sparrow chat

The thousands of workers presently demonstrating in Wisconsin over the blatant efforts of that state’s governor to suppress the unions, have more in common with the Arabs on the streets of Tripoli and Cairo and Amman, than may be obvious to a casual observer.

Egyptians, Libyans, Jordanians, and other Arab populations, have long been under the thumb of dictatorial regimes imposing harsh measures to ensure their citizens toe the line. Now, the wire holding the pin in the grenade of revolution has finally rusted through; an explosion of civil unrest is echoing around the Arab world.

In America, the tide is flowing in the opposite direction. Americans are used to freedom. Indeed, they’ve lauded the virtues of freedom far and wide. Yet, even while so doing, the freedoms of the American people are being steadily eroded, and it’s been happening since the 1980s.

On August 5th 1981, then President Ronald Reagan sacked 11,345 striking air traffic controllers, members of the Professional Air Traffic Controllers Organization, for daring to strike in favor of better pay and conditions. Reagan argued that the law of the time banned strikes by government workers. But it was more than that. It was the first move, initiated by a corporate sponsored world leader, designed to set a precedent that would snowball and eventually break union power throughout America, and ultimately, the world.

Greed is the potent force driving the corporate controllers of political power in this country along a route many have taken before. Throughout history, the lust for power and wealth has caused kings and dictators to lead their nations into catastrophe. America is somewhat different. America has the means, not only to destroy itself, but the rest of the world.

The gap separating rich and poor in America has never been wider, and it’s growing ever broader. At a time of crisis in this country, its elected leader appears to concern himself more with the constitutional vagaries of same-sex marriage, than the events occurring before his eyes in the nation he supposedly leads.

Arabs are finding their way forward out of dictatorship and into the light of democratic freedom. America is about to extinguish its light. And, if it does, it may never burn bright again.

Scott Walker, the governor of Wisconsin, says he needs to balance the state budget. Through a clever ruse, it was revealed that Walker’s aims go much further than that. Walker is just part of an organized, nationwide, scheme devised by top corporate controllers like the Koch brothers, to bring the workers of America to their knees, to subjugate them by a steady decline of wages and living standards in this country.

Meanwhile, the wealthy will become ever richer and more powerful.

There is little doubt the main factor fueling this process is climate change. Our corporate controllers have ample access to scientific facts. They are well informed. They know climate change is a scientific reality, despite protestations to the contrary.

The global warming ‘debate’ is just another concoction of the corporate controllers. Like the ‘Tea Party’, it was invented for a purpose. The truth is there is no ‘debate’ about climate change. Global warming is real; scientifically proven. It’s happening.

By casting doubt on the scientific evidence, those at the top knew sufficient numbers of the less-educated populace would leap on that bandwagon and perpetuate it for them, thus providing them with the excuse to block all efforts at environmental legislation. While their factory chimneys are belching carbon dioxide, and other even more noxious chemicals; while the mountains of Virginia and Tennessee are being blown apart for more coal to fire them, they – the corporate controllers – continue to make vast sums of money.

When the effects of climate change really begin to bite, food resources will be limited. Areas of the globe, particularly around the equator, will become uninhabitable. Vast numbers of economic migrants will begin to move around the planet. Life for the ordinary, middle class (or, more accurately, ‘working class’) citizen will become extremely difficult, if not downright dangerous.

For those with vast fortunes, life will be much easier. Enclosed within gated communities, their huge quantities of hoarded supplies hidden underground and guarded by private armies, they will expect to live out the crisis in luxurious ease. It won’t last forever. After all, when half, or three-quarters, of the world’s population is dead and those who survived are forced to live a primitive existence, the climate will probably begin to right itself fairly quickly – within a few lifetimes.

It started in the early 1980s. When it will end is anyone’s guess. Unless, of course, the citizens of the world do something to prevent it.

They are already, in Egypt, Libya, Tunisia, and Wisconsin. Yet, they don’t even realize what they’re doing.

But, don’t take my word for it. Listen to what Professor Jeffrey Sachs of Columbia University said on ‘The Last Word’ this week.

Visit msnbc.com for breaking news, world news, and news about the economy

He doesn’t quite speculate the future to the extent I do, probably because he didn’t wish to be viewed as totally mad. I am less concerned about what others think of me, but remember this:

Back in June 2006, CommonDreams.org ran an article entitled, “New American Century Project Ends With A Whimper”. The thrust of the piece was that the PNAC was ‘dead in the water’ following the failure of the invasion of Iraq.

Nearly two years later, I wrote an article on Sparrow Chat in which I contested the views of the writer, Jim Lobe. Here’s one paragraph from my post:

CommonDreams was probably accurate, so far as concerted action by the group was concerned, but a large number of individuals were involved with the PNAC, and when one delves beneath the surface, to those areas the US media fails to visit, a picture emerges suggestive of a more vaporous, but still highly active and subversive force for world dominance.^[1]

That “still highly active and subversive force for world dominance” now has a new name. It calls itself the “Foreign Policy Initiative”. Behind the scenes, though, is another much more powerful organization. It has no name, and no face. It has no known leader; it is bound by no law. Yet, it is real, and a threat to us all.

^{[1] “Dead In The Water? Hardly…” Sparrow Chat, April 11th 2008}

Filed under: The faceless ones

Posted under Sparrow Chat

It will come as no great revelation to most of us when I write that television programs are fast becoming worthless, inept, and utterly banal vehicles designed merely to market the products of the corporations that own the TV companies making such crap. And, what’s more, they expect us to be entranced by them.

But, do they?

These days television is aimed at only one market: the young. People of mature years (those of us who’ve had to suffer the insulting and crass label, ‘baby boomers’ – a phrase no doubt originally invented by a twenty year old with a brand new degree in ‘social psychology’, or some other equally inane and worthless qualification) are no longer of interest to TV programmers. Unless, of course, the sponsor is marketing incontinence pants, or ‘senior citizen’ cruises to the Balearic Islands.

Kids today, and by ‘kids’ I mean anyone under thirty, have no idea what quality entertainment is about. Those of us who have dried out behind the ears, remember when comedy was actually funny. Yes, even American comedy.

Admittedly, Americans of any age have missed out on top British comedy shows like ‘Eric & Ernie’, or ‘Only Fools And Horses’, but they still managed to produce and export some of the funniest shows on television.

Not least among these was, ‘Cheers’, with Ted Danson and Rhea Perlman – and, Kelsey Grammer who went on to star in the equally long-running and hilarious sit-com, ‘Frazier’.

Today’s generation know nothing of these classics. They’re fed a diet of cheap, cliched, often badly acted, rubbish because today’s market is all about profit. Quality is irrelevant. And, if you’ve never known quality, you never miss it.

Marketing TV programs in the 21st century, however, is about more than churning out tat. First, get your audience hooked. How many American comedy series start off promising quality, only to deteriorate into dross by series two?

When a new comedy sit-com starring Jane Leeves (she played Daphne, the English live-in physiotherapist in ‘Frazier’) was advertised, I hoped the writers would do her justice.

‘Hot In Cleveland’ got off to a good start. The tale of three women from Los Angeles marooned in Cleveland, Ohio, didn’t sound promising, but the first series managed to maintain a well-scripted plot-line, leaving viewers ready for more.

Sadly, though oh-so-predictably for American television, series two rapidly dived into a toilet bowl of cliched one-liners, coupled with scripts unworthy even of that most dire of all US soap operas, ‘Days Of Our Lives’.

‘Hot In Cleveland’ Series one was merely the bait. From now on it’s just thirty minutes of cheap tat, and that includes the commercials.

Today’s kids probably won’t even notice any deterioration in quality. Why should they? They’ve never known anything different.

Filed under: Not so classic comedy

Posted under Sparrow Chat

Posting has been light of late as I’ve been involved with other projects. Not the least of which was attempting to sort out a reputable removal company, to shift all our belongings north to the Michigan Upper Peninsula, this coming June.

Surely, not a difficult task, I hear you say?

Don’t believe it. It appears the moving trade is now riddled with snake-oil salesmen and scam artists, all out to relieve you of your hard-earned cash, and quite possibly, your most valuable possessions in the process.

The first mistake I made was using one of those, “Get three instant quotes” websites – “Orbitz Moving”, I believe it was. You know, one of those bright, shiny, websites with lots of happy, smiling, faces reminiscent of satisfied customers. Distantly reminiscent, in the case of this bunch, at least, judging by the vast numbers of dis-satisfied customers airing their grievances about the companies contracted to this outfit.

I’d used ‘Orbitz’ for many a flight booking in the past and always been satisfied with the service. Mistake number two was assuming some connection. First rule of the internet these days: never assume anything!

‘Orbitz Moving’ doesn’t move anybody. It simply passes information on to any nefarious moving firm prepared, no doubt, to cough up a percentage of the takings if you’re daft enough to sign with them.

Of course, my email inbox was inundated with offers, phony contracts, crazily low ‘estimates’, and voicemail messages from hard-hitting sales staff determined to entice me into their web.

It didn’t take too much research before I hit the ‘delete’ button on every one.

After eight hours or so of total time-wasting I eventually short-listed two that seemed reliable. I would have preferred a choice of three, but in today’s ‘make a fast buck and to hell with customer service’ America, there wasn’t one other I could find that didn’t have a host of complaints laid against them.

I’ll let you know how I get on.

Watch this space.

Filed under: Conmen on the move

Posted under Sparrow Chat

I was browsing blogs recently and one I hadn’t seen before attracted my attention. It belonged to a British doctor, a general practitioner (known in America as a ‘family doctor’).

One particular post caught my eye. It was a short, yet definitive, statement on Britain’s National Health Service, entitled – “Why The NHS Works”:

I saw a patient last week, who has recovered from major surgery. He has had brain surgery and is now likely to do very well. I am pleased. He is well.

The whole process worked beautifully. He was diagnosed quickly and effectively. He was assessed further at the local hospital who referred on to the Regional Centre where he was well looked after, nursed excellently, and when he came to see me, he and his wife were delighted.

He is an ordinary working-class bloke from Dullsville, who has been looked after.

His care, I reckon, would have cost around £200,000. He knows that. We, the healthy, paid for him to have his treatment.

This is the NHS that I joined as a Junior Doctor 36 years ago.

I get a bit fed up of politicians and journalists telling me that the NHS needs reform.

It blinking well doesn’t. What it needs is aforesaid politicians to go away and do something else with their time. I’d rather they dredged their moats, or tended to their duck houses.

Leave us alone.^[1]

The British National Health Service is under attack yet again, by politicians who’ve no idea how to organize a piss-up in a brewery, let alone a complex organism like the NHS. The government is responding to pressure from corporate industry to privatize the NHS and move it towards the ‘American’ system.

For those still in any doubt, the ‘American’ system is one of the largest cash-cows in the United States for multinational drug and insurance companies, private hospitals, and certain medical professionals who’ve sold out their Hippocratic Oath in favor of a very fat bank balance.

Unfortunately, the ‘American’ system is a complete and utter disaster for the average patient, who stands to lose his home, belongings, in fact everything he owns, when the debt collector calls about his recent hospital bill for appendicitis or open heart surgery.

The doctor who wrote the post, highlighted above, estimated the cost of his patient’s treatment at about two hundred thousand British pounds, or $320,000. The patient paid nothing out of his own pocket. Every working person in Britain chipped in a few pence and paid his costs for him, just as he will do for others now that he’s fit to return to work.

The cost per person per month is minimal, a fraction of the charges imposed by even the most affordable of medical insurance companies in America (though, I’ve yet to discover one).

Recently, there’s been much ado from certain Republican members of Congress about the ‘Obama Healthcare Bill’, passed last year. They want it withdrawn. Killed. Dead.

In order they not be criticized for partaking of the (relatively) cheap medical insurance available to members of Congress, certain of them have refused it and taken out their own private insurance, like most American citizens have to do if they need cover.

Yesterday, one of those Republican members was interviewed on the Public Broadcasting Service. I believe it was Joe Walsh of Illinois. He was asked how much it cost to insure himself, his wife, and one child, given that he had turned down the Federal policy.

His answer was: $1,200 per month. For the sake of British readers, whose jaws I can guarantee will drop, that’s 750 British pounds every month.

Of course, Walsh can well afford it. A Congress member earns $170,000 a year -just over 106,000 British pounds. He was asked how working class people could afford to pay those sorts of sums.

Being a politician, his response was way too long to reproduce here, and anyway, it completely failed to address the question.

Politicians in America have much in common with their European counterparts. In particular, allegiance to corporations who willingly subsidize their already overblown salaries.

There are many Americans who’ve been hoodwinked into believing ‘socialist’ medicine is inspired by the Devil. Quite why the Devil would want to heal free-of-charge is beyond my comprehension. It sounds more like something Jesus of Nazareth might do.

Socialist medicine: Where the healthy pay a little…so all who are sick may get well.

^{[1] “Why The NHS Works” The Jobbing Doctor, January 30th 2011}

Filed under: Don’t dare get sick

Posted under Sparrow Chat

I will admit to having no interest in American football. Neither do I delight in the bombardment of corporate advertising aimed at me via the US TV media. Consequently, I guess I’m something of a non-starter where matters relating to this year’s Super Bowl are concerned.

Normally, this strangely hallowed event would pass unnoticed in the Adam’s household, replaced by some suitable feature film or previously recorded documentary, or ignored, as music or computer served to provide more suitable entertainment.

Last night, however, it was the Green Bay Packers.

On arriving in America eight years ago, this name kept cropping up. I assumed Green Bay to be some industrial town employing an unusually high number of factory hands in the shipping department.

Eventually, I was informed of my mistake by my wife – a long-standing ‘Packers’ fan. She had developed a liking for the team while watching games on TV with her young son, and even though he’s now grown to manhood, the pair will still exchange ‘Packers’ titbits whenever they get together.

Consequently, last night the Super Bowl could not be casually tossed from memory in favor of a bit of Beethoven or a selection of latest blog postings. It was there; it was real; it was ‘The Packers’, so it had to be watched.

Let me make it quite clear from the start, my wife is not the sort of person to demand my attendance at the TV screen just because she expects my company. Not at all. For the first three ‘quarters’ (I believe that’s the terminology) I retired to my den, dabbled on the guitar, and wrote a post for Sparrow Chat.

It’s not that I’m against sport. It just doesn’t interest me. Also, any game that is composed of four, fifteen minute quarters, yet lasts four hours, is highly suspicious to my mind.

I’ve watched football games in Europe, what Americans laughingly call ‘soccer’, and they last ninety minutes, plus a fifteen minute break at half-time. Just occasionally, if there’s no decider, an extra thirty minutes will be added, but that’s fine; it’s in the rules.

So far as I’m aware there’s nothing in the American Football rules to say a game must last four hours. Especially as, for half of that time, there’s no game, only adverts. God alone knows what the players do during the advertising breaks that seem to occur every two or three minutes, and last for five. According to my wife, who knows about these things, they probably “huddle and talk tactics”.

Out of a four hour game the actual time spent ‘in action’ is probably less than twenty minutes, so two hours of tactic talking in between the ‘action’ seems somewhat excessive in the circumstances. Not so much a game as a board meeting.

After three hours, or so, I was getting a bit lonely in my den so wandered into the living room to inquire after the score. Apparently, it was very exciting as the ‘Packers’ were in the lead and it was the last quarter, with under ten minutes to go.

I decided I could probably suffer ten minutes of lumbering Michelin men so settled down on the couch. Half an hour later, I was becoming more and more frustrated as the game kept interrupting the advertising, which was infinitely more interesting than the sport.

I began to mentally record the number of advertisers who relied on violence to get their products across. Soon, I wished I hadn’t bothered. I’m usually adept at mental arithmetic, but the numbers became too great.

By the end, while everyone else was jumping up and down celebrating the Packers’ triumph, I was still wondering what on earth America was inflicting on its kids, most of whom would have been up watching the great game.

And, finally, who was that God-awful yodeler who murdered the ‘Star-Spangled Banner’? Never mind that she fluffed the words, it would have been adequate had she sung in tune.

Why didn’t they employ a professional?

Filed under: Not-so-Super Bowl

Posted under Sparrow Chat

The previous post, “Too Politically Correct For Our Own Good”, detailed absurd situations that form part of what is ludicrously termed by society today, ‘political correctness’.

The term was, no doubt, originally coined for the well-meaning purpose of curtailing the verbal persecution of certain minority groups, but like most societal trends the pendulum has now swung so far in the other direction that literary and artistic work is being attacked, modified, or persecuted, if it fails to conform to the self-imposed restrictions of the nameless, faceless, individuals responsible for determining this type of censure.

Often, a decision on political correctness is left to the not-so-tender mercy of some obscure committee. Nowhere is the puffed-up ego more at home than among its fellows at the committee room table. Here, it can preen and admire it’s self-importance, while supported and inflated by those around it.

We hardly need reminding of the education committee that banned a school nativity play at the last moment because one Muslim (Jewish, Hindu?) parent complained; or, the manhole covers renamed ‘Personnel Access Units’ by certain British local authority committees because it ‘might be deemed sexist’.

Such nonsense is rife among education departments; remember when classrooms had blackboards? That was before they were renamed ‘chalk’-boards. Schools now have their students decorate the ‘holiday tree’, just in case the word ‘Christmas’ might offend a non-Christian, or an atheist like me. Needless to say, it doesn’t. I love Christmas. What is offensive to me are these idiotic puffed up egos who believe they have the right to determine how I should think and speak.

When I was growing up, one of my musical heroes was Mark Knopfler, of the rock band, Dire Straits. He’s 61 now, but still making and writing music. His musical scores include Metroland, Local Hero, Cal, Last Exit to Brooklyn, Wag the Dog, and The Princess Bride, as well as numerous songs and discs, including the legendary CD, “Brothers-in-Arms”, which sold thirty million copies.

One of the tracks from that disc was, “Money For Nothing”. It details the opinions of a delivery man watching pop stars perform on the MTV channel of TVs in a store window. In the fourth verse of the song, our delivery man sings:

The little faggot with the earring and the makeup
Yeah buddy, that’s his own hair
That little faggot got his own jet airplane
That little faggot he’s a millionaire

The song was written in the early 1980s and, as previously stated, sold over thirty million copies. Rolling Stone magazine rated it as the 94th greatest guitar song of all time. Yet, only last month, after one lone caller from Newfoundland contacted the Canadian Broadcast Standards Council (read ‘committee’) and complained the word ‘faggot’ was a slur on gay people, the CBSC banned the song from all private radio stations in Canada.^[1]

The Canadian Broadcast Standards Council (read ‘committee’) has nothing to do with the Canadian government. It’s a private organization, against which there is no redress, and no doubt staffed by puffed-up little egos all desperate to out-inflate the other.

Such manipulation of artwork should be made illegal. In this instance, Knopfler took a level-headed view of the situation and has substituted another word in place of ‘faggot’ when performing the song of late.

If he were around today, I wonder if Mark Twain would be so accepting of the abuse imposed on one of his greatest works by the academic ego of Alan Gribben?

Gribben has taken it upon himself to erase 219 references to the word, ‘nigger’, from the book, Huckleberry Finn, and replace them with, ‘slave’. The ‘new’ version is due to be published this month.

I can only agree heartily with Jamelle Bouie, a black writer for Atlantic magazine, who recently wrote of this abomination:

…..erasing “nigger” from Huckleberry Finn—or ignoring our failures—doesn’t change anything. It doesn’t provide racial enlightenment, or justice, and it won’t shield anyone from the legacy of slavery and racial discrimination. All it does is feed the American aversion to history and reflection. Which is a shame. If there’s anything great about this country, it’s in our ability to account for and overcome our mistakes. Peddling whitewashed ignorance diminishes America as much as it does our intellect.^[2]

While the ego can make us believe we know better than anyone else, it doesn’t force us to do so. We can control our ego, but only if we ensure it remains deflated and in its place. The mind is a vastly superior machine to the ego. It has the ability to think things through, overcome prejudice, and realize that ‘political correctness’ is nothing more than the application of wallpaper to a defective building, in the vain hope it won’t fall down.

^{[1] “CANADIAN BROADCAST STANDARDS COUNCIL re the song “Money for Nothing” by Dire Straits CBSC, October 14th 2010}

^{[2] “Taking the History Out of ‘Huck Finn’” The Atlantic, January 4th 2011}

Filed under: Hyperinflation

Posted under Sparrow Chat