This is a brief rant - and I'm sorry, not returning to the light-hearted rants as proposed in my previous posting. I was just googling around on the internet and came across a website that informed me of the US spending on foreign aid, the figures for 1997. It would seem that America spent a massive $3284million funding overseas arms transfer, and yet managed only to expend $65million on peacekeeping forces. This means that the US spent roughly fifty times more money starting wars than trying to stop them. Anybody see any logic in this?
And just to annoy myself somewhat further, I have scrolled down the website and found some other baffling figures. Now, I know that the US does ultimately have the interests of the US at heart, but bear in mind I am looking on the website that highlights the US Spending on Foreign Aid. Implication being, what the US spent on helping a few bods abroad. $715million promoting US exports and, get this, a further $45million to, and I quote, 'Finance feasibility studies and other services for major activities in developing countries to support economic development and U.S. exports.' I believe I'm missing a point in here somewhere, but from what I see the US is doing the sum total of bugger all to help with any economy other than that of the US.
Are people really inherently selfish? I like to think not, but maybe that is just me being overly hopeful on occasion. Have a feeling Dawkins', 'The Selfish Gene' may be relevant here. Must get me a copy.
Oh - Happy Halloween, dear Reader!
Monday, October 31, 2005
Tuesday, October 25, 2005
Creating Priorities
This rant is brought about by my increasingly frustrating Women's Studies course and an article I read on the BBC website today (I do have other sources, honest, just rarely cite them). Apparently, China held a mass speed dating event with over five thousand people attending. The concept appealed on the basis that they have no time in their working lives to meet other people, and thus the 'speed' element was fairly essential as well.
This comes after I have been delving into de Beauvoir this afternoon (distractions of films, MSN, phones and housemates aside) and I'll quote her as it makes life easier: 'According to the Platonic myth, there were at the beginning men, women, and hermaphrodites. Each individual had two faces, four arms, four legs, and two conjoined bodies. At a certain time they were split in two, and ever since each half seeks to rejoin its corresponding half.' See - I like that concept. At the risk of being viewed as amazingly cheesy by the world at large, I would even dare to say I think it is beautiful. And frankly, I seriously doubt that the Gods intended us to meet the other half of ourselves at some government organised mass speed dating effort. Doesn't quite fit in with the rest of the story, does it?
This does relate to my Women's Studies course. Everybody has been bellowing recently about how we should have equal rights, how women should be able to go out to work even when they have children, how men should do their share of the housework. I am fed up with this attitude everybody has these days of 'wanting everything' and somehow expecting it. Plus, they want it NOW. I know I'm not the most patient person in the world, but I can hardly be accused of being a 'serial dater' - one of those girls who spends their entire time with one boyfriend or another, staying together as long as it suits, not because there is actually any feeling between them.
I like the idea of things being 'meant to be'. Not least because it takes a great deal of pressure out of life, and because it means there is no point battling against things all the time. When something is meant to happen, it will. And furthermore, when you take the step to have children it should be because you actually want them, not feel you need them as some form of fashion accessory. I've no argument with people wanting a career - go for it. Just don't expect to have the 'family life' as well.
I feel as if I've been getting overly serious of late on this blog... Hm. Must cut down on that and revert to light-heartedness or I'm going to lose a few readers, methinks.
I'm off to pop my blisters. Cursed blade handles.
This comes after I have been delving into de Beauvoir this afternoon (distractions of films, MSN, phones and housemates aside) and I'll quote her as it makes life easier: 'According to the Platonic myth, there were at the beginning men, women, and hermaphrodites. Each individual had two faces, four arms, four legs, and two conjoined bodies. At a certain time they were split in two, and ever since each half seeks to rejoin its corresponding half.' See - I like that concept. At the risk of being viewed as amazingly cheesy by the world at large, I would even dare to say I think it is beautiful. And frankly, I seriously doubt that the Gods intended us to meet the other half of ourselves at some government organised mass speed dating effort. Doesn't quite fit in with the rest of the story, does it?
This does relate to my Women's Studies course. Everybody has been bellowing recently about how we should have equal rights, how women should be able to go out to work even when they have children, how men should do their share of the housework. I am fed up with this attitude everybody has these days of 'wanting everything' and somehow expecting it. Plus, they want it NOW. I know I'm not the most patient person in the world, but I can hardly be accused of being a 'serial dater' - one of those girls who spends their entire time with one boyfriend or another, staying together as long as it suits, not because there is actually any feeling between them.
I like the idea of things being 'meant to be'. Not least because it takes a great deal of pressure out of life, and because it means there is no point battling against things all the time. When something is meant to happen, it will. And furthermore, when you take the step to have children it should be because you actually want them, not feel you need them as some form of fashion accessory. I've no argument with people wanting a career - go for it. Just don't expect to have the 'family life' as well.
I feel as if I've been getting overly serious of late on this blog... Hm. Must cut down on that and revert to light-heartedness or I'm going to lose a few readers, methinks.
I'm off to pop my blisters. Cursed blade handles.
Sunday, October 23, 2005
Bless this Age of Technology
As a general rule, technology and everything that goes along with it (instruction manuals the size of small dwellings, the potential to lose entire essays in the click of a button, the development of such ailments as 'repetitive strain injury' adding unnecessary strains to the over-stretched health service) annoys the hell out of me. Today, however, I'm more inclined to thank part of it - despite having completely lost my voice courtesy of a particularly vicious cold, I'm still able to rant to you. I could rant that too much effort has gone into the creation of this technology allowing me to post to worldwide readers my frustrations with loss of ability to speak, and not enough effort has gone into ensuring my voice stays with me at all times. But frankly, I don't have the energy.
So what has Technology really done for us? It has removed the necessity of washing dishes - replacing this relatively calming activity with the requirement to bend and lift, bend and lift, as you empty the dishwasher (RSI resulting). It means that we can hurtle around the world in a capsule and arrive in Australia less than twenty four hours after leaving home, thus replacing that three month cruise where people used to meet and form lifelong friendships. On the flight we are provided with eyemasks and earplugs to block out any thought of the presence of others. Whereas years ago people would walk down the lane to a barn and dance the night away with their close-knit community, we now travel potentially miles and miles to launch ourselves into a room filled with glaring lights flashing erratically and 'music' being forced on us at such a volume we are unable to speak to those immediately next to us. Technology means I can talk to a coffee farmer in Jamaica more easily than my next door neighbour; I can form friendships with people across the Atlantic more readily than with others in my home town. Everybody who uses the likes of MSN knows that it is remarkably easy to say things that you wouldn't ordinarily in conversation - to some extent you are distanced from your words as you type them. While some say this is a positive, I say otherwise: you can end up in situations that you would never normally have intended, having convinced yourself that somebody 'knows the real you'.
Technology has essentially allowed us to become increasingly disconnected from the world around us as it strives to demonstrate just how connected it can make us. A three year old boy sat with the dead body of his mother for two weeks in Scotland recently: nobody knew he was in the house, or that she had died. My God, what has the West become?
So what has Technology really done for us? It has removed the necessity of washing dishes - replacing this relatively calming activity with the requirement to bend and lift, bend and lift, as you empty the dishwasher (RSI resulting). It means that we can hurtle around the world in a capsule and arrive in Australia less than twenty four hours after leaving home, thus replacing that three month cruise where people used to meet and form lifelong friendships. On the flight we are provided with eyemasks and earplugs to block out any thought of the presence of others. Whereas years ago people would walk down the lane to a barn and dance the night away with their close-knit community, we now travel potentially miles and miles to launch ourselves into a room filled with glaring lights flashing erratically and 'music' being forced on us at such a volume we are unable to speak to those immediately next to us. Technology means I can talk to a coffee farmer in Jamaica more easily than my next door neighbour; I can form friendships with people across the Atlantic more readily than with others in my home town. Everybody who uses the likes of MSN knows that it is remarkably easy to say things that you wouldn't ordinarily in conversation - to some extent you are distanced from your words as you type them. While some say this is a positive, I say otherwise: you can end up in situations that you would never normally have intended, having convinced yourself that somebody 'knows the real you'.
Technology has essentially allowed us to become increasingly disconnected from the world around us as it strives to demonstrate just how connected it can make us. A three year old boy sat with the dead body of his mother for two weeks in Scotland recently: nobody knew he was in the house, or that she had died. My God, what has the West become?
Tuesday, October 18, 2005
Like a fish needs a bicycle...
Well okay, I hold my hands up and admit this post actually has nothing to do with fish - I just always liked that expression and have an excuse to use it, given that I am embarking on a rant about bicycles. Focussing primarily on the inability of particularly female cyclists to ride safely around this city. I am fed up with ambling along merrily in my cycle lane and coming up against any of the following:
a. somebody 'pulling out' into the lane without stopping to check if anybody is already hurtling their way along it. Much slamming on of brakes (which reminds me, really should make it so that my bike brakes at least pretend to function).
b. some prat of a person stopping for no reason. No reason at all. Maybe they thought their phone was ringing, maybe a particularly colourful butterfly was speeding past, or maybe they just thought hey, my legs hurt, I'm going to stop for a minute. Someone behind me? Pah, their problem.
c. I was cycling along yesterday behind a girl who I had been trying to overtake for a while but she kept swinging out a tad too far, then, just to add to her obvious stupidity, she randomly pulled onto the pavement and carried on cycling. Awesome - I speed up to pass and she suddenly slams back off the pavement into the cycle lane, causing me to go out into the road and virtually into the path of a car.
There are multiple other scenarios I could detail, but essentially what I'm saying is this: everyone who comes to Oxford with the intention of cycling should be given a road-safety test. And if they fail, they can damn well walk. And have the walking-safety test while they're at it - i.e. LOOK FOR BIKES COMING. Good God, for a city of supposedly intelligent people, there are some mighty dumb ones as well.
a. somebody 'pulling out' into the lane without stopping to check if anybody is already hurtling their way along it. Much slamming on of brakes (which reminds me, really should make it so that my bike brakes at least pretend to function).
b. some prat of a person stopping for no reason. No reason at all. Maybe they thought their phone was ringing, maybe a particularly colourful butterfly was speeding past, or maybe they just thought hey, my legs hurt, I'm going to stop for a minute. Someone behind me? Pah, their problem.
c. I was cycling along yesterday behind a girl who I had been trying to overtake for a while but she kept swinging out a tad too far, then, just to add to her obvious stupidity, she randomly pulled onto the pavement and carried on cycling. Awesome - I speed up to pass and she suddenly slams back off the pavement into the cycle lane, causing me to go out into the road and virtually into the path of a car.
There are multiple other scenarios I could detail, but essentially what I'm saying is this: everyone who comes to Oxford with the intention of cycling should be given a road-safety test. And if they fail, they can damn well walk. And have the walking-safety test while they're at it - i.e. LOOK FOR BIKES COMING. Good God, for a city of supposedly intelligent people, there are some mighty dumb ones as well.
Sunday, October 16, 2005
Inconsiderate Garden-Goers
Being a member of Oxford University has a few advantages - one of the possibly more minor ones being that you are granted free access to the botanic (botanical?) gardens here. After talking about them last night with a particularly drunk example of a Swede, I was reminded of my aim to 'see the ivy', as is done in 'Brideshead Revisited'. Anyhow, yes, I headed there early this afternoon to sit in the sun - armed with, for good measure, some of my course reading and a large bottle of water in an attempt to rehydrate my body. (The course reading obviously to rehydrate my mind rather than the more literal flesh and blood). Digressing. Right - found a nice bench on which to perch myself and ponder the imponderables of existence, and settled down for a good hour or so of doing remarkably little while pretending to do an awful lot.
Not five minutes after delving into those thoughts one only has in moments of distinct solitude, my peace was interrupted by a group of overgrown children. Specifically, women out celebrating the birthday of one of them and this apparently necessitating much squawking, fake laughter, and multiple air-kisses, that ultimate demonstration of the sophisicated mind in our day and age. After enduring the pointless and overly loud chat for a good ten minutes, I stalked off muttering loudly about quiet, rest, and the role of the recluse in gardens today. I doubt they took the hint, they were so busy exclaiming over a tea pot shaped as a country cottage. Delightful.
Just as libraries are kept silent, so perhaps gardens should be the outdoor version of a haven. Sometimes I like to pretend I'm not in a city and it is a bit difficult if people insist on being loud and brash right next to me while waving multiple carrier bags and passing round the cigarettes. Maybe I'll go back mid-week, should be quieter then... If not, will resort to the museum and spend my time among the dinosaur bones. How 'improving'.
Not five minutes after delving into those thoughts one only has in moments of distinct solitude, my peace was interrupted by a group of overgrown children. Specifically, women out celebrating the birthday of one of them and this apparently necessitating much squawking, fake laughter, and multiple air-kisses, that ultimate demonstration of the sophisicated mind in our day and age. After enduring the pointless and overly loud chat for a good ten minutes, I stalked off muttering loudly about quiet, rest, and the role of the recluse in gardens today. I doubt they took the hint, they were so busy exclaiming over a tea pot shaped as a country cottage. Delightful.
Just as libraries are kept silent, so perhaps gardens should be the outdoor version of a haven. Sometimes I like to pretend I'm not in a city and it is a bit difficult if people insist on being loud and brash right next to me while waving multiple carrier bags and passing round the cigarettes. Maybe I'll go back mid-week, should be quieter then... If not, will resort to the museum and spend my time among the dinosaur bones. How 'improving'.
Friday, October 14, 2005
Blithering Idiots
Yes, I know that I generally believe there are multiple categories of people who can be classed as Blithering Idiots. This particular rants refers to those whose bizarre intention in an interview is to make you feel about two inches tall (impressive for someone starting off at six feet) and as if every idea you ever had was stupid, pointless and a waste of thinking time. Honestly, I have never come across a pair of such arrogant IDIOTS in my lifetime. For those of you not in the know, I was trying to change from my MSt. Women's Studies to an MPhil in Development Studies. Seriously though, after the interview I doubt if I'd have taken it had it been offered, I am so MAD at the two who did the so-called 'interview'. It generally takes quite a lot to reduce me to tears but they damn well managed it. What is the point in establishing fairly firmly that NO, I do NOT have a 'social sciences' background and then proceed to tell me that none of my views are valid as a direct result of this. Additionally, how can you ask someone to constantly come up with 'data, quantifiable results' when they have asked my opinion on something. And what is the point in asking someone who is 23 and hasn't oddly enough studied the structure of levees, governmental spending, and all that rollocks, why Katrina happened? Heck, if I knew I'd be earning a bloody fortune right now.
I HATE that they ended up forming the image of me as somebody with a trust fund, a daddy's girl, a bit of an idiot who has faffed around with voluntary work at some point. How dare they? How dare they get it so wrong and not give me a chance to defend myself because every time I created a point or formed an opinion, it was knocked back on the basis that I clearly was stupid as hadn't done a social sciences undergrad?
Wow. Yes. So Women's Studies may NOT be the most glamorous of Masters to be taking, and half the people on the course may be classifiable as total and utter ejits, but at least dear God they are generally nice to one another. The course directors are personable. They are, in some capacity, human. So I'll hang around in Oxford for a year, end up with a Masters and frankly I no longer care if it is a distinction as I do NOT want to be around academics for any longer than I have to be. And at the end of a year, I'm moving to a tropical island and staying there. I don't care if that is selfish, everybody else bloody well is and I'm fed up with trying to think otherwise.
On top of everything else, just to add a GRR factor, they got my name wrong. How tough is it to remember to call me Jane when everything I sign says 'Jane', my email address is janethomas_uk and half the time I wear my Jane 'Schumacher' Thomas jumper. I mean, REALLY.
GRRRRRRR. Grr.
I HATE that they ended up forming the image of me as somebody with a trust fund, a daddy's girl, a bit of an idiot who has faffed around with voluntary work at some point. How dare they? How dare they get it so wrong and not give me a chance to defend myself because every time I created a point or formed an opinion, it was knocked back on the basis that I clearly was stupid as hadn't done a social sciences undergrad?
Wow. Yes. So Women's Studies may NOT be the most glamorous of Masters to be taking, and half the people on the course may be classifiable as total and utter ejits, but at least dear God they are generally nice to one another. The course directors are personable. They are, in some capacity, human. So I'll hang around in Oxford for a year, end up with a Masters and frankly I no longer care if it is a distinction as I do NOT want to be around academics for any longer than I have to be. And at the end of a year, I'm moving to a tropical island and staying there. I don't care if that is selfish, everybody else bloody well is and I'm fed up with trying to think otherwise.
On top of everything else, just to add a GRR factor, they got my name wrong. How tough is it to remember to call me Jane when everything I sign says 'Jane', my email address is janethomas_uk and half the time I wear my Jane 'Schumacher' Thomas jumper. I mean, REALLY.
GRRRRRRR. Grr.
Thursday, October 06, 2005
Tropical Storm Stan
Welcome back to the world of a genuine rant. No pictures to accompany the words today. Out of curiosity, dear Reader, have you heard of Tropical Storm Stan? Those of you in the UK might have heard a mention, or had you delved into the Americas section of the BBC news website you'd have found a few small articles mentioning its existence. Strange, isn't it, how a disaster that is very much in the process of happening at this moment, is receiving less coverage than something that happened weeks ago - namely, Katrina. The simple answer is that we are all amazed by how America was not prepared for the storm, but somehow aren't so amazed - or apparently concerned - that the same, or arguably worse, has happened in the likes of Guatemala and Honduras. At least America had the resources to effect a rescue operation even if it didn't employ them suitably; the countries devastated by Stan are using everything and everyone they can and still don't have anything like the equipment they desperately need. So wouldn't it have been, well, NICE if America had said hey, we messed up on ourselves, but dear God we aren't going to mess up for some of our closest neighbours. We'll prove that we do know what we're doing, restore the faith of the American people in our emergency services.
Oh, but what we do have on the websites - just by the by - are endless photos of the horror and destruction that Stan has caused. Admittedly not as many as were used to illustrate the unfolding nightmare in New Orleans and surrounds, but enough to show us that oh look, people are suffering. We'll take photos. That makes for real 'impact' photography. How damn fake the whole thing is.
I am sitting here quietly seething about this. Just annoyed myself further by wandering around the internet trying to find a charity that would be accepting donations to help with the victims of Stan. There isn't one yet - not one. Within days of Katrina, we had appeals even in the UK for aid. The American Red Cross is still pushing for donations. They've all gotten so caught up in helping America they seem to have forgotten anybody else.
Anybody else hate this world we live in?
Oh, but what we do have on the websites - just by the by - are endless photos of the horror and destruction that Stan has caused. Admittedly not as many as were used to illustrate the unfolding nightmare in New Orleans and surrounds, but enough to show us that oh look, people are suffering. We'll take photos. That makes for real 'impact' photography. How damn fake the whole thing is.
I am sitting here quietly seething about this. Just annoyed myself further by wandering around the internet trying to find a charity that would be accepting donations to help with the victims of Stan. There isn't one yet - not one. Within days of Katrina, we had appeals even in the UK for aid. The American Red Cross is still pushing for donations. They've all gotten so caught up in helping America they seem to have forgotten anybody else.
Anybody else hate this world we live in?
Wednesday, October 05, 2005
Newcomers' Dinner
I had the privelege and honour (cough, cough) of attending the Linacre Newcomers' Dinner yesterday. This was supposedly an opportunity to meet my college tutor and a few other students, but was yet another Oxford evening of vast quantities of free alcohol masquerading as a sensible and purposeful event. Honestly, I've no idea how anybody here gets any work done if occasions such as this carry on for the entire term. I was sitting in the immediate vicinity of an American mathematician, riveting conversation opportunity there, and also a Durham maths spod who clearly wished he was affiliated with the likes of Brasenose/Balliol (the poncy old colleges for those not in the know). Opposite a total lunatic from Sweden who, despite never having been to Africa, is reading African Studies. He proceeded to get increasingly drunk throughout the course of the evening, which was disturbing in that sort of blonde-haired, blue-eyed, cherub-faced way. People who look like that should stick with the knitting circle.
Anyhow.
Not much of a rant really... Could rant slightly about my total ineptitude with a blade on the water this morning - was ignoring all my commands and doing strange things that I didn't appreciate at all. No, I've very little to say and have spent a good portion of today avoiding reading - to the extent that I've convinced a girl from B.Aires to send me seemingly endless photos of a night out there and I thought hey, I'll put one up on here. Why not. It is the night where Argentina beat Brazil in the World Cup Qualifiers, and as a result 'happy hour' carried on throughout the night... The results are fairly obvious.
Anyhow.
Not much of a rant really... Could rant slightly about my total ineptitude with a blade on the water this morning - was ignoring all my commands and doing strange things that I didn't appreciate at all. No, I've very little to say and have spent a good portion of today avoiding reading - to the extent that I've convinced a girl from B.Aires to send me seemingly endless photos of a night out there and I thought hey, I'll put one up on here. Why not. It is the night where Argentina beat Brazil in the World Cup Qualifiers, and as a result 'happy hour' carried on throughout the night... The results are fairly obvious.
Monday, October 03, 2005
Quotation
Ah, good evening. I decided to delve into one of the five billion books I have to read before next Friday and found something that I thought put a few things, well, rather nicely. So thought I'd expand your knowledge, dear Reader, and let you in on it too. From Mary Wollstonecroft, 'A Vindication of the Rights of Woman'. (And can I just add that I've found someone with more of an affection for the humble comma than even I, who enthusiastically throws them around the place to adorn my sentences).
Love, the common passion, in which chance and sensation take place of choice and reason, is, in some degree, felt by the mass of mankind; for it is not necessary to speak, at present, of the emotions that rise above or sink below love. This passion, naturally increased by suspense and difficulties, draws the mind out of its accustomed state, and exalts the affections; but the security of marriage allowing the fever of love to subside, a healthy temperature is thought insipid only by those who have not sufficient intellect to substitute the calm tenderness of friendship, the confidence of respect, instead of blind admiration, and the sensual emotions of fondness.
This is, must be, the course of nature. Friendship or indifference inevitably succeeds love... Passions are spurs to action, and open the mind; but they sink into mere appetites, become a personal and momentary gratification when the object is gained, and the satisfied mind rests in enjoyment.
Well, I liked it anyway.
Love, the common passion, in which chance and sensation take place of choice and reason, is, in some degree, felt by the mass of mankind; for it is not necessary to speak, at present, of the emotions that rise above or sink below love. This passion, naturally increased by suspense and difficulties, draws the mind out of its accustomed state, and exalts the affections; but the security of marriage allowing the fever of love to subside, a healthy temperature is thought insipid only by those who have not sufficient intellect to substitute the calm tenderness of friendship, the confidence of respect, instead of blind admiration, and the sensual emotions of fondness.
This is, must be, the course of nature. Friendship or indifference inevitably succeeds love... Passions are spurs to action, and open the mind; but they sink into mere appetites, become a personal and momentary gratification when the object is gained, and the satisfied mind rests in enjoyment.
Well, I liked it anyway.
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