Social (network) Activists

A few weeks ago we witnessed the amazing ability that the internet possesses. The ability to go blind with rage about something and then forget about it in an instant. It was hard to log onto a website without hearing some temporary preacher, posting about how horrible Kony was. Now don’t get me wrong, I don’t agree with what Kony was doing, Infantry is better without the ‘infant’, but what annoyed me about the whole thing was how people started acting.

They were demanding action from the government, they were demanding straight up that Kony be executed. I was even invited to an event where the plan was to put up posters of him all over town. Unfortunately nothing got done and I can’t help but notice the lack of his face whenever I walk through the town center.

But let’s be realistic, what was the government going to do? Declare war on Uganda? March in there and Execute him? It just wasn’t going to happen, that’s the sad truth.

It’s something a lot of  people don’t seem to realise when they try to take down something they don’t agree with. Posting a strong worded status on Facebook isn’t going to help anything. Kony won’t log onto his account the next day, see how everyone is upset and go ‘Gee, maybe I should change my ways!’, it’s the same with the paedophile protests a while back, when everyone changed their display picture to a character from a child’s television show, it won’t have any impact.

You may argue  ’But it raises awareness, that’s just as important as actually doing something!’ But arguably it’s not. Think about it, if I write a post about testicular cancer sure it’ll raise awareness, a few of you may even go out and donate, but soon it’ll disappear from memory, having very little impact on the actual problem.

It seems to me that a lot of it was just trying to grab attention by saying ‘Hey, look at me! I disagree with something and am posting about it on Facebook. I am committed to the cause and am not just doing this because I’m blindly following the crowd’

By all means post that you hate someone/thing, but don’t pretend that it’s tackling the issue, if people honestly cared as much as they said they did there’d be more to show for it that a couple of Facebook and Twitter updates.

But I can see it doesn’t matter anymore since, evidently, people have stopped caring. I give it 4 months till the next barrage of social network posts.

This video pretty much sums it up

- G

Religion and where I stand

Because we’ve just had a power cut I finally have some time on my hands to write another post, I know you’re all just dying to hear from me.

I’ll try not to tread on too many toes during this but I’d like to write about religion. Or rather how I feel about it.

First off I’ll say that personally, I am an Agnostic Theist. Which means that I’m unsure whether or not there is a god, but I’m leaning towards he does exist. The reason for this being that there is just simply no evidence that suggest a god exists. I’m afraid that a book simply doesn’t cut it. It strikes me as flawed logic. The fact I have a very very basic belief there is a god is purely for comfort. No one wants to believe that when someone dies they just rot in the ground.

Which leads me onto why I think religion is present in so many people’s lives, simply for Reassurance and comforting, and I can understand why. Life would be quite depressing if you didn’t believe that evil would be punished in time, someone is guiding you through life and that when you do eventually pop your clogs this isn’t necessarily the end. Religion gives you something to fall back on.

And I’m fine with that, in fact I believe that some sort of religious belief is quite important to the starting of a civilization for the reason that when following a faith you have to follow the basic laws passed on by a higher power. Take for example the ten commandments, yes many of them are basically common sense, no killing or stealing among other things, but these all add up to a more peaceful living with other people. At a very basic level it creates the difference between good and evil; which I, personally, think is a rather vital part of life.

So what gives it a negative rep? It’s the fact some people don’t just accept that it’s not for everyone, forcing their views onto everyone. You see it to the extreme with the ‘Jihad’ attacks around the world where they use violent means to spread the word of their religion. But you also see it in, whilst not as violent, some quite important issues, like the Church getting involved with gay marriages and abortion when really this issues face the people involved and have nothing to do with the organisation.

It is when people stop living their own lives by their own beliefs and begin to force others into acting the same way that I begin to disagree with their practices.

To quote someone whose name I cannot remember: ‘Religion is like a penis. It’s fine to have one and it’s fine to be proud of it, but please don’t whip it out in public and start waving it around’

Stay Classy

- G x

Stupid studies

It was recently brought to my attention that someone somewhere has gotten a PhD in Eurovision. You know that contest with all the countries in Europe competing with each other in song? Yeah that.

Now I don’t fully understand the theory behind the PhD but at face value it is the most absurd thing I have ever heard. I honestly cannot think of  a situation this would come in useful. No-one on earth has been discussing Eurovision and said to the others ‘God, if only we could get someone who has been educated in all things Eurovision to tell us the facts!” It just wouldn’t happen.

This isn’t a rant against Eurovision, in fact you’ll be surprised to know that I actually quite enjoy it. Some ‘great’ acts were formed in the guise of Lordi, Run away sung by the Moldovan entrances in 2010 was another highlight if not just for the fantastic sax solo and it also was the basis for one of my favourite episodes of Father Ted in which My Lovely Horse was born. No, this is a rant about the absolutely needless waste of time that this PhD is.

I’d honestly be amazed if, on their deathbed, they look back at their life’s achievements and think ‘Yeah, studying Eurovision was the best choice I’ve ever made, it certainly took me places’. However this isn’t the allow absoluetly pointless academic subjects, at one point Stratfordshire University offered a subject called ‘David Beckham Studies’ and created the term ‘Mickey Mouse degrees’.

Some people like to think that no matter where you studied or what you studied the final grade should be the most important thing. But I completely disagree with this. Think of it this way, if you and a friend are applying to become a manager in a business, you’ve studying business and management and got a 2:1, whereas your friend got a first in David Beckham studies. It would be ridiculous to employ the Beckham fanatic simply because of their higher grade and I daresay you’d be pissed off.It’s just simple logic that some degrees are taken more seriously than others.

If you study Eurovision and it’s not simply a module on a music course, or if you study Beckham and it wasn’t purely a module in some sporting degree and honestly take it seriously then your idiocy amazes me

A little bit of a finger exercise

February, one of the worst months. The winter digging its claws in and giving us one final beating before we go into the slightly more comforting embrace of Spring.

Today was particularly dreary, not only having the bitter wind to contend with but the rain lashing down and drowning the little remaining hope that today would be good to me. But this was nothing new, it seemed that every day it took less and less to chill my bones and replace the happiness with growing despair. I did my best to shrug this off, pulled my coat tighter around myself trying to hold onto the  remaining warmth and continued along the path.

It was the time of morning when the streets are swamped with bodies, travelling  to their various destinations. The men and women in suits looking devoid of life as they marched like automatons to their cages at work. It was sad to think that these people, once filled with hopes and aspirations, were now husks counting down the minutes till they can get home to their partner, maybe even their children. Or if they were like me, counting down the minutes till they could just be free.

With no-one awaiting my return to the flat there was little consolation to actually leaving the office. In fact their was no-one in my life with whom i could find solace with. It had been like this for some time now, what started as purely lacking the time to fraternize with others, soon spiraled into a feeling of simply not wanting the company. However this was just a lie I bred into myself to try to deal with the loneliness but it went deeper than that. Of course I wanted companions, I longed for people to interact with but as time passed I just gave up.

This sour fact stayed with for a little while as I trudged on and as if some cruel deity had decided to torment me further a young couple passed me by. They were cuddling close underneath an umbrella. Seeing the shine in her eyes as she glanced up at man she was with, and the joy etched on his face brought the pure feeling of isolation bubbling to the front of my mind.

With the tears now returning to my eyes I reached the bridge. There was nothing special about it other than it being the bridge I crossed every day. But today it would be special, it would bring me the freedom I wanted and as I made my way across I removed my coat. It wasn’t necessary to worry about becoming cold anymore. I was half way across when I stopped. I lent against the handrail and stared out over the river. I drew a deep breath and climbed over the rail. I faced the river and as I listened to the people behind me I realised that even now, no-one wanted to save me or even acknowledge me. How I wanted to feel a hand on my shoulder and a few words encouraging me to not do what i was so close to doing. But I didn’t feel the warmth of human contact and I started to weep.

One final deep breath and  I let go of everything.

I let go of my fears

I let go of my sorrows

I let go of the handrail

And as I closed my eyes for the last time I let the wind and rain embrace me and I felt something I had forgotten existed. It was the feeling that everything was going to be alright. And even though the tears of the anguish I had suffered over the years still leaked out of my closed eyes a smile spread across my lips.

Goodbye 2011

And so begins our final year on earth and I will miss each and every one of you dearly. I’m only kidding I won’t miss a single one of you. Okay maybe a handful of you.

As for the world ended, well I highly doubt that it will, completely at least, there are theories that speculate, when a species begins to overpopulate nature cuts it back down to a more sustainable level. I suppose this could explain the recent earthquakes, floods, hurricanes and tsunamis etc. as just the start, but then perhaps these catastrophes happened because most of the places the major events happened in countries that are all on or quite near fault lines. But who knows? Certainly not me.

Aside from it being the beginning of the end it’s time to make some new years resolutions

So what are my resolutions for this year? Well I have a few

1) First of all is the standard, join a gym. Well, I have a membership, I just never go, so we’ll change that to ‘Go’ to the gym. Regularly.

2) Get a job

3) and finally and perhaps the most important of them all: Survive.

We’ll see how long the first one lasts if it actually begins, I’ll be accepting bets from  tomorrow.

 

I hope you had a brilliant new years celebration and that 2012 is, at the very least, marginally better than 2011 was.

Stay classy x