Swimming in a sea of idiocy.

Politicians are really annoying, what with their soundbite politics and airbrushed posters, but they're not quite as bad as the electorate. (Or the press, but they're just awful scaremongering profiteers sometimes... Maybe I'll rant about them some other time.)

First of all, this rubbish about how Gordon Brown was this "unelected prime minister", which somehow makes him illegitimate. Newsflash: EVERY PRIME MINISTER IS UNELECTED. They're not presidents. We can't tick "Gordon Brown" on our ballot papers (unless we're in his constituency, at which point he is elected to be MP, not PM.) We didn't ever tick "Tony Blair for PM" in 1997; Gordon and Tony were just as legitimate as each other. Here's how it works: the country picks a party, in the form of giving them the most seats. The party selects a leader. So, since we, the people, chose the party, we have indirectly chosen the leader. Within the system we work in, that's where the legitimacy comes from.

So, really, it's not that big a problem that we haven't elected Cameron, Clegg, Brown, etc. Personality politics seem like a bad idea to me anyway. We shouldn't pick our favourite person, we should pick the party with the most competence and best ideas. I guess there is a case to be made that we shouldn't pick someone highly uncharismatic (PMs have to do speeches and diplomatic whatsits sometimes), but I doubt you can get to being a party leader without being at least competent in public speaking.

There seems to be a confusion in the electorate. Well, given half of them are below average intelligence, this isn't entirely surprising, but you would hope that voters are educated enough to realise certain things.

Like, tactical voting. If you really don't want the Tories to get in, for example, it's not good enough to just vote Labour blindly. Have a look at your constituency. If it's a Lib Dem seat, with potential for Tory swing, then vote Lib Dem if you want to vote "not Tory". A lot of Lib Dem seats might have been lost through people saying "Well, Lib Dems aren't going to win, let me pick Labour to ensure the Tories stay out", not realising that the way our system works means that your tactical vote has to be dependent on where you live.

Secondly, all of the big parties are hogging the centre ground. You really need to look quite hard to work out who's actually doing what these days. So, no wonder the electorate doesn't quite know who to choose. The only obvious differences between parties occur at the fringes.

Well, anyway.

Cameron's said to Clegg, "Choose." And Gordon's walked. So, I guess something might happen. Or it might not. I'd rather things took time than were rushed for the sake of an electorate with 5-second attention spans.

The (Shipped) Gold Standard

For all you keen FOB fans (or for those of you able to Google!), you'll have noticed that I've got my titles the wrong way round. This post should have come before the last. However, since it's my blog, I can do whatever I like round here. (So there.)

The TV debate was interesting. It wasn't a polished and buffed, soundbitey, gimmicky affair like you might have got over the pond (where presidential debates have been going on for years). I was reading the story of how various leaders over the years have tried to get a debate going over here. The person doing worse in the polls would ask the other, and the other would say no, and give an official reason such as "TV politics, rubbish, gimmick, blah", when the actual reason is: "I'm going to win anyway, I have a large margin above you on the polls. I don't need a debate to potentially ruin that." However, at the moment, a hung parliament is more likely than any other scenario, so the parties have nothing really to lose.

Nick looked very cute on the TV, and I think he presented himself well. Probably not the most polished (given Daveyboy and Gordon have been speaking in public in the role of Some Important Dude for a bit longer), but with practise, he'll get better. It's great that the election's really became more of a n-horse race (n>2), since that is the reality of it. There are MORE THAN TWO parties, despite what Labour and Conservative want you to think. It's in their best interests to have a two-party system, I guess, because you just swing between the two in 10 year cycles, and you only have one ideological viewpoint to oppose.

It's great that the Lib Dems got some TV time. It'll just further increase their support and show that they do have a non-negligible base of popular support.

The polls have, all of the sudden, got rather interesting. In several taken after the debate, Lib Dems come a close second, with some even having them come out on top! Of course, the percentage points are so close, taking into account the margin of error gives you the result "Everyone's a winner". Well, it should. Except the way the electoral system goes at the moment means that 30% of the country can vote Lib Dem, but if the support isn't concentrated enough in traditional homesteads for Labour and Conservative, it won't translate to more seats. So, if the Lib Dems do as well in the actual vote as the polls suggest they might, it might lead to some voting reform (which is exciting!) - it doesn't seem fair that over half of the country can vote for "not party Y", yet party Y can legitimately gain over half of the seats.

...

GO YELLOWS! <3

Headfirst Slide into Cooperstown on a Bad Bet

This title refers to a baseball player that was notorious for sliding onto bases headfirst, instead of the traditional feetfirst. Then he got into trouble for cheating, so he wasn't allowed into the Hall of Fame, which is situated in Cooperstown. Feetfirst is probably a lot safer, right? After all, you're not potentially slamming your head into the ground that way... That'd hurt. A lot.

I ended up talking to my housemate briefly about What Happened with Ex and Guy. I cleared up a little; I wasn't actually officially dating him before I'd split up with Ex, although I admitted things had got out of hand. I think he's just staying well out of this, glad I found a new housemate to fill the empty room, a bit sad that there'll be no Curry Night due to awkward-weirdness. We're still friends, and we're going to have some pizza when he comes back this weekend.

I am pretty glad we're friends. Towards the end of the relationship, I found myself hanging out with him quite a lot, just chilling in his room, reading notes, or talking, or something. I'm finding it really hard now to be alone, and I'm glad he'll be around this term, to stop me just driving myself insane. We're not deep-soul-chat friends, but I know we're close in some ways. Camp Sarah isn't particularly popular at this time of year (when is it ever?!), but I reckon he wouldn't mind coming to visit.

I managed to do some fairly good work today. Finished off Measure Theory, wrote up the important results from the course. Afterwards, I picked up my guitar, and I started to play. I found myself starting to write a song. There's so much material I have to write about now: loss, love, life (other things beginning with letters that aren't L?). Got a germ of a good song so far, it's called Two Years. No prizes for guessing what that one's going to be about...

I remember, when I was in high school, I became a sound techie for the school production of Grease. I auditioned for an acting/dancing part initially. They had a secret ranking: so they'd say a word to you when they'd seen you perform and it was code for what they thought of you. (I recall that "banana" was the top ranking.) So, I was with my friends, and they have two left feet, and I have one left and one right, but they're not on speaking terms often, so they got the worst ranking, and I got the one just above that (which I am STILL pleased about!), and none of us got parts on stage. So, I became a techie instead.

I had a bit of a crush on a few of the backstagers, like my fellow sound worker, and the guy who was in the orchestra playing trumpet. But, I didn't say anything to them. Instead, I went home, and wrote letters to them that I had no intention of ever delivering. I did that for a couple of other people as well, friends that hadn't been very supportive, girls I wanted to get to know in a naked way, stuff like that.

I'm thinking I might write a couple letters at some point. Then, I'll go into the garden and burn them, and let the wind carry the ashes. I'm not massively spiritual, like I'd believe that them accidentally inhaling a particle of my letter would get them thinking about it, but... I dunno. I like the idea of my deepest desires just scattered about the world. Secrets that nobody can ever read.

The ITV Prime Ministers debate is on tonight! It's a very American idea, like a presidential debate. Luckily, the next title is "The (Shipped) Gold Standard", which means that I won't have to shoehorn my post about it into a title, it'll fit neatly, blister-free. All I'll say about it now is Nick Clegg's in it! It's like a two-and-a-half horse race... nearly. I'm pleased though. He's definitely the hottest out of the three that are going to be on. Plus, I actually like his policies. Vote Yellow, and all that. :)

Today...

Woken up at 8, asked what should Dad buy for me in the supermarket. Decided to roll out of bed, grab clothes, and just go with him. Dressed entirely like a boy (except for the skinny jeans). Bought lots of stuff.

Later in the day, I dressed entirely like a girl. Cute t-shirt, ruffly cotton layered skirt. I had hips like a goddess, which makes a change, cos my hips are actually pretty damn narrow. (Thank goodness for my butt.)

Excellent food day: Weetabix, hot milk and chopped banana; hummous, pitta bread and carrot sticks; grapes and dilute juice; cream cheese on bagel, cup of tea; Chinese take out; slice of toast.

Lazy study day. Made some progress. Easing myself into things. Doing Lie Algebras right now.

Discovered Sesame Street videos. Laughed until I cried. Flailed my limbs about in pure joy. Found a great video of Natalie Portman, dressed as an elephant, dancing with an elephant dressed as a princess. So fucking cute.

Talked to Tristan and Dave about things and stuff. Nothing too deep. Linked them to all the Sesame Street stuff.

Watched a gymnastics movie with a Fall Out Boy soundtrack. Kickass.

Had a two hour nap while the Budget was on the TV. Woke up to see Nick Clegg asking politicians to cut the crap and tell the truth.

Listened to Dancing With Myself, and Imagine (the originals, not the Glee covers).

"That's very smart, Banana, very smart."

Today was a pretty good day. Doesn't quite beat the day in the Bullring with a Krispy Kreme, though.

Post-electioneering...

So, after the weeks of being bombarded by "Vote Joe!" signs all over campus, we have a new Sabbatical Officer team sitting in the wings, waiting to take over the current ones. After being gently nudged and prodded to care about referenda and voting, the referenda all did reach quorum (just about), and two conflicting motions were both passed. (Can you simultaneously reaffirm and dissolve sponsorship bans from unethical companies?)

It is also interesting to note how a student body of over 20,000 can't get more than 2000 people to vote. Students are turned off by politics, and even more turned off by the politics that should be the most relevant to them: who runs their union, and what does their union do for them. People don't vote unless their friends are running, or they're one of the few people genuinely passionate about their union.

Most people don't care; they rarely see the union actively working for them. Most just see the union do things that they rather resent, like tearing down a grubby but well-loved union and giving them an expensive, empty-feeling building with silly names for places (who names a pub the Dirty Duck?!) Or, giving them a £100+ per ticket graduation ball and summer festival they didn't ask for, when all they wanted was a Final Fling, like every other year got.

But, I digress. In general, the student body doesn't care about their union, and they don't care too much about who's actually doing what.

Take Union Council, for example. In the yearly election, where some are vying for presidential power, or some other large Sabb role, others are elected to be on Union Council. Compared to how large the campaigns for Sabb roles are, the other elected positions fade into nothingness. So, nobody really notices (or cares) about bodies like Union Council.

Until now.

Among other things they do (of which I'm not quite sure), they also have the power to hold Sabbs to account. This means that they can question a Sabb's actions, censure Sabbs (an official written slap-on-the-wrist) or even pass a motion of no confidence if they feel a Sabb can no longer fulfil their role in accordance with the constitution they agreed to abide by.

So, when the Communications Officer sent a biased email, wrote a biased flyer, and made a biased Facebook group, they held him to account, and they passed the motion of no confidence.

What is the role of Communications Officer? To communicate. Referenda are probably the most important thing for a union, they are the way that the student body can actually make decisions on where its union goes. So, if the Communications Officer makes the mistake of only mentioning two of his favourite motions and making it quite clear what side he's on, I don't think that he's using his Sabb powers to benefit the union.

There are questions of course. Should it be right for Union Council to be able to make such large decisions with a meeting that barely reached quorum? Should there have been a 2/3 majority vote? Given that students are now becoming aware of Union Council actually doing something, they're in a tizzy, and everyone's crying for an EGM. Should an EGM be able to overturn the Council's decision?

Were they too harsh? He didn't do it on purpose, it was a mistake, he said. Would censure suffice as a punishment?

As for the whole "Union Council pushing around their power to ruin lives", well, you know, this is what happens when people stop caring about politics. A bunch of people they don't know get elected by their friends, and representation fails to work. They make decisions, and if you didn't go out to vote and choose them, you can't expect to strike lucky, and have a team that represents you. You need to vote, or, better still, be on that council and make decisions.

Besides, bodies like Union Council have to exist, for the sake of sanity. Could you imagine having direct democracy, a referendum on every issue? The levels of voter apathy are bad enough as it is.

A motion of no confidence is a pretty big deal. Should you trust the student body to be able to judge whether he acted constitutionally, or whether making him leave his job is a fair punishment?

I dunno. It's all a big mess, really. I'm not really that invested in the politics itself; I just like to watch the carnage...

To end though, I would like to point out that I have some friends who are involved in Union stuff, and are very passionate about it, and love their work, and take it very seriously. I respect what they do. Such a thankless job, for the main part. Yet, as we've seen, the decisions they make behind closed door really can make a difference.

That's not what the NHS is for!

You see quite a lot of these stories in the news, especially on slow news days. They are invariably of the sort:

"Little Jack needs 3 million dollars for high-tech brain surgery that will give him four extra years of life. Oh, why won't the NHS fund this? Jimmy is a human being, and therefore deserves all the life that we can give him."

The NHS works like this, as far as I can tell:

Once upon a time, things were a lot like the US, in terms of health care. If you were reasonably okay for money and you got sick, you could easily be bankrupted. If you were poor, you couldn't afford treatment, unless you were very lucky, and able to find treatment in one of the few establishments helping people with no money. If you were rich, life was as good as can be. At some point, the UK thought, "This isn't really quite right," and decided that everyone deserves a free minimum standard of health care for two reasons - one, because it makes us productive and generates wealth, creates equality of value of life, rich or poor, etc, and two, because it's a Nice Thing to do.

The key word here is "minimum standard". The reason for this is that the NHS has finite resources and oh-so-finite money supplies. If they could give absolutely everyone who needed it a liver and a bed, they would. But they can't.

A key example of people forgetting the NHS's purpose is that liver drug. You know, the one that gives advanced liver cancer patients an extra 12 months or so.

First of all, how much good is this to the patient? 12 months of lying in bed, too weak to do much more than that. I may be exaggerating, I may not be, but quality of life is an important factor in these sorts of life-prolonging-not-actually-curing sorts of drugs.

To be heartless for a second, if their quality of life is poor, then they can't exactly come back to join society, work, pay taxes and contribute back to the State that has given them the money to get better. However, the State isn't always heartless. It recognises that it's okay to let people not of immediate utility to use resources. Still, it's something to think of.

More pressing is the amount of money this treatment costs. How many organ transplants, hip replacements, open heart surgeries, stitches and eye drops can we fund with the amount we'd spend on one person having an extra 12 months of (not necessarily quality) life? I don't know the answer to this question. The question is merely here to highlight that there is SO MUCH that the NHS has decided is part of a minimum standard of care. With all these things that are deemed to be essential, we don't have a great deal of money left over for things which are borderline.

By having a "minimum standard" existing, it means that certain treatments are not considered essential enough for the State to fund. That's why you can't get your boobs Jordanized for free. However, life is pretty precious. It's so precious that something about "right to life" is one of those human rights thingies. That's what makes this so hard to judge. Is prolonging life worth any cost? Some may say yes. (These people clearly have never been Chancellor of the Exchequer, balancing the books of the whole nation, not just the ill bit.)

I've not ever had a relative denied treatment on the NHS because they deemed it to be too dear, or too risky, or too *something*, so, I guess I'd be far more emotional and irrational talking about this if I was invested.

Still, I feel that no matter where you draw the line with free healthcare, someone will always be on the wrong side of that line, and they will always be upset. And that is how the world works, kids.

So, when you are on the wrong side of the line, go ahead and raise money, ask politicians nicely, get funding from some creepy rich business tycoon, but don't go to the Daily Mail and say "The NHS should fund this all for me because, because, because!" That's not what's it's there for. Sorry.

Kennedy-fail.

Ted Kennedy had life fail a couple of days ago. This made me feel a little bit sad.

It wasn't because of his seniority in the Senate, or all the good work he did in his career, or the end of an era of Kennedy presence in American politics. Oh no.

My first thought was the movie When Harry Met Sally. I was thinking of the bit just after "Baby fish mouth!" when Harry and Sally are talking to Jess and Marie respectively about the dates they brought to the little gathering. And, Harry's dating someone quite a bit younger than him. And he says to Jess, "I asked her where she was when Kennedy was shot, and she said, 'Ted Kennedy was shot?'" which causes Jess to giggle.

And, that was my very first thought when I heard that Ted Kennedy had died.

Veet, *this* is what beauty feels like.

Veet, for the uninitiated, is a brand of hair removal products, creams and wax strips.

Basically, you slap the cream or wax strip on your legs, arms, underarms (not recommended for hairy faces or muffs!), then wait. In the case of the cream, you're waiting for the hair to dissolve. The time required also gives you a chance to reflect on how you've just put something that dissolves HAIR onto your bare skin, and whether that's a wise move. In the case of the wax, you're just waiting to pluck up the courage to inflict pain on yourself. Then, you scrape off the cream and rinse, or rip off the wax strip and cry a little.

There are far more painful ways to remove body hair, such as epilators (I spell-checked this word; it suggested mutilators. Ha!) These handy little gadgets rip hair out of you with little barbs and claws and stuff. They look like fun on the adverts, but that's because the advert has calming feminine music, not the musical range of curses that really accompany this product.

I get quite excited talking about feminine stuff. Probably because sometimes I think about the hundreds of products the average woman uses in her lifetime to fit an social norm she's either expected to maintain, or an ideal she's expected to aim for, and I reflect on how it makes me feel, and whether it's worth making yourself feel like crap for "beauty".

The new slogan for Veet is "What beauty feels like." So, basically, once again, we're being told that female beauty is a hairless leg. Bollocks.

Confession: I haven't shaved my legs for several months now. I made this decision shortly after going out to see a friend last summer, and I was planning on wearing a really pretty floaty white knee-length skirt, since it was quite hot outside, and I fancied something light. However, I'd cut myself shaving on my knee (knees are so fiddly, I always cut myself there) and it wouldn't stop bleeding, so I had to opt for a pair of jeans and die of heat-related heat.

After that, I thought "What is the point of shaving?" I mean, women do it to feel beautiful, don't they? You get nice shiny smooth pins for two days, then the stubble comes in, and you feel a bit irritated but you can't really depilate with wax or creams unless you've got some decent growth first, and shaving every two days is rather time consuming. So, you wait, and you just feel ugly until it's time to remove the hair. Lather, rinse, repeat.

So, I've just stopped with the whole palaver. I am probably quite lucky though, in the sense that I have dark hair and dark skin, so unless you happened to be stroking my leg, you probably wouldn't notice I haven't shaved, so it's not like people pick up on it and stare at me when I wear shorts.

For some reason, I think that if my mother found out I'd stopped shaving, she'd probably feel disappointed in me. Maybe it's because I'm just a pair of dungarees away from becoming a Full-On Raging Lesbian. (This is partly a joke: to be a lesbian, you'd have to define as a woman, and frankly, I'm not up for that.)

So, to those who churn out slogans for Veet: take a look at my legs, if you can bear to stand it. I think they're beautiful. I'm sure others do. And they're not hairless like a child's. They are natural. A pair of naturally beautiful legs.

Ha!

A touch of controversy.

"Give the BNP some respect."

It's a funny thing for someone like me to say, really. I'm British on passport, but of Afro-Caribbean origin. My father grew up in the Caribbean, and my mother's parents moved to Britain from Dominica in the 60's. One of the BNP's main policies is to give people like my father, and my grandparents, money to repatriate, or basically fuck off home. So, I'm not the type you'd expect to be fighting in the BNP's corner.

I'm not really in their corner though. I'm just in favour of equality, democracy, and proper debates. None of this can happen if protesters throw eggs and make it impossible for us to hear what ideas they have.

I have taken the time to look at the BNP website, and look at some of their policies, read some of the articles, observe the comments. (I'm a firm believer in attacking an enemy with your eyes open rather than with second-hand information.) I've seen that some of the members are involved in rather unsavoury things, such as Holocaust denial, and there have been alleged links between violence and racial tensions and areas of high BNP support. (Don't quote me on this; I'm not entirely sure.)

However, I try to draw a line in my head between the BNP as individual people, and the BNP as a unit trying to "reclaim Britain for British people", to paraphrase. This line drawing enables me to think that, yes, they're not very nice people. And if the BNP got into power, the country would be fucked. But, for the sake of democracy, they should be allowed to speak. That way, mass audiences can easily see that their policies are flawed, if not outright dangerous.

If liberals attack them on the grounds that they're "not good people", or for fear of fascism, then we remove the opportunity to beat them in debate fairly. We promote them as martyrs. They've done nothing wrong as a party. They're legitimate, and the seats they won in Europe are a result of nearly a million people using their right to vote to support that party. By shouting at them, and attacking them, we give them the chance to say, "The current establishment don't want us to talk! They know that we are a huge threat to them, because we're a lot better!"

I'm disappointed that people voted BNP. I'm even more disappointed that the vast majority didn't vote at all. Voter apathy is reaching new highs, with the expenses just destroying what little faith in politics people had already. So, only those who are passionate vote. Who's passionate? Fringe party supporters, who see the mainstream voting malaise and realise their time has come.

Protests are important, I realise this. But, free debate and the chance to openly discuss and rubbish ideas is fundamental to democracy working as best as possible. We can't give the BNP the chance to win by sympathy. This is why we must give them respect as a political entity - only then can we truly defeat them.