Psychoanalyse This

I found a psychoanalysing tool for blogs (via Coffee Shop Philosophy). The analysis gives a Myers-Briggs personality type.

It seems this blog is an ISTP - The Mechanics.

The independent and problem-solving type. They are especially attuned to the demands of the moment are masters of responding to challenges that arise spontaneously. They generally prefer to think things out for themselves and often avoid inter-personal conflicts.

The Mechanics enjoy working together with other independent and highly skilled people and often like seek fun and action both in their work and personal life. They enjoy adventure and risk such as in driving race cars or working as policemen and firefighters.

Now I know it's all about the writing and not the author (rumours of the death of the author are greatly exaggerated) but most of the description also applies to the author. Most but not all. The final sentence, "They enjoy adventure and risk such as in driving race cars or working as policemen and firefighters" is a no, no, no when it comes to the life of the author.

ISTPs are sometimes described as Crafter Artisans,

"introverts, [but] authoritarian in their interactions with others and .. forceful at influencing people. They focus on accomplishing tasks efficiently and skillfully.

To master the tool of their interest, ISTPs require a certain degree of seclusion in which to practice. The result is often a virtuosity that other types find difficult to match."

It seems that DSTPFW is also ISTP.

And it seems that Rullsenberg is ESTP - The Doers, also described as Promoter Artisans. ESTPs are "hands-on learners who live in the moment, seeking the best in life, wanting to share it with their friends." Strikes me as like Rullsenberg.

Billy Bragg at Rock City

Wednesday night I rushed with Rullsenberg to town to get tickets to see Billy Bragg.

He plays his guitar. He points out some pissed trouble makers. He carries on playing his guitar and singing in that Billy Bragg way. I am the milkman of human kindness. I will leave an extra pint. Chorus sung by the audience. [Corrected]

As Swiss Toni recounts

He chastised people who want to "throw piss" over the hope generated by Obama's election in the USA and suggested that although he is going to disappoint us over some things, at the moment he represents possibility above everything else and we should embrace that. The last time he played Rock City, he told us, was the night before the General Election in 1997, when the Labour party finally swept the hated Tory regime aside. No matter how much we felt that the Labour Government had let us down (I doubt all that many tories attend Bragg gigs), we had to gear ourselves up for another election next year because a Labour government still represents possibilities that we would not have if the Conservatives get back into power.

Half way through the show his voice started to go (you at the back, I heard you say, how could anyone tell) so he drank a mug of Throat Coat tea, "guaranteed to get you singing in tune", or so he said.

The encore was A New England with the audience singing the chorus - "I'm not looking for a new England, I'm just looking for another girl".

Politics. Tunes. Singalong. Is there any more you want from a night out in Nottingham?

Brendan Barber and Golden Balls

Meeting the Treasury Select Committee the other day Brendan Barber, head of the TUC, criticised the pay, and bonues, of bankers. Fine. A good thing.

Then Barber put his feet firmly in his mouth by speaking up for multi-million salaries paid to premier league football players:

"the remuneration paid to David Beckham is part of a system which does not apply to the rest of the human race"

No. Footballers' pay should be no different to the pay of everyone else. No special cases. Sure some people are better at their job than other people but that does not warrant a vast differential in salaries.

Leaked List of Johnsonian Scoundrels

There's a leaked list of Johnsonian scoundrels floating about, or, to be blunter, there's a list of names and addresses of fascist BNP members floating about.

It's likely to be taken down soon but as of 10pm on Tuesday 18th November 2008 it's available at http://bnpmemberslist.blogspot.com.

Most of the entries are just name, address, phone number, and possibly email address. But then there are those that describe hobbies and interests, and sometimes those interests are a tad bizarre.

Here's an, anonymised, example of hobbies and interests:

Tour guide ([XXXX] Cathedral). Writer for local paper (church/village history). Runs a Christian singing group. Vegan/supporter of organic produce. Members of the Woodland Trust, National Trust, VIVAI, Anglican Society, Open Doors, British Israel World Federation.
oh, and being an activist in the fascist B*N*P.

Being curiouser than Alice, I looked up the British Israel World Federation. I thought it was a Victorian relic of Empire that had long since passed the way of the Primrose League and the Economic League. How wrong could I be. It even has a website.

Apparently they believe that some (go on and guess what sort of people they believe this applies to) people in Britain are descendents of the lost tribe of Israel and the country is thereby blessed by the spaghetti monster (or G_d or sky bully or non-existent entity).

I bet this fascist read the Da Vinci Code.

East meets West

Terminology collides with geography.



This annoys the ever brilliant xkcd as well.

Conversations

Talking. It's what makes the world go round. Here's the brilliant Studs Terkel in conversation.



[ Via Linda Grant. ]

Sound of Colour

Simon Hoggart makes the outrageous, racist and daft point that "[Obama] does not even sound black".

How does "black" sound? How does "white" sound? Is this just Hoggart saying that Obama does not sound how Hoggart imagines "black" people speak? Or is there something else to this?

Does Hoggart think all "black" people sound the same? Does Hoggart think all "white" people sound the same? Does Hoggart think there's a range of voices that are "black" and a range of voices that are "white"?

Individual people have a voice. That voice is a product of geography, society and education. Even if you could make statements about a group having a common accent, or dialect, is it fair to argue that someone without that accent is outwith the group? I think it's only fair if the sole definition of the group is that it is made up of people who all talk the same way.

Hoggart's statement is muddled and nonsensical and capable of racist interpretation.

Galbraith Centenary

One hundred years ago a wise and witty economist, JK Galbraith, was born on the shores of Lake Ontario.

There's a good appreciation of Galbraith by a Black Country Bloke.

In the Affluent Society, Galbraith wrote:

People are the common denominator of progress. So... no improvement is possible with unimproved people, and advance is certain when people are liberated and educated. It would be wrong to dismiss the importance of roads, railroads, power plants, mills, and the other familiar furniture of economic development.... But we are coming to realize... that there is a certain sterility in economic monuments that stand alone in a sea of illiteracy. Conquest of illiteracy comes first".

Read more. Read widely. Read wisely.

Backstage with Obama

Obama prepping to go into the gladiatorial debating chamber!

Propaganda or Political Commercials

Party political broadcasts in the UK have always seemed dull.

Here's a chance to see some really dull political broadcasts from the USA. But some of them have a historical resonance.

Political broadcasting all the way from 1952 to 2008.

Here's one from 1968.



It's an analysis, of sorts, of why Spiro Agnew for Vice-President appeared as unlikely as Sarah Palin.

Brokers with hands on their faces

It does what it says on the tin.

Banning Books Is a Bad Thing

This blog holds it to be a self-evident truth that banning books is a bad thing.

If Sarah Palin has her way it could be the hottest thing in town (as hot as Fahrenheit 451).

Inevitability and Reasons Not To Be Cheerful

Somethings seem so inevitable that they just cannot not happen. Like Wolverhampton Wanderers getting promoted to the Premier League; like Labour winning the election in 1992; like Obama becoming the next President of the United States of America.

Okay, the first two examples are not particularly good ones. Just suppose McCain wins. That'll take one hell of a lot of explaining. The map of the USA will have to be redrawn: red states, blue states and totally racist states. I could see how, if you're a right-wing diehard Republican, you could vote McCain and Palin. If you're not a rabid Republican pitbull then why would you do that? McCain stands for the same old Republican voodoo-economics. Palin stands for a belief in the victory of old certainties and old prejudices. But some of the media coverage, like that coming from Pox News, has been racist, appealing to the worst characteristics of the worst, unprogressive sector of the electorate. For Obama to lose with poll ratings like this would be a death blow to the poll industry.

Anyway, Slate magazine has "A McCain Victory Survival Kit", subtitled "A just-in-case guide for reporters just in case Obama collapses." By Jack Shafer

I'm just waiting for the fat lady to sing.

[Via PooterGeek]

Connections

One of Rullsenberg's favourite children's books is The Phantom Tollbooth by Norton Juster (1961).

In the Family supplement to this Saturday's Grundie was a review, by Lucy Mangan, of The Phantom Tollbooth. If you haven't read it, it recounts a tale of a country, the Kingdom of Wisdom, two capital cities Dictionopolis and Digitopolis

The cities are governed by two warring brothers who banished the Princesses of Rhyme and Reason from the land, after they were asked to adjudicate between the merits of words and numbers and refused to accord one more importance than the other. Since then, the kingdom has descended into chaos.

The story seeks to resolve this conflict by a newcomer to the kingdom.

Anyway, the book was ilustrated by Jules Feiffer.

And, then, what do I read, but a review of cartoons by Jules Feiffer, from 1956 to 1966.

It's not some plan. It's just the sheer connectedness of everything that makes this world interesting, and, like, totally random.

Drawing Against National Socialism and Terror

Will draws my attention to a good exhibition of the work of Arthur Szyk at the Deutsches Historisches Museum in Berlin.

Here's a Szyk image, Freedom From Fear (1942).



Here's Anti-Christ (1942)



And here's a review of the Szyk exhibition from the New York Times.

And here's the Syzk online exhibition.

Marx and Money

You can get a money box that looks like an old leather bound copy of Das Kapital.



Somewhere for bankers to put their stolen bonuses.

A house is a place to live

It's not an investment. It's a place to hang your hat. It's a place to keep your books. It's a place to keep your clothes. It's a place to eat. It's a place to sleep. It's a place to make love. It's a place to have fun. It's a place to be happy. It's a place to be sad. It is not an investment. Or as Charlie Brooker puts it:

For years, money was just appearing from nowhere, or so we were told. People bought houses and bragged about how the value kept zooming up, and up, and up. In fact they didn't seem to be houses at all, but magic coin-shitting machines. It was all a dream, a dream in which you bought a box and lived in it, and all the time it generated money like a cow generates farts. Great big stinking clouds of money. And none of it was real. And now it's gone.

All that was never real melts into a big cloud of nothingness.

Thieves

Governments all the world over fly to the rescue of banks. Are bankers grateful? You betcha (to borrow a phrase from Ned Flanders). More money for them to pilfer from the till.

Financial workers at Wall Street's top banks are to receive pay deals worth more than $70bn (£40bn), a substantial proportion of which is expected to be paid in discretionary bonuses, for their work so far this year - despite plunging the global financial system into its worst crisis since the 1929 stock market crash,

Thieving bastards.

Curry and Economics

It turns out that the great bank rescue plan was powered by curry.

Anticipating the long and tense night ahead for him and his team, Darling had taken matters in hand at 8.30pm, personally ringing one of his favourite restaurants, Gandhi's in Kennington, south London, to order £245 worth of rice, karahi lamb, tandoori chicken, vegetable curry and aloo gobi.

From the article it's difficult to work out how many people were there. Eleven named and one unnamed, and probably note takers and support staff. Was £245 enough curry?

Would the government have got a better result if they had ordered some naan?

Miami Five

Not a mash-up of Hawaii-5-0 and CSI Miami but the five Cubans held in the United States for nothing more than informing the FBI of plans of terrorist attacks on Cuba.
The five are Gerardo Hernández, Antonio Guerrero, Ramón Labañino, Fernando González and René González.

This is the Miami 5 page from the Cuba Solidarity Campaign.

But instead of arresting the terrorists, the FBI used the information to identify and arrest the Five anti-terrorists on September 12, 1998 in Miami, where they were illegally held in solidarity confinement for 17 months.
A miscarriage of justice

The trial began in November 2000 in Miami, a hugely hostile environment where the anti-Castro Cuban-American community wields enormous political influence.

Defence attorneys’ motions for a change of venue were denied five times by the judge, although it was obvious that a fair trial was impossible in the city.

During the trial, the judge, prosecution and US government officials suppressed defence evidence and ensured key witnesses would not testify.

Despite intimidation of witnesses by the press and testimonies by prominent US officials that the Five had not accessed any classified documents, the jury reached a unanimous guilty verdict on all charges, without once seeking clarification of any evidence.

The Five were convicted on charges ranging from being foreign agents to conspiracy to commit murder, and sentenced to between fifteen years and double life.

For opposing terrorist acts on US soil the Miami Five were prosecuted in a strongly anti-Castro and anti-Cuban government city and given sentences of more than fifteen years with little chance of parole. That evokes mental pictures of justice dispensed by a bouncing kangaroo.



Cuba is not a socialist paradise. Amnesty International in its 2008 Report cited:

Restrictions on freedom of expression, association and movement remained severe. At least 62 prisoners of conscience remained imprisoned and political dissidents, independent journalists and human rights activists continued to be harassed, intimidated and detained.

Many of the dissidents were convicted of "social dangerousness" which is defined as "proclivity to commit a crime". This "crime" carries a sentence of up to four years in prison. Further penalties include “therapeutic treatment”, “re-education” or “surveillance by the Revolutionary National Police”.

All that stands against Cuba as a socialist Eden. Many things are good in Cuba: the increasing use of cooperative farms; the (albeit forced by circumstances) recycling of materials from cars to fridges. As the country moves from a central party dominated culture to trusting its people to act and work independently of the party things will improve.

The lifting of the embargo by the United States government will lessen the control over the economy of the party and government, giving more decisons to be made by the people of Cuba.

Free the Five!