reflecting on the right

Weather: still amazing.
Library: still packed.

Went running for the first time this year without layers - my beautiful MEC top stayed home. And it was still hotter-than-comfortable in the direct sunshine. Beautiful.

Then spent the morning making granola and flipping through my thesis in preparation for writing a conference paper (or cut-and-pasting a conference paper!) tonight for Saturday. Now, I'm gazing longingly outside from my prison/place of employment ... afternoons are the best part of the day. I wish I worked mornings!

In other news, or at least from other news sources, this is pretty terrifying. This country is leaning so far right we may actually tip over and crash into France - who are, in turn, going to fall over into Europe and so forth. Domino effect? Hmm... I don't understand how an educated, privileged person can actually advocate violence to fight violence. This is the world we live in - and people still ask why I don't want children.

I'm being flippant.

And this is a serious topic - our home secretary actually wants to give police the power to 'harrass' people who are perceived to be acting against 'normal' conventions, offending 'normal', law abiding citizens, defrauding the system that 'normal', decent, quiet people have set up to continue their normal, decent, quiet lives. The level of stereotyping going on here is astonishing: ASBOs are only ever a problem of class which is only ever a problem of 'stuff', cars and tellys (the things the government taxes) - indeed, part of the problem here seems to be people getting their hands on material goods that they then cannot afford (in taxes). No one who does pay their car tax or television licence fee gets and ASBO - ever. ASBOs are always given for well-thought-out reasons after careful consideration of the particular circumstances, including the source of the complaint. People who get handed an ASBO are merely rebels against quietness, goodness, decency, the British spirit, a good cuppa - they probably hate Eurovision and think that Marmite tastes of rancid dust. Unsavoury types, y'know?

I do appreciate that there are nasty people out there. Show me an avenue at dusk full of adolescents and I'll take the long way home. They are rude, irritating, disrespectul, ignorant, and possess a sense of entitlement nourished at the teats of the same government that now wants to 'harrass' them. But then, I live and breathe in the hallowed halls of academia and there are nasty, ignorant, priggish, arogant, rude, and horrid people here too. Fewer of them get ASBOs perhaps; most of them would duck out of taxes if they could - indeed, some of them likely make enough money to hire an accountant clever enough to do just that.

So where does that leave us? Cowering in our houses, clinging to 'decency', living quiet lives, and hoping that no one takes offence at us. Thanks but I'll be sitting outside on my stoop, enjoying a cuppa and the weather, griping about the neighbourhood kids, and generally trying to understand.