To see ourselves as others do…

You will join the Tea Party. Ah go on. Ah go on go on go on go on....

To see ourselves as others do is a concept that can be overrated. You’ll get nowhere if you’re constantly looking over your shoulder, worrying about what other people think. Why give head space to the knee jerk doubters who oppose anything new almost as a matter of principle. Or as the Irish saying goes – “F**k the begrudgers”. (It’s not one you find on decorative tea towels. Nor does it include the Fr Teddish “feck“. But I find it comes in handier more often than the road rising to meet you and being in heaven half an hour before the devil knows you’re dead.)

Then again…

Seen from Europe the Tea Party phenomenon seems to be fizzing with crazies, bigots, racists, ex witches, anti masturbators, science deniers, the deluded and opportunists.  But

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Journalism today – con jobs and hamster wheels

Are journalism courses the biggest con around? Academically and vocationally.

Love & writing according to Ford Madox Ford

Bitterness, rejection, suffering, loss. Must one crush broken dreams underfoot with the smell of death in one’s nostrils to produce good writing?

That’s one road. The dramatic road.

But confidence and productivity can also spring from the support and security provided by those around one. That’s my road.

I’ve been reading Ford Madox Ford‘s The Good Soldier. This passage caught my eye. He talks about love and achievement or creativity:

Back to work

This being back in full time work lark is a bit intrusive. Early starts, crowded commutes, missing the school drop off and pick up, drinking curtailed, less time to write breathless prose like this.

But it’s structure – which is important, so I’m told. And they’ll pay me. Sometime soon. And if it ever feels a little like this…

At least it’ll never anywhere near as bad as this…

First, I wrap my arm in a skin for protection

Then I crawl in the pit.

Let’s light the place up a bit.

There she is

Those are her eggs.

I let her take my protected arm, sort of like noodling for fish.

Then my buddy pulls me out with snake attached.

Ain’t she a beaut?

Whoa,  that’s a biggie.

(Thanks to Colt Monday and yougottobekidding, from where I nicked these – though goodness knows the original source.)

Blood and Gifts or Why America is in Afghanistan

“Great men are almost always bad men.” That’s the tagline to the wonderful play, Blood and Gifts, about US involvement in Afghanistan from 1981-1991. I’ve just seen it.

That depressing opening sentence is also the missing third line from the famous and much cited quotation from Lord Acton (aka John Emerich Edward Dalberg Acton):

“Power tends to corrupt, and absolute power corrupts absolutely. Great men are almost always bad men.”

It gets better

This is a happy film. Good message – It gets better. Good to know this when you’re young or alone.

It’s a different sort of approach from the itemisation of homophobic attacks – which I appreciate are far more common than one realises.

But sometimes it’s good to accentuate the positive.

Not much else to add, other than I thought I should share it with you.

If you want to sign up to It Gets Better on Facebook, it’s here.

(Thanks to Colt Monday for the tip.)