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- Written by: Rod Boyle
- Category: Ideas & Questions
- Hits: 1900
From the moment you read the headline you knew he wasn't a terrorist, there was nothing about the attack - driving a car into pedestrians, stabbing a police officer - that even remotely suggested Terror or that he was an "Islamist Extremist". And, sure enough, a few days later, headlines - or rather - bylines, appearing much lower in the paper, appear that seem to retract it. But the damage is already done - people remember headlines, not bylines or retractions.
But why Terrorist? It's an obvious misdirection - his name, appearance (petty prejudices come into play here) - despite his being born in the UK anyone who kills another person and looks vaguely Middle Eastern or African must be a Terrorist. Not true. Terror is convenient, it objectifies the enemy, gives them a color - a place (over there), a cause, it avoids any uncomfortable discussions about somebody who clearly fell through the cracks, someone disillusioned, despairing, hopeless, the terror in this lies in the fact that this is an overwhelming reality for a large number of Britons, and these attacks - futile gestures of resistance directed against a political process that has for decades now disenfranchised overwhelming segments of the population, against a political system that has seen the rich grow even astronomically richer and govern those who've become increasingly poorer, are not predictable or stoppable under the current governance.
Blame, shift accountability, deception, misdirection, for many the original headline will stand in their memory as the events that actually transpired, and the train will continue to derail...
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- Written by: Rod Boyle
- Category: Ideas & Questions
- Hits: 2434
A (so far) excellent 3 hour documentary by Adam Curtis and the BBC about how we managed to get where we are (in terms of world politics, corporate tyranny, etc.)
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Surprised I haven't heard of him sooner. Some excellent insight and conclusions.
You can watch the entire documentary online here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fh2cDKyFdyU
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- Written by: Rod Boyle
- Category: Ideas & Questions
- Hits: 2280
An interesting article on how Putin (Trump's biggest, only ally) deals with the opposition:
These are the people Trump is in bed with. But - not to excuse him - these are the logical extensions of power, I've dealt with any number of people in the restaurant that would use similar means (or worse) if they felt it would advance their position....
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- Written by: Rod Boyle
- Category: Ideas & Questions
- Hits: 1904
There were the Cubists, the Surrealists, the Dadaists, the Modernists, the scornfully Modern, the absurdly Post-Modern, which - by definition - made no sense whatsoever, and a hundred others I've purposely omitted. Time forbidding and my limited brain obliging. But now perhaps, reflecting on not just the current political clime, but the world in general, we have the "Post-Truth" art movement.
Think - Art, so far in its ideals, has striven to express truth - whether through the accurate depiction of it's subjects, or on a more allegorical or metaphorical level. And it has often reflected the cultural and political clime from which it came.
But now, in the "Post-Truth" era of politics, how should art reflect that? Some questions. accuracy of form, line, shape, these are no longer important. Truth is no longer important. Metaphor - the expression of deeper, underlying truths, is unimportant. And - unlike other movements - Dadaism, which used recognizable representations, or Modernism, which might abstractly reveal elements of truth, the Post-Truth movement should concern itself with the utter rejection of all recognizable shape or form, of any pleasing harmony of colors, and to write this down is easy, but to illustrate it might be another thing entirely...
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- Written by: Rod Boyle
- Category: Ideas & Questions
- Hits: 2008
...and all this commuting between the Kootenays and Calgary and I've come to realize that I have no home.
Nothing.
That if I owned a place here - nice, unpack, but I'm not sure it would be home. Maybe, I haven't been here long enough, and the winter, cold, grey, shortened days, fine if you're not living in a woodshed and have a fireplace, a bottle of scotch, are marginally settled in, involved in the community, but that's not the situation, not yet, maybe not ever, when spring comes I know again I'll be restless and wanting to make trails.
Maybe 5, 6, 7 even years since I've been unpacked - in a safe place, jobs, precarious, leaving Calgary, returning to Calgary, so often, summers - when I could afford to - travelling, prospecting, in a way I'm homesick for the idea of home, I have no idea where that is. And there's the inane platitude that "Home is where the Heart Is..." but I've kept my heart and my bits to myself, for good reason, and this plethora of choice has me wondering...
So not home, but feverish in the woodshed, recovering gradually, and as both I and the weather improve there will be plans made for sure...