I Aten't Dead

It's been too long. Too long since I wrote something new on here. But fear not, gentle reader, for the blog is not dead yet, and neither am I.

I've had a week off work but it has passed in the blink of an eye and I face a few short hours of fitful sleep before the rigmarole of modern life hits me like a freight train once again. In case you haven't guessed, this development doesn't thrill me, but there you go. That's how it is.

With November coming round, my thoughts turn once again to Nanowrimo and the challenge of forcing myself through 50,000 words in 30 days with the aim of doing most of the legwork in completing a debut novel. I've eschewed my traditional sci-fi standard position by going for something with a heavy literary foundation - but it is also something relatively controversial and comes with a separate topic that I'd like to discuss in the next few days. Hopefully I'll get to it before November begins, because the chances of me doing anything for the blog at all over November are remote to say the least.

I'm feeling a little cut-off at the moment - I am not doing enough for financial and personal reasons to keep my mind stimulated and I am not seeing enough of my friends and loved ones to feel alright about that. But I guess I'll have time to worry about that in December!

I've started playing Red Dead Redemption. I love it, espcially just getting to wander the desert with a six shooter in the moonlight. I always wanted to be a cowboy.

I have also bred my cherry barbs, which is of minimal interest to the world at large but a great personal victory for me. I'll hopefully get round to posting something about how I did it soon, as even Google seems to be woefully devoid of information about how to do this successfully.

My Mule Don't Like You Laughing...

As a boy grows into a man, there comes a time when he may look back upon the things he encountered in his childhood and reflect with sadness that maybe they weren't actually as great as he remembered. Morph, Johnny Ball, Knightmare...all staples of my childhood that when I look back on them now, turn out to be more than just a little bit naff.

But some things remain, because some heroes have to endure, rather than fading away and dying. And nothing is so indelibly burned onto my memory than my first true hero, who I discovered when I sat next to my father on our dilapidated sofa, and watched Clint Eastwood in the spaghetti western Dollar Trilogy.

What epic films these are. Can there be any villain more twisted than the evil Indio, his maniacal laughter ringing in our furious ears as he rapes Mortimer's sister and shoots her husband? Can there be anyone more shrewd than Eastwood's Man With No Name, playing the Rojos and the Baxters against one another in the cemetery before finally killing Ramon Rojo in the final shootout on Main Street? My childhood memories are full of Ennio Morricone's haunting musical scores, which drum up to an epic climax when a growling Eastwood demands that his opponent shoot for the heart.

Heroes stay with you, no matter how old you become. The music still plays, the shots ring out exactly on cue. The Man With No Name walks out onto Main Street and tells the undertaker to reserve three coffins, before single-handedly taking down a gang sent to kill him. He might just have been the first great action hero.

So what happened? I mean really, what happened? I've been trying to avoid as much coverage as possible of the Republican National Convention in the US, which seems to me to be a vicious collective of deceitful, religiously-motivated racist bigots. But self-defeating arguments about running the free world aside, why is an American national treasure like Clint Eastwood rolled out at the Republican National Convention to bumble his way through an incoherent speech that ends with him simulating a conversation with Barack Obama by talking to an empty chair?

The Twitterati and the liberal media have gone to town, with much being made of how the aging actor upstaged presidential candidate Mitt Romney with his bizarre behaviour. There are parodies, photo mashups and 'LOL's aplenty. But as much as I want Obama to win the election, I can't enjoy this moment.

You, moustachioed teenage photoshoppers...do you even know who you're mocking? How many bounties did he collect? How many evil men did he kill? You couldn't throw aside a poncho with one tenth of this man's casual disdain. And most of all, you couldn't deliver the line 'My mule don't like you laughing' without reducing an entire cinema audience to comedy tears.

Let's do a deal, Clint. Stop talking about politics now, while you're still slightly ahead of the game. You might be an old man, you might be as mad as a march hare. But when it comes to a Mexican standoff, no man alive is your equal.

A Nation Enthused, A Pussy Riot and A Violent Slaughter

As I sit here writing my first blog entry for weeks, the world's Paralympians are smiling and waving to the assembled media in London. The Paralympics is a wonderful addendum to a massively successful summer of British sport, although there is less of the glitz that was seen in the opening ceremony of the Olympics proper a few weeks ago. There's a different mood to these games, one less to do with political arguments about playing fields, sport funding and infrastructure investment than it is to do with unique individuals who have overcome tremendous struggles simply to be here at all.

Of course, the Olympics were a complete success - though no thanks to the sponsors, or to the private companies who continue to fleece the taxpayer in the name of enterprise. Team GB surpassed all expectations, nailing down gold after gold. The Tories antipathy to the modern NHS was exposed by Danny Boyle's deviously clever opening ceremony, which won over journalists worldwide with its simple, understated charm. It turns out that Britain still does a few things well - and it's cheering to think that the army, the volunteers and the athletes all played a part in something that has been central to restoring the national pride.

There has been other news too. In Russia, the decision to imprison anti-Putin musicians Pussy Riot has been condemned worldwide but most curiously by the US, whose administration see no hypocrisy even though they have now kept Bradley Manning, the soldier suspected of releasing information to Wikileaks, in custody for over 800 days without trial. The decision by Ecuador to offer political asylum to Julian Assange is now unavoidably tied into the rape accusations from Sweden that he will not be able to answer without risking extradition to the US. These incidents, coupled with the British establishment's response to the peaceful Occupy movement in the UK, continue to raise questions about freedom of speech and human rights advocacy in the West.

In perhaps the most appalling news of the summer, a number of South African miners have been shot dead in a pay dispute at a Lonmin mine in Marikana. The events have been condemned by unions worldwide.

The strike began on August 10, with ten deaths, including police officers and mine security staff, reported within days. On August 16, following fruitless attempts to control the crowd with tear gas, barbed wire and water canons, police hit back in a three-minute live fire barrage that constituted the deadliest force used since the end of apartheid in 1994.

34 men died in that murderous barrage, and the police's use of deadly force is now being questioned as it has emerged that many of the miners may have been shot in the back while facing away from police. The time has come for a full public investigation into the events that transpired at the protest, and all sides to immediately move back to negotiation to resolve the dispute. If necessary, the government needs to become involved and mediate - there can be no acceptance of violence from either side to resolve a pay dispute. If it subsequently transpires that the police acted without due cause, murder charges should be brought against those responsible.

The dispute raises urgent questions about how to address inequality in the Rainbow Nation, questions that will also be asked in other countries as the economic fallout of the worldwide banking crisis continues to spread.

Why I Have Concerns About Military Schools

I must admit feeling just a little bit uneasy hearing Labour's Shadow Education Secretary Stephen Twigg proposing in the Telegraph yesterday that the nation's children would benefit from a military ethos delivered by dedicated 'Service Schools'.

Twigg's initial point, where he claims that our military forces are central to our national character as well as our national security may be true but seems to me to be something of a moot point. Just because an institution forms part of a concept as undefinable as 'national character' isn't a justification for giving them a central role in education provision. Our NHS is at least as big a part of the British psyche as our army, but no-one is suggesting that doctors should be teaching in schools.

It can be safely assumed that only those individuals from a military background with teaching qualifications and experience would reasonably be suited to teaching youngsters, and comments from individuals on the Telegraph comments page attribute some credence to the notion that those teachers from a military background are the best at enforcing discipline in the classroom. Is the issue then simply that teachers could benefit from learning to impose that discipline? It is also a different matter imposing discipline on mouthy teenagers than on an army corps, where offending soldiers can face fatigues, loss of pay and other sanctions which are not an option in the classroom.

Twigg quotes 'responsibility, comradeship and a sense of hard work' as just some of the virtues that a military influence could have on schools. However, he never approaches the question of whether a veteran who has taken lives on a battlefield is the best example for children in a civilised society.

Twigg also makes no mention that those with a military background are more prone to aggression, depression and other mental illnesses than the general population. Of course, we would like to think that that no-one suffering from a life-impacting mental condition would find themselves teaching children. However, we must surely ask what it is about the culture of an organisation that results in a high incidence of mental illness, and whether imposing such a culture on an establishment is likely to be suitable for all children, especially given that a military-inspired culture is likely to be one where reasonable questioning of authority and challenging of accepted notions is actively discouraged.

The thing that causes me the greatest concern is the further encroachment of military influence on impressionable minds. What seems initially to be a plan to make use of those servicemen that are being rejected so comprehensively by our current government cannot be allowed to lead to people developing a rose-tinted viewpoint on the role of armed forces in society. One only has to look at a nation such as Pakistan to see how a ruling military party has resulted in economic and social stagnation, Burma to see how it has led to gross human rights abuses and international isolation, or the US, where militarism has invaded civil society to the point that it has created an inflated sense of relative value amongst the population that has resulted in tragically nonsensical foreign policy.

Perhaps the nub of the argument in favour of such 'Service Schools' is that offering the option of an educational system with an emphasis on discipline and comradeship to those for whom other systems have failed can only be beneficial. Whether this is necessary in a society where other options, such as the cadet movement, already exist remains open to debate. Given that children who are let down by conventional education will live almost exclusively in the poorest areas, the imposition of military education asks civil society uncomfortable questions. After all: would those in favour of such schools send their own children there?

Norfolk Reconsiders Tobacco Investment

It was widely reported in the media earlier this week that a number of local authorities in the Eastern Region had invested large amounts from their pension funds in international tobacco firms such as Philip Morris.

The BBC have since reported that Norfolk County Council are thought to be reconsidering the investment. The council were quick to point out that while they administer the fund, it is on behalf of 130 separate employers. The council does not invest in tobacco itself.

It is to the council's credit that they are willing to reconsider their position with regard to this investment. It is something of a difficult position for those on the pension committee, who are bound to deliver the best possible returns for those who will benefit from the fund. There is also the consideration that if increased employer contributions are required to boost the fund, this could have a direct impact upon council tax rates in Norfolk.

Other contentious investments such as arms and fast food companies have been the subject of investment scrutiny in the past, but tobacco investment is an especially contentious investment for Norfolk at this time as in 2013, local councils will acquire primary responsibility for local tobacco-related public health policy.

It is to be hoped that a more ethical alternative that still delivers value for pension fund stakeholders and Norfolk residents will soon become available.