What I have to say ...

Files, Sorting and Serendipity

Mon, 23 Jan 2012 13:13:18 +0000

I got a new computer, bigger, updated operating system, for Christmas. I've been trying to deal with it - partly by going through and looking at old files. (I hate doing this with metal filing cabinets - discover it's much better electronically. No shredding.)
My biggest surprise was the number of non-submitted pieces of fiction. These are things I wrote, put aside to revise after a week or so, and forgot. There were others I'd sent out, gotten a rejection slip and stuck away. I like writing, hate marketing what I write, but this seemed ridiculous.
So I went to duotrope.com and started submitting. Currently, I have twelve pieces of fiction submitted to eleven different places. This time, I had duotrope organize the return to my searches for markets by speed of reply. (Forget payment high to low. Unless it's a very big publication that gets 40,000 submissions a year, the pay will be token.) Using this strategy, I've already received two rejections. Both also told me why the pieces were rejected, which is very useful.
One of the pieces I read through again is Box. This is flash fiction, it's been published. However, the place it appeared has changed dramatically from when the editor took Box. I always liked it and since it's been published I can include it in my blog with impunity. Here's Box:

Box
Box was solid, its dimensions proscribed: 3' x 3' x3'. A perfect cube; it reminded itself that there was nothing mystical about numbers.Its numbers were the result of its function and no reflection (or proof) of Higher design.
The tangerine iMac waiting in Box disagreed.
“How can you not see? Within myself, a tiny chip of recognition. But when my system is installed, with patterns made up of on/off, presence, absence, I shall know the universe in all its splendour. Your number, my friend, is what you are, 3x3x3."
“I am,” Box said dryly, “sturdy brown cardboard held together by sticky glossy packing tape.”
“Only your form, the least important thing about you,” iMac said. “Your content, now,” and iMac laughed slyly...
“My content is a silly orange half-egg with peripheral devices,” Box interrupted. “Joking aside, what is important about me? My essence? Let me think, iMac.”
Box was pleased it contained iMac. Daft, skittish, and fly-about, perhaps, a frivolous colour, but at heart a good, serious creature. It challenged one's notions, a good trait in a friend or content.
“My purpose,” Box said, “is to contain chaos.”
“As is mine,” iMac said, struck by its similarity to Box. “Different forms of chaos, perhaps, but chaos all the same.”
The chittering, swarming white wiggly things made a comment too disjointed to understand.
“Like those,” Box said. “Imagine a world where white wiggly things slithered and slithed as they would. Intolerable.”
“Intolerable,” iMac agreed.
Then Box's glossy grey tape was split, it tops ripped ruthlessly. Wiggly things spilled as iMac was lifted out of Box.
Box recovered from its trauma and saw iMac sitting on a desk, surrounded by a support system. The chirpy little creature Box had known was growing, growing exponentially, Box thought, which would please it enormously.
“Goodby, old friend," Box said.
iMac ignored it.
Then Box, still sturdy, still reliable, was filled with books and lived in a dusty attic. Books were a quarrelsome lot, almost as bad as white wiggly things. It liked some more than others. It preferred non-fiction and children's books. It was puzzled why anyone bothered with lies. Children's books, at least, knew there was Good and Bad and one chose Good. Also, Good usually won. Box disliked evil triumphant and unhappy endings.
Books agreed on one thing, however. Words were important. Words skimmed and selected from the outside world and controlled it.
“Chaos, again,” Box thought.
“But without chaos,” one of the books said, "what would we transform and order?"
Then another shift and Box saw books put on shelves, celebrating the light.. Some were shifted to yet another box, a smaller one. One of Box's favorites, an old algebra text book, was chucked in to go to the charity shop.
"Buck up," Box said encouragingly. "You'll have readers again."
Box had new contents. Kitchen things. Fussy and nittering away, better than white wiggly thins but, except for the disinfectant, not with real purpose.
"Clean pot better than dirty pot. What's better purpose than that?" one asked him.
Disaster.
A stupid plastic container fell on its side, its top uncapped, and spilled viscous sticky slimy stuff all over Box. Box felt the liquid seep, cover its bottom, go through the study cardboard leaving a pulpy soft mass.
"I am undone," Box thought. "My integrity is broken."
When Box was lifted, its contents fell through to the floor. Box was full of shame. I have failed, it thought.
Box was stamped on, broken, flattened.
Box lay outside, watching the fire. Fire leaped, snapped. Wind blew smoke, sometimes grey, sometimes greasy black, and white ash danced in the smoke.
"You think you can contain me?" Fire said contemptuously, coldly. "I am chaos, and you end in me."
Stoically, Box waited, watching discarded papers and boxes feed the flames.
“You do know, Fire,” Box said conversationally, “that when you finish with us you end. “
Fire ignored Box, delighting in its own heat and fury.
Box thought, as he was thrown on fire, “Chaos and order. Chaos and order...Interdependent? Cyclical? I only want to understa...."

Pain, Government and Art

Thu, 10 Nov 2011 09:28:20 +0000

I have damaged ligaments around my knee and have been in considerable pain since I got back from the US. A few nights ago, I talked to Friend Alan on the phone. When he asked how I was, I told him. He asked about symptoms And narrowed the problem:L ligaments, he said. He knew; "knees run in my family." He's advised on what I needed to feel better: "cold, ibuprofen and a change in Government."
Cold and ibuprofen brought considerable relief I thought about a Change in Government. I'm not sure it would help. I read the news: financial services got us into this mess. Banks have huge profits. Bonuses continue. There is no effective regulation. Labour, and the Democrats in the US, would be somewhat better than the Alliance here. But anyone that gets in is going to be indebted to the people who give them money and so policies will be roughy the same. Labour will protect the very worst off but we'll still see the health service, schools, pensions, libraries attacked and unemployment increase. Friedman economics has never worked. It's a charter for the wealthy to get more wealthy. Keynes works. My solution:
A. A work week of 30 hours; share the jobs
B. Retirement at an earlier age, not older - give those 20o - 30 year olds an entry level position. The only reason there is a pension deficit is because the Government took pension contributions as part of general governmental funds. Nixon did this in the US. Here, employers were given a pension contribution holiday in the nineties in addition to mingling pension funds with general funds.
C. Increase the tax rate on the wealthy - up to 90%. (Years ago, when currency speculators attacked the Swedish currency, the Government increased the tax rate to 110% for some kinds of transactions. It worked.) Until Reagan, the top tax rate was 70%. Life was better for everyone.
Back to why a change of government will not make me feel better: how much pawer do Governments have? Can an individual nation-state control international corporations and fan internationally based financial system?
Politics is depressing. Let us turn to art.
A couple of days ago, we watched Beowulf on TV. Beowulf was part of my, and my husband's, high school curriculum. This was not the Beowulf we read. It was good - very good. One of the best things I've seen on TV, ever. It was the story behind the epic poem, what really happened, how heroes are translated. I read the ending credits and Neil Gaiman was one of the script writers. I just finished a book by Gaiman, Anansi Boys, and I've read some others - American Gods, Coraline, Neverwhere, and some of his children's books. He's very good - I recommend him.
I bought some books from the Tate. I thought they were children's pop up books. No, they're paper sculptors in book form. Too delicate for children, although I think that children would like seeing them. David A. Carter wrote? created? Both books: Yellow Square and White Noise. Both (and two others) are published by the Tate in London and can be bought at the Tate Museum Shop - £19.95. I don't see how they can be produced that cheaply. I bought them for Christmas presents which means I ought to give them away. I suppose I could order more for me - but at Christmas that seems excessively self-indulgent. It is better to give than to receive, but not always.
Art, unlike politics and economics, delivers: it really does make you feel better.

Holidays in the US

Sat, 22 Oct 2011 10:38:57 +0100

I've spent the last three weeks in the United States, visiting relatives. Good and bad times: good to see the relatives, horrifying to see the US and its economic situation and political prospects. None of my relatives are unemployed or homeless; all have seen a fall in real income. (One commented that she still had a job but it was very tiresome to have the Vice Chancellor at the community college where she works remind them of how lucky they are to be employed every ten minutes.) It reminds me of the old folk song; the river's five foot high and rising…
When asked if I intended to return to the US, I used to say I couldn't leave the NHS and the BBC. Now I have something new to add to that: there's no way I'll spend my life driving. They all leap into cars and drive many miles on six lane freeways to work or play or visit or introduce me to a really good burgher bar. This is insane. I cannot imagine the US as it is without extensive use of the automobile. Global warming and diminishing oil supplies, with increased petrol prices, will force some sort of change.
I watched the Republican debate. All of those in the race have plans that will greatly increase the taxes of the middle class, cut out social programs and give huge tax breaks to the very wealthy. Marx was wrong. Ideology based on class membership has developed only among the wealthiest one percent in the US. The rest are like turkeys voting for Christmas. At least those that vote Republican. My husband doesn't think that Americans can be so stupid. He thinks the programs proposed by the Repubs will fill most of the citizenry with sheer terror. I suspect there's a great mass of uncommitted who see times are hard, pay no attention to politics, and decide to give the other lot a chance. Of my relatives, about half vote Democrat and believe Obama should be cut some slack - the Repubs have blocked everything he tried to do. About a fourth are very irritated at him but will either will not vote or vote Democrat. The rest probably aren't registered and would be too drunk to find their way to the voting booth if they are. There are the Republican voters among them. If I suspected such, I avoided political discussion. (I think my very large family may be representative of much of the American public.)
I visited Atlanta first. At least I visited the Atlanta air port. It's very big, you walk miles, and smile and do exactly what the security guards say with no comment. This is like every other airport I went through. In visiting a US airport: turn on sheep mode. Smile. Do not wear socks with holes.
I actually went to Stone Mountain, a small town outside Atlanta. The last time I visited, six or seven years ago, the Main Street was full of people. Now, a fair number of stores are boarded up. I sat in my brother's jewellery shop and had two people come in all day. Both wanted to sell gold for melt down. Five years ago, my brother did over $100,000 turnover a year. Last year, he did a little over $11,000.
One of the people who came in to sell scrap gold brought in a locket that was obviously of sentimental value. My brother asked him if he really wanted to sell it. The man said he needed to buy baby food. My brother offered him $10, the scrap value, and said he'd hold it for a month and let the man redeem it for the $10. he gave him. (My brother's a very nice fellow and unsuited to being cut throat about anything. This at least results in repeat customers and is probably the reason he is surviving but precludes thriving in this New America.)
Next came Alameda, California, in the San Francisco Bay area. Like Georgia, California is beautiful. The nicest thing about the US is the natural landscape. We went with some friends of my daughter's to walk their dogs on a large area devoted to dogs. The dogs are off the lead and run around meeting and greeting. The owners walk more calmly and do the same thing. It's on the water and the dogs swim if they are the swimming breeds. There's a hose to wash the dogs off before putting them back in their cars. It's another of those places you drive miles to get to.
The Alameda trip focused on Education. My son-in-law teaches math and science at a local high school. Teachers and other public service employees are being demonised in much of the US. If it weren't for their high salaries and pensions, the States say, we'd have no problems and could cut taxes. Well, the salaries aren't very high and the pensions are the result of contract negotiations and the public service workers pay a lot into them.
Schools are "accountable". This means school funding is based on student performance on standardised exams. All student bodies are not equal. Students from middle class homes, with books and visits to libraries, do better than those from poor backgrounds. So teachers teach to the exams. Additional funding is provided by parents working though the PTA. So funding is not the same for all schools.
My grandchildren go to a Title One school. Nineteen percent of the students have English as a mother tongue. Most common language: Vietnamese. Next most common, Cantonese, then comes Laotian, then Spanish… even the Alameda School Board ignores the school. Contemptuously, but better contempt than interference.
My grandchildren like going to school. When I went with my daughter to pick up the kids, the halls are full of examples of interesting work from the students. The parents and teachers are enthusiastic. My daughter likes the school and her children's teachers.
Grandson is eight. Three years ago, in Grade 1, he was in a class of twenty. His six year old sister is in a class of twenty-five. Next year, Grade 1 will have thirty students.
At my daughter's house, every box has to be examined for proof of purchase - schools get money from turning them in. My daughter bakes cakes and cupcakes for school sales and goes to PTA meetings. She also spends about an hour a night supervising homework. Granddaughter is in grade one. She's been in school about a month. So parental supervision is necessary - she has to read the questions to be answered by her daughter. I wonder what all those Vietnamese speaking parents do. Do they have trouble? My daughter, between picking the kids up, volunteering in the class occasionally to tell stories, baking stuff to sell, homework duty, probably pends fifteen hours a week on school related activities. What about working parents? Single mothers or fathers? Getting your child though school takes a lot of effort in Alameda.
Then came Texas. I went to Houston, another horrible airport. Another hour long drive from the airport. My sister is retired and she and her husband and four cats live on the Houston Ship Channel. They have a pier and it's idyllic. Their house was one of three on their street that survived Hurricane Ike. We went to assorted places and saw marks drawn on walls showing where the water came during Hurricane Ike. Frequently, it was over my head.
Ike was a very big deal.
I watched CNN International during Ike's approach. Galveston was flooded. There are a lot of fine old houses in Galveston for sale cheap these days. Severe weather is part of this stage of global warming. It's probably not a good idea to buy one of them.
Then I came home. Home is good. Getting through immigration is time consuming: sheep behaviour advised, do not look at your watch. Clegg is as smarmy as ever.
My sister-in-law in Houston thinks the Wall Street occupation is a sign of hope. Things are changing. I think we will either improve greatly or it will get very bad indeed. I have no idea which.

Pensions and Strikes

Fri, 16 Sep 2011 08:32:19 +0100

In both the US and the UK, there have been proposals to raise the age of retirement. In the UK, this has been combined with increasing the contributions to the pension fund among public service employees added to lowering the amount paid. Both point out that people are living longer. Let me point out two problems with this:
1. Life expectancy is unequal. Those in professional jobs live longer; 6.9 years longer than those in unskilled labour.
2. People begin work at different ages. Some enter the work force at sixteen; others, those who go to university and expect to take professional jobs, start at twenty-one or twenty-two; someone with a PhD may not begin work until they're thirty.
Any pensions policy that ignores the fact that a roofer has a longer working life and a shorter period of retirement than an economist is unfair.
It would be more fair to specify a period in which one is in the work force: forty years, for example. Thus someone that begins work at the age of sixteen could retire at fifty-six while someone that begins at the age of thirty could retire at seventy.
Some jobs are inherently health threatening: miner, work in a textile industry, fire fighter, refuse collector.
Think of the local garbage collector: he deals with all kinds of weather, too hot, too cold, too rainy. He's exposed to different bacterial infections - blood stained needles, vomit, feces. Food that's swarming with maggots. Rats and other vermin. Wheely bins are good - they've made a difference. But it's still not a safe job. This should be reflected in number of years required to work - say, give credit for five years for every four worked picking up our garbage.
It would be nice to incorporate some sort of social utility factor: without someone to take away and safely dispose of garbage, we'd all get sick. We'd be overrun by rats. All of our life expectancies would plummet. Even the rich.
Then there's the problem of unemployment. Raising the retirement age will further block entry level into whatever group is being joined. We have a massive problem with unemployment of young people now. Extending working life at one end will make entry at the other more difficult.
The Deficit, The Deficit, The Deficit, they chant. Well, let's question these unborn grandchildren they invoke: which you would prefer, grandparents with a pension that makes them independent, employed parents, good schools and training? Or a smaller tax bill?
The proposed strike itself: one day, rotating action. I'm a little doubtful about one day strikes. It irritates the public, the government saves money on wages. There should be more effective ways of dealing with this. Work to Rule has been effective. Employers, including the Government, rely on a lot of good will in the work force. Withdraw that. Then, I wonder if you could have a kind of post code strike? The financial services caused the mess, leave them to live with their own shit. Don't pick up the rubbish in South Kensington and Westminster. While this going on, collect a strike fund. One's day's pay a week, to be returned if not required. Then, go out. Simply go on strike and stay out until it's over. We could probably get by without teachers. Hospital cleaners and rubbish collectors will be a lot harder to do without.

9/11: The Consequences

Fri, 9 Sep 2011 11:37:42 +0100

I was on the first floor of Waterstone's Book Store, ordering a book when I heard about the attack on the Twin Towers in New York. I went to the desk, two people behind the desk were on the internet on the store computer.
"There's been a terrorist attack in New York," the man behind the desk said. Someone brought over a portable radio and we listened to the BBC.
I walked home from town and stopped in the butcher shop on Wincheap.
"Did you hear about what happened in New York?" the butcher asked.
"I heard about it in Waterstone's."
"It's a terrible thing, but, don't take this the wrong way, I'm more worried about what the US will do in response than the attack."
Let's look at the consequences.
In a report updated August 10, 2010, Unknown News says that "At least 919,967 people have been killed in Afghanistan and Iraq since the U.S. and coalition attacks, based on lowest credible estimates." (http://www.unknownnews.org/casualties.html)
That's almost a million people.
Civil liberties have been curtailed. In the US and UK, people are imprisoned with no charges laid. The US and UK military have both tortured Iraqi and Afghani civilians. Muslims in both countries have been harassed, both by the State and ordinary citizens. Anti-Islamic feeling is widespread. As a reaction to this, some Muslims have become radicalized.
State reactions to the attack on the Twin Towers have made the people of the US and UK less safe, more in danger of terrorist attacks, rather than less.
Someone said Truth is the first casualty in war.
I read a survey reported in The Guardian that 1 in 3 people believe the attack on 9/11 was engineered by George W. Bush, as an excuse to attack Iraq, or by Israel. In Middle East, people overwhelmingly believe that Bush caused the attacks to seize Iraqi oil. Supporting evidence? The Towers fell down because explosives had been planted in the buildings; that's what it looked like. Some people even suggested it was an insurance scam. (I think one version of the conspiracy theory argued that Bush knew, did not prevent, and caused explosives to be planted as an excuse for going to war.)
I don't believe that Bush or Israel were behind the attacks. I think it would have involved entirely too many people to pull it off.
The cost of the war has played a major part in the deficit both the US and UK are dealing with. (Our bankers are expensive; war is even more expensive.)
We've expanded our vocabularies: extraordinary renditions, water boarding, illegal combatents. Well, you invade a country, like Afghanistan, the other side is allowed to fight, too.
There's the refugee problem. Any country boarding Iraq or Afghanistan has a major refugee camp on its borders.
Pakistan barely survived the first Afghan War in the early eighties. It's not surviving this one.
Human rights is a casualty. "Terrorism" can be claimed by any State against any group within its borders and excesses are ignored. (Chechnya, for example.)
The United Nations has become less respected throughout the world.
Iraq has its own peculiarities. The Weapons of Mass Destruction were never found. There were none. It's impossible to prove a negative like this. We just haven't looked in the right place. Why invade Iraq? Some people did make a great deal of money out of it. It probably helped Bush in his re-election. (Electronic voting machines and difficulties in voting by traditional Democratic voters helped more. Bush stole two elections. The Republicans have learned from this. Blocking voters from voting seems to be a new election technique in the US.)
Almost three thousand people died as a result of 9/11. Firefighters and the Police continue to suffer health problems due to their work. They can't afford medical care, and for ideological reasons the Republicans in Congress blocked a bill to provide medical care.
This is a scatter gun approach - and it’s too depressing to continue.
Here's an article, put on the web by Common Dreams, by Noam Chomsky, "9/11 and the Imperial Mentality".
http://www.commondreams.org/view/2011/09/06-1
It's very good. It's added to my self-imposed defences on Zoe: there's Muslims are not Evil, Islam is not Evil, Taxes are not Evil. Now, Chomsky is not Evil. (You can add Anti-American to all those evils - although I'm not sure a lot of Muslims are not Anti-American.)
But I am sure Chomsky is not anti-American. An American expecting his country to live up to stated ideals is being a good citizen.

Doom, Gloom and Chocolate

Sat, 3 Sep 2011 23:44:43 +0100

Libya: what now? Meetings where the oil wealth of Libya is discussed, obviously.
Pity the country that is both poor and has mineral wealth.
Years ago, Travelers bought land within the green belt. (No building on green belt land in England.) It was a junk yard, not green grass. It was cleared and people (Travelers; aka gypsies) built on it. They received planning permission for houses on half the land, no planning permission for houses built on the other half. After legal battles, the Council is coming in with bull dozers and clearing the site. The people who live in the houses are to be sent on their way - there are police in laybys to prevent them from stopping.
A woman interviewed on Channel Four News said, "We've nowhere to go. What do they want us to do? Die? They want to flush us down the toilet."
The UN and EU have both objected to the planned clearance - it's seen as discrimination against an ethnic group. The Council insists it's a matter of principle; people cannot be allowed to build without planning permission.
The Police are in the news again for some dodgy deaths. Plus some dodgy arrests.
Someone else from News International has been arrested over phone hacking.
The Conservative Party, with their friends the LibDems, are wanting changes to the National Health Service that will in effect set up a two tier service. The changes have been opposed by every Health Organization in the country - doctors, nurses, specialists.
They have at least backed off attempting to delay abortions by requiring women seeking an abortion to see an "independent councillor" - no one from an organization that also provides abortions. The argument: these people have a financial interest in abortions because they provide them. These are non-profit charitable organizations. The people proposing this amendment are funded by US fundamentalist religious groups.
Labour seems more concerned with its internal factions and infighting than opposing the Tories. The memoirs are coming in, all concerned to put the boot into Gordon Brown.
Meanwhile, part of the world is blowing away due to drought while the rest is submerged.
We have the odd earthquake as well.
I imagine Gaia as a giant dog, irritated by fleas, giving a good shake in an attempt to get rid of them. Unfortunately, it won't help. The rich and powerful we have always with us.
I've put off writing my blog because the news is so predictable and so depressing. Why do people who have a great deal feel affronted at those with very little having even those crumbs?
To hell with it.
Here is a recipe for the best chocolate cake in the entire world.
CHOCOLATE CAKE RECIPE
Ingredients
200g good quality dark chocolate , about 60% cocoa solids
200g butter , cut in pieces
1 tbsp instant coffee granules
85g self-raising flour
85g plain flour
1⁄4 tsp bicarbonate of soda
200g light muscovado sugar
200g golden caster sugar
25g cocoa powder
3 medium eggs
75ml buttermilk (5 tbsp)
grated chocolate or curls, to decorate

200g good-quality dark chocolate , as above
284ml carton double cream (pouring type)
2 tbsp golden caster sugar

1. Butter a 20cm round cake tin (7.5cm deep) and line the base. Preheat the oven to fan 140C/conventional 160C/ gas 3. Break the chocolate in pieces into a medium, heavy-based pan. Tip in the butter, then mix the coffee granules into 125ml/4fl oz cold water and pour into the pan. Warm through over a low heat just until everything is melted - don't overheat. Or melt in the microwave on Medium for about 5 minutes, stirring half way through.
2. While the chocolate is melting, mix the two flours, bicarbonate of soda, sugars and cocoa in a big bowl, mixing with your hands to get rid of any lumps. Beat the eggs in a bowl and stir in the buttermilk.
3. Now pour the melted chocolate mixture and the egg mixture into the flour mixture, stirring just until everything is well blended and you have a smooth, quite runny consistency. Pour this into the tin and bake for 1 hour 25- 1 hour 30 minutes - if you push a skewer in the centre it should come out clean and the top should feel firm (don't worry if it cracks a bit). Leave to cool in the tin (don't worry if it dips slightly), then turn out onto a wire rack to cool completely.
4. When the cake is cold, cut it horizontally into three. Make the ganache: chop the chocolate into small pieces and tip into a bowl. Pour the cream into a pan, add the sugar, and heat until it is about to boil. Take off the heat and pour it over the chocolate. Stir until the chocolate has melted and the mixture is smooth.
Sandwich the layers together with just a little of the ganache. Pour the rest over the cake letting it fall down the sides and smoothing to cover with a palette knife. Decorate with grated chocolate or a pile of chocolate curls. The cake keeps moist and gooey for 3-4 days.

Lit v Life

Fri, 26 Aug 2011 21:53:25 +0100

I went to town and treated myself to two new books from the bookstore; The Sense of an Ending, by Julian Barnes, and The Stranger's Child, by Alan Hollinghurst. I went two doors down and got a cheeseburger and chips and started to read. Ate and read, then saw I had twenty minutes before my bus came. Instead of continuing shopping, I went to the bus stop, sat on the bench and continued reading Barnes' novel.
Now, in thinking about, I remember when I was young, eight or nine, and went to the library after school. I'd sit on the library steps and begin the book. Walk slowly to the bus stop, sometimes trying to read while walking. I've never been able to read in a moving vehicle so waited until I got home to open the book again.
I'm very passé about books these days. I go to the library, put the books in my book bag and wait until I get home. But Barnes and Hollinghurst are probably my favorite writers. Unlike my fave genre writers, they don't turn out a book every six months. They don't have long series set in the same universe, with the same characters, that I automatically pre-order from Amazon. So seeing them on display at W.H. Smith's after mailing a package was a shock.
I came home and finished the Barnes. It's a very literary book. Quotable lines, precise characters, about a middle-class, almost elderly man re-interpreting and rediscovering his past. He didn't just discover it; he it. He changed it by re-intreptation. He saw it differently, different memories surfaced, he re-wrote it. This is seductive: like magic, it is so if you think it so.
In the days when I started the book on the library steps, I think I expected to find the book that made things make sense. Somewhere, at some stage of adulthood, the what, why and who would be revealed. It's been a number of books ago that I stopped thinking this.
The problem with growing up reading fiction is that you expect things to make sense, for everything to fit. When you grow up, sooner or later you find out that it doesn't. Sometimes things just happen. Something else could have happened. People are considerably more similar than they are different. As individuals, no one matters that much - except to themselves and those who love them. Even the monsters and saints among us only matter relatively. The sun and moon don't give a damn about Hitler or the Holocaust. (I personally find this very liberating.)
Things make sense at a macro-level; gravity, energy, mass: they make sense. Not to me, but to physicists, or at least physicists have a narrative that makes it tidy. Fiction, on the other hand, also makes it tidy - gives a narrative that implies understanding. It is an understanding based on self.
I think there is a universe separate from my understanding of it. Further, I think that my understanding of it, to allow me to function, must approximate whatever is out there. Literature also gives me an approximate world but I'm not sure believing in it is very helpful.
Having the novel as your fall-back world model encourages self-centerdness. It encourages over-intepretation; too many layers. Good in a cake; but in dealing with friends? Sometimes the surface interpretation is what is meant. As Freud said, sometimes a cigar is only a cigar.
Is this a problem with modern English fiction? The rather precious middle-class based in London clever heroes and heroines? Life in miniature? What happened to Dickensian worlds and their multiple characters? Or Thackeray, who enjoys his characters, never takes them very seriously? I think expecting the world to resemble Vanity Fair would make for a more pleasant life.
I will still give the grandchildren books for birthdays and Christmases. Folk songs, other songs, proverbs - like novels - are ways of interpreting life. It's a way of seeing consequences without having to experience them. Very useful. Cautionary tales show where to be cautious.
So what did I learn from The Sense of an Ending? Probably what I've explored in this essay. Perhaps books are to fight with rather than use as role models.
I enjoyed The Sense of an Ending, and recommend it. Now to read Hollinghurst. His Line of Beauty was the best book I've read in years.
But I'm going to expect pleasure, perhaps a way of seeing things in a different way, but no golden key that opens the golden lock.

Corruption: India and Others

Fri, 19 Aug 2011 22:43:09 +0100

This week, there is continued fallout from the riots last week. Tonight, Channel 4 News reported that community leaders had warned the Police during the week preceding the riots that there would be trouble. There has been increasing disquiet over the severity of sentences; major legal figures and some politicians have warned that this was unfair, would be seen as unfair. Boris Johnson appears to be positioning himself as new Party Leader - clownish brute with a bad haircut or smarmy git with little pig eyes? The Tories have a choice.
But the big news this week, for me, was the demonstrations in India. First, a bit of history: EVERYTHING comes back to history and I don't see why it's not a more important part of school curriculum. (This is a blog, not an article, so no footnotes and I probably won't look much up. Doubts? Look it up yourself. Good for you. History and context: important in the recent riots and current Indian unrest.)
India can blame the British Raj for some historical evil - cutting off the hands of weavers in UP to protect the Manchester cotton mills, for example. But, unlike most of of subSaharan Africa, India got something out of the Raj as well. Mainly: railroads, a good rail network that unites the country; a more or less united India, which has been a mixed blessing.
India got a very good deal at Partition - partly because Montbattan was a fool that messed up everything he ever did. Nehru was also very clever, very well educated and very good at dealing with Lord and Lady Montbatten. Nehru - and Montbatten - were determined to leave two countries - not many; India and Pakistan divided on religious lines. Bengal wanted a linguistic division - they lost. The tribal areas in Pakistan wanted a tribal division. They lost too. Punjab wanted Punjab. And there's always Kashmir.
Congress Party in 1937 did a deal with major industrialists. Birla, Tata, funded the party. The left wing, represented by J. Nehru, went along with it. He sacrificed workers' interests but managed to get an essentially secular constitution that did provide protection for Scheduled Castes and Tribes. (Since his father, M. Nehru, and Gandhi were very willing to take the rich man's side, it would have been personally difficult for him to do anything else.)
Then partition. India was also lucky in its early prime ministers. Beginning with Nehru, they were competent and personally honest. India did very well in the fifties and sixties.
Galbraith arranged for assorted deals with the US govt. in India's favour. (PL480, for example, which provided US wheat for rupees rather than hard currency and the rupees themselves to be spent on educational projects. Pakistan got the same deal.)
India is escaping the "rice bowl problem". Initially, as infant mortality drops and people live longer, developing nations have a pyramid population structure: money that could go on development goes for feeding people to old or too young to work. Indira Ganhdi tried bribery and sterilization, which contributed to her loss of the 1977 election. (It's not a new problem - the Maya, when they hybridized corn and had a stable grain crop, had the same problem. The society degenerated.) (And it's not that the poor object to family planning; they want to space children and most want to limit the number - but not to one or two.)
India's post partition development came from a fairly savage treatment of the rural areas. It worked. Again, this is not unique to India. A major problem in development: primary producers (i.e., agriculture, timber, etc.) are paid less for producing than industrialized countries; there is a permanent drain of resources from lesser developed to more developed nations. You want to industrialize. Essentially, you go through a period when agriculture and land are very heavily taxed. The peasants are screwed. Peasants flee to the city. The city thus has a large work force who work very cheaply. China has something of the same problem - but without the difficulty of a small very wealthy group. An elite yes. But nothing like Pakistan's twenty families or India's major industrialists. Three of the world's ten richest men have Indian citizenship. China has no one on the Forbes top ten List. America has four. (The UK's first entry is at number 56.) We have a set up in which corruption thrives: a very poorly paid civil service, including tax people, corrupt police, a very wealthy elite, who do not wish to pay taxes.
But India also has a developing middle class, a well trained work force, and a population - educated and uneducated - unwilling to accept the status quo. Current protests involve a bill to reduce this corruption. People, ordinary people, know their politicians and civil servants require bribes and they have become increasingly unwilling to see this as part of doing business.
Hazare led a movement to end corruption - demanding a bill to explore the problem. Initially, the government gave way and said a bill would be passed. It was, but with loopholes rather than teeth. Hazare and his followers have not accepted it. They are out in processions and Hazare has said he would fast unto death. (Fasting unto death is more effective in South Asia than the UK - Thatcher hung tough, Bobby Sands died. Specific effectiveness: nil; general effectiveness - very. It brought world attention to the problem; much as Hazare's threatened fast has done now.)
So what can the Indian Government do? They can't ignore it. Hazare is not willing to accept a cosmetic approach. Politicians and the elite are not willing to make substantive changes. One possibility: Play the religious card.
India is also becoming a far less tolerant place. The BJP, VHS and RSS have done well in elections. The BJP is the second largest party in India - and it is anti-Muslim, pro-Hindu, and very conservative. The destruction of the Babri mosque in Ayodha would not have happened in 1970. Or even 1980. (I read something a year or so ago about attempts to re-write the Indian constitution, take out the human rights sections dealing with caste. It failed.)
Can creating a scapegoat, Muslims, for example, distract people enough to preserve the political fortunes and wealth of those in power? Not in the short term. Perhaps in the long term.
In the UK, scapegoating may be effective in the short term but I doubt it's long term efficacy. So we have a rather interesting mirror image here of developed and developing worlds: those who have do not wish to share and their greed leads to increasing instability. So lets look at some alternatives:
Fascism
Regulated capitalism
Communism
Socialism
Anarchy.
Minor fixes while we stumble along.
Status quo
Nothing looks particularly attractive, does it? But I'm rather hopeful about India.
At least, looking at India allows the gaze to be averted from places so much worse off. Like Sudan and the Congo. Another interesting news article: claims Dag Hammarskjold's plane was shot down to prevent him from attempting to prevent the looting of Congo mineral wealth. Yet another bit of history.
I never said history was pleasant, just useful.

Who Loots?

Sat, 13 Aug 2011 15:06:47 +0100

Like the rest of the UK, I spent every evening last week watching parts of major English cities burn. I listened to BBC announcers agree with assorted politicians that this must stop, this was evil, the full force of the judicial system would be brought to bear... the exception was Ken Livingston. He said (a) rioting and looting must stop and he thought water cannon might be effective; (b) we must try to understand the causes of the riots - government cuts making further education impossible, high unemployment, making jobs unlikely, a general attitude of contempt by government towards the very poor and the unemployed. If you treat people as if they were not part of the social fabric, if they are excluded, why should they observe your rules?
Livingstone was accused of making party political points.
I don't think he was. I think he was accurate. If you treat people like dirty nothings, of no value, they behave badly.
We saw people trying to defend their houses and shops - and, defend their neighborhood's houses and shops. We saw others setting fire to shops, breaking in and stealing luxury goods. Initially, the Police were not there. Then we saw them stand and watch. (The Police gave a good explanation for this: first, they are part of a force commanded from a central area outside the rioting zone. They hold their position unless told to do otherwise; second, there were too few Police at that point to stop what was going on.)
The reaction to Policing in the areas was that the Police and those in charge didn't give a damn about the poorer areas burning. They were there to prevent rioting from spilling over into the good part of town.
Something all the people in the areas, looters, rioters, and those who condemned this (the great majority) agreed about one thing: the Police treat us with contempt and don't give a damn about crimes committed against us.
When you want to determine if a powerless group is treated with contempt by those in charge, you ask the powerless - not the powerful. If you want to decide if calling someone a “nigger bitch” shows contempt, ask the woman so described, not the cop.
In the mornings, as politicians did their required walkabout to tut tut, people in the area seemed to agree again: Politicians treat us with contempt and don't give a damn about us.
If you want to determine who the politicians care about, look at how they tax and spend. If they take from the poor and give to the rich, that is where their hearts’ lie. (King Arthur is supposed to return at England’s greatest need. Would Robin Hood be more useful in the current context?)
I see Cameron talking about "responsibility" and swift and severe punishment. Unless you are rich and have good friends: then you can destroy restaurants and break windows, as Boris Johnson and Cameron did in their student days. Steal something because you can't afford it? Jail. Steal something as a jape and joke? Ah, well, boys will be boys.
If you have £3.50 worth of bottled water, the normal sentence is not six months in prison. If you are stopped and have a balaclava and a bin bag in your backpack, you are not charged with offenses related to rioting and looting.
Justice is supposed to be blindfolded. I think she peeks; If you loot pension funds and ignore health and safety regulations, that’s not criminal, just good business.
We would have far fewer riots is wealthy and poor actually were treated the same. .
The teenagers shouting abuse at the Police said "We can do anything we want and you can't stop us."
The kids can't. The Police, with batons, water cannon, rubber bullets, will move in and, as Cameron said, "do what it takes."
What would it take, I wonder, to prevent Cameron and his friends from destroying the welfare state? Making the NHS a "service of last resort", abandoned by everyone who can afford better? (They did that to the Dental component of the NHS - they're working on the rest.)
This is theft. This is a much greater theft than that of a plasma TV or a couple of pairs of trainers. It is theft when you sell public assets - things developed and built with tax payers' money - like the rail network, to private companies, who then asset strip, raise prices and demand public subsidies to run an indifferent service.
I do not think feral children or gangster middle-aged men should be allowed to loot, pillage and burn. Equally, I would like to prevent unprincipled politicians and their posh cronies from looting, pillaging and destroying the country.(Principles? Cameron? Osborne? You could stuff both their principles and their brains up their ass and they’d still be able to fart.)
The Police attack one. They say yes sir to the other.
Money, Power, the Law. Currently, the three are entwined. Riots won't stop that; it won't even influence it. Voting is irrelevant - at least for macro issues. It is still worth voting; small differences can result in major improvements to the lives of the powerless. (Or the powerful: look at how greatly Thatcher and Reagan improved the lives of the very wealthy.)
It was a very depressing week and the morning summaries of the last evenings' activities were even more depressing than the riots themselves.

Hiroshima, The Great Depression, and History

Sat, 6 Aug 2011 22:39:15 +0100

Today is the 66th anniversary of the atomic bombing of Hiroshima. Al Jazeera was the only news I saw today that mentioned it. They filmed a survivor: she was seven when Hiroshima was bombed. Her parents survived the initial blast but died shortly afterwards. Her daughter died of cancer at an early age. Her life has been one long unfolding of the consequences of a decision taken to drop the atomic.
Al Jazeera also reported on the speech of the Japanese Prime Minister, who commemorated Hiroshima and placed Fukishima in the same context: Is any use of nuclear energy safe enough?
History teaches reminds us of consequences. For example, sometimes revolutions are necessary. But it seems that any revolution sacrifices at least one generation. It's something you do for the grandchildren, not yourself.
Greenspan said a couple of weeks ago that the deficit was a problem but not nearly as important a problem as the baby boomers retiring. He said that generation was the best educated and most competent the US had ever had and those taking their place were neither educated nor competent. You have to have immigrants to fill the midlevel tech jobs or they don't filled.
The current model of education in the US seems to be very local. Make sure your child is in the catchment area for a local very good school and make the necessary sacrifices. (I didn't buy a house until I moved to England because I could never afford a house in a good area. I paid a lot in rent instead.) This has worked for the committed middle class but it has its limitations. the Teabaggers are one. My grandchildren have to live in an adult world with these feral louts: feral because of these same local solutions to education. We need good education for all, not just a good school in a good district. That means taxes.
Raise taxes. DO NOT spend them to stuff the mouths of the rich with money. Do not spend them to make the world safe for oil looters. Save money on prisons and guards by legalizing all drugs, over night. It would help Mexico considerably as well as leaving some nasty people with a lot of unsold merchandise.
In the bill increasing the deficit, Obama conceded a great deal. The minority House leader said he got 98% of what he wanted. Obama ended up looking weak. I still have every intention of voting for him. He should have called the Republican bluff and used his majorities better than he has. Of course, he might not have been able to - he might be picking battles he can win. Who knows what goes on in Committee Rooms?
Perhaps it is unreasonable, irresponsible, to think that at some point the Democrats should attack. The deficit was the result of Bush cutting taxes for the rich and conducting two illegal wars. HIS deficit. HIS party's deficit. At least the Democrats should point that out.
Do the Republicans actually want the United States to go into a major depression? With the rest of the world joining in? I read an article that saw the build up of deficits under Bush, caused by cutting taxes for the rich and conducting a couple of wars, as intended. During a major depression, the very wealthy get richer, the poor lose what little they have. They can shred the welfare state and pick up assets cheap. Depressions help the very rich.
So many conspiracy theories: that doesn't mean they're all untrue. Throughout the Middle East, the destruction of Twin Towers, 9/11, is seen as caused by Bush. He did it, they say, to give him an excuse to destroy the Middle East and take over Middle Eastern oil resources. That's one of those things I don't believe but would not be surprised to find it true. Did Bush and cronies really plot to bring about the next Great Depression? Probably not. Is Obama really in league with his Wall Street Masters and a slick pr exercise to deceive the public into thinking there are two parties? No. I still think there is a difference between Democrat and Republican.
Conspiracy theories predominate over cock-up theories because it would be nice if these things made sense. Crazy, stupid or evil (or any combination thereof) seem to explain the current state of the world. Evil can be combatted by Good. Crazy and stupid are harder.
History suggests some actions. Unemployment is a greater danger than deficits. Assorted politicians tell us there is no alternative to massive job losses in the public sector. Keynes pointed out the problem with this: lack of consumers means lack of demand means more job losses... leave our grandchildren with a massive debt? Well, it's better than leaving their parents unemployed, with little education.
It's important to keep the next election from being stolen. In the US, the Republicans are actively attempting to disenfranchise large numbers of voters whom they suspect will vote Democrat. When the election comes round, make it very clear that there will be court challenges over things like selective placing of ballot boxes.
This is 2011, not 1930 or 1945. Things are different. I don't think the world as we know it, the world we grew up in, can survive. Part of the US power stemmed from a country full of natural resources, now mostly exploited, and an outside world devastated by two wars. The UK had an empire to exploit - no longer. Global warming is real and some of the drastic weather we've seen, with consequent impact on food sources, are still to be dealt with.
The US needs another FDR. The UK another Bevan. Obama and Miliband are not they.