I should have started blogging ages ago. Some truly wonderful people have been making appearances in my life again after far too long. (Hint: If I haven't heard from you in ages and I ever said I loved you, I will be thrilled if you e-mail me or drop a comment on a post.)
Today I took my monkey to uni with me.
Well, actually I took a monkey puppet I've had forever. His name is Rosscoe. He was quite popular with some people, who found him various degrees of entertaining/amusing. I was well-satisfied. Monkey puppets are... well, not inherently cool, but a lot of fun.
With apologies to my Marxist history tutor, I've decided Communism is a flawed system. Several reasons. One is that, in strictly Marxist terms, the only country in the world that can successfully become Socialist is the United States, and that's so not gonna happen. Another is that it's a system which relies on people not being corrupt - and that's so not gonna happen either. Democracy is an awful system, but it's less awful than the others humans have tried.
It's curious trying to get a grasp on the mindset of people seventy years ago, though. People who were Stalinist even outside the USSR, people who blamed Democracy for everything that was going wrong and were calling for an end to democracy and the re-establishment of autocracy and dictatorship - things which are anathema to us now. People who actively sought war in the period before and even after the First World War because they thought, somehow, that war was a good thing. A certain song, if written in 1910, might well have gone:
War
What is it good for
Well, quite a lot actually;
It is the cure for cultural decadence
The decline of morality
It will revitalise Europe
It is what our nation needs
Don't even get me started on nationalism and what's wrong with that. And a song like that just doesn't scan.
Currently reading: The Mote In God's Eye, by Larry Niven and Jerry Pournelle. One of the best sf books ever written, imo (I have read it before).
Listening to: The rhythm of the falling rain.
Feeling: Sleepy/Contented. Life is happy, uni is... survivable, and I spoke to my beloved last night for the first time since, like, the WEEKEND, so the withdrawal symptoms have eased off for now.
Today I took my monkey to uni with me.
Well, actually I took a monkey puppet I've had forever. His name is Rosscoe. He was quite popular with some people, who found him various degrees of entertaining/amusing. I was well-satisfied. Monkey puppets are... well, not inherently cool, but a lot of fun.
With apologies to my Marxist history tutor, I've decided Communism is a flawed system. Several reasons. One is that, in strictly Marxist terms, the only country in the world that can successfully become Socialist is the United States, and that's so not gonna happen. Another is that it's a system which relies on people not being corrupt - and that's so not gonna happen either. Democracy is an awful system, but it's less awful than the others humans have tried.
It's curious trying to get a grasp on the mindset of people seventy years ago, though. People who were Stalinist even outside the USSR, people who blamed Democracy for everything that was going wrong and were calling for an end to democracy and the re-establishment of autocracy and dictatorship - things which are anathema to us now. People who actively sought war in the period before and even after the First World War because they thought, somehow, that war was a good thing. A certain song, if written in 1910, might well have gone:
War
What is it good for
Well, quite a lot actually;
It is the cure for cultural decadence
The decline of morality
It will revitalise Europe
It is what our nation needs
Don't even get me started on nationalism and what's wrong with that. And a song like that just doesn't scan.
Currently reading: The Mote In God's Eye, by Larry Niven and Jerry Pournelle. One of the best sf books ever written, imo (I have read it before).
Listening to: The rhythm of the falling rain.
Feeling: Sleepy/Contented. Life is happy, uni is... survivable, and I spoke to my beloved last night for the first time since, like, the WEEKEND, so the withdrawal symptoms have eased off for now.
posted by Sami at
5:58:00 AM
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