Tir-X, Green Zone & 10p Tax Rate

I am generally down. Down and out in London, though I am not even half as bad as Orwell was. I was telling my sister that I felt like Gregor Samsa when I got up this morning.

No kidding! I think the world is going to dogs.

I meet two kinds of people who do not believe it. One, who do not care. They want it to go to dogs. They have nothing to care about anyway. They have this belief that the crisis will sort things out actually. Possibly true, though one may not last the crisis personally.

The other kind is too dumb to understand. It's the city kind. You know those - don't you - those alpha males and alpha females, those who feel that their good grades in school has given them the divine rights to run the world's affairs. No doubt they have done well so far. Earned money, fame, drove 4x4s and even ran for President, became President. All they care for is next 15 minutes [assuming they lasted 15 minutes, either in bed or in business]. Anything taking longer than the next 15 minutes is unimportant, unnecessary and therefore incomprehensible to them.

The most interesting news I noticed today is that the Chickens may have descended from Tir-X! While I may believe in evolution, it is tempting to read God's humour in this. Imagine having a Chicken berbecue as Jurrassic Park in reverse! This is the bit that the 15-minute kinds surely miss - though the laws of evolution is playing out too fast for them now.

There was another news about Green Zone in Baghdad being shelled and four American soldiers dying. Green Zone was supposed to be the safe heaven, but apparently no longer. If the Green Zone is no longer secure for the photo shoots of Presidential candidates and afternoon siestas for Generals, it is best for Americans to cut and run now. Machiavelli was right - didn't he suggest that being in a fortress is the worst way of defending oneself because you can't see what the enemy is upto! Americans live in a fotress not just in Baghdad, but in America too - cuddled in the comfort of enormous moral superiority of the 15-minute mindset! I mean the elite though, the working men everywhere are too busy for such comfort anyway! But the Green Zone shelling is as significant as Chickens as Tir-X!

Then there is Gordon Brown. He is a different type. He is going ahead with the 10pc tax rate abolition, because HE said so. Even if the realities have changed. Even if this is going to hit the poorer people hardest, at a time when food and fuel prices are skyrocketing. At a time when he is advising Bank of England to keep interest rates low to give the homeowners a breather! He is the worst 15-minuter of all, and he clearly knows that he may not last beyond 1st May [when Labour Party goes to a Local Election under his leadership].

But anyway, what about me? I am going through an interesting period in my life. I have everything that I wanted, and I want nothing of it. I am not a 15-minuter, I am not brilliant, but I have always been conditioned to want things worthy of 15-minuters. When I get it, I know it has no value and I feel like a pretender. But all my life I have not learnt an alternative - did not know what else I may possibly want. I do think that is the key to the world's problem - all of us are living in fotresses that we have been told to live in. And, the solution - the sobering thought that Chickens descended from Tir-X after all.

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