Well once again I have not been in touch for a while Blogface and for that I apologise.

Since we last spoke, Obama has been made president-elect which is great news. He has got a lot of shit to sort out for America so we'll see how he does next year. Something tells me that people/the media will get on his back if he doesn't miraculously sort things out straight away; it will be a slow and steady process.

Over the last few months, I have learnt about some extremely inspirational people; people I would call heroes. I've written a tiny bit about them below:

Paul Rusesabagina
You may have seen Hotel Rwanda and heard his story. I read his story of events on holiday in his book and he really is a selfless man. He saved over a 1000 innocent civilians during the Rwandian civil war by hiding them in his hotel. During this time he could have easily left (the UN offered to take him) but he stayed to save the lives of the civilians. The Hutus regularly came to murder the occupants but Paul kept his nerve and kept them away with words (and bribes!) only. I see him as a hero because he was so altruistic throughout the affair and didn't just crumble when so many others would have.

Joe Simpson
Born and bred a Sheffielder, Joe Simpson climbed Siula Grande in Peru in the 80s. Near the top he broke a leg. His fellow climber presumed him dead and climbed back down. Joe spent three and a half days hauling himself back down the mountain in immense pain over boulders and glaciers (unroped). He recounts the story in the documentary film ‘Touching the void’ and I find it amazing how, near death, he pushed himself in an effort to survive. A lot of people feel that anyone would do the same in that situation but personally I don’t think I’d have the will power to see myself through such pain and such a challenge.

Christopher Johnson McCandless
Another film ‘Into the wild’ brought this man to my attention. Chris aced his way through school and was all set to go off to Harvard. Instead, he sent all his savings ($24k) to Unicef and decided to hike into Alaskan wilderness to live in isolation from the modern world. It is incredibly inspiring to see someone so intelligent and settled in the “normal” life decide to completely rip up the rule book and live his life exactly how he wishes. You have to be emotionally strong to just give up friends/family/love/etc. Some may think he is a little selfish; he nerve contacted his family – but what an extraordinary journey for him to go on. It was like the biggest experiment that he could perform on himself and, although he died tragically from starvation, he lived his life to the absolute full and allowed him to do things that no one would even get close to.

Bring on the credit crunch you fucking cunts

This is what is written in big blue letters on the main doors that go into our office building at work. They have covered it up with posters but as it is a glass door, you can see it through the other side.


Sorry blogface, I haven't tickled your canvas with my lettering in a short while. Since we last spoke I have been to Barbados which was absolutely amazing. Towards the end of most holidays I have been on, I've almost been looking forward to coming home. This time though, I could stayed there; lived there perhaps. It is such a beautiful country with happy and polite people at every turn.


This time next week we will know who the president is. I really hope it is Obama - I know everyone is saying this but ignoring the personalities and personas of each candidate and reading policies alone, Obama comes out on top for me. His tax policy just makes sense to me - stop taxing low earners more, and if you earn over $250,000, you will be taxed more. America would only see real change if Obama was president as well, I get the feeling that McCain will just be more of the same for 4 years and that isn't good enough.


I don't have much else to write I'm afraid, I'm thinking of saving up for an accordion...

Robert Mugabe

Once a national hero, Mugabe is now a violent dictator of Zimbabwe. He has fucked up the economy to an extreme - inflation is at 100,000% and unemployment is 80%!! He has waged a violent war against white people and homosexuals (amongst others) and has now won his 6th term as president of Zimbabwe.

When the country went to election, Mugabe lost the public vote. Through violence and intimidation he won the vote by a landslide victory. The fact that there were many spoiled ballots speaks volumes..

"This Hitler has only one objective: justice for his people, sovereignty for his people, recognition of the independence of his people and their rights over their resources. If that is Hitler, then let me be a Hitler tenfold" - R. Mugabe

Shit.

So, Blogface, things seem to be a bit shit at the moment. Nate's dad is currently in hospital - I don't really like to ask for details or anything but as far as I'm aware, things are not good :( I really hope he has a speedy recovery and I know Nate would be absolutely gutted if anything bad was to happen. The above kind of makes the rest of this blog redundant but still is a bit shitty. Julie had a accident with a pole the other day and has scraped all down the side of her brand new car. Though only visual damage, Julie is understandably upset with it being brand new - add on that a couple of customer service/administrative errors with things she's bought lately and things don't seem to be going right. I've also been bedridden with illness - my throat feels like crap and everytime I cough my head pounds and throat tears (not literally, I hope). Cats for peru are recording in 2 weeks time and I'm a little paranoid about my voice so fingers crossed.

I just feel like I'm becoming more and more detached from the world around me. I hardly see my friends and 2 of my best, my housemates, well the majority of conversation is through written text whether it's email, phone or magnadoodle. I just like to keep myself to myself and I know Julie's the same. However wrong it may be, social circles are almost exclusively decided on whether you go out drinking or not. As I hardly ever do, I feel like I'm losing touch. It depresses me to feel like this, yet I hardly enjoy getting drunk anymore. I have no idea why this is, I don't think I can hack the amount of idiots that surround me (that's not my mates obviously, the general public) and everyone always talks about getting drunk, having to get drunk, the "damage drink must be doing to my liver" (said with ironic sarcasm) - I don't know, it's just not me. I'd much rather pile consoles and board games into the living room, have a few vodkas, listen to some good music and not be ill the next day =P If that makes me a sad loser, so be it..

Tom Waits

"My head is spinning round
My heart is in my shoes
I went and set the Thames on fire
Now I must come back down
She's laughing in her sleeve at me
I can feel it in my bones
But anywhere, I'm gonna
Lay my head, boys
I will call my home.
Well I see that the world is upside down
My pockets were filled up with gold.
Now the clouds have covered o'er
And the wind is blowing cold
I don't need anybody
Because I learned to be alone
And anywhere
I lay my head, boys
I will call my home."

What a complete legend this man is.  First time I heard him, I laughed.   I want to go back to 2005 Adam Follett and slap him in the face with a wet fish.

My Armchair Protest

So I've been loosely following the recent China and Tibet conflict.. The long and short of it is that Tibet has already seen itself as free from China but China disagree. In 1951, China sent troops into Tibet and after much bloodshed, a dodgy treaty was signed that made Tibet an official colony of China. Tibet now wants to be relgiously and politically independent of China. Although China has invested in it's Economy, China have famously mistreated the Tibetans compared to the rest of the country. From the 50's onwards, thousands of Tibetans have been murdered (they won't give them independence yet they'll willingly "kill their own"?) and Tibet have now tried to charge China with the crime of mass genocide. Kudos to Delai Lama for speaking out and letting the world know about what would otherwise be a very private and biased affair. The conflict has reached boiling point - journalists aren't allowed into Tibet, external information isn't allowed into China (websites such as youtube and news websites have been banned) and no information is allowed to leave - creating a totalitarianistic China.

The latest news is of people boycotting and protesting against the Beijing Olympics and one piece of news caught my eye. One particular protestor broke through police lines with a banner of the olympic rings replaced with handcuffs. This man was arrested and viciously beaten and is now apparently it prison for five years (where he reportedly is being tortured). He hasn't appealed to this as he believes the Chinese justice system is "corrupt" - like the rest of the country really. It's good to see Amnesty International are getting on the case though and are trying to stand up to these monsters that run China. We're living in a world that proclaims free speech for all yet everything is censored if it's not what "they" want to hear.

Media-ocrity

Blogface,

Sorry to go on about the media again but fuck me, it's a bloody joke. A couple of examples..

Firstly, watch this video: http://youtube.com/watch?v=ouKJixL--ms

So Fox news prides itself on its unbiased look on the presidential election yet they comment on the most fickle things and pick at Obama like he's a monster. Oh, what's that? They made a deal with the Democratic party to host their Primary Debate? Aha - that explains it. It's disgusting that they would use this kind of propaganda and then deny it - though on a much less scale, it's similar to Nazi propaganda! I thought the whole point of the media was to give a completely unbiased view of the world and if anything was one-sided, it was made clear that it was an opinion of the individual. Of course, this isn't a new thing - look at newspapers, papers like the Daily Mail - they don't give us the news, they give us their right-wing spin on it. The fact that the government can affect the media is terrifying though - they can basically edit the news to for their own gain and millions of people will watch it none the wiser. Pathetic.

I’ll now move on to Prince Harry. He’s been serving in Afghanistan for a few months under strict secrecy. A foreign newspaper got hold of this news and decided to run with it. What kinds of monsters print this information? It’s not like someone is secretly gay or something – this is secret as it puts many many lives at Risk. But no, the media doesn’t give a shit about morals, they just want to sell papers (as if they don’t sell enough already). Even on a smaller scale – oh, Britney Spears isn’t wearing pants again…why the fuck are you laying on the curb getting an upskirt shot? Anyone else would be arrested for this!!

Anyway, rant over, very glad it’s the weekend – going to see Crystal Teet Heart and Corleone tonight – should be a bloody ruddy good gig!