Not original or interesting
So it is about four on a Thursday afternoon and I have nothing to say. I mean, there are things I could say but they are not original or interesting.I could tell you about the music I have been listening to. Right now I have Burial's album on. The genre is dubstep, which is quite new to me, but if you are thinking dark DnB with a UK garage inflection, you're close enough. For the uninitiated, it's a kind of dance music that it would be nearly impossible to dance to, unless you are willing to look like a spastic zombie. I have also been loving Candie Payne. When I was a kid, my mum and dad had only a few records, mostly singles, and the likes of Cilla Black and Petunia Clark featured heavily. I asked my dad the other day why he totally ignored Motown, Stax, the Velvet Underground and the Doors, and he said he just didn't feel the need to follow the herd. Perhaps he didn't understand the question. Anyway, I'm very fond of the sixties chick belters, particularly Cilla, who made some brilliant records (hard to believe when you see her doing her professional Scouser teeth and gorblimey act on Blind Date or the hideous Surprise Surprise, but Anyone who had a heart stands up against anything from the sixties in my view), and Dusty (if you do not feel tears spring to your eyes when you hear I close my eyes and count to ten, you do not love music or love love either for that matter). Candie does a bang up to date take on that theme. I have a huge soft spot for distinctive female voices (from Bjork through Liz Frazer to Lisa Gerrard, stopping at all stations Aretha and Candi), and Candie has one. Not as strong, maybe, as some of those other names, but still big and brassy.
I could tell you about Stanthorpe, where I spent a long weekend just now. But what can I tell you that you wouldn't find if you googled it? You can't taste the wine I tasted; you can't see the sunset drenching the big sky with pinks and yellows; you can't hear the crackle of logs on a blazing fire. At the cellar door of Tobin's (which I recommend to you if you like your wine with fruit; those, like me, who prefer a chewier red might direct themselves instead to the excellent Wild Soul), my father is saying that he doesn't mind immigrants but they should learn English, to some acclaim from Mr Tobin and our driver.
Why though? I ask. What concern is it of mine whether someone speaks English? If they work and pay taxes, they can speak whatever they like. But people need to integrate, my dad says. Why? I ask. What difference does it make to you? My dad is not a particularly outgoing person, and I don't think it would bother him if everyone else in the country spoke Chinese. He just spouts this shit because the Mail writes it.
The thing is, we don't really have anything to fear from immigrants, even if their ways are different from ours. Changes to a culture happen quite slowly and unpredictably, and most places tend to be conservative to the point of inertia. And changes are not necessarily, or often, harmful. My mother, on the same subject, claims we are being "swamped". There were queues when they opened up the UK to eastern Europe, she says. She saw them on TV. Yes, I say, there were queues on day one. But no one filmed day two.
We were not swamped, of course. The reason not is simple. Romanians do not want to live in the UK; they want to live in Romania. They too want to be around people who speak their language, eat the food they eat, dance the dances they dance. I don't see why it is a good thing to insist they stop. Are our things really that much better? We make the mistake of thinking that they are because we are rich. We think we are rich because of something about us. But we are not. We are rich because we exploited the rest of the world and are surfing on the wave of richness that brought us.
Anyway, the world has a gradient of wellbeing and people will tend to move up that gradient if they can. The poor will pursue affluence if they have the opportunity. You and I would too, in their shoes. The route to resolving our worries about immigration is quite obviously not to wall ourselves in and them out, or to try to force them to become us, but to smooth the gradient as best we can. Then we'll have to find other reasons to hate each other.
We can always rely on the old standbys: hating people for being a different gender or for liking different sex than we do. I saw a smidgen of Richard Dawkins on the idiot box the other day. He was talking to a gayhater who was quoting the Bible on the subject. Naturally, this man felt bound by the writings of some halfcrazed arsewit who lived in a culture and in a place very different from the mid-American hellhole he was himself polluting. Well, it saves you from having to think for yourself, I suppose. It's difficult for a sceptic like me to understand completely people who feel life is best lived without encumbering themselves with contemplation, but of course I see the attraction. You can avoid responsibility. Accepting a scripture allows you to become a soldier, following orders that you cannot control, which permits you to tackle difficult issues as though they were simple. It makes life easier, and we all love an easy life.
Yes, I understand the attraction but life is fascinating precisely because it is complex and difficult to understand. Or seems that way. Whether it actually is all that complicated is another question. Perhaps there are more than one level of complexity. Take homosexuality. It is not all that complicated that some of us want to fuck the same sex. It's just how you feel, after all, what strikes you as fuckable. But the reasons you feel that way may well be complex. I suppose it's too much to expect Xtian idiots to want to think about the complex reasons for their simple feelings about gayness.
This album really is very good. I don't know what has led me to loving this stuff, but I do. I am not dancing though. I already look and feel like a zombie, without needing to dance like one to prove it. (The zombie fixation is a product of having watched the mildly amusing Shaun of the Dead.)
posted by Dr Zen @ 12:46 pm
10 Comments:
The thing is, we don't really have anything to fear from immigrants, even if their ways are different from ours.
Oh dear you're out of touch!
There are areas in London (Manchester, Luton, Leeds etc)which you and i can no longer walk safely, there are Streets around Camden Lock where you *will* be Mugged/attacked.(Don't say London has always been like that, because i've lived in the most deprived areas of London and never felt or been threatened)There are collages where you will not be welcome in the liberaries, you will not be permitted to speak to who you wish, you will not be permitted freedom of speech. There are Cafes and shops in Green Lanes Haringey where you are not welcome and it will be made very apparent.
I think children of immigrants should learn the language of the new country because they will do better that way. So, in that sense, the parents should learn it too, in order to make it easier for their children. They don't have to, of course, as the kids will learn it anyway as well as absorb the new country's culture, no matter how the parents might feel about it. This is also true for different parts of the U.S.: my children are California girls whether I like it or not (Jeff and I are from NY, and naturally believe it to be superior -- winky), and so are the children of a "Southern belle" I know, who wishes they would be little South Carolinians, though they will not.
As you say, UV, the children of immigrants tend to learn the language anyway. My main concern is that immigrants from very patriarchal societies may not *permit* women to learn English, putting them at a huge disadvantage. But I see this issue, and the issue of language learning on the whole, as a matter of benefit for the person concerned.
anonymous, I have been to Green Lanes many times. I know you're full of shit. But of course there are places where you won't feel comfortable. There are places that have no immigrants that would make you feel distinctly uneasy. I don't think there's any mileage, even for a fucknut like you, in suggesting we should limit immigration so that we can increase the number of cafes and shops you can visit.
"I have been to Green Lanes many times."
Not in the past 3 years you haven't!!
My in-laws lived just off Green Lanes until 2 1/2 yrs ago. It was predominately Cypriot, they moved out Black West Indians gangs briefly took it over, but were ousted by East Europeans, they had greater fire power.
Somali gangs are prevalent in 3 to 4 areas in London now they, one small area is Camden town a few streets and alleys are no go areas, which they control totally. You will be assaulted if you trespass.
You know fuck all you are a country boy, i've lived in London all my life. You have a white middle class liberal attitude which is totally unrelated to reality.
"limit immigration so that we can increase the number of cafes and shops you can visit."
You are a complete CUNT! you said.
"The thing is, we don't really have anything to fear from immigrants"
I'm saying you are wrong the reality is different. Best you stay in AU that way you can maintain that rosy ex-pat image you have in time it will get rosier and rosier.
LOL. What a pussy! There is not a street in that city I'd be scared to walk down, dude. Grow some balls, you chickenshit.
Girls! You are BOTH pretty, now simmer!
I agree with UV - my wife is an ESOL teacher (after they eliminated German from the curric), and it serves immigrants well to adapt on the basic level of language. I don't think the U.S. government should be responsible for printing up forms for anything but English.
AFA immigration goes, I think the perception that we (U.S.) are being overrun is so much right-wing fear mongering, although conversely I don't think we're dealing with the influx very intelligently. I actually have to give Bush credit for trying - guest worker status and amnesty (*gasp* yeah, well that's what it is, Dick Wingnut) are steps in the right direction. Thing that scares me is the right-wing's ironic ability to strike fear into the hearts of the working class and grab those votes en masse.
The US government should serve the people. If the people speak Spanish, that means printing forms in Spanish. Of course immigrants are better off speaking the majority language, but that's their concern.
The right wing like immigrants. They can accuse them of thieving welfare so that no one notices their own larceny, and they are readymade scapegoats for all social ills. The strategy works partly because of fellow travellers like my anonymous friend, who help fearmonger even though they have nothing to gain from it, except to fuel their own prejudices.
Even though Bush's guest worker proposal might seem a redemption factor in some eyes, he's not doing it for the immigrants: he's doing it for the businesses that need cheap labor. The policy is in fact so convoluted that few immigrants can be expected to understand it. In fact, most Americans probably won't. Even if the bill goes through, it will likely achieve nothing. The real solution to the problem is, of course, as Dr. Zen pointed out, a better life in Mexico. Now how likely is Bush to come even an inch closer to that goal?
"LOL. What a pussy! There is not a street in that city I'd be scared to walk down, dude. Grow some balls, you chickenshit."
Lair and a wimp, it is shocking how much has changed in the last 5 years unless you live here its impossible to appreciate it.
"a better life in Mexico"
Ha! Kinky Friedman had a good idea (well, interesting anyway): the U.S. should put 500 million dollars into a trust fund for the leaders (or more accurately generals) of Mexico and say they can have it in ten years. BUT for every illegal crossing, $1,000 will be deducted.
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