Erm, I just found a cross between Frankenstein, Blind Date and Noels House Party on the TV…
Neil Hopcroft
A digital misfit
I wanna go where they’ve never seen snow…
Book review: Stupid White Men
After reading this book a whole bunch of things start to make more sense. And I think I’m angry about that, but I’m not sure.
He knows his market and he’s playing to their righteous indignation. This book is full of the kinds of things that make people angry about politicians but it doesn’t examine why or propose solutions.
As an example it contains a rant about how someone had passed a bill that would reduce arsenic levels in drinking water in four years time. And how that means that the president knew the water was ‘poisoned’ for four years. Practically speaking you cannot just turn round overnight and solve things like that, it takes time to change processes, it takes time for things to get out the system. But he’d prefer to go for the shock tactic so his audience can get angry about how they’re treated.
While I agree that much of the hipocrisy pointed out by the book needs to be publically known, I don’t think this book is going to help solve any of the problems. If you want to be angry about politics this book if for you, but it’ll make you apathetic too. The main drive seems to be that theres nothing that we, the little people, can do.
This book is punk rock without the rebellion. And that is why I’m angry about this book.
Next: I’ll be looking for a book by someone I don’t agree with, in the hope I can actually learn something from them. Suggestions?
Theres got to be a better way…!
Mainly for Piercarlo…
I was staying just over the road from:
…which I thought would amuse some of the ME people.
Oh, and I always told you:
Your weasel is NOT, actually, a weasel, but a
Striped Skunk, a mephit. Sneaky bugger. Skunks
were kicked out of the weasel family several
years ago, and have been making a stink about
it ever since. Well, not any different from
before, really.
Good news: In spite of the scent thing, star of
children’s books and cartoons and well loved by
people everywhere when you’re not in the
garbage
Bad news: Um, well, you’re a skunk. Those anal
glands are quite impressive for when you’re
startled but leave you the butt of jokes and
unpopular with dog owners everywhere.
Which weasel are you?
brought to you by Quizilla
Oh, while I remember, that nasty long unpronouncable email address has been nicified, replace pe5feugnmu1ujbn7d9wc with neilh
The last supper
Well, I’m not quite sure what to make of that….
I met up with kayteanese and rosiaconite, finally some people I know in Tokyo. Its not quite enough to be called a social life yet, but its certainly a step in the right direction.
What I’m disturbed about, though, is the resturant we went to. It seemed to be a Christian themed resturant. Or perhaps its a gothic theme, I don’t know. Whatever its intention it seemed heretical enough to be cool. And the food was great. And Kaytea is much better at ordering in Japanese than I am…thank you!
On the way there I saw a heresy of a different sort, there was a Rolls Royce covered in stickers with some speakers on top advertising some skate store or something.
And then there was Vanilla Soap, a little indie band who had set up just by Harajuku station, so I stopped and watched them for a few minutes. They were nothing special musically, but had some strange ways of behaving – I’m not sure if this was just them or whether all the bands over here are like that…sooner or later I’ll get to a gig and find out…they’d all start jumping up and down as they went into the chorus, and the whole crowd (well, the ten or so who knew them anyway) would jump up and down in time.
Close call at customs…
I’ve just picked up my bag again to attempt to get into it, the lock I put on took a bit of a battering in the cargo hold on the way over here. It wasn’t until just now that I noticed just what a close call I had at customs on the way into the country, they stopped me and asked to search one of my bags luckily they picked the other one. I didn’t know until later that the lock was broken and could’ve ended up looking so dodgy if I couldn’t open the bag for the nice Mr Customs man. I still haven’t managed to open it, but I’ve gotten everything out the bag by bending the bag around (which just goes to show how useful having a lock on a soft bag is).
So, anyone got any clues how I can remove a small combination lock without any tools?