Panchromatica
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People places and the things that make them interesting. (Oh and anything else that catches my eye)
Friday, August 22, 2003
This is the last post! Sorry - no pun intended. I'm moving over to http://ibanda.blogs.com/panchromatica/ . Sorry Pyra guys.
Thursday, June 12, 2003
I'm going to start again soon - honest!
Tuesday, November 05, 2002
You can find extracts from the work in progress at www.dust_novel.blogspot.com
Monday, November 04, 2002
Its been too long since I posted - I know I know. I’ve been a closet writer for years - I have lots of first pages and some brilliant opening paragraphs but I have never completed a work of fiction since I was in school! I was intrigued therefore to come across National Novel Writing Month - abbreviated for some bizarre reason to NaNoWriMo. If you sign up to this you commit yourself to writing a novel of 50,000 words in November - thats about 2000 words a day. The idea is that with a concrete daily target you are more likely to actually write than if you sit around waiting for the muse to strike.
So foolishly I’ve signed up! You can keep an eye on progress on my SF opus Dust if you log on to the site. Look for me as ibanda. I’ve I’ve already written more than I ever have before on one story even if it’s way under the 2000 words a day I need.
Maybe along the way I'll find the time to keep this and my website maintained too.
Wednesday, September 25, 2002
400,000 hypocrites?
Oh I wish I'd said this! I normally can't stand Will Self, but he has redeemed himself this time.
Tuesday, September 24, 2002
OK OK I know I haven't been around in a while but I will be back - promise!
Wednesday, September 11, 2002
The Bush Administration have surely made a huge mistake in throwing away so much of the good will that washed around the world a year ago today. Look at what the thoughtful Fred First has to say on the subject. Be sure to check out his link to the CS Monitor too - or click here which has some surprising (to me) information on beginnings of the Gulf War.
I found an extract from Dr Atkinson's book here.
How has my life changed since September 11? My life goes on much the same--except that I'm not living in America anymore. In America, people are not disappeared. In America, cherished constitutional rights are not abolished with the stroke of a pen. In America, disagreeing with the government doesn't make you a terrorist. In America, ordinary citizens don't have to wonder whether their e-mail is being read and phone conversations taped by government agents. In America, there is no Ministry of Truth (for telling lies) or Ministry of Love (for making war). America doesn't wage unending war. America doesn't casually threaten first-strike use of nuclear weapons. I see the nation I love, in its fear and rage, stinging itself to death like a scorpion.
***
September 11 made me, an 18-year-old living in the suburbs, much more cynical, and that's difficult to do. When our leaders had an unprecedented opportunity to lead, all I got was a bunch of talk (unless a behemoth military budget counts as "leadership"). And when I expected citizens to be shaken from their 1990s isolationist, stock-market-is-booming delirium, all I got was the irony of an SUV with huge American flags posted all over it. I really don't intend to sound rude or coldhearted; I was just as shocked, saddened and outraged when I saw the CNN footage. But unity and resolve are not jingoism. And a just response is not unilateralism and carpet-bombing. If the so-called Bush Doctrine is all the "change" I can expect from our leaders (and the willful submission of others, Democrats), then I wish I was ignorant enough not to care. The biggest tragedy of 9/11, aside from the appalling loss of human life, is one of missed opportunity on the part of the government and the failure of its citizens to call them on it.
More from The Nation on the impact of September 11 here [via BittterShack]
I saw a council van the other day with the slogan 'looking after your environment' emblazoned across the side. It made me think about the way in which local government in the UK has changed and has detached itself from the community it supposedly serves. Many local authorities no longer operate on a public service ethos. The management speak of big business has taken over. That is why they can talk about 'your environment'. It isn't just just government at fault. Over the years local communities have been just as likely to see the council as 'them', demanding services and facilties for 'us'.
It doesn't have to be that way. I repeat - it doesn't have to be that way. It never had to be that way. An excellent book called Urban Renaissance by Dr Dick Atkinson looks at the failures of welfare reform. He estimates that about 30% of the population live in neighbourhoods experiencing problems - poor educational achievment, physical decay, unemployment - usually all at once. Something like £100,000,000 are spent in every neoghbourhood of about 15,000 people every year. By any standards that is a huge sum. Despite that some of these communities are still in dire need and have been since the 1960s.
Atkinson offers a real alternative. It depends on politicians giving up the power they have accumulated over the years and trusting local people to decide on what they need. Projects like New Deal for the Community and Neighbourhood Management are supposed to do that of course, but with some honourable exceptions they don't seem to be working. Atkinson proposes not a Welfare State, but a Welfare Society where communities in neighbourhoods organise themselves and take control of their own surroundings.
Shaw said, I think in the preface to Androcles and the Lion, that Barabbas has had 2000 years - its time to give Christianity a chance. Well, centralised welfare has had a chance - its time for the people.
I hadn't appreciated the bitter irony of the fact that Salvador Allende was overthrown on Septemner 11th 1973 in a coup supported and possible engineered by the USA. These Declassified Documents Relating to the Military Coup in Chile show some of what went on.
[via BitterShack]
