early essays
these essays first appeared on the now mothballed shimmerytimbers website, the forerunner to the silber galerie, in the early years of this century when i was immersed in domestic and international politics, taking a radical perspective. like many people i was shouting about injustice, demanding change from people who weren't listening to what i was saying. after a while i realised, in a kind of Christian epiphany, that the most i could do was change myself, stop myself from being part of the destructive process in as many ways as my strength could manage. i still shout at the man but i don't expect to be heard. i do it mostly to hear my thoughts and for the love of rational, compassionate word play.
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1. selfish dreams
Have just read pilger''s G8 report about the lie of african debt relief and the role pop stars play in legitimizing the entrenchment of western exploitation. His description is wholly accurate except for the fact that, in blaming the elites of government and the entertainment plutocracy, he disregards the culpability of the population at large. He does this because for decades Pilger has been lambasting the mainstream media, blaming it for lying to the country on behalf of nationalism, imperialism and the corporations, for manipulating agendas and for keeping the people ignorant of the facts.
This is correct, but as poisonous as it is, not everything put out by the media is believed by most people. In their everyday lives, everyday people understand there is a massive gap between what they are told by the TV or the glossy magazines and what is actually happening. They discern difference between the two versions on a daily basis. The media is responsible, therefore, not for delivering a false representation of reality which people believe, but for delivering a false representation of reality which people emulate and aspire to.
This has catastrophic consequences. Because the media is driven by the profit motive, it's representation of reality is on a constant downward spiral as it gets ever more degrading in its search for novelty and the ratings which come with it while incessantly promoting the consumer lifestyle which makes greed seem normal. This representation is in good measure fictional because it artificially creates new, degrading viewing opportunities in the quest for novelty and holds up tantalising, out-of-reach lifestyle features because, by the very nature of consumerism, people must always aspire to what they don't have.
But people don't have to be informed by the Observer that accumulating more and more luxury while half the world starves is a bad thing. They know this but suppress the knowledge, hiding behind a rationale which supports their comfortable lifestyle: the greed of western nations helps the third world poor; the way things are is inevitable; personal anti-consumer action would be pointless because no one else is doing it. They blame the politicians. 'We are trapped', they say.
But this is happily self-deluding and a lie. In excusing their enthusiasm for materialism, people shunt moral responsibility for the destruction it causes onto the wider social mass and pretend they have no responsibility themselves. But people are not trapped. The basic facts of global inequality a child can understand and there is plenty everyone could and should be doing to fight consumer-nationalist-imperialism.
While that is the case no one can escape personal responsibility for the contribution their way of life makes to great misery. Social justice fails to happen not just because people are lied to but because people lie to themselves in pursuit of selfish dreams.
june 2005
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2. trying to work it out
2 weeks ago a bbc online newsflash read: "Latest: North Korea to return to six way talks on its nuclear programme - state media." Yesterday, the same people reported that, "There is fear on the streets of Leeds - but perhaps more than anything there is shock that some of its young men are suspected of being the first suicide bombers to carry out their attack on British soil." Under the headline, "Leeds asks: What made them do it?" the report went on, "But what makes young men from Leeds become so radicalised? Councillor Mohammed Iqbal is among those who has spent 24 hours trying to work that out."
what is there to say to this deeply cynical faux childishness? First off, the bbc +is+ the state media. Not in north korea maybe, but certainly here. That sounds kind of harmless, like it's parody, in much the same way that calling the american military-government 'fascists' has a kind of humorously exaggerated connotation. But there's nothing humorous about the top being ripped off a number 30 bus and the lies and distortions of the bbc directly contributed to that outcome.
One of the main functions of state media - the propaganda arm of government and other power centres in an established social order - is to sow the seeds of doubt about issues which are in fact clear cut and simple to understand but threatening to the status quo if understood that way. Hence the ludicrous contention that any muslim would spend 24 hours trying to work out why muslim suicide bombers - from leeds or anywhere - would do what they do. On CNN last week retired CIA officer Michael Scheuer, who led the hunt for Osama bin Laden in the late 90s, said, "We're being attacked for what we do in the Islamic world, not for who we are or what we believe in or how we live."
Reporting these comments,Inter Press pointed out that Scheuer's view "has been bolstered by numerous public-opinion polls conducted in predominantly Muslim countries over the past several years that have consistently shown popular admiration for western political ideals but widespread resentment over U.S. policies throughout the Middle East, particularly its alliance with Israel, its invasion and subsequent occupation of Iraq, and its backing for autocratic regimes in the region."
The motivation for islamic militancy is, firstly, well known, and secondly, it's been well known for a long time. To pretend otherwise, as does the bbc, is what? Corrupt? Lethal? pretending otherwise is a propaganda strategy also known as credible denial which has been well used by israeli zionists for a long while. There, the straightforward issue of occupying someone else's land is obfuscated by the phrase 'but it's a very complex issue' which opens up the way for a very long trip round the houses in order that the simplicity of the issue is indefinitely avoided. Similarly, the straightforward observation that muslims and arabs might be so angry (they've got 100 000 dead in iraq for starters) that they'd kill themselves to wreak havoc on a murderous, aggressive enemy, is too dangerous to mention. Why? Because it would mean admitting that we are the aggressors and that although we have the solution for peace in our own hands we won't use it because we wish to keep exploiting the middle east.
While the victims of islamic terrorism in london were the victims of bbc propaganda, a propaganda which exists to further belligerent british nationalism, they were also victims of themselves. By voting for parties that endorsed war, that were +responsible+ for war, occupation and the wider exploitation of the middle east, or by not voting against them, people knowingly chose a path of self-serving bloody nationalism. Despite the lies and distortions and denials of the bbc, everyone still knew the basic facts of western aggression and exploitation but a massive majority of londoners (83%) voted for self interest before peace. this too was deeply cynical.
The facile and sentimental and vain response heard this week from Londoners and Britons more widely, in which outraged hypocrites proclaimed that in the face of terrorism they would stand 'united', 'defiant' and 'resilient', is woeful. what difference does intransigence make to the next suicide bomber? But with 7 million people in the capital, no doubt everyone is happy to indulge in a little defiance certain it won't be them on the next number 30 bus. ---
meanwhile...
As part of its anti-terrorism response, the government has since announced its intention to create a new criminal offence of "indirect incitement to commit terrorism". The Home Office explained that such an offence would apply to both public and private statements. "It would apply where people would seek to glorify terrorist activity, perhaps, for example, it's saying 'it's a marvellous thing that this has happened, these people are martyrs'. Not a direct incitement to go out and do so but it could be construed by people hearing that as an endorsement of terrorism.
It's very difficult to give examples of this. It would depend on what words we used, were they an endorsement, were they a glorification? "In some cases the tone of your endorsement might take it into glorification. What we're trying to get to here is that where people know the things that they say are likely to incite people then the criminal offence should be sufficient for them to be prosecuted." "If somebody is within the required intention of doing things which would be an indirect incitement to terrorism, then whoever they are they will be charged with a criminal offence and the court would decide on their guilt or innocence."
So there you have it. "whoever they are they will be charged". The government finally puts itself in the dock. To wage military and economic war against iraq and the wider middle east is to +sanction+ retaliation by those you wage war against.
july 2005
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3. not of our own making
On Sunday, the Daily Mail online ran a comment about the London bombings which closed with the lines "This is a war, but not of our own making. In the face of unreasoning hate and murder, even reasonable force will sometimes be used mistakenly." Two days later, reports showed the UK prime minister asserting that "Iraq was no excuse for the London bombings". By way of total contradiction and in the next breath, he then "acknowledged Iraq was being used to recruit terrorists." He said: "Let us expose the obscenity of these people saying it is concern for Iraq that drives them to terrorism. If it is concern for Iraq then why are they driving a car bomb into the middle of a group of children and killing them? We are not going to deal with this problem, with the roots as deep as they are, until we confront these people at every single level - and not just their methods but their ideas."
We are in deep trouble here people. When a country indulges in this level of denial with the stakes so high, lives are going to be lost. Here is what al-Qaeda have been saying about Iraq and terrorism, as reported by the US Congressionaal Research Service in february of this year:
"A tape, released on December 27 2004, underscored Al qaeda's interest in Iraq and support for the ongoing insurgency. In this tape, Bin Laden … described the importance of the conflict in Iraq to the jihadist cause from Al Qaeda's perspective. Bin Laden identified the insurgency in Iraq as 'a golden and unique opportunity' for jihadists to engage and defeat the United States, and he characterized the insurgency in Iraq as the central battle in a 'Third World war which the Crusader-Zionist coalition began against the Islamic nation."
The CRS report continues: "Bin Laden has identified 'martyrdom operations' or suicide attacks, as 'the most important operations' for disrupting the activities of the United States and its allies." Bin Laden first called a 'defensive jihad' against the US in 1990 for its occupation of Saudia Arabia. Since then he and Al qaeda have consistently claimed western military occupation or economic control of Islamic territories as their single grievance arguing "that the islamic world should see itself as one seamless community or 'umma' and that muslims were obliged to unite and defend themselves."
For Blair to be able to stand before the British people and pretend, when faced with such glaring evidence, that UK support - his support - for aggressive US foreign policy has not led directly to terrorist bombings on the Tube can only mean the British people are happy to have a pretender lead the nation. Why? Because, despite the costs - a few dead in London, many dead abroad - political fantasies are indulged to fund the lavish national lifestyle. Tony Blair's just the man to cover for that.
july 2005
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4. a simple conclusion
In his latest piece for the new statesman, john Pilger writes a cover article under the straightforward title, "Blair is unfit to be prime minister". Once again, it's exemplary stuff from Pilger but, cutting through the fine prose, his argument is seriously flawed. Of the terrorist attacks in London, he writes: "The bombs of 7 July were Blair's bombs", continuing, "To paraphrase perhaps the only challenging question put to Blair on the eve of the invasion [of Iraq], it is now surely beyond all doubt that the man is unfit to be prime minister."
"How much more evidence is needed? Before the invasion, Blair was warned by the Joint Intelligence Committee that 'by far the greatest terrorist threat' to this country would be 'heightened by military action against Iraq'. He was warned by 79% of Londoners who, according to a YouGov survey in February 2003, believed that a British attack on Iraq would make a terrorist attack on London more likely'".
Like many on the left, Pilger blames the disaster of Iraq on a political elite hiding or twisting the truth with the aid of corporate media. But his own evidence shows the lie of this claim. Despite the connivances of government and media, 79% of Londoners understood that war on Iraq would lead to terrorism at home. And yet, two years later, 83% of Londoners refused to vote against the war in a general election. These were not Blair's bombs. These were the bombs of a British electorate which overwhelmingly and subsequently endorsed the invasion and occupation of Iraq at the ballot box. The simple conclusion: the people knowingly voted for terrorism.
It is clearly still too difficult a conclusion for Pilger to reach while the hate figure Blair continues to attract his attention and while Chomsky and Herman dominate his thinking. Personalised attacks of the kind he indulges in here are a real waste of energy and in fact lead to the propagation of a lie. It is partly a consequence of the rhetorical position he adopts, one which sides with the best practice of ordinary people.
As he says, "occasionally a member of the public breaks the silence" and it is this kind of example which he repeatedly sets against elite behaviour. Far more frequently than not, however, ordinary people will understand the truth and justice of a situation but act against it and for their wallets, keeping mum, whistling cheerfully and contemplating more personal lifestyle enhancement. Or just plain more.
Alternatively, pilger could understand all this but be hoping that by attacking Blair some kind of domino effect will eventually take place whereby the prime minister's exit will transform the Labour party. But is that really credible when the problem is so much root up rather than branch down?
Whose deaf ears have his and everyone else's attacks been falling on all this time? Those of the British public, the Labour party and its supporters, the ordinary people in the street.
august 2005
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In his latest piece for the new statesman, john Pilger writes a cover article under the straightforward title, "Blair is unfit to be prime minister". Once again, it's exemplary stuff from Pilger but, cutting through the fine prose, his argument is seriously flawed. Of the terrorist attacks in London, he writes: "The bombs of 7 July were Blair's bombs", continuing, "To paraphrase perhaps the only challenging question put to Blair on the eve of the invasion [of Iraq], it is now surely beyond all doubt that the man is unfit to be prime minister."
"How much more evidence is needed? Before the invasion, Blair was warned by the Joint Intelligence Committee that 'by far the greatest terrorist threat' to this country would be 'heightened by military action against Iraq'. He was warned by 79% of Londoners who, according to a YouGov survey in February 2003, believed that a British attack on Iraq would make a terrorist attack on London more likely'".
Like many on the left, Pilger blames the disaster of Iraq on a political elite hiding or twisting the truth with the aid of corporate media. But his own evidence shows the lie of this claim. Despite the connivances of government and media, 79% of Londoners understood that war on Iraq would lead to terrorism at home. And yet, two years later, 83% of Londoners refused to vote against the war in a general election. These were not Blair's bombs. These were the bombs of a British electorate which overwhelmingly and subsequently endorsed the invasion and occupation of Iraq at the ballot box. The simple conclusion: the people knowingly voted for terrorism.
It is clearly still too difficult a conclusion for Pilger to reach while the hate figure Blair continues to attract his attention and while Chomsky and Herman dominate his thinking. Personalised attacks of the kind he indulges in here are a real waste of energy and in fact lead to the propagation of a lie. It is partly a consequence of the rhetorical position he adopts, one which sides with the best practice of ordinary people.
As he says, "occasionally a member of the public breaks the silence" and it is this kind of example which he repeatedly sets against elite behaviour. Far more frequently than not, however, ordinary people will understand the truth and justice of a situation but act against it and for their wallets, keeping mum, whistling cheerfully and contemplating more personal lifestyle enhancement. Or just plain more.
Alternatively, pilger could understand all this but be hoping that by attacking Blair some kind of domino effect will eventually take place whereby the prime minister's exit will transform the Labour party. But is that really credible when the problem is so much root up rather than branch down?
Whose deaf ears have his and everyone else's attacks been falling on all this time? Those of the British public, the Labour party and its supporters, the ordinary people in the street.
august 2005
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5. racism UK
The murder of Anthony Walker in Huyton, Liverpool has made headlines for the last week. Walker, a black 18 year-old, was bludgeoned to death in the street by a gang of young white men. Once again, as the country's record on racism comes under the spotlight, it's worth looking at just who's holding the spotlight and what they're saying. Acknowledging the significance of the event, the BBC sent its north of England correspondent to the scene. Catastrophic consequences arise from the kind of analysis he produced because, while appearing to treat the issue seriously, his report is in fact a carefully crafted apology for racism.
The beginning of the piece, essential to the apology's effect, premises all subsequent comment on a false pretext: "The debate is not about whether racism exists but how widespread it is. As ever, the answer depends on whom you talk to. Anecdotal evidence in Huyton points to a small but simmering racial problem for some time. Anthony had previously been picked on by a group of white males and taunted with racist shouts. Opinions vary on how isolated an incident this was." The debate is not at all about the prevalence of racist street incidents in Huyton or about the local details of a "small but simmering racial problem". It is about the entire civic and national culture of racism which is endemic to this island's way of life and which leads to grotesque racist murders in backwaters like Huyton.
As an august and indeed pivotal part of the national culture, the BBC cannot afford to have this discussion, however, as it actively supports the racist status quo. Here is a good example of how the real debate is elided; the senior BBC reporter states: "Most Liverpool politicians who have been interviewed in recent days have insisted Merseyside's racial problems are relatively minor. Figures from Merseyside police indicate that the number of hate crimes is falling - 421 between April and July this year compared to 442 in the same period last year."
Firstly, Liverpool's politicians are the only cited source of opinion on racism in the city but of the 5 MPs and 90 councillors all but one are white. The council itself is not an equal opportunities employer so, despite some fine PR pronouncements, it is now and has been for a very long time a racist organisation. Granby, Liverpool's most ethnically diverse ward where 38% of the population are from racial minorities (compared to an 8% city average), has 250% more unemployment than the city average (13.6% compared to 5.3%) and is the 5th worst employed ward out of 8414 in the country. Its residents have an average income 25% lower than the rest of the city, putting it 7th from bottom in the same list.
As well as committing itself to unspecified EO targets, the council claims in its Equal Opportunities statement that it "will encourage private contractors and suppliers to adopt [EO] policies and practices". But while Liverpool has been undergoing massive regeneration for the last couple of years, with every hectare a building site, it is impossible to spot anyone of colour working on any of these projects. Walk around the streets, visit the council offices, visit any of the major employers in the city and you'll soon notice that the regeneration boom is taking place without the representative employment participation of the city's ethnic minorities. One in 16 shop workers, one in 16 building site workers, one in 16 council employees should be from an ethnic minority. They're not and the naked racism of the high street, the building site and the office is startling. Where they do work, as the figures show, they work for less.
The senior BBC man, carrying the significant responsibility of informing the nation about racism, reports none of this. Instead he uses police figures to claim that racist incidents have been falling while other recent BBC headlines have proclaimed the exact opposite: "Racist attacks in Scotland have risen by almost a quarter since the London bombings, according to police figures" "The number of racially-motivated incidents reported to police in Yorkshire has soared in the past year" The report's conclusion is also a sentimental lie: "Cynics might point to the fact that it [an anti-racism rally in Liverpool city centre] attracted only a couple of thousand people, compared to the hundreds of thousands who packed the same streets two months ago to celebrate Liverpool winning the European Cup.
The reality is, however, the rally was hastily-arranged and although the attendance was by no means massive, the sight of black and white people in one place, with one message, was extremely powerful." The reality is, that if the rally had been arranged weeks in advance the attendance would still have been in the low thousands because many more people care about the footy than they do about racism while they practice it and benefit from it. Does this callousness breed the racism or does the racism make people callous? The situation in Liverpool, however, is just part of a much bigger national picture. Racism is not just institutionalised with particular employers, it is also institutionalised culturally across the country. The media play an important part in disguising the endemic and industrial quality of UK racism, primarily because such racism is central to our national economy and is organised by central government.
Nothing does more to crank up incidents of domestic street racism than a war abroad. So while the national press and its readers salivate with nationalist-inspired Islamophobia and become more entrenched in nationalist-racist fake righteousness as the 'war on terror' goes pear-shaped, their general level of racism rises. People can, nevertheless, still simultaneously affect outrage over the racist murder of a black UK teenager. This racist / anti-racist contradiction is possible because although racism is generally overtly disapproved of in public life, it is always necessary to support the brutal nationalist interests of government.
The media, and lets not forget, 99% of the public, are ready to go along with the philosophy that "bad stuff at home = bad", "bad stuff abroad = good" because it ensures that profitable exploitation of foreigners continues while a high profile anti-racism strategy here appears to be doing good work although it is constantly undermined by the international actions of government. Ironically, the ethnic minorities participate as much as anyone in this racist death machine by identifying themselves with belligerent nationalist interests and by voting for the war-prosecuting Labour party.
Indeed, in Granby, part of the Riverside constituency, the bellicose warmonger and known Islamophobe Louise Ellman was returned for the Labour Party with a huge 33% majority. Ethnic minority voters make decisions like this partly because of the Labour party's supposed anti-racist credentials but these only ever appeared justified because the party's own racism was exported and the rebound effects denied - something more indirect than the overtly racist BNP or Tory parties.
Wars for profit are made possible by tapping people's nationalist-racist pride and fear and by appealing to their wallets. Compared to the sad death of a teenager, it's worth remembering the scale of the destruction that such callous self-interest has caused.
august 2005
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6. beyond hypocrisy
Last Wednesday the police commissioner of the city of london - a financial square mile policed separately from the met - claimed that a terrorist attack on his beat was "a matter of when rather than if". This was reported variously as "City terror attack 'inevitable'" (BBC), "Police: Attack on London's financial district inevitable" (USAtoday) and "Attack on London financial centre inevitable - police" (reuters).
What is going on here? There is nothing 'inevitable' about terrorist attacks. Terrorists attack because they have a set of unmet demands - sometimes demands they or their compatriots have been making justly and peacefully without result for many years. The only sense in which it can be said that a terrorist attack on the city of london is 'inevitable' is one which assumes the 'inevitableness' of uk foreign policy.
But there is nothing 'inevitable' about people dying in bomb explosions to protect american oil interests. It only takes on this appearance when people wrongly assert there is nothing political that can be done to avert it, when the government's intransigence is popularly indulged. Politicians and their constituents, in avoiding public discussion of the rights and wrongs of supporting american imperialism, are not ignorant of the possibilities to avert disaster in london. Instead, they wilfully ignore those possibilities because they conflict with their other, primary interests.
A whole other dialogue is then invented in which the only relevant information about preventing terrorism is left out. A fake dialogue is constructed around bogus arguments which, while irrelevant to anti-terrorism, are wholly relevant to preserving foreign policy just as it is. Is this the hypocrisy for which the British are famed? Well, not really. Certainly, all this is the work of the morally contradicted but labelling them mere hypocrites undervalues the ruthless, cynical, greedily self-interested callousness which these ignorance-fakers act out on a daily basis. Such sustained cold-bloodedness is beyond hypocrisy.
The faking of national dialogues in which most everyone participates leads to the faking of national character. While the Sun bleats about the defiance of londoners, 30% fewer now actually travel by tube on a weekend. But this is not about media misrepresentation. The public have enough genuine information to work the situation out for themselves. Instead, they continue demanding more materialism, the price of which is to be america's imperial adjutant. Mostly that price is exported, paid by unlucky foreigners who get in the way of halliburton. Sometimes, just sometimes, however, the cost is also borne by unlucky brits on the no.30 bus. In either event, it is a cost the electorate knows well and has decided to pay. But it doesn't have to be like that. It isn't 'inevitable'.
august 2005
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Last Wednesday the police commissioner of the city of london - a financial square mile policed separately from the met - claimed that a terrorist attack on his beat was "a matter of when rather than if". This was reported variously as "City terror attack 'inevitable'" (BBC), "Police: Attack on London's financial district inevitable" (USAtoday) and "Attack on London financial centre inevitable - police" (reuters).
What is going on here? There is nothing 'inevitable' about terrorist attacks. Terrorists attack because they have a set of unmet demands - sometimes demands they or their compatriots have been making justly and peacefully without result for many years. The only sense in which it can be said that a terrorist attack on the city of london is 'inevitable' is one which assumes the 'inevitableness' of uk foreign policy.
But there is nothing 'inevitable' about people dying in bomb explosions to protect american oil interests. It only takes on this appearance when people wrongly assert there is nothing political that can be done to avert it, when the government's intransigence is popularly indulged. Politicians and their constituents, in avoiding public discussion of the rights and wrongs of supporting american imperialism, are not ignorant of the possibilities to avert disaster in london. Instead, they wilfully ignore those possibilities because they conflict with their other, primary interests.
A whole other dialogue is then invented in which the only relevant information about preventing terrorism is left out. A fake dialogue is constructed around bogus arguments which, while irrelevant to anti-terrorism, are wholly relevant to preserving foreign policy just as it is. Is this the hypocrisy for which the British are famed? Well, not really. Certainly, all this is the work of the morally contradicted but labelling them mere hypocrites undervalues the ruthless, cynical, greedily self-interested callousness which these ignorance-fakers act out on a daily basis. Such sustained cold-bloodedness is beyond hypocrisy.
The faking of national dialogues in which most everyone participates leads to the faking of national character. While the Sun bleats about the defiance of londoners, 30% fewer now actually travel by tube on a weekend. But this is not about media misrepresentation. The public have enough genuine information to work the situation out for themselves. Instead, they continue demanding more materialism, the price of which is to be america's imperial adjutant. Mostly that price is exported, paid by unlucky foreigners who get in the way of halliburton. Sometimes, just sometimes, however, the cost is also borne by unlucky brits on the no.30 bus. In either event, it is a cost the electorate knows well and has decided to pay. But it doesn't have to be like that. It isn't 'inevitable'.
august 2005
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7. a good education
9 years ago this month, the labour party conference heard the famous promise that a new labour government would prioritise "education education education." Two weeks ago, Ofsted, the government inspectorate of schools, reported that its latest round of inspections had shown "almost two thirds of schools inspected in the first week are good or better." The report went on: "Of the 86 schools inspected, 8% were awarded a grade 1 for outstanding overall effectiveness of the school, 56% were awarded a grade 2 for good overall effectiveness of the school and 28% were satisfactory with a grade 3. Only 8% of schools were judged to be inadequate. Of these, six were issued with a Notice to Improve and one went into Special Measures."
Shortly after the Ofsted statement, a massive earthquake centred on Muzaffarabad in Pakistan killed tens of thousands of people. In the days following, as the western aid effort gained publicity, the Independent (UK) asserted that, "this is no time for compassion fatigue." The front page continued, "This will be remembered as the year in which nature made clear its indifference to the fate of mankind. First came the tsunami, which wiped out 225,000 lives. In Niger, famine engulfed the country. Then came Hurricane Katrina, and now the Kashmir earthquake."
The connection between these events? While the government, through its inspectorate, congratulates itself on the 'improved' education of its young citizens, a group of highly educated individuals demonstrates the utterly destructive potential of a 'good' education by producing a national newspaper which describes a 21st century famine as a 'natural disaster.'
Niger's catastrophe has little to do with the 'indifference' of nature and everything to do with the indifference of man. Other countries in the same latitude and in the same climate band - Saudi Arabia, United Arab Emirates - haven't suffered famine and, as things stand, aren't likely to. Indeed, neighbouring countries such as Chad and Mali, while in the grip of ongoing poverty, haven't suffered a famine which, bizarrely for an act of nature, seems confined to national borders.
According to a UN report, 842 million people in the world were going hungry in 2003, not because of a lack of food but because of "the absence of a real political will." While the report recommends entirely the wrong solution (free trade), it's initial description of the facts remains correct: hunger and famine are man-made and political. This, to any objective and humane person would seem so elementary as to be beyond statement. And yet, it is an understanding beyond the comprehension or perhaps beyond the acknowledgement not only of newspaper editors but of the people who continue to buy their product. Is it beyond observation that adverse natural events such as floods, droughts and earthquakes have a disproportionately worse outcome for the world's poor who live in far more vulnerable conditions?
Compare for example the 7.2 magnitude earthquake which claimed 5100 lives in a dense city population of 1.5million inKKobe, Japan in 1995 and 2 recent Iranian earthquakes: the first in 1990, which reached 7.3 on the Richter scale, killed 40 000 people; the second, 6.6 in magnitude, killed 43 000 in 2003. Japanese incomes, 4 times higher than those in Iran, buy sturdier homes and workplaces, better emergency services and warning systems. When there is such a clear link between income and death rate, how is it possible to claim these disasters are a result of nature alone? If Kobe was a 'disaster' it is perhaps time to find a new word for the more lethal events which take place in poorer parts of the world.
Vast difference in the scale of destruction suffered from similar sized events makes use of the same descriptive word totally inadequate. As schools in the UK supposedly get better and better, you have to wonder how any kids are ever going to come to any understanding of the world in which they live unless it is entirely by accident. While the planet melts and almost a billion starve unnecessarily, the Geography syllabus at Key Stage 2 (age 7-11) makes no mention of this. There is however plenty of talk of hotel building, tourism, transport, industry, leisure complexes and building new houses. If kids get good marks in this stuff, without understanding the consequences of western industrial practice, then what kind of an education have they had?
It is an education which actively cultivates ignorance for the sake of ideological pragmatism - not necessary pragmatism, because things don't have to be this way, but ideological because the country prefers profitable ignorance to anything else. Just as the media promotes ignorance, the public knowingly and happily digests that ignorance to preserve its lifestyle benefits.
As the editors at the Independent demonstrate so well, a good education can earn you lots of money, get you a prestige job and qualify you to talk rubbish to hundreds of thousands of like-educated, like-minded people with apparently no adverse personal consequence. And so the national deception-delusion rolls on. Willed ignorance is our culture.
october 2005
...
9 years ago this month, the labour party conference heard the famous promise that a new labour government would prioritise "education education education." Two weeks ago, Ofsted, the government inspectorate of schools, reported that its latest round of inspections had shown "almost two thirds of schools inspected in the first week are good or better." The report went on: "Of the 86 schools inspected, 8% were awarded a grade 1 for outstanding overall effectiveness of the school, 56% were awarded a grade 2 for good overall effectiveness of the school and 28% were satisfactory with a grade 3. Only 8% of schools were judged to be inadequate. Of these, six were issued with a Notice to Improve and one went into Special Measures."
Shortly after the Ofsted statement, a massive earthquake centred on Muzaffarabad in Pakistan killed tens of thousands of people. In the days following, as the western aid effort gained publicity, the Independent (UK) asserted that, "this is no time for compassion fatigue." The front page continued, "This will be remembered as the year in which nature made clear its indifference to the fate of mankind. First came the tsunami, which wiped out 225,000 lives. In Niger, famine engulfed the country. Then came Hurricane Katrina, and now the Kashmir earthquake."
The connection between these events? While the government, through its inspectorate, congratulates itself on the 'improved' education of its young citizens, a group of highly educated individuals demonstrates the utterly destructive potential of a 'good' education by producing a national newspaper which describes a 21st century famine as a 'natural disaster.'
Niger's catastrophe has little to do with the 'indifference' of nature and everything to do with the indifference of man. Other countries in the same latitude and in the same climate band - Saudi Arabia, United Arab Emirates - haven't suffered famine and, as things stand, aren't likely to. Indeed, neighbouring countries such as Chad and Mali, while in the grip of ongoing poverty, haven't suffered a famine which, bizarrely for an act of nature, seems confined to national borders.
According to a UN report, 842 million people in the world were going hungry in 2003, not because of a lack of food but because of "the absence of a real political will." While the report recommends entirely the wrong solution (free trade), it's initial description of the facts remains correct: hunger and famine are man-made and political. This, to any objective and humane person would seem so elementary as to be beyond statement. And yet, it is an understanding beyond the comprehension or perhaps beyond the acknowledgement not only of newspaper editors but of the people who continue to buy their product. Is it beyond observation that adverse natural events such as floods, droughts and earthquakes have a disproportionately worse outcome for the world's poor who live in far more vulnerable conditions?
Compare for example the 7.2 magnitude earthquake which claimed 5100 lives in a dense city population of 1.5million inKKobe, Japan in 1995 and 2 recent Iranian earthquakes: the first in 1990, which reached 7.3 on the Richter scale, killed 40 000 people; the second, 6.6 in magnitude, killed 43 000 in 2003. Japanese incomes, 4 times higher than those in Iran, buy sturdier homes and workplaces, better emergency services and warning systems. When there is such a clear link between income and death rate, how is it possible to claim these disasters are a result of nature alone? If Kobe was a 'disaster' it is perhaps time to find a new word for the more lethal events which take place in poorer parts of the world.
Vast difference in the scale of destruction suffered from similar sized events makes use of the same descriptive word totally inadequate. As schools in the UK supposedly get better and better, you have to wonder how any kids are ever going to come to any understanding of the world in which they live unless it is entirely by accident. While the planet melts and almost a billion starve unnecessarily, the Geography syllabus at Key Stage 2 (age 7-11) makes no mention of this. There is however plenty of talk of hotel building, tourism, transport, industry, leisure complexes and building new houses. If kids get good marks in this stuff, without understanding the consequences of western industrial practice, then what kind of an education have they had?
It is an education which actively cultivates ignorance for the sake of ideological pragmatism - not necessary pragmatism, because things don't have to be this way, but ideological because the country prefers profitable ignorance to anything else. Just as the media promotes ignorance, the public knowingly and happily digests that ignorance to preserve its lifestyle benefits.
As the editors at the Independent demonstrate so well, a good education can earn you lots of money, get you a prestige job and qualify you to talk rubbish to hundreds of thousands of like-educated, like-minded people with apparently no adverse personal consequence. And so the national deception-delusion rolls on. Willed ignorance is our culture.
october 2005
...
8. pixel room at the bbc
Celebrity UK chef Gordon Ramsay has been making headlines recently with the claim that "women can't cook." Deliberately stirring controversy just prior to the launch of a new tv series is no doubt a well tested marketing ploy. And, about the controversy itself, there's not much to say. While Ramsay and his crew filmed around the UK, a survey of cooking habits was commissioned for the series which showed that "75% of women asked admitted they could not cook." From this and from his experiences on the road, Ramsay was then able to extrapolate, saying women "can't cook to save their lives."
A BBC 'Talking Point' page which has gauged reaction to his comments shows that the ensuing debate has been enjoyed by both men and women in a number of countries (Canada, US, Netherlands and UK), with both genders taking it in turns to score points off each other. Nearly 40 people have commented on Ramsay's statement with opinion ranging from full support to dismissive ridicule.
Whilst opinion seems to vary a great deal, everything gets said without reference to a small but important piece of information. All contributers, as well as Ramsay himself, take it for granted that statements about 'women', and without qualification that implies _all_ women, can be made with reference only to the very narrow bandwidth of western female experience.
While earnest, comic, self-righteous, concilliatory, intellectual and glib comment jostles for pixel room at the BBC, it's beyond the ken of any of these people to see that the whole debate is meaningless in a context which excludes 3 billion women from consciousness.
"Women can't cook"… is this true of women in the middle east, south and central america,south east asia, india, africa or the caribbean? Ramsay and his debaters make assumptions from an incredibly narrow-minded, indeed crassly self-obsessed point of view but it's a viewpoint which perfectly demonstrates how british / western culture often talks to itself about itself and about the outside world: it's self-flattery through total eclipse.
october 2005
...
Celebrity UK chef Gordon Ramsay has been making headlines recently with the claim that "women can't cook." Deliberately stirring controversy just prior to the launch of a new tv series is no doubt a well tested marketing ploy. And, about the controversy itself, there's not much to say. While Ramsay and his crew filmed around the UK, a survey of cooking habits was commissioned for the series which showed that "75% of women asked admitted they could not cook." From this and from his experiences on the road, Ramsay was then able to extrapolate, saying women "can't cook to save their lives."
A BBC 'Talking Point' page which has gauged reaction to his comments shows that the ensuing debate has been enjoyed by both men and women in a number of countries (Canada, US, Netherlands and UK), with both genders taking it in turns to score points off each other. Nearly 40 people have commented on Ramsay's statement with opinion ranging from full support to dismissive ridicule.
Whilst opinion seems to vary a great deal, everything gets said without reference to a small but important piece of information. All contributers, as well as Ramsay himself, take it for granted that statements about 'women', and without qualification that implies _all_ women, can be made with reference only to the very narrow bandwidth of western female experience.
While earnest, comic, self-righteous, concilliatory, intellectual and glib comment jostles for pixel room at the BBC, it's beyond the ken of any of these people to see that the whole debate is meaningless in a context which excludes 3 billion women from consciousness.
"Women can't cook"… is this true of women in the middle east, south and central america,south east asia, india, africa or the caribbean? Ramsay and his debaters make assumptions from an incredibly narrow-minded, indeed crassly self-obsessed point of view but it's a viewpoint which perfectly demonstrates how british / western culture often talks to itself about itself and about the outside world: it's self-flattery through total eclipse.
october 2005
...
9. guerilla tree planting in 7 easy steps
1. find an oak tree or horse chestnut (conker) tree in september or october and collect a bagful of acorns / conkers
2. plant half a dozen of these large seeds in a 15cm pot either on the surface of the soil / (peat free) compost or just below it. do this straight after collecting the seeds. fill up to 10 pots and place in a spot with half sun half shade. don't let pots dry out. all this can be done in a small yard, probably also in a window box.
3. wait a while. by early spring the first shoots will start to appear.
1. find an oak tree or horse chestnut (conker) tree in september or october and collect a bagful of acorns / conkers
2. plant half a dozen of these large seeds in a 15cm pot either on the surface of the soil / (peat free) compost or just below it. do this straight after collecting the seeds. fill up to 10 pots and place in a spot with half sun half shade. don't let pots dry out. all this can be done in a small yard, probably also in a window box.
3. wait a while. by early spring the first shoots will start to appear.
4. carefully repot individual seedlings to their own 15cm pots as soon as they look strong enough to move (2-5cm tall). then wait some more.
5. by the summer horse chestnuts will have grown quickly and be 30cm tall. oaks grow slower and will be half the size.
6. by now the horse chestnuts are ready for planting out, the oaks will take another 12 months. water well then put your pots in carrier bags and take to a patch of land that looks like it needs a tree or two and won't be subject to too much management. don't forget the trowel. small trees are bunny food but through the aeons enough managed to survive the rabbits to create forests so forget the tree guards and fingers crossed.
7. map your planting for future visits then go collect some more acorns / conkers in september for next year's planting.
* it's worth considering just what kind of tree you want to plant as native trees seem to desrve some special attention. in the UK there are 33 such trees although the conker tree isn't one of them.
...
10. atheism
without being able to disprove the existence of god, it is necessary to accept the possibility of god. atheism is irrational
august 2006
* the above observation was deleted from the Atheism page of Wikipedia shortly after being posted
...
without being able to disprove the existence of god, it is necessary to accept the possibility of god. atheism is irrational
august 2006
* the above observation was deleted from the Atheism page of Wikipedia shortly after being posted
...
11. staying unlost
Hill walkers, just like library books, sometimes find themselves overdue and even lost. And, just as a lost library book might find itself down the side of a seat on the number 90 bus, so might the detoured hillwalker find themselves dealing with some seriously negative outcomes. There have been just over 200 mountain rescue (MR) reports of lost walkers in the Cumbrian Lake District during the last 6 years, something like one every 10 days, some involving fatalities.
These incidents represent the most serious cases of people being lost where, desperate for help, they phone 999 sending mountain rescue onto the fells.
What the statistic doesn't account for are the presumable many thousands more cases which go unreported every year because eventually and somehow people find their way back from being lost. With visitor numbers around 12m a year, the Lake District must create, on a more or less serious level, tens of thousands of lost walkers annually.
Many of the sites relating walkers' experiences or which encourage hill ('fell') walking in the Lakes, give the impression that rather than going unprepared, often people just go badly prepared. As far as staying unlost is concerned, many organisations, including mountain rescue, recommend taking, instead of the chatty guidebook, 'a map, compass (and the ability to use them).' But is that enough to stay out of the bog early evening at 350m?
There is a range of maps available to walkers although it isn't an expansive one. While some smaller publishers are putting out maps, the main source is Ordnance Survey (OS) which produces 2 maps for recreational countryside use - the 1:50,000 'Landranger' and the 1:25,000 'Explorer'. Apart from the scale, the main difference between the two is that the Explorer has more detailed marking of paths.
There is, however, a high level of credulity with which walkers and walking organisations treat the OS maps, particularly the 1:25,000 version - supposedly the definitive walking map.
The 1:25,000 scale has a great amount of detail, detail chosen because of its interest to walkers and other countryside users - footpaths of different kinds, access land boundaries, etc. - but at 4cm to 1km, the map produces miniscule representations of massive features, making getting lost still a realistic possibility for every map carrier who yet knows how to use a compass.
Loughrigg fell, for example, a popular walking hill near Ambleside, is, on an Explorer map, a 40cm² upland area criss-crossed by tiny paths weaving between hundreds of tiny outcrops of rock; it's a place also crowded with tiny contour lines, spot heights, overprinting location names and watercourses. At this size, the nuances of the cartography - the slightest bend of a path or stream - are too small to be practically comparable with the nuances of the landscape, a place where paths are unwaymarked, not well trodden and, when visible at all, quite possibly just another winding sheep track. In this situation, it is easy to walk 100m further than the required next left turn and end up way off course.
It would seem fairly obvious that a map with a bigger scale would make it easier to navigate this kind of terrain. As Havard Tveite, of the Norwegian Orienteering Federation mapping committee put it, 'For map reading, the larger the map scale - the better.' The debate in orienteering has been between 1:10,000 maps for best legibility and 1:15,000 for legibility plus route overview or larger mapped area.
That 1:15,000 maps are considered at all in this discussion is down to the fact that orienteers won't carry maps bigger than A3 size. Route overview is of course more than possible on a 1:10,000 map, it just requires more paper, something walkers are used to dealing with.
Lake District, indeed national, 1:10,000 maps, a 250% enlargement of the 1:25,000 scale, were published by the OS into the 1980s at which point the government agency discontinued the scale for countryside leisure use. Since 2001 OS has produced 1:10,000 'Landplan' maps, a digital product 'designed primarily for business use'. ¹
Landplan sheets, which are ordered individually, cover 5km² and offer customised cartographic content for specific sites. It's very expensive mapping. A rough calculation prices this information, at £2.20/km² compared to the Explorer at 0.0125p/km² - an increase of over 17600%. If a Landplan map was enlarged to the same papersize as a single side Explorer map, it would cost around £220.00.²
OS justifies making 1:10,000 information exclusive, and in fact unusable for walkers, on commercial grounds but then, ignoring the expertise of the world's orienteers, goes on to claim that a 1:10,000 map is not only unnecessary for walkers' safety or improved hill navigation but would be more dangerous than a 1:25,000 map:
'Safety is a primary consideration for Ordnance Survey and we have consulted with various interested parties including mountain rescue organisations, who use the Explorer maps, to ensure that the correct information is included on Explorer maps and that it can be interpreted easily by experienced and novice map users.
'One of the main observations we receive is that the Explorer maps are often too cluttered and complex for novice map users to understand. This would be made worse if we were to use the current 1:10,000 scale map specification as this product contains far more detailed information.
'In support of the Explorer maps we produce map reading leaflets which are available as a free download from our website. These have been compiled by ex-military personnel who have a strong understanding of map reading and micro-navigation and now teach map reading to wide audiences countrywide.
'When designing maps it is always going to be difficult to meet everyone's needs and a lot depends on the level of knowledge of the map user. We have heard many stories from the mountain rescue organisations that people [who get lost in areas like the Lake District] do not have maps or are not prepared for the sudden changes in weather conditions associated with the popular walking areas.'
This is a totally bogus argument which might sound plausible because it's deceptively vague. Yes, expert navigators are better map readers than novice navigators and might make a better job of reading a 1:25,000 map in difficult circumstances. But if an expert map reader would prefer a 1:10,000 map then why wouldn't a novice map reader? 'More clutter, even more difficult to read for the novice,' says OS.
But the basic mistake is to assume that a 1:10,000 walking map has to be the same as a 1:10,000 business map with whatever extra information that might carry. Why would it not be possible to rescale the existing Explorer maps to 1:10,000, so doing away with any worrysome extra clutter but providing better representation of existing detail?
Apart from Norwegian repeat world championship medal winning orienteers - other experienced map reading names and organisations support the idea that 'For map reading, the larger the map scale - the better.' Bowland Pennine Mountain Rescue for example, carry 1:10,000 as well as 1:25,000 and 1:50,000 maps. It would be surprising if other MR teams didn't do the same.
Climbers of Ben Nevis observe that, 'Many people have died descending into Five Finger Gully due to navigational errors, beware! (The 1:25,000 Mountain Master of Ben Nevis has an inset map of the top of the Ben in 1:10,000 scale, very useful.),' while the Harveys Superwalker, a 1:10,000 map of the Malvern Hills, is advertised by one outdoor leisure site as having 'the detail you need for sure navigation and safety.'
Then, there's Alfred Wainwright himself who, in a lifetime walking the Lakeland hills,reportedly 'favoured the 6": 1 mile (1:10,000) when he was doing his detailed surveys of the fells.'
Having discounted the idea that a small scale map is better than a large scale map for navigating your immediate environment, the remaining problem would seem to be the route overview limitations of the bigger scale - or, as OS put it:
'There is also a logistical issue in that there are four Explorer maps that cover the Lake District. These have been printed back to back so that a walker has a good area of coverage and is able to set compass bearings on mountain peaks or other landscape features.
'This would not be possible with the 1:10,000 scale map series, as they only cover an area of 5km x 5km. It would require approximately 84 sheets of 1:10,000 scale maps to cover the Lake District, which we would deem less practical for the vast majority of outdoor pursuits.'
Again, this is a totally spurious argument. If the 1:25,000 Explorer maps were rescaled to 1:10,000 and then printed at the same size as the 1:25,000 maps (approx 9600cm²) they would show, at 10cm to 1km, 96km² areas not 25km² as the OS version has it. This would mean around 20 maps instead of 84 and only a dozen if they were printed back to back.
The average length of a walk in the Lake District is less than 20km, often half that. Walks tend to be circular, meaning the maximum distance in one direction is likely to be 10km. Areas covered by such walks would easily fit on one or two 1:10,000 maps which would have a reach of 8-12km in one direction and, like MR, walkers could still carry a 1:25,000 map. So when OS says there is a 'logistical' problem, what it actually means is there's a commercial problem. When it talks about safety issues, it only does so within the limits of its existing 1:25,000 product.
It seems ridiculous that thousands of walkers get lost in the Lake District every year and a good proportion of them will no doubt be carrying 1:25,000 maps. The mapping has been done and it would be quite possible for 1:10,000 maps of the area (and other areas of difficult walking terrain) to be made widely available at an affordable price. It would be a public service.
OS, as a quasi-corporate arm of government, is going in a different direction, however, as it follows the profit motive. Despite the denials, there is a policy of information containment which puts people at risk and once the PR talk is done, OS makes it plain that public service is not part of its remit - except and insofar as it coincides with its market interests:
'Ordnance Survey is financed through data licensing, a proportion of which is received from our Options stockists. We re-invest a significant amount of these royalties to ensure that any changes to the landscape are captured as they occur. Our map data base is maintained, and updated with around 5,000 changes daily. The only funding we receive from the government is for specific activities that are vital to the national interest, but which cannot be justified on purely commercial grounds.'
A poll of walkers on this issue would provide some interesting results.
notes
¹ OS quoted from correspondence May 2006
² based on comparison with Explorer 265
...
Hill walkers, just like library books, sometimes find themselves overdue and even lost. And, just as a lost library book might find itself down the side of a seat on the number 90 bus, so might the detoured hillwalker find themselves dealing with some seriously negative outcomes. There have been just over 200 mountain rescue (MR) reports of lost walkers in the Cumbrian Lake District during the last 6 years, something like one every 10 days, some involving fatalities.
These incidents represent the most serious cases of people being lost where, desperate for help, they phone 999 sending mountain rescue onto the fells.
What the statistic doesn't account for are the presumable many thousands more cases which go unreported every year because eventually and somehow people find their way back from being lost. With visitor numbers around 12m a year, the Lake District must create, on a more or less serious level, tens of thousands of lost walkers annually.
Many of the sites relating walkers' experiences or which encourage hill ('fell') walking in the Lakes, give the impression that rather than going unprepared, often people just go badly prepared. As far as staying unlost is concerned, many organisations, including mountain rescue, recommend taking, instead of the chatty guidebook, 'a map, compass (and the ability to use them).' But is that enough to stay out of the bog early evening at 350m?
There is a range of maps available to walkers although it isn't an expansive one. While some smaller publishers are putting out maps, the main source is Ordnance Survey (OS) which produces 2 maps for recreational countryside use - the 1:50,000 'Landranger' and the 1:25,000 'Explorer'. Apart from the scale, the main difference between the two is that the Explorer has more detailed marking of paths.
There is, however, a high level of credulity with which walkers and walking organisations treat the OS maps, particularly the 1:25,000 version - supposedly the definitive walking map.
The 1:25,000 scale has a great amount of detail, detail chosen because of its interest to walkers and other countryside users - footpaths of different kinds, access land boundaries, etc. - but at 4cm to 1km, the map produces miniscule representations of massive features, making getting lost still a realistic possibility for every map carrier who yet knows how to use a compass.
Loughrigg fell, for example, a popular walking hill near Ambleside, is, on an Explorer map, a 40cm² upland area criss-crossed by tiny paths weaving between hundreds of tiny outcrops of rock; it's a place also crowded with tiny contour lines, spot heights, overprinting location names and watercourses. At this size, the nuances of the cartography - the slightest bend of a path or stream - are too small to be practically comparable with the nuances of the landscape, a place where paths are unwaymarked, not well trodden and, when visible at all, quite possibly just another winding sheep track. In this situation, it is easy to walk 100m further than the required next left turn and end up way off course.
It would seem fairly obvious that a map with a bigger scale would make it easier to navigate this kind of terrain. As Havard Tveite, of the Norwegian Orienteering Federation mapping committee put it, 'For map reading, the larger the map scale - the better.' The debate in orienteering has been between 1:10,000 maps for best legibility and 1:15,000 for legibility plus route overview or larger mapped area.
That 1:15,000 maps are considered at all in this discussion is down to the fact that orienteers won't carry maps bigger than A3 size. Route overview is of course more than possible on a 1:10,000 map, it just requires more paper, something walkers are used to dealing with.
Lake District, indeed national, 1:10,000 maps, a 250% enlargement of the 1:25,000 scale, were published by the OS into the 1980s at which point the government agency discontinued the scale for countryside leisure use. Since 2001 OS has produced 1:10,000 'Landplan' maps, a digital product 'designed primarily for business use'. ¹
Landplan sheets, which are ordered individually, cover 5km² and offer customised cartographic content for specific sites. It's very expensive mapping. A rough calculation prices this information, at £2.20/km² compared to the Explorer at 0.0125p/km² - an increase of over 17600%. If a Landplan map was enlarged to the same papersize as a single side Explorer map, it would cost around £220.00.²
OS justifies making 1:10,000 information exclusive, and in fact unusable for walkers, on commercial grounds but then, ignoring the expertise of the world's orienteers, goes on to claim that a 1:10,000 map is not only unnecessary for walkers' safety or improved hill navigation but would be more dangerous than a 1:25,000 map:
'Safety is a primary consideration for Ordnance Survey and we have consulted with various interested parties including mountain rescue organisations, who use the Explorer maps, to ensure that the correct information is included on Explorer maps and that it can be interpreted easily by experienced and novice map users.
'One of the main observations we receive is that the Explorer maps are often too cluttered and complex for novice map users to understand. This would be made worse if we were to use the current 1:10,000 scale map specification as this product contains far more detailed information.
'In support of the Explorer maps we produce map reading leaflets which are available as a free download from our website. These have been compiled by ex-military personnel who have a strong understanding of map reading and micro-navigation and now teach map reading to wide audiences countrywide.
'When designing maps it is always going to be difficult to meet everyone's needs and a lot depends on the level of knowledge of the map user. We have heard many stories from the mountain rescue organisations that people [who get lost in areas like the Lake District] do not have maps or are not prepared for the sudden changes in weather conditions associated with the popular walking areas.'
This is a totally bogus argument which might sound plausible because it's deceptively vague. Yes, expert navigators are better map readers than novice navigators and might make a better job of reading a 1:25,000 map in difficult circumstances. But if an expert map reader would prefer a 1:10,000 map then why wouldn't a novice map reader? 'More clutter, even more difficult to read for the novice,' says OS.
But the basic mistake is to assume that a 1:10,000 walking map has to be the same as a 1:10,000 business map with whatever extra information that might carry. Why would it not be possible to rescale the existing Explorer maps to 1:10,000, so doing away with any worrysome extra clutter but providing better representation of existing detail?
Apart from Norwegian repeat world championship medal winning orienteers - other experienced map reading names and organisations support the idea that 'For map reading, the larger the map scale - the better.' Bowland Pennine Mountain Rescue for example, carry 1:10,000 as well as 1:25,000 and 1:50,000 maps. It would be surprising if other MR teams didn't do the same.
Climbers of Ben Nevis observe that, 'Many people have died descending into Five Finger Gully due to navigational errors, beware! (The 1:25,000 Mountain Master of Ben Nevis has an inset map of the top of the Ben in 1:10,000 scale, very useful.),' while the Harveys Superwalker, a 1:10,000 map of the Malvern Hills, is advertised by one outdoor leisure site as having 'the detail you need for sure navigation and safety.'
Then, there's Alfred Wainwright himself who, in a lifetime walking the Lakeland hills,reportedly 'favoured the 6": 1 mile (1:10,000) when he was doing his detailed surveys of the fells.'
Having discounted the idea that a small scale map is better than a large scale map for navigating your immediate environment, the remaining problem would seem to be the route overview limitations of the bigger scale - or, as OS put it:
'There is also a logistical issue in that there are four Explorer maps that cover the Lake District. These have been printed back to back so that a walker has a good area of coverage and is able to set compass bearings on mountain peaks or other landscape features.
'This would not be possible with the 1:10,000 scale map series, as they only cover an area of 5km x 5km. It would require approximately 84 sheets of 1:10,000 scale maps to cover the Lake District, which we would deem less practical for the vast majority of outdoor pursuits.'
Again, this is a totally spurious argument. If the 1:25,000 Explorer maps were rescaled to 1:10,000 and then printed at the same size as the 1:25,000 maps (approx 9600cm²) they would show, at 10cm to 1km, 96km² areas not 25km² as the OS version has it. This would mean around 20 maps instead of 84 and only a dozen if they were printed back to back.
The average length of a walk in the Lake District is less than 20km, often half that. Walks tend to be circular, meaning the maximum distance in one direction is likely to be 10km. Areas covered by such walks would easily fit on one or two 1:10,000 maps which would have a reach of 8-12km in one direction and, like MR, walkers could still carry a 1:25,000 map. So when OS says there is a 'logistical' problem, what it actually means is there's a commercial problem. When it talks about safety issues, it only does so within the limits of its existing 1:25,000 product.
It seems ridiculous that thousands of walkers get lost in the Lake District every year and a good proportion of them will no doubt be carrying 1:25,000 maps. The mapping has been done and it would be quite possible for 1:10,000 maps of the area (and other areas of difficult walking terrain) to be made widely available at an affordable price. It would be a public service.
OS, as a quasi-corporate arm of government, is going in a different direction, however, as it follows the profit motive. Despite the denials, there is a policy of information containment which puts people at risk and once the PR talk is done, OS makes it plain that public service is not part of its remit - except and insofar as it coincides with its market interests:
'Ordnance Survey is financed through data licensing, a proportion of which is received from our Options stockists. We re-invest a significant amount of these royalties to ensure that any changes to the landscape are captured as they occur. Our map data base is maintained, and updated with around 5,000 changes daily. The only funding we receive from the government is for specific activities that are vital to the national interest, but which cannot be justified on purely commercial grounds.'
A poll of walkers on this issue would provide some interesting results.
notes
¹ OS quoted from correspondence May 2006
² based on comparison with Explorer 265
...
12. exmas
No one believes in Christianity but it's June and people are talking about Christmas. Bishops are blessing battleships, pious suburbanites are filling SUVs with £100 loads from WalMart as their kids drop pennies in the charidee box and god fearing patriot neighbours are praying for the safe keeping of men in tanks. No one but the anti-capitalist fringe is blinking much of an eye at the looming grotesquerie that is the annual December pig-out.
The loom starts with the first creepings of present-worry conversation, with the first snowy advertising as it hits the doormat. From there, as it speeds up and grows to surround you, it takes on its fully involving, fully appalling cultural majesty.
But what is this phenomenon? Just as Christianity was dying as a cultural force a century ago, so it was subsumed by consumerism, it's own devouring, self-devouring product. So now there's the inescapable spectacle of a morally dead religious narrative being told in a huge and spectacular way by its consumer manifestation.
Many people see the disconnection between cherry-picked Christian teachings and consumer practice; many more intuitively understand how religious hypocrisy and corporate advertising are, in a mendacious sense, totally alike, complementary.
Confronted by the Christmas edifice, few people will realise there's anything to resist. For those that do, what to say? Don't join in.
It's probably difficult not to give presents or cards to Christmas-travesty-participating family and friends, especially to ignore the present hungry paws of seasonally enwondered kids. Difficult also not to find yourself sat at the table of some semi-detached banquet as the CAFOD cards stare down at you seeping African hunger misery. But absconding from the festivities is the only way out.
If the prospect of familial alienation is too much to take, if the need to keep in with grandma is just too great, try turning to the 21 December solstice (no hocus pocus, just the seasonal start of a new year) or 1 January as alternative card sending opportunities. Or don't.
It's not a Scrooge thing - he came round in the end.
september 2006
...
No one believes in Christianity but it's June and people are talking about Christmas. Bishops are blessing battleships, pious suburbanites are filling SUVs with £100 loads from WalMart as their kids drop pennies in the charidee box and god fearing patriot neighbours are praying for the safe keeping of men in tanks. No one but the anti-capitalist fringe is blinking much of an eye at the looming grotesquerie that is the annual December pig-out.
The loom starts with the first creepings of present-worry conversation, with the first snowy advertising as it hits the doormat. From there, as it speeds up and grows to surround you, it takes on its fully involving, fully appalling cultural majesty.
But what is this phenomenon? Just as Christianity was dying as a cultural force a century ago, so it was subsumed by consumerism, it's own devouring, self-devouring product. So now there's the inescapable spectacle of a morally dead religious narrative being told in a huge and spectacular way by its consumer manifestation.
Many people see the disconnection between cherry-picked Christian teachings and consumer practice; many more intuitively understand how religious hypocrisy and corporate advertising are, in a mendacious sense, totally alike, complementary.
Confronted by the Christmas edifice, few people will realise there's anything to resist. For those that do, what to say? Don't join in.
It's probably difficult not to give presents or cards to Christmas-travesty-participating family and friends, especially to ignore the present hungry paws of seasonally enwondered kids. Difficult also not to find yourself sat at the table of some semi-detached banquet as the CAFOD cards stare down at you seeping African hunger misery. But absconding from the festivities is the only way out.
If the prospect of familial alienation is too much to take, if the need to keep in with grandma is just too great, try turning to the 21 December solstice (no hocus pocus, just the seasonal start of a new year) or 1 January as alternative card sending opportunities. Or don't.
It's not a Scrooge thing - he came round in the end.
september 2006
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13. what's the point?
... of boycotting corporations, of turning your back on Christmas, or of saying to anyone who will listen: 'we are the enemy.' Why bother depriving yourself of the entire range of Cadbury's chocolate, the latest episode of Star Trek or a week in Cyprus? Why alienate yourself from polite company? What's the point?
Personal anti-consumerism doesn't change corporate policy, it doesn't rid the planet of corporations, it doesn't influence global politics, it doesn't change the amount of daily calories a child gets to consume in a far off impoverished place and it doesn't stop imperial bombs dropping on civilian populations. So, what is the point?
The point is this.
Britain and America, the forward economic and military wing of planet earth's corporate government, are kicking the shit out of nations large and small to build total global consumer empire. They are succeeding. The Soviet Union is down, China is on board, India is a client state; only small populations, mainly in the still pious Middle East, resist.
All this much is obvious. But is it a bad thing? Stalinism is dead, China has thousands of millionaires, tens of millions of home owners and tribal societies with barbaric practices are being brought out of the middle ages and shown how to vote. Incredible wealth plumes around the world while rich nations stand as shining examples of the life that could be, their populations plump and leisured. Everyone everywhere wants more.
But while war, oppression and misery might pre-date consumer capitalism, consumer capitalism has done nothing to alleviate misery, oppression and war.
Firstly, people are dying in pieces for and from free enterprise, usually off the western media map, in their tens of thousands every day. Most of the world is living in debt, enslaved by poverty wages in death-trap mines or in fire-trap factories, just as others live in fear, terrorised by their own get-rich-quick, gangster gun-law societies. Then there are the people who are just plain starving.
Meantime, in the war-zone underbelly of the rich nations, people are plagued by prostitution, murder, rape, graft, street violence, work slavery, addiction and a seething conformity, bred from wilful and educated ignorance, which finds all dialogue originating in a brutalising cultural imbecility. Everywhere grotesque inequalities in the quality of life are made possible through the aspirant celebration of greed. The now, in absolute global numbers, is not good.
While it has been fighting its crusader battles against communism and latterly, Islam, imperial capitalism has engineered war and starvation in many parts of the world to wrest control of land and resources and to impose control mechanisms. Economic strangulation imposed by the free market kills more people more systematically than jingoistic bullets and bombs. Mass death is, in fact, the only way that capitalism has managed to succeed and is its ongoing method of providing luxury lifestyles for many of its domestic citizens.
... of boycotting corporations, of turning your back on Christmas, or of saying to anyone who will listen: 'we are the enemy.' Why bother depriving yourself of the entire range of Cadbury's chocolate, the latest episode of Star Trek or a week in Cyprus? Why alienate yourself from polite company? What's the point?
Personal anti-consumerism doesn't change corporate policy, it doesn't rid the planet of corporations, it doesn't influence global politics, it doesn't change the amount of daily calories a child gets to consume in a far off impoverished place and it doesn't stop imperial bombs dropping on civilian populations. So, what is the point?
The point is this.
Britain and America, the forward economic and military wing of planet earth's corporate government, are kicking the shit out of nations large and small to build total global consumer empire. They are succeeding. The Soviet Union is down, China is on board, India is a client state; only small populations, mainly in the still pious Middle East, resist.
All this much is obvious. But is it a bad thing? Stalinism is dead, China has thousands of millionaires, tens of millions of home owners and tribal societies with barbaric practices are being brought out of the middle ages and shown how to vote. Incredible wealth plumes around the world while rich nations stand as shining examples of the life that could be, their populations plump and leisured. Everyone everywhere wants more.
But while war, oppression and misery might pre-date consumer capitalism, consumer capitalism has done nothing to alleviate misery, oppression and war.
Firstly, people are dying in pieces for and from free enterprise, usually off the western media map, in their tens of thousands every day. Most of the world is living in debt, enslaved by poverty wages in death-trap mines or in fire-trap factories, just as others live in fear, terrorised by their own get-rich-quick, gangster gun-law societies. Then there are the people who are just plain starving.
Meantime, in the war-zone underbelly of the rich nations, people are plagued by prostitution, murder, rape, graft, street violence, work slavery, addiction and a seething conformity, bred from wilful and educated ignorance, which finds all dialogue originating in a brutalising cultural imbecility. Everywhere grotesque inequalities in the quality of life are made possible through the aspirant celebration of greed. The now, in absolute global numbers, is not good.
While it has been fighting its crusader battles against communism and latterly, Islam, imperial capitalism has engineered war and starvation in many parts of the world to wrest control of land and resources and to impose control mechanisms. Economic strangulation imposed by the free market kills more people more systematically than jingoistic bullets and bombs. Mass death is, in fact, the only way that capitalism has managed to succeed and is its ongoing method of providing luxury lifestyles for many of its domestic citizens.
This kind of conquesting force didn't arise from recent peace time industry - it comes straight to the world from four hundred years of British piracy and the white man's murderous pillage of 4 continents. The methods have changed, though not much - the ethos is the same: exploit. As well as exploiting people, capitalism ruthlessly exploits the planet's resources, wiping out country-sized landscapes, eradicating animal and plant life, making it gone.
Given that exploitation is the present and future promise of capitalism and that corporations have the world as their objective, what is there to look forward to in the advancement of capitalism? It is well documented that capitalism actively engineers war and deprivation in order to prosper. If it succeeds in creating one world order, the big question is, can it exist without requiring the massive profitability of war (build arms to sell for profit to destroy infrastructure to rebuild for profit and to seize assets to sell for profit), or something like the urban war of American disenfranchisement?
The long-term outlook is not good - at best you can hope to be a well fed, tranquillised citizen in a police state - while the short-term outlook for most of the world is far worse. Fundamentally and also, capitalism lies to its populations and the outside world about what it is. A future based on lies offers no real hope for improvement. Capitalism is at best a lesser evil - a choice of two you should refuse to accept.
Opposing capitalism because so many people suffer from it, because the planet is being destroyed through it, would seem to be a requirement. Of course it's not in affluent capitalist societies where only the anarcho anti-capitalist few or an ever decreasing bloc of socialists try at all. Without any popular support, anti-capitalist collective action has proved ineffective.
So what's the choice? Carry on with ineffective collective action or give up resistance altogether and get on the next flight to Larnaca for a week in the sun with thoughts of a Christmas pressie binge? Or instead, make the resistance personal and try to disassociate yourself as much as possible from the damage which capitalism does?
Progressively exiting yourself from the capitalist consumer process in which you find yourself immersed is an effective resistance strategy to capitalism's assault on yourself. Consumerism's very lifeblood is the contagion of greed. There is no difference in the greed potential of the poor, the billionaire rich or people in between except and insofar as one has been more successful in realising its ambitions than the other. Combatting personal greed, relative only to the basic requirements of a healthy existence, is one way to not join in with the dividing of the world's resources into obscene wealth and abject misery. Combat greed and reject consumerism. Rein in your own over-consumption, cap the surfeit of luxury.
One way to do this is to boycott the worst war-mongering corporations. It's a fairly arbitary, indeed, personal thing insofar as every penny spent everywhere goes towards the capitalist war machine. On the other hand, some multi-national corporations are far more ruthless in their business than others... Coca-Cola, WalMart, Sky TV... Boycotting American corporations in particular, though not exclusively, is also a subsidiary possibility because, as well as using the might of the American military, global capitalism uses Washington's international law making to effectively dictate to the rest of the world.
Exiting self from process, in however small a way, may not change the way the world works but you'll sleep a little better knowing you are supporting the evil empire as little as you can. It's about not participating in the mess yourself - as much as you are able. It should hardly need saying that if you see something going on which is harming others you don't join in. If you do, you're an accessory. Of course, where society is the accessory, no one is held to account and everyone gets to go to Larnaca.
september 2006
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