the right to education & the right to protest

this is going to be short and simple:

i fully support the students on their day of protest.

1) all education should be free to and for all, and paid for through progressive taxation

2) the practice of 'kettling' is an indiscriminate form of summary action against demonstrators whether they be peaceful or no and invariably leads to perfectly guiltless individuals being held for hours without access to essential amenities such as water, food, toilets and shelter, and as such constitutes a serious civil and human rights abuse

3) the liberal democrats can not call putting up student fees 'a compromise' and blame it on their role in a coalition government. 'a compromise' to their election promise of abolishing fees would be a serious reduction and gradual phasing out of student fees, not putting them up.

and full marks to joana pinto from the national committee against cuts for her performance on BBC news 24 today: competent, reasonable and unapologetic.

power to the people
peace & love

vote

i'm going to steer well clear of politics, don't worry.

but since there's a general election underway, and while democracy is still the least worst option, it would seem, that we have for what passes as a political system, and most particularly as this year's voting round may, for the first time in ages, produce what the libdems have taken to calling a 'balanced' (as opposed to a 'hung') parliament, i reckon it's worth pondering one particular thought:

what would happen if we voted purely on policy, instead of according to which party's brand image we have come to vaguely (or even strongly) identify with, instead of the personalities we've come to like, love, or, more often than not, loathe, instead of the tradition that may or may not run in the family or the community, and especially instead of who we think can actually win our seat.

if there is a significant chance of a balanced parliament, or even a hung one, for that matter, then this latter consideration - who can actually win my seat - does in fact largely pale into insignificance. unless you want to positively vote one party into government, or actively want to remove a party from government, you can consider the question who wins your seat, and therefore by extension who wins most seats, no more than perhaps technically relevant (in as much as which party will field how big a contingent and therefore have how much clout in a coalition) and concentrate much more on who will get your snippet of the share of the vote. and on this occasion, share of the vote may matter more than it usually does, because if there is a hung parliament, and therefore a coalition, it will very likely lead to a reform of the voting system to either full proportional representation or to something relatively close to it. the greater the discrepancy between seats in the house and share of the vote, the more compelling the argument for a voting system that more accurately reflects voters' wishes.

but even if you're not interested in a hung parliament, even if you'd just find it refreshing and thought it would make sound political sense for us to vote in accordance with policies we actually support, rather than with how effectively the campaign machinery bludgeons us into buying the party leaders' message, then luckily, help is at hand:

on voteforpolicies.org.uk you can find out precisely who you should vote for, based purely on the policies six parties are putting forward. the site has no political affiliation, it doesn't try to sway or persuade you, it doesn't try to sell you antyhing and it doesn't come with any bias or hidden agenda. it just presents you nine major policy areas, of which you can choose any that interest you, from a minimum of four to the maximum nine. and then it tells you in brief bullet point summary what each party's policy is on that issue. except, and herein lies the brilliant thing, it doesn't tell you which policy belongs to which party. it just asks you to choose the policy you most agree with, and then you move on to the next issue. after you've made a selection for each of the issues that interest you, it spends a few seconds computing the result and then, ptaa!, reveals who the policies that you've gone for belong to.

obviously, you can then make up your own mind who you're actually going to give your vote to. just don't be surprised if the result surprises you...

this is how parties' policies stood after 59,411 completed surveys, on 8th april 2010:




to complete the survey and find out whose policies are up your street, go to voteforpolicies.org.uk - it may be the most eye-opening ten minutes you'll spend in this election.


sebastian's website sebastian on facebook

rage

this is why i love facebook. it's not the only reason i do, but it illustrates perfectly the power of networks and it proves that the rebel in us all is not dead. and that alone is worth celebrating.

it's also, in a slightly convoluted way, a classic david versus goliath story, except that in this case goliath's bigger brother actually supplies the stones that david uses in his sling and so benefits from every shot that's fired, but this hardly matters, since we are talking about a symbolic battle and what's at stake here is of such immense importance that a bit of collateral profit for the enemy can surely be justified.

we are, after all, talking about the christmas number one!

judging from the tone of posts and discussions on the facebook group that started this epic, it might as well be about the right to breathe. and that's what makes it all so very entertaining and thoroughly enjoyable not just to watch but to become actively involved with. i for one have purchased my download of killing in the name of by rage against the machine, and found to my pleasant surprise that i like it. a lot. but what i like even better is the fact that with, at the time of writing, 788,000 members (and steadily counting), the 'rage against the x-factor' group on facebook - started by two people who, but for their daring, bold and inspired act of capturing the other half of the nation's mood, could probably be called 'ordinary' - stands a real and realistic chance of preventing joe mcelderry's intended chart-topper the climb from reaching its scheduled summit by the end of next sunday, when this year's official christmas chart is compiled.

not that i have anything against joe mcelderry, don't get me wrong: the boy is adorable and he clearly can sing. i wish him the best of luck for a long and prosperous career. i wish the same to olly murs (who i preferred by some margin, simply because unlike joe who is excellent but a bit dull, olly is in fact also a truly gifted natural entertainer) and most emphatically i wish john & edward all the very best. they made me laugh, they made my jaw drop, they gave me many a minute of televisual pleasure. from which confession you can readily infer that i actually watched the x-factor (almost every instalment of the live shows) and predictably became a little addicted to it. it's top-notch tv of its ilk, if you ask me, and i do not for one moment begrudge joe his success or simon cowell the multiple millions he makes at every turn from it. good for him, i say, he will, i'm sure, in time find worthwhile uses for his wealth. that's not the issue with the x-factor.

the issue with the x-factor (and we all realise how enormous an issue it is, particularly when viewed in the context of, for example, the war in afghanistan or the copenhagen climate summit) is that it is so good and so successful at what it sets out to do, it leaves no margin for error. no room for surprises. it sifts genuinely talented performers from the pool of the bland and mediocre and then moulds them into bland and mediocre products that it can sell back to the pool. with absolute professional efficiency. and in the process it has committed a cardinal crime against the british psyche: it has made the christmas number one predictable.

but we don't want the christmas number one to be predictable. we want it to be a fresh contest, every year. we want it to be open to something as godshockinglyawful as mr blobby in 1993, as charmingly retro as somethin' stupid (2001), as yucky as any cliff richard or as unparalleled as bohemian rhapsody, back in '75. yet ever since the x-factor started, the most coveted place in popular music has been occupied by self-referential dirges with titles like that's my goal, a moment like this or when you believe, except of course last year's unforgivable assault on the leonard cohen classic hallelujah.

and that's why tracy and jon morter are heroes of our time. they just said to themselves 'it doesn't have to be like this', and then told their friends on facebook. and if by christmas a million people have joined them, i shouldn't be in the least surprised. so do! do join the group, do go to the info tab and see where to get your download and do use the link you find there (or below) to give to shelter, the charity the group has adopted to make sure something tangibly positive really does come out of it all. as i'm typing this, supporters of RATM4XMAS have given more than £35,000. music to the ears of those who care for the homeless and a good source for much seasonal cheer.

have a happy festive, all.

love & peace

sebastian

join the facebook group RAGE AGAINST THE MACHINE FOR CHRISTMAS NO 1 here

give to shelter here

sebastian's website sebastian on facebook

es ist deutschland hier

this is amusing, but also a touch troubling. it's probably not quite as troubling as it is amusing but it's early days and if nothing else it makes you wonder what goes on in the man's head.

the man in question is guido westerwelle, leader of the german liberal democrats who have just effectively won the german general elections together with the much bigger CDU/CSU combo (the christian democrats with their bavarian counterpart), headed by angela merkel. what's likely to happen is that westerwelle's party will form a new coalition government together with angela merkel's and at the moment it seems everybody's assuming that he himself will therefore get the job of foreign minister.

now watch (below) what happens when the man from the beeb asks him a question in english at his very first press conference, even before he's got the job. sadly, the video clip is not subtitled, but i can tell you: the correspondent introduces himself and announces he's going to ask his question in english and could he, westerwelle, please answer in english. westerwelle promptly raps his knuckles by telling him that as they are at a german press conference, he should ask his question in german. so the bbc man says, fine, may he then ask the question in english and westerwelle can answer in german. westerwelle uses a phrase that's roughly the equivalent to the english 'with all due respect' which normally means the direct opposite and so the journalist's translator steps in and says: 'we'll translate'. before she gets around to doing so, westerwelle drones from the podium that 'just as it is the done thing in great britain to speak english, so it is the done thing in germany to speak german'. so finally, the bbc man gets to ask his question which his translator then poses in german and westerwelle answers by telling him that he's just asked the same question as his german colleagues had asked and that the answer is still the same: he won't go into any speculation about cabinet posts (even though he clearly wants one, everybody agrees.)

then comes the icing on the cake: just as the chair or master of ceremonies or whatever his title would be at a press conference is about to go on, westerwelle says: 'to make it absolutely clear: we can certainly meet up for a fabulous cup of tea some time outside a press conference, and then we'll speak nothing but english, but... - this here is germany.'

all of which suggests that the man widely tipped to become germany's new foreign minister in what's supposed to be a 'centre-right' government either:

a) doesn't speak english (bad news if you are foreign minister of any country in today's world)

b) does speak english but is unwilling to use it when somebody who doesn't speak his language asks him a question, and then doesn't even want to listen to the question when it is suggested to him that he may reply in german, which means he is simply rude (bad news if you are any kind of diplomat)

c) is so much of a nationalist that he won't tolerate any foreign tones being uttered at his german press conference in his german fatherland, because "this here is germany", jawoll. (bad news. full stop.)

whatever the answer, it doesn't bode well. of course, the point has been made already in various comments and blogs, and it keeps being made, that nobody would expect david miliband for example (the british foreign secretary) to field questions in german (or spanish, or italian, or french, for that matter) at a press conference in london. but it's a mute point. because the fact is that the lingua franca of our day is not portuguese, or mandarin, or french, italian, spanish or esperanto. the language everybody speaks is english. it used to be french, in diplomatic circles; and a long time ago it used to be latin. and maybe in a few decades' time it will be german, who knows. or hindi. but for the time-being it's english, like it or not. so for the foreign-minister-to-be of any country, let alone the biggest economy in europe, to refuse to answer a question in english is at best embarrassing, at worst a throwback to awful extremes.

we used to fall about laughing as kids in switzerland, because our grandparents told us how their german neighbours across an increasingly anxiously watched border started referring to the banana as 'schlauchapfel' (literally 'hose apple') in a drive to rid the german language of any un-german elements. but clearly, while highly amusing, the thinking and mentality behind this was anything but.

it may be going too far to draw the parallel between that kind of thinking and westerwelle's desire for german purity at a german press conference. maybe he's just not that confident when it comes to foreign languages. but then why not say so: 'sorry, mate, i really don't speak your language very well, can you talk to me in german please.' and who could be offended? but 'this here is germany': what that implies is 'this here is germany, either be german yourself and speak german, or get out.' and that from their foreign minister. that's troubling. amusing, yes, but troubling...






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...

i'm a great fan of the colon.

it’s friendlier than the full stop because it doesn’t say stop. wait here. i have something else to say in a moment. but right now i need you to halt. it says: hang on in there, the thought isn't quite finished: it continues, but remember to breathe. the colon is beautiful: small enough to not really obstruct the page, but noticeable enough to register. it doesn't drop below the baseline. i like that.

the comma, by comparison, is always a bit clumsy. it keeps dangling its tail, which is not elegant. i personally don't like the comma very much. if it were down to me we would use far less of it and simply allow ourselves to be carried along by the sentence for a while but most people find that exhausting and a little frightening because they feel they have nothing to hold on to then.

and the full stop is so very heavy. although it’s small, it has this density. it weighs in. it says you must. i don't like punctuation that says you must. i like punctuation that says you can; so if it weren't for the fact that like the comma the semi-colon dangles its inelegant tail below the baseline, i would also very possibly be able to be a fan of the semi-colon.

the semi-colon has a bit of an idiosyncrasy about it. it’s not quite one thing and not quite another. it’s half comma and half colon. which is why it’s called the half-colon. it could also be called half-comma, it wouldn’t make any difference. i think that’s almost a little endearing. it’s like a mongrel. it wants to be loved, but it knows it can’t quite be. it can be loved in an ‘all right then’ kind of way. that is in itself a little endearing. but i can't quite fall in love with it, not the way i can fall in love with the colon.

of course there is always the dash – but the dash loosens up the sentence so much. also it doesn't really know what it is. but it doesn’t not know what it is in a charming way (the way the semi-colon doesn’t know what it is, for example) it does so in a lazy way. it lies there, right in the middle of the sentence saying ‘i’m here now, i can’t be bothered to move’. but that isn’t really a very attractive thing to do. also, is it a hyphen or is it a thought? is it a typographical element or a grammatical one? i have nothing in itself against things that don't know what they are because in not knowing what you are there is an element of potential: of finding out what you can be. but the dash hasn't convinced me yet of its potential. it needs to do more than just lie there. so if ever possible i only use it to – a bit reluctantly – wedge something into a thought that otherwise would just be lost. for that, for holding up something that otherwise would just be lost two lazy dashes come in handy. without really noticing it they suddenly do something that they can do better than any other punctuation mark, and so they can be both at the same time, lazy and helpful. that’s in many ways ideal.

normally, though not always, and not just then, a bit earlier on, i avoid as much as i can the question mark and the exclamation mark too. they are both too much, really. how often do you really need to highlight the fact that you're asking a question. and if you have a point to make just make it, there's no need to signpost it. so to my mind these two too are almost superfluous. only sometimes it helps a little to emphasise that what you’ve just put down is actually a question, especially if it's a rhetorical question, since rhetorical questions aren't questions at all, so it sometimes helps to dress them up as questions. that's really almost the only good reason to use a question mark, and even then it isn’t always, is it...

i do like the ellipsis though i use it sparingly because not many people know what to make of it and i don’t want to expose it to their fury because it’s quite a gentle, unassuming, open-minded punctuation mark that gets a little insecure when questioned too forcefully. it needs looking after a bit. (and i quite like brackets, but these you have to use sparingly because, though useful, they are a bit ungainly. that doesn't make them bad, or give us reason to cast them out into the wilderness, of course, but i think it means that for aesthetic reasons we need to treat them with a degree of caution.)

i do like paragraphs!

(and that was a rare instance of an exclamation mark perhaps being justified. because i really like them, paragraphs. more and more. i never used to when i was very young, i almost eschewed them completely, but these days i really, really like them.)

as it happens
in my plays
i've now done away with
punctuation
almost altogether
and work with
paragraphs instead

paragraphs
are wonderful

they create a whole
different picture
on the page and they allow
the eye
to breathe

i am
a little bit
in love
with
paragraphs
though
when used in this way
they are really
lines
you could say, they are not
strictly
paragraphs
at all
which makes them even more interesting because they are
something
and something else
at the same time and the
something else
makes them
even better
than what they
were
before they became
what they are now

i like that

what i have a slight over-fondness for i think are maybe adverted commas. i may want to rein them in a bit. though they are useful, because they make things more relative. is a truth really a truth or is it a ‘truth’ they say. they say you know what a word means but allow for the possibility that you only ‘know’ what it means and that there is another way of ‘knowing’ what it ‘means’ too. but i realise they can become a bit annoying. so i may want to exercise, practise, some discipline when it comes to adverted commas. because like commas they also are a bit inelegant. they keep poking their tails above the topline and that is no more agreeable to the eye than what the commas do with theirs, and if it isn’t their tails that they poke then it’s their heads. and that doesn’t make things any better.

but at least in english we don’t have to, as they mostly do in german, use double adverted commas unless you’re actually quoting someone or something. because they are really ugly. they take up space on the line without doing anything more useful than single adverted commas and think they’re doing you a favour. they say “let me be ugly right here right now for you.” it’s the “for you” that irks me most. and they make other punctuation marks behave erratically. like the full stop. suddenly it doesn’t know should it go inside, where it strictly doesn’t belong, or should it go outside where it looks like it’s been locked out. so it suddenly feels out of place. what kind of treatment is that anyway, of your fellow punctuation marks, to just lock them out, and make them look like it too. that’s rude and unnecessary. no, i’m glad we don’t have to use them much. i think we do just fine with our single adverted commas. but i know i have to watch them a bit in my writing…

i think that more or less sums up my stance on punctuation.


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droplet

here's a conundrum:

a drop of water, in its perfect state, is a perfect sphere.

yet, a drop of water can never be in its perfect state: the moment it becomes definably a drop - a small enough quantity of water to be 'itself', an individual, if you like, a drop - it acquires the shape we all know it as: the droplet shape.

whether it be hanging off a solid object, like a tap, for example, or a bottle, whether it be running down a surface, like a window pane or a cheek, whether it be travelling through the air towards the ground, like rain, or towards the sky, like from a fountain's jet, in this, the natural world, it is always just that: a droplet. a vague approximation to something we recognise it as, but not itself: not a perfectly formed, absolutely round in every direction drop. not a sphere.

the closest a drop would appear to come to being its perfect self is on its point of death: when it enters a mass of liquid. of course it may never make it there. it may evaporate first, find itself dispersed in the air before being allowed to form again as part of another droplet elsewhere and starting over until it ultimately finds its universe.

and then, just when it becomes part of the big universe it would recognise as its own - the liquid world of puddles, rivers, lakes and the seas, or even just of your bath tub - when it is perhaps most truly at home, it is no longer itself. it is no longer a drop, an individual portion of water: it is completely absorbed in its element. it is whole, but wholly dissolved.

and curiously just then, when a drop is no longer a drop, it could be said to be at its best, its most liquid. its most wet.

so does that mean then that being a drop is essentially futile? or simply impossible? does it mean that the moment a drop is identifiably born into the world it has lost its perfection and the only way of getting it back is to end its existence as what it is and become completely part of something infinitely bigger?

or is that in fact the point? is that what being a drop is all about? to be something else entirely for a while, to take on these shapes and fulfil a little purpose, maybe a big purpose, maybe no purpose at all, to just be, as a droplet, as the manifestation of something that cannot be what it is until it ceases to be what it is? and when it ceases to be what it is does that mean it then no longer exists, or does it mean than then at last it can truly be.

and does it mean that the best chance it has of being perfect is for a fleeting moment, just as it dies? or did it go through a similar brief state of perfection, just as it formed?

or is our entire concept of what it is to be perfect, what it is to be a drop and what the natural world is, flawed?

that's the droplet conundrum.

and there is, would you believe it, a facebook group to celebrate it...

obama

america is voting. within the last couple of hours, the state of alaska has opened its polling stations, the last of the united states to do so; it will also be the last one to close them tonight. by then, we should have a fairly clear idea of who will be the 44th president. every indication suggests it will be barack obama: history is being made. 

clearly, the american people do not need me or anybody else to tell them how to vote. which is one of the reasons i'm writing this on the actual day of the election. (although i don't in all earnest believe that this blog is read by so many people stateside that it could be of any significance to the outcome of the election in any way. my delusions of grandeur are way more subtle than that...)  

but for the sake of history, we - those five and a half to six billion of us who do not get to vote in this election, but who will nevertheless live with the consequences of the outcome every day for the next four years and possibly long into the future - must hope and trust that today america is making the right decision, by chosing change.  it's a mantra obama and his team have been repeating for as long as their campaign has been going, and it's one i'm prepared to have faith in.  

america stands very literally at a crossroads: one way is embracing a new politics, a new type of politician and a new language of politics; the other is effectively more of the same, in a somewhat changed dressing. one way points towards restoring the united states' standing in the world as a country that possesses both democratic and ethical authority, the other points towards a country that is becoming introspect, wrapping itself in patriotism and self-interest. one way promises a road towards harmonisation externally and domestic unity, the other will bring about more alienation from the rest of the world and a pronounced rift in american society.  

the latter not because john mccain is an inherently divisive figure - i don't think he is - but because by now the hope and promise of a new departure is so strong and so real in those who long for that change, that mccain pipping obama to the post would be nothing short of catastrophic. whether or not obama will in fact make a better president than mccain is by now almost no longer entirely relevant. i personally believe he would. but then i'm inclined to say so, because my politics, such as they are, are naturally at home on the liberal social democrat end of the spectrum.  

but at stake today is not a simple, straightforward trade-off between republicans and democrats. between slightly left of centre or slightly right of centre policy. what's at stake today is the heart and soul of the most powerful nation on this planet, and still the only superpower. what's at stake is how america will understand itself over the next generation, present itself, how it will behave and how it will feature within the fabric of the community of nations. and indeed how it will be understood. how the world will see and relate to this giant in its midst. 

obama, as the first african american president, as a young man with a young family, as an intelligent, educated and articulate leader, will restore our faith in america as a country leading the way: the nation that has made such a pivotal contribution to the twentieth century will regain its position as a land that - no matter how 'conservative' in many respects much of its people are - looks forward, shines a light on the road ahead and then strides there, courageously. a land, essentially, of progress. a country where hundreds of thousands of people taking to the streets to hear a civil rights leader declare 'i have a dream' may mean that barely two generations later, that dream can actually be fulfilled. 

a president obama will embody, personify and represent to us, the rest of the world, much, if not all, of what we have either forgotten or, in the course of the 'with us or against us' rhetoric of the bush era, over years of swagger and posturing by a man incapable of stringing a coherent sentence together, over the staggering offences against democracy, international law and human rights that are the iraq war, guantanamo bay, extraordinary rendition and sanctioned torture, over the jaw-dropping agonies of pregnant chads and broken voting machines, we have been forced to push out of our minds altogether: that america has the potential to be a credible force for good in the world. that america is - at heart - our friend. 

and a president mccain? well: a president mccain, by now, would drive home no message so clearly as this: that america is afraid, that america would rather have a rest from its role of responsibility in the world than a change, that america does not have the confidence to vote for a black president even though it has been telling its pollsters that it was willing to do so, that america is no longer ready to look forward and outward, but is focusing inward and backward. that america has - alas - had its day.

that, to my mind, is what's at stake.

apparently, the bookies in england make obama a 16:1 favourite to win this election. the bookies in england are fairly astute. i hope, i so hope that they're right. not because i have a tenner riding on him - i don't - but because the world has an entire version of its future riding on him.  

and my prediction: i go with the bookies. i predict barack obama will win this election, more narrowly than expected. i predict he will be the next president of the united states. he won't solve all of the country's problems, let alone those of the world. but he'll make his country a much, much better place, for the fact alone that it has elected him. and if the strongest country in the world is a better place, then consequently, by definition, so is the world.

good luck and - if you believe in him - god bless america.

 

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