*. (Slap me if I'm boasting too much.) The modules do seem to be quite easy, as I know loads of other people with A*s...

I post too much but... ...I believe that one should work for one's treasured goals. So far, so good. Very few people would disagree with me. I also believe that one should work for these treasured goals even if one believes that they are impossible to achieve. This is the part where people start to look at me weirdly and ask "Why would you do that? Dear God, why?" After all, why should one sink time and effort - perhaps a life's worth of time and effort - into an unreachable goal? Why should one try to do the impossible? Well, pardon me for saying this, but that's based on fallacious reasoning: that either one accomplishes the goal or one does not accomplish the goal, with nothing in between. If that were true, there would indeed be no point in working towards it and we should all give up now. But that's not the case. We don't live in an all-or-nothing world; we can still get partway to a goal, still do a good turn for a society desperately in need...

If you have Twitter, follow The Activists . It is a VERY cool left-wing account and if you are a left-winger, you really should be following it. However, some of the things it says are questionable - not least what it says in this blog post . Go on, read it, take your sweet time. I'll be waiting. For those who didn't read it, it talked about how death "is a meaningless concept with the intention of making people afraid". There is a lot wrong with this, firstly and most obviously that death is neither meaningless nor a concept. Death is a real, documented phenomenon: breathing and heartbeat stop, as do brain activity and other important biological processes (e.g. respiration). Then all the rest sets in: pallor mortis , livor mortis , algor mortis , rigor mortis , decomposition ...in short, it exists and is therefore probably the antithesis  of a meaningless concept. It is real, not imaginary, and it is all around us. Most people, young or old, rich or poor, male ...

Right. So it's the Internet, and apart from more-or-less respectable news sources such as the Guardian and Telegraph , you also have the more...ah...unconventional elements, such as Infoshop and Ye Olde False Flag . I see nothing wrong with that - the more news sources, the better. I get quite a lot of my news from Twitter, as the mainstream media often takes a while to pick up stories. Unfortunately, with the Internet comes Sturgeon's Law and an army of tinfoil-hatted conspiracy theorists . The mainstream media has got things wrong before, and it's always good to have new perspectives on things; there's nothing wrong with questioning authority. This is not about those people. This is about the people who think that the world will end in 2012, the Illuminati fixed everything up to be this way, the government put sodium amytal in the water sources, or whatever random crap they're coming up with next. I have no respect for them. Instead of applying cold, hard...

All right. You've probably heard about this already, so I'll try and give those of you who haven't a quick overview. Some guy who may or may not have been part of a gang (but was definitely part of an ethnic minority) was shot by police. As far as I can work out, while he had a gun wrapped in cloth he didn't fire it - all bullets were fired by police. Important notes: Tottenham's been hit by the cuts quite badly, the ethnic minorities/non-whites there (not sure of the PC term) have been stopped and searched by police more times than others and being suspected of crime really gets to you  after a while, Britain has a history of rioting in recession, other countries are doing the same thing. Taking all of these factors into account, in hindsight it's really not that surprising that riots broke out there. As far as I can work out, the others have been given confidence by what's happened at Tottenham and they're rioting because of austerity measures, b...

A very short, random poem I wrote about the effect Pablo Neruda's poetry had on me. It was kind of just a spur-of-the-moment thing and I hadn't posted in ages, so... Neruda With your pen and voice and sheer poetry You touched my heart, softly stroking it - Sounding a string or two, deeper and richer Than I thought I'd know. On a starless English night You swept away the clouds And let me see the bright pinpoints of a lover's dreamworld. My heart and mind were wrenched, I didn't care, I fell to it like some lovesick maniac and let loose the feelings I'd kept hidden for so long. That night, I held the pages, more fragile than a wing, between my fat fingers and came so close to love I felt I could touch its face: To me, nothing mattered More than words.

OK, this Friday parody really  isn't working. In other news, while our good old British rapture is scheduled for 6 o'clock this evening (and I do  hope someone will bring the tea and biscuits), it seems to be scheduled for 6 o'clock everywhere and there's a map (kindly provided by RaptureFail ) detailing, well...the lack of massive earthquakes and mass disappearances of people everywhere. Sadly, there's little data about what's happening NOW (except for the above mentioned RaptureFail and some news posts), so I don't get to see Harold Camping looking silly yet. Just as well, because he'd probably move the goalposts again and blame it on not looking at the Apocrypha or something. And I haven't been able to find any interviews with him from today...links appreciated, because I want to see him making an ass of himself. On a side note, since salvation (according to Camping) is unmerited and preordained, how hilarious would it be if Richard Dawkins got...

...yeah, I won't torture you with the rest of the song. (Apologies for not having written anything for the past 10 days or so - I've been slacking off and doing nothing  revising fervently for my upcoming exams. For slightly better news, it is Friday aka "beginning of the weekend". And for slightly worse  news...it's apparently the Rapture tomorrow . (Interestingly, the first site I linked to says "best viewed in Internet Explorer"...sigh.) Of course it won't be, but people believe weird things. In the unlikely event that that crazy schmuck Harold Camping is actually right  (as a general rule, anyone saying that the end of the world will happen on such-and-such a date , or using an ancient, largely ambiguous and sometimes contradictory source , tends to be wrong), could one of the 200 million people that have been saved take some pictures and post them on the internet? I'd like to see something before I, as a free-willed sinner, fall uncon...

A story I wrote on a whim. Remember, everyone is Jesus in purgatory . No, I was not on drugs when I wrote this - but I had read The Master and Margarita beforehand. (It's a good book and y'all should read it.)  They sat together like that, man and woman, watching the sunset. He gestured to a decanter on the table, a jug of clear water next to it.  “Wine?” he said. “I’ll water it for you.”  “Thank you,” said the woman, passing him a thin-stemmed glass. Elegantly the man poured in equal quantities of wine and water; her worn hands trembling, she took back the glass and drank deeply, the dying sun shining through the red liquid. “Excellent...is it Falernium?”  The man laughed and shook his head, golden hair flying. “No, it’s Cecubum.”  “It’s really very good.” The woman paused.  “It’s the same wine that your ancestor drank while mine died on a tree.” He pointed to it: an ancient, wizened thing with what looked like bloodstains on its trunk, brownish-black i...