GENERALISING

Six published remarks by society's “thinkers” brought me to the brink of despair this week, spoken as they were as revelations: The first by a “Thinking Youth”” defies answer

“THERE IS NOTHING WORSE ThAN OLD PEOPLE TELLING YOUNG PEOPLE WHAT TO DO”

!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

On Question Time Lord Hattersley, a newspaper columnist defended the right of columnists to say what they liked

“ A COLUMNIST SHOULD HAVE THE RIGHT TO BE OFFENSIVE”

Ten years ago Hattersley went to enormous lengths to get me sacked from the Daily Post after I said it was odd the way committed socialists like him angled for peerages. He was only placated by payment of heavy damages
Amanda Ross who is to produce a new book programme that can make best sellers out of bus tickets and, in consequence, is worshipped as a God by publishers said on R4


“NO-ONE READS A BOOK TWICE. I NEVER DO”

Confirming my view that Napoleon was quite right when he shot a publisher and might with advantage loosed of a barrel at reviewers. Fittingly the publisher he outstretched was called Palme

A Report on Rape made an astonishing concession ;

“A GIRL WHO GETS INTO BED WITH A MAN BEARS SOME RESPONSIBILITY FOR THE ENSUING RAPE.”

I would find it difficult to suggest an initiative which gave a clearer indication of consent.

How well the Children's Minister deserves his surname, His Department has concluded

“MIDDLE CLASS CHILDREN ARE BRIGHTER THAN THE CHILDREN OF THE POOR WHOSE PARENTS DON'T READ TO THEM.”

There are two reasons the poor don't read to their children. The first is that many of the poor are ill educated and read with difficulty, and an increasing number cannot read at all. The second is a reason I know about because I have been poor. Poverty is a full-time job. It fills your mind to the exclusion of everything else. It uncivilises.”


And finally

GENERALS HAVE ADMITTED THERE HAVE BEEN MORE BOOBY TRAPS THAN THEY EXPECTED WHEN THEY ANNOUNCED, LIKE MEDIEVAL HERALDS, THEIR INTENTION TO DO BATTLE.

For the first time I realised why such traps are designated “booby”.

My friend Brian Hitchen, former paratrooper, columnist and editor of national newspapers, puts it better than I could in an email I make no apology for quoting:

“Now I know where the clowns went when the famous circuses were disbanded. They joined the Army, and became Generals in Afghanistan.
Do these people know anything about guerilla warfare? Apparently not.
They have mass meetings with the locals, and tell them that in 48 hours they are going to flood the place with troops, and drive the Taleban out, for ever.
Tell me about it!
They even admitted that the Taleban could have mingled with the crowds, and be listening to the message. Given 48 hours notice, they mined the roads, and booby-trapped the villages. And then, like smoke, disappeared into the mountains. So when our guys flooded into Helmand Province, there wasn't a Taleban in sight. Only a little gunfire, coming from a long way away. Just enough to lure our guys onto the mines.”

I might add to that a personal observation; The generals were more passionate in their regret that, despite their best efforts, an Afghan family had been wiped out than they were in announcing that their policies would mean more allied troops would die.

CHOOSE YOUR ENEMIES


I wonder how our government picks its arch-enemies. Mugabe has burnt down the offices
of the only non government owned newspaper in Harare. Replaced senior
members of the judiciary when ever they had the courage to declare his
governments worst excesses illegal. Encouraged the killing of thirty
Opposition Party supporters in one year . Reduced the most
prosperous country in Central Africa to an economic basket case and ,
was directly responsible for the slaughter of an estimated thirty thousand
men women and children. It is only an estimate of course since nobody is
quite sure how many bodies, some reputedly still alive, were hurled down
disused mine shafts by the North Korean trained K5 Battalion (A sort black
Zimbabwean equivalent to the Gestapo) Some put the figure as low as six
thousand others as high as sixty thousand. A mere thirty thousand would
seem a reasonable figure. Their crime incidentally was that they were
Matebele,. an offshoot of the South African Zulu who arrived with their Chief
Dingaan and conquered the native Shona before the advent of the white man. Mugabe belongs to a tribe who are an offshoot of the Shona people and obviously has a long memory
The Matebele have always opposed him politically
Those are the crimes we have forgotten. We need no reminder of his present evildoings.
This man makes the crimes of Saddam and the Taleban look like the peccadilloes of an over zealous missionary. Yet he has been rewarded with millions of pounds of the British taxpayers money while pursuing a policy of murder , intimidation,despotism and
general thuggery continuously during the past thirty odd years.

TWA DUGS

There is a poem I send to bereaved friends which brings them, they tell me, some comfort. These days I seem to be posting it out every other day and I suppose it won't be long before the people I love will read it.

I am sorry for them, of course, but as an aspiring Buddhist I know that birth and death are illusions. So far in life the only time I can remember crying was when I decided I was too poor to keep Amy and Minnie, my bloodhounds, and passed them on to a richer home with a member of Tony Blair's staff. Within two months, Amy had died. I believe of a broken heart. It certainly broke mine. Nine years later I still find writing about it difficult.

I remind myself of the story of a lecturer who filled a jar with rocks. His students agreed it was full. He poured pebbles into the jar and they filled the spaces between the rocks. The students again agreed the jar was full. The lecturer then poured sand into the jar and it filled every space.

“Now,” he said,” this jar is your life. The rocks are the important things in your life. They are your family, your spouse, your health, your children. If everything else was poured away and only they remained, your life would still be full. The pebbles are the other things that matter in your life. Your house, your job, your car. The sand is everything else, the small stuff. If you put the sand in first, there is no room for the pebbles or the rocks. The same goes for your life. If you spend all your time and energy on the small stuff, you will never have room for the important things. Pay attention to the things that are critical to your happiness. Play with your children. Take time to get medical care. Take your partner out dancing. There will always be time to go to work, to clean the house, give a dinner party and tend the garden. Take care of the rocks first. Set your priorities. The rest is just sand.”

True, of course, except for two missing rocks called Amy and Minnie. I just hope I change consciousness before my dog Taz.