BLOG POSTS

As the eve of Thanksgiving is upon us, we pause a moment to think of the wealthy people of Mumbai, India, enduring the horrors of terrorism as armed thugs invade their five-star hotels and lay waste to the foie gras and Château de Chasselas.^[1]

How comforting for them, and for us, to be assured our respective American and British governments have lost no time in “condemning” the violence. British prime minister, Gordon Brown, was heard to suggest a rapid-reaction force be deployed, but an aide quickly whispered in his ear, reminding him we’d left the days of Empire behind, and the Indian armed forces must now deal with the problem unaided.

Meanwhile, at Bangkok Airport, protesters have prevented flights from leaving for the second day running.^[2] The BBC news this morning aired the grievances of one American gentleman, complaining to a female Thai airport official:

“Have you any idea of the tens of thousands of people whose plans you’ve screwed up? Tomorrow is a real big holiday in the States and many people will miss it because of some cockamamie little protest that you’ve got going.”

How terribly, terribly, American of him.

(Note: ‘cockamamie’: an Americanism – “ridiculous, pointless, or nonsensical”)

Meanwhile, at the US White House, George W Bush is much happier knowing the crimes and atrocities he’s been responsible for over the last eight years will not be coming home to roost. He can live out his retirement without fear of retribution. According to reports, he was today officially pardoned by a turkey.

A Happy Thanksgiving to all Sparrow Chat readers.

^{[1] “Mumbai rocked by deadly attacks” BBC, November 26th 2008}

^{[2] “Thai protesters shut down airport” BBC, November 26th 2008}

Filed under: What a wonderful world

If there’s one thing that could be relied on about Monty Python and its ilk, it was good, clean, honest-to-goodness, humor.

Where’s it all gone?

Television today provides the most appalling service of any industry in the history of mankind. It’s not just American television, though this nation leads the field in cheap, nasty, unrelentingly boring tat, peddled under the misnomer of “entertainment”.

If the British public are to be believed, their service has similarly descended into a pernicious pit of pigswill, spewing forth noxious odors from a veritable volcano of vomit labeled, “Reality TV”.

Where once the BBC could be relied on for meticulous period dramas and high quality variety entertainment, by comparison, tonight’s peak-hour line-up now consists of ‘on-couch’ chats with unknown ‘celebrities’; the inevitable soap opera; a grindingly boring sports quiz, and an overly long-running series called “Spooks”, in which “a teenage boy stumbles upon a government conspiracy and is absorbed into the world of MI5”.

Needless to say, there are other British channels. They serve up cold left overs from ABC, FOX, Hallmark, or any one of a thousand other US cable outlets.

Where have all the “Monty Pythons” gone?

No, I don’t mean the plethora of perpetual repeats of that iconic, but grossly overexposed series from the early 1970’s. Where are all the similarly titillating, charming, side-busting, modern day equivalents?

The simple answer is: there aren’t any. Comedy is dead. It’s been replaced.

What’s it been replaced by? I’ll tell you – in one word:

FUCK!”

That’s what makes people laugh these days. Just one little word, but it’ll set the theater on fire when uttered by Lewis Black, Jon Stewart, or any number of other would be Pythonesque students. Who needs jokes when one four letter word, uttered in the right way, will get you all the laughs you could wish for?

The ‘piece de resistance’ of TV channels dedicated to providing an audience with enough tat to decorate the walls of the local Wal-Mart, has to be that great ‘hands-across-the-ocean’, trans-Atlantic bastion of all things British, BBC America.

Designed to bamboozle the American viewer into believing the average Brit lives solely to raid attics in search of valuable antiques; is ready and willing to switch from a diet of burger and chips to three lettuce leaves a week if only he can go on television to do it, or is happiest when divulging the disgustingly filthy state of his post-war semi-detached to an international audience, this television station has survived for years by repeatedly repeating repeats of repeats of repeats of repeats until eventually the video becomes too grainy to be viewed ever again.

For an occasional break from the domestic grunge of the average English family, BBC America will allow us a glimpse into the artistic talents of top chef, Gordon Ramsey, as he goes about his business of serving unsuspecting viewers with generous helpings – of the word, “FUCK”, while castigating his unfortunate kitchen staff in a manner scarcely tolerated by lowly Victorian scullery maids, who definitely weren’t exposing themselves to ridicule on international television.

Sadly, those glorious days when the television medium was a crucible of talent, birthing young starlets into a genteel world of Bronte, Austen, and the Oxford Footlights Revue, have long since vanished into obscurity.

No more will new Monty Pythons grace our LCD or LED screens – their demise as assured as the very cathode ray tubes that once glowed with the cutting edge humor of Palin, Jones, Chapman, Idle, Cleese, and Gilliam. A humor certainly not reliant on four letter expletives for effect.

In fact, it can be reliably stated that the word, “FUCK”, was never once used by the Monty Python team on British television.

What?……….. okay…….are you sure?   Damn!

Well…… almost hardly ever……

Filed under: Something completely different

Today, the BBC asked the question: has the world lost faith in the USA?^[1]

Surely, before asking that question, one or two others should be considered, like: has the world ever had any faith in the USA; is the world seriously concerned about the USA; or, is it all just a load of political guff designed to consolidate corporate power both inside and outside the USA?

The BBC is basing its question around the latest report from the US National Intelligence Council, a body composed of representatives from US intelligence agencies, charged with crystal-ball gazing in an attempt to come up with some notion of what the future might hold for the world at large, and America, in particular.^[2]

Apparently, the BBC is keen to emulate the CIA, or perhaps it’s just been watching too many Bond movies, but to access the particular webpage, I had to invent secret questions, passwords, and a whole host of other security items, before realizing this was just to allow me to comment.

Note: I would never consider commenting on anything the BBC has to offer. Mainly because three and a half million seriously deranged headcases, in desperate need of frontal lobotomies, have got there before me. Like, for example, “Out of Touch” from the EU:

maybe the laid back texan just wants to live in peace and be in 22nd position of military power as in 1901. the world needs leadership by western culture developed in europe … intelligent and cultural….they probably have the balance that indians chinese and muslims will respect… europe should abosorbe itself with pride and be inteligent and dutiful…. ameriaca does not want to lead…laid back texan wants to smoke…and the english should speak spanish and italian and french

I’m not totally sure what the “laid back Texan” will be smoking, but “Out of touch” from the EU is obviously an expert, and it sure sounds too good to miss.

Then, of course, there is always the super-nationalist, “American Voice” from San Francisco, who’s not going to let anyone criticize his country:

Even if the US domination goes down by a factor of 20, still US will be 20 times more powerful than the closest competitor…… So don’t count US out !!!

No, don’t dare count the US out, even if it has been comatose on the mat for twenty minutes and shows no sign of ever regaining consciousness.

Why, I wonder, does that last sentence remind me of ex-Israeli prime minister Arial Sharon?

Question: what ever did happen to him?

Answer: he’s still snoring profusely on some hospital gurney in Tel Aviv, oblivious to all but the fact that no-one, but no-one, is ever going to have the temerity to permanently turn him off.

I digress.

The National Intelligence Council today pronounced: “US economic, military and political dominance is likely to decline over the next two decades.” China and India will grow more powerful. The US dollar will lose its status as the world’s major currency, and an increasing scarcity of food and water will fuel conflicts.

While all the above is hardly arguable – unless you happen to be “American Voice” from San Francisco – the report also assumes that a world with more power centers will be less stable than when the planet had only one.

Given that, in the last eight years, George W Bush as managed to ruin the global economy, propagate military mayhem throughout the Middle East, instigate torture and imprisonment without trial as normal procedures, and alienate every foreign power on the planet, that statement may appear a trifle far-fetched. Unfortunately, given that the National Intelligence Council is a US institution, and therefore bound towards bias, and bearing in mind that only four years ago it categorically stated the US was on the up and up and would remain a strong and indomitable superpower ad infinitum, one must regrettably take its utterances with the proverbial pinch or two of sodium chloride.

Let’s not forget, the US intelligence services charged with concocting this report were also responsible for providing the sure-fire certainty that Saddam Hussein had weapons of mass destruction stashed away all over Iraq, and – we don’t want the smoking gun to become a mushroom cloud, now do we?

Still, according to Marti, another BBC commentator, we’ll all be sorry:

As an American I would LOVE to see us lose our dominance:
Dominance in Foreign Aid to an ungrateful world
Dominance in Humanitarian efforts that are unappreciated
Dominance in troops defending YOUR countries

I say let someone else have dominance for a bit. Keep American resources in America for 10 years and you’ll have the whole world begging for us to accept the Crown. (What’s left of the world, that is.)

Oh, Marti, you’ve been watching that Fox News again.

Marti was, of course, from – TEXAS.

Where else?

^{[1] “Who will be the next superpower?” BBC “Have your say”, November 21st 2008}

^{[2] “Global Trends 2025: A Transformed World” an incredibly boring, rather egocentric, 120-page report by the NIC, in pdf format}

Filed under: Intelligence – or, lack of it