This is a test post to ascertain if certain scum who take a sick pleasure in trying to destroy or deface the work of others are still active on feed readers such as NetVibes and Feedly. The Sparrow Chat website is unaffected, but if you use a feed reader for the latest post you’ll have noticed spam inserted within the post. Please use the website to avoid this petty annoyance, until matters are set to rights.
Why Fracking And Clorox Are ‘Making A Difference’
Sometimes there just seems nothing worth writing about. Oh, sure, hell an’ all is going on, but the internet is awash with the stuff and what’s the point of one more blogger weighing in on dross that’s done to death, anyway?
Then, on the other hand, there’s too darn much to write about. Everyone knows that blog readers lose interest after half a page (unless you can throw in a juicy sex scandal or a couple of pornographic photos, and Sparrow Chat’s not really into that stuff) so a long catalogue of disaster isn’t going to curry too many votes in the ‘Blogger of the Decade’ award.
And then, NBC chose to waste much of their damn half hour of evening “news” coverage running an infomercial for fracking, involving an overweight oil billionaire from Oklahoma interviewed by an unsurprisingly stupid reporter asking the most inane questions of Mister Oil Barrel, while every so often stooping to scoop up the hundred dollar bills that fell from Mister Oil Barrel’s eyes each time he blinked.
According to Mister Oil Barrel, fracking was the best thing that ever happened to America (for ‘America’ read, ‘Mister Oil Barrel’) and there was more oil under the US than in the whole of Saudi Arabia.
“Why,” he cried, “we can leave the Middle East to its own devices. We don’t need ’em anymore!”
Quite right, Mister Oil Barrel, you don’t need them anymore. Now, you can concentrate on ruining the lives of your fellow countrymen for a change.
Of course, Mister Oil Barrel makes much of the jobs he brings to his fellow citizens. Chickasha, Oklahoma, is now a booming oil town with jobs to spare. No-one mentions it’s just one small US town out of thousands. Many of which are rapidly dying.
But that’s what NBC News is all about. While America is still reeling from the ‘bank-ruptcy’ of 2008, they’ll always find a good citizen, somewhere, “Making a Difference”. It’s the one ‘hero’ that matters to NBC. Sod the other 299,999,999 who also happen to live here.
Sadly, no-one’s making a difference in Detroit, Michigan. This week we learn that city workers, including firefighters, police, and other civil employees will lose most of their pensions as the city filed for bankruptcy. The media made sympathetic noises, but not one anchor paused to remind us that the pension money that’s mysteriously disappeared from the city’s coffers belonged to those employees – had been paid in by them throughout their working lives. Not one bothered to ask the simple question: “Where’s it gone?”
I’d like to ask another question: “Why aren’t the city’s lamp posts festooned with the swinging corpses of those responsible? Why is America – this supposedly gun-toting, macho, no-nonsense, citizenry – so passive when blatantly robbed and plundered by those they trusted to govern them? In most countries of the world the blood would be running down the streets by now.
Still, maybe Mister Oil Barrel will find black gold under the Penobscot Building and bring the city back to life. The methane released by fracking can make spectacular fiery fountains. Just the job for a Thanksgiving Party, or perhaps a summer barbecue.
To close, I’d like to ask for a moment’s silence for “Burt’s Bees”. For those not familiar, Burt’s Bees is was a manufacturer of some of the nice things in life: natural shampoos, body lotions, soaps, and other little luxuries one could be sure were formulated not to damage us, or our environment.
I’ve used their toothpaste for years. This week I ran out and tried to order more, only to discover it’s no longer available. Oh, there are a few sharks on Amazon and eBay offering it at $75 a tube (while stocks last!) but Burt’s Bees Natural Multicare Fluoride Toothpaste is no more.
Why? Because in 2007 Burt’s Bees was bought out for $925 million – in cash – by CLOROX! Clorox has decided, like all multinational corporations, that profits are all that matter, and their toothpaste just doesn’t cut it.
Clorox manufactures some of the most environmentally un-friendly products in the market place, so users of Burt’s Bees body lotions may like to think twice before rubbing it into their pores, or, at least, check out the ingredients on the label first.
Meanwhile, I’m off to “Tom’s of Maine” for my next tube of toothpaste. After I’ve made sure they’ve not been bought out by Chevron, Exxon, or British Petroleum, of course.
Lessons In Hypocrisy By Her Majesty’s Government
There’s a time for debate. There’s a time for well-researched, deliberate, reflection. There’s a time for pure, unadulterated anger. Today is undoubtedly a time for the latter.
The spotlight is not on the US, but across the Atlantic. Yet again that shower of pompous, wealth-laden, arseholes, known collectively as “Her Britannic Majesty’s government”, are displaying unadulterated arrogance by attempting to throw blame onto NHS workers already victimized by government mismanagement, while continuing to line their fat wallets with corporate cash, and systematically drain the National Health Service of its last vestiges of efficiency.
Today, it was announced, staff members of the NHS (read: doctors and nurses) will be held criminally accountable for any wilful neglect of patients. Big Chief of the stuffed shirts comprising this apology for a government, David Cameron, said:
…health workers who mistreated and abused patients would face “the full force of the law” in a package of measures…[1]
No doubt, it will be left to government lawyers to determine whether any neglect is ‘wilful’, or simply the result of an over-stressed doctor clocking up his 100th hour on duty that week.
Having decimated the NHS, systematically reduced its funding to a point where only skeleton staffing numbers can exist, all for the sole purpose of providing the excuse necessary to hand the whole service over to corporate enterprise, Cameron and cronies are now reduced to creating a climate of fear among NHS staff, who are already struggling to cope, thanks to willful mismanagement by the very people now imposing fear of imprisonment, for probably no more than human failing due to work related stress.
It was Winston Churchill who said, “Give us the tools and we’ll finish the job.”
Within the NHS that could be re-phrased, “Give us the staff and we’ll be able to do the job.”
Cameron and Co have no idea what’s involved in the proper functioning of a National Health Service. Why should they? They’ve never used it. They pay for private medical care. All they’re interested in is balancing the books. And the only way they know to do that is by cutting back on staff and salaries. It’s the same with the economy. It’s in a mess, let the poor people pay to get us out of it.
Perhaps it’s time a law was enacted making wilful neglect of the economy a criminal offence, or the wilful neglect of public services. Maybe then Cameron and Co would make the effort to govern Britain more responsibly. If only they knew how.
Meanwhile, still desperately endeavoring to make his name as an international leader, David Cameron has traveled to Sri Lanka in an attempt to intimidate President Mahinda Rajapaksa into setting up an independent enquiry into alleged human rights abuses against Tamils since the end of the war in 2009[2].
‘Either do that, or a UN Human Rights Council enquiry will,’ threatened Cameron.
President Rajapaksa’s response was, “Piss off! People in glass houses shouldn’t throw stones.”
He has a point. How about human rights abuses in Iraq, Mister Cameron – just for starters? And we’ll promise not to mention Northern Ireland (we’d hate to cast aspersions on your predecessor, Margaret Thatcher[3]), or, of course, those old colonial days of the Raj, when Sri Lanka was still known as Ceylon.
President Mahinda Rajapaksa is no saint. It’s likely he, and his relatives, were responsible for many of the human rights abuses suffered by Tamils of late. He’s not a nice man.
But then, it takes one hypocrite to know another.
[1] “Doctors and nurses may face jail for neglect” BBC, November 16th 2013
[2] “Sri Lanka President Rajapaksa defiant on rights row” BBC, November 16th 2013