Thursday, 20 March 2014
Grumpy Mole
-1-
Grumpy mole
Three worms in a bowl
Here's a grumpy mole
and he's living in a hole
Yeah grumpy mole
I'm a grumpy mole
Grumpy mole
with three worms in a bowl
-2-
I'm a grumpy mole
inside my hole
And I'm not coming out
till they've all been sold
So take them to the market
and see the pretty girls
And tell that my tunnel
is dark and cold
-
Dark and cold
Dark and cold
Tell them that my tunnel
is dark and cold
-3-
So hey pretty girls
with your ribbons and your curls
Come and meet the mole
with a bowl of worms
Well he may not be good looking
and he may not be kind
But a better match
would surely be hard to find
-
Grumpy mole
Grumpy mole
Come and meet your husband
He's a grumpy mole
-4-
Hey pretty girl
come down my hole
Come into my garden
I'm a grumpy mole
Yeah grumpy mole
I'm a grumpy mole
Come into my garden
I'm a grumpy mole
-5-
My dear Mister Mole
well bless my soul
How could you do such honour
to a poor young girl ?
Would you be so lucky
could you be so bold ?
To be married to an animal
who lives in a hole ?
-6-
Well he may be ugly
and he may be old
(He's quite) blind but in my eyes
he's just a man of the world
And everybody knows
'cos they've been told
Somewhere deep inside
he's got a heart of gold
Wednesday, 19 March 2014
Ten Years (2004-2014)
When I lived and worked in Russia, for a short period of time, as a teacher, I counted
among my friends Stalinist White Russians, Buddhist New-Agers, Kalmyks, and Tartars.
But the thing I loved the most was the tantalising prospect of travelling, across
land, into the far off wilderness of the Siberian North-East.
Now if you asked me where, if anywhere, I would like to live, I should say that I
would like to go and live, for the rest of my days, in the new land of Western
Ukraine.
Let the mafioso scum have the Eastern regions. Let them have their holiday resorts,
their casinos, their nightclubs and prostitutes. Let them have their place in the sun,
while on the line from foreign countries, like Syria and Somalia, their evil minions
do covert deals in weapons of destruction. Let them burn in the sun and debauch
themselves on their nationalistic machismo.
We shall complete the promise of the Orange Revolution; and everywhere renew the hopes
and dreams which were stirred up and then so cruelly broken by the ending of the Arab
Spring.
We shall complete the promise of the Orange Revolution; a permanent revolution; to
inspire the world, by our example of peaceful co-existence, with art and music,
agrarian reform, respect for the land, productivity, poetry and permaculture.
We shall invite Jews from Israel and America to come back again and resettle their
traditional homelands. Yes, we shall invite the Jews and the Gypsies, and gay men and
women from Uganda, the dispossessed from every land, and all transgressive people to
come to us from every authoritarian regime. No visa will be required; no paperwork or
passports. We shall invite all people of good faith. And all shall be made welcome.
We shan't mind at all when rich bankers from the City of London make rude remarks
about the unmanageable level of our sovereign debt.
We shall build a new wall between the East and West; a wall of flowers, laid out to
keep marauding hordes at bay.
There we shall plant holy groves of gentle trees, well tended orchards lying either
side of a crystal stream, in season bearing fruit and fragrant blooms, to mark the
passing of each year, while on either side the gardens grow and children play in the
pastures and meadows, where cattle graze contented; the milk cows and their bull, the
ram and his ewes, the billy goat and nanny goats, the horse and the donkey; and pigs
and chickens, ducks and geese and songbirds gather, round the feet of the farmhand, in
the farmyard every morning, when he brings them their feed.
In this land, once again we say, all shall be made welcome; in this land which, by a
dictator's order, saw rural famine, during the 1930s, in the heart of the bread
basket; in this land which first, alone, and uniquely among all others, chose to
voluntarily and unilaterally give up possession of the curse of its nuclear deterrent,
and yet, which still must suffer the poisonous effects of the Chernobyl disaster for
another thousand years or more.
If I could live in a country like this, this would be a country I would be proud to
call my home.
If they would have me, I'm sure we could make it happen... but it might take some
time. Yes, it might take some.
Oh dear Lord, give us more time.
Ten years should see the difference.
Only Means (A Short Essay on Social Injustice)
"there are no ends
only means
there are no means
only ends"
And I blame philosophy, if not for all our ills, then, at least, for all our woes.
Yes, philosophy would seem to be exclusively the preserve of intellect and language, but, come on now, let's think again...
Or to misquote Jesus; we must do philosophy with all our heart, with all our strength, with all our mind.
As Nietzsche said, "others do philosophy, as if they were riding on a train but, as for me, I am the train!"
We have institutions and interventions.
Some people like to say that we have values that we choose to live by in a civilised society; that it all comes down, in the end, to the choice we make collectively, to choose what kind of society we want to live in.
This last sentence is an example of a thought form produced by established discourse.
We could go on... but, in the end, it's humbug.
Wire up and plug in your bullshit detectors.
Turn up the dial to the max!
Some form gives pleasure; some form gives comfort, and some form will take it all away, so that nothing that is left is ever quite the same again.
Forms that intervene in the smooth running of outmoded institutions, no longer fit for purpose, relics of the past; in these forms we find the fountain head of new life; that strange mixture of energy and consciousness, the mind and the matter, that constitutes the world.
All things being equal, and things being as they are, I think there would have to be something seriously wrong with you anyway if you didn't have a total mental breakdown at least once in the course of your life, or contemplate the act of suicide from time to time.
And, once you have attained a certain degree of self-knowledge, and insight into your condition, I think it is only fair enough that you should be blamed and held to account for the consequences of your actions, even though you are unwell, if your condition causes you to harm yourself or those around you.
Crisis management and support for people recovering from mental illness;
what's not to like about that?
It's a hopeless situation. Yes, but let's work with it a bit.
Let's look at the left and the right, and see where it takes us.
But first, we must question our motivation.
When you read this, are you hoping to find answers?
Is there something that you want?
Will you ever get it???
What is money? What is time?
Do you have enough money? Do you have enough time?
Yes yes yes. Of course contentment is my practice;
joyful effort, in service of others, realising emptiness and bliss.
But if I were to offer you more, do you think you'd take it?
Do we want to believe? In scarcity? Or in abundance?
How can there be a scarcity of love???
Or a scarcity of ideas???
And what sense can we make of your faith in the protean rational economic agency of man?
In the production, distribution, and consumption, of goods and services; we can look at all things two ways. We can look at the demand side; and we can look at the supply side.
If psychological experiments are leading us to question our assumptions about rational economic choice (and thereby lose faith in nineteenth century notions of the balance of nature, maximisation of marginal utility, opportunity cost; equilibrium expressed by the meeting point of two sloping lines on a graph; one line rising, to show supply in terms of rising price, and one falling, to show the corresponding fall in demand); if all of this is now being opened up for re-evaluation, then let's try to look at things another way.
Let's get back to ideology and culture; back to the mental furniture, conditioning where we like to rest our bones, where we like to stand, and what we like to say.
What is our habit? What makes us feel at home?
And now let's use philosophy to make an intervention...
In British politics today, we have reduced our thinking to little more than a display of sloganeering, for either one of two brands of intransigent conviction, with regard to what works best to our advantage, in stimulating growth on the supply side.
On the right we have the brand of competition; on the left, the brand of public service.
Ultimately, both claim to be kind;
if we will allow that sometimes you have to be cruel to be kind.
In either case, if they are correct, then we could deem the outcome to be a social good; so it is not easy to say, here and now, who is being more compassionate.
If the end justifies the means, then it's hard to say who holds the moral high ground. It all depends on who is right; or as David Cameron likes to say, "what is the right thing to do."
Well he would say that, wouldn't he!
See how they play with words - see how they delight in them!!!
But, "in the end", the end can never justify the means. And why do I say that?
Because there are no ends - only means!
So which side do I come down on?
Of course, I am in favour of public service. And yes, of course, I am against competition.
But I think, perhaps, I need to explain my position in more detail; because I do understand why competition would appear, to some people, to be a necessary evil and an instrument by which we can leverage lumpen humanity, to achieve something better for itself; while on the other hand, there are many misgivings I have about signing up wholeheartedly for public service, as the panacea for all our ills.
Political ideology, in all its forms, is something we must unmask.
As they say at GCHQ, "if you've got nothing to hide, you've got nothing to be afraid of." If ideology could do its work without obfuscating itself in the process, then, perhaps, there would be no harm done. But the hubris of human kind seems to know no bounds.
Let me end with a tribute to Tony Benn. He said there are people who create wealth by hard work. (I suppose they would be the "honest hard working families" we hear so much about these days.) Then there are those people who own the wealth...
And the problem, as Tony Benn saw it, was that the people who own the wealth have too much power.
only means
there are no means
only ends"
And I blame philosophy, if not for all our ills, then, at least, for all our woes.
Yes, philosophy would seem to be exclusively the preserve of intellect and language, but, come on now, let's think again...
Or to misquote Jesus; we must do philosophy with all our heart, with all our strength, with all our mind.
As Nietzsche said, "others do philosophy, as if they were riding on a train but, as for me, I am the train!"
We have institutions and interventions.
Some people like to say that we have values that we choose to live by in a civilised society; that it all comes down, in the end, to the choice we make collectively, to choose what kind of society we want to live in.
This last sentence is an example of a thought form produced by established discourse.
We could go on... but, in the end, it's humbug.
Wire up and plug in your bullshit detectors.
Turn up the dial to the max!
Some form gives pleasure; some form gives comfort, and some form will take it all away, so that nothing that is left is ever quite the same again.
Forms that intervene in the smooth running of outmoded institutions, no longer fit for purpose, relics of the past; in these forms we find the fountain head of new life; that strange mixture of energy and consciousness, the mind and the matter, that constitutes the world.
All things being equal, and things being as they are, I think there would have to be something seriously wrong with you anyway if you didn't have a total mental breakdown at least once in the course of your life, or contemplate the act of suicide from time to time.
And, once you have attained a certain degree of self-knowledge, and insight into your condition, I think it is only fair enough that you should be blamed and held to account for the consequences of your actions, even though you are unwell, if your condition causes you to harm yourself or those around you.
Crisis management and support for people recovering from mental illness;
what's not to like about that?
It's a hopeless situation. Yes, but let's work with it a bit.
Let's look at the left and the right, and see where it takes us.
But first, we must question our motivation.
When you read this, are you hoping to find answers?
Is there something that you want?
Will you ever get it???
What is money? What is time?
Do you have enough money? Do you have enough time?
Yes yes yes. Of course contentment is my practice;
joyful effort, in service of others, realising emptiness and bliss.
But if I were to offer you more, do you think you'd take it?
Do we want to believe? In scarcity? Or in abundance?
How can there be a scarcity of love???
Or a scarcity of ideas???
And what sense can we make of your faith in the protean rational economic agency of man?
In the production, distribution, and consumption, of goods and services; we can look at all things two ways. We can look at the demand side; and we can look at the supply side.
If psychological experiments are leading us to question our assumptions about rational economic choice (and thereby lose faith in nineteenth century notions of the balance of nature, maximisation of marginal utility, opportunity cost; equilibrium expressed by the meeting point of two sloping lines on a graph; one line rising, to show supply in terms of rising price, and one falling, to show the corresponding fall in demand); if all of this is now being opened up for re-evaluation, then let's try to look at things another way.
Let's get back to ideology and culture; back to the mental furniture, conditioning where we like to rest our bones, where we like to stand, and what we like to say.
What is our habit? What makes us feel at home?
And now let's use philosophy to make an intervention...
In British politics today, we have reduced our thinking to little more than a display of sloganeering, for either one of two brands of intransigent conviction, with regard to what works best to our advantage, in stimulating growth on the supply side.
On the right we have the brand of competition; on the left, the brand of public service.
Ultimately, both claim to be kind;
if we will allow that sometimes you have to be cruel to be kind.
In either case, if they are correct, then we could deem the outcome to be a social good; so it is not easy to say, here and now, who is being more compassionate.
If the end justifies the means, then it's hard to say who holds the moral high ground. It all depends on who is right; or as David Cameron likes to say, "what is the right thing to do."
Well he would say that, wouldn't he!
See how they play with words - see how they delight in them!!!
But, "in the end", the end can never justify the means. And why do I say that?
Because there are no ends - only means!
So which side do I come down on?
Of course, I am in favour of public service. And yes, of course, I am against competition.
But I think, perhaps, I need to explain my position in more detail; because I do understand why competition would appear, to some people, to be a necessary evil and an instrument by which we can leverage lumpen humanity, to achieve something better for itself; while on the other hand, there are many misgivings I have about signing up wholeheartedly for public service, as the panacea for all our ills.
Political ideology, in all its forms, is something we must unmask.
As they say at GCHQ, "if you've got nothing to hide, you've got nothing to be afraid of." If ideology could do its work without obfuscating itself in the process, then, perhaps, there would be no harm done. But the hubris of human kind seems to know no bounds.
Let me end with a tribute to Tony Benn. He said there are people who create wealth by hard work. (I suppose they would be the "honest hard working families" we hear so much about these days.) Then there are those people who own the wealth...
And the problem, as Tony Benn saw it, was that the people who own the wealth have too much power.
Subscribe to:
Posts
(
Atom
)