Posts Tagged ‘inane’
Facebook – It’s A Snide, Snide World
I don’t know the name of the geek from Facebook who said that he wanted everyone on the planet to become a member of his website but he follows Adolf, Joseph, Benito, Francisco and other tyrants in having ambitions that must be thwarted at all costs.
Let me be clear, yes, you can find me on Facebook. It’s true, with nearly half a billion members it is difficult to ignore it. I use it to publicise this blog to as wide an audience as possible. You can call me a hypocrite if you want but I don’t and won’t participate in the snide, puerile and thoroughly unhealthy relationships and lifestyle that it promotes.
Is This The Real Life Or Is It Just Fantasy?
If there are nearly a half a billion members on the site there must be at least a billion virtually identical photographs that consist of two or three faces (usually inane blondes at a party) pressed together cheek to cheek with vile grimaces or smiles. If it’s supposed to be about individuals why does everyone look exactly the same, talk exactly the same and behave exactly the same?
There are now an extraordinary number of sad, dysfunctional people who live their life, vicariously and actually, on Facebook. This, I believe, should be of great concern to all of us. More than that, the site encourages behaviour that is dishonest, underhand and snide. It’s not a force for good. It’s a force for evil. It’s a perversion and abuse of the internet, probably mankind’s greatest ever invention.
You know the sort of person who’d rather text than make a phone call? It’s often very dishonest communication, the ideal way for a coward to make excuses, lie or deceive. It’s said that 80% of communication is non-verbal and you certainly get a lot of that extra meaning over the phone. You get none at all by text. It’s just the bare, badly, carelessly or deceptively chosen words. Facebook goes even further, it encourages members to post messages and pictures so that they’re seen by third parties as well. In fact, often the message or picture is posted mainly for their benefit, to embarass or annoy. This is the real wickedness. It’s already led to murders and countless, countless, arguments and disputes which have ended in violence. Of course, it depends on you. You or your friends can behave badly through any medium or face to face. The point is Facebook encourages you to be snide. It’s not nice.
I don’t know what the answer is. I certainly wouldn’t be encouraging children to use it. For many it’s already become a substitute for real life. Its most well known deficiency is the way it makes you collect an ever greater quantity of friends with no regard whatsoever for quality. My sons and all their real world friends have in excess of 1,000 Facebook friends. I have 24 so that must make me – what?
There’s no doubt that there are business opportunities presented by Facebook. With that many members there’s bound to be. In that context it’s not surprising that Cheryl Cole has 1,698,477 friends. Mind you, Paul Macartney only has 11!
So I’ll be staying on Facebook but I won’t be participating in it. I think it should have a big warning flash up on the screen every time you log in: “GET A LIFE”
Drug Crazed Politicians Promote Crime And Misery
Sir David Nutt
"I'm so stoned...I don't know what I'm doing..."
Nothing more clearly demonstrates the complete absence of integrity in this inane, corrupt government than the sacking of Sir David Nutt. I had always admired Alan Johnson. Now he shows himself to be just as stupid and dumb as any of Gordon’s cronies.
Cannabis is a benign, natural herb that has been used as a medicine and recreational relaxant for over 4,000 years until politicians took a dislike to it just over 100 years ago. Since then, despite dozens of “studies” across the world, each one of which has been specifically tasked to condemn it as dangerous, no harm has been proven. Nevertheless, from Richard Nixon to Gordon Brown, myopic, paranoid, self-serving, tabloid-worshipping politicians have imposed more and more severe penalties for its use.
In the 50s the argument was that it made white women promiscuous with black men. The standard of discussion has barely improved since. The recent government sponsored hysteria over psychosis in adolescents is now revealed as utter nonsense in the face of the facts.
So why do politicians continue to persecute those who use cannabis? What’s in it for them? After all there is overwhelming evidence to show that a properly regulated cannabis supply could be a huge source of new taxation revenue for government and that regulation would drastically reduce all the harm that is caused by prohibition.
Off His Head
It’s more difficult to accept this argument in respect of heroin and cocaine because these are harmful substances but look at the evidence from Holland, Switzerland, Portugal and many other places. There can be little doubt that if the supply and distribution of drugs was regulated rather than prohibited then the harm caused would be reduced enormously. Furthermore, decriminalisation would drastically – and I mean DRASTICALLY – reduce crime at all levels. Street crime is all about theft and robbery in order to fund the purchase of drugs. International organised crime and terrorism is all about the drugs trade. End prohibition, start regulation and you pull the rug from under criminals at all levels. It would transform our society and save thousands of lives.
So I ask again – why? What do politicians gain from such a fundamentally stupid policy? At a stroke they could cut out the majority of both street and serious crime and massively reduce the funding of terrorism.
Cannabis was first demonised because hemp was an early rival to the oil industry. Before diesel came biodiesel. Rudolph Diesel designed his engine to run on peanut or hemp oil. Henry Ford designed his Model T to run on bioethanol produced from hemp and planted hundreds of acres on his own farms for that purpose – then along came oil. More importantly along came the early investors in the oil industry, specifically Randolph Hearst, owner and controller of the biggest propaganda and disinformation machine ever known to man. He started the the “Reefer Madness” campaign and promoted the lie against cannabis. Hemp was outlawed in favour of oil and we have since spent 100 years burning oil, becoming more and more reliant on its byproducts, destroying our planet and persecuting those who use cannabis.
Politicans are cowards. They were bribed and cajoled by big money to turn against cannabis in the first place. They do not have the vision or the common sense to see past the mess they have got themselves in over drugs policy. In a very real way they are more responsible than anyone else for the misery, death and chaos casued by the drugs trade which they actually support through their stupidity.
This government might as well have a committee of tabloid newspaper editors advising it on drugs rather than scientists. All over the world politicans have let us all down over drugs policy. Why? Because they are cowardly, self-serving and only interested in short term political expediency.
Peter Reynolds 
Now I Understand Why I Hate English Football
with 10 comments
Whinging, Whining Loser
I’ve hated football for 20 years or more now. With the World Cup I’ve finally come to understand why. English football is rubbish. It’s been corrupted and destroyed by an incurable cancer of money and venality. English football players are overpaid ponces, whores and playthings for foreign potentates. They cannot play the game anymore. They stand around worried that they’ll make a mistake, that they’ll bruise their poor little knees, fracture some obscure little bone in their foot or that their orange-painted slag will run off with their best mate while they’re training. They seem much more concerned about getting their name in the newspaper than on the scoresheet.
I do remember a rare glimpse of sanity in this crazy world when a year or so ago the great Bobby Charlton apologised for the £80 million pound transfer fee for Ronaldo and described it as “vulgar”. He had that absolutely right. Screaming and curling into the top corner from 40 yards in the last minute of extra time right.
Talent. Honour. Pride.
I’ve just watched the most riveting, scintillating, magical game of football between Spain and Germany. It reminds me how much I used to love the game and how much I and other British sports lovers are losing out. It was a joy. I saw beauty there in the poetic movement and interplay. There is nothing beautiful about the English game.
In 1970-71, when I was 13, I was lucky enough to attend every home game at Highbury stadium.
My Hero
Arsenal won the double that year and Bob Wilson was my hero. I played in goal too and even today I still treasure that special camaraderie between goalkeepers. Even as I’ve lost interest in the game I’ve still retained that love hate relationship with the most important position on the pitch. I’ve been angered and bemused once again at the inane remarks of commentators. Only occasionally do they compliment a goalie or even understand what it involves . Usually it’s either a “blunder” or an “easy save” or “straight at him”. Don’t they realise that it was “straight at him” because he was in the right place to begin with. There’s no such thing as an easy save. Bob Wilson used to have a reputation as an “unspectacular” goalie – because he was almost always there before the ball arrived! There are no excuses when you’re a goalkeeper.
There isn’t any passion in the English game anymore. I don’t think they know what it is. Passion for that bunch of losers is what you get in a lap dancing bar – innit bruv? There’s very little pride either. Even at its very best football can never compete with rugby as a real sport so when the BBC had the audacity to hijack Invictus and try to apply some of it’s wonderful, uplifting qualities to the English football team – well, I was just disgusted.
The Spain Germany game was wonderful and I expect the final will be too. The Spanish were inspired and fluent. The wonderful Xavi is a powerful symbol of how useless the English chavs are. The multiracial German team was a redemptive lesson for us all. They were proud, positive and every colour of the rainbow. Schweinsteiger, the archetypal aryan stormtrooper, strong, fearless and utterly reliable. These players are so talented they don’t need to feign fouls or injury. They just get on with the job – beautifully.
So the World Cup has been a very big but very pleasant surprise for me. I’d fallen victim to the propaganda that the Premier League is the best football in the world but that’s been proven to be a great big lie. It might be the richest league but that’s exactly what has ruined the game.
As a Welshman, for me nothing will ever come close to rugby. I’m glad I’ve found pleasure in football again but English football has finally proved itself to be the very worst football in the world.
Written by Peter Reynolds
July 8, 2010 at 4:16 pm
Posted in Biography, Consumerism, sport
Tagged with 1970-71, Arsenal, BBC, blunder, Bob Wilson, Bobby Charlton, camaraderie, cancer, commentator, corrupted, crazy, destroyed, easy save, English, English chavs, ferless, fluent, football, foreign, Germany, goalie, goalkeeper, Highbury stadium, hijack, inane, incurable, inspired, interplay, Invictus, joy, lap dancing bar, love hate relationship, magical, mistake, money, multiracial, newspaper, orange-painted, overpaid, passion, playthings, poetic, ponces, potentates, Premier League, pride, redemptive, riveting, Ronaldo, rubbish, rugby, sanity, Schweinsteiger, scintillating, scoresheet, slag, Spain, Spanish, sport, stormtrooper, strong, the beautiful game, the double, venality, vulgar, welshman, whores, World Cup, Xavi