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Oct. 14th, 2007 11:10 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
johnny9fingersGigged in St George's Hill Lawn Tennis Club last night. It was for charity.
St George's Hill is a walled enclave the size of a village just outside Weybridge in Surrey. A rich person's ghetto, it has private security guards and is difficult to get in and out of. I finally persuaded the goon at 'Checkpoint Charlie' to let me through, and I eventually found the Tennis Club.
One of the band members asked me if I liked the big houses around here. I had to reply that six bedrooms and half-an-acre isn't my idea of a big house (though considerably larger than the one I live in at present) and ghettos, even if wealthy, aren't my thing.
I spend a lot of my time defending the Middle-Classes against folk that regard the competent, professional, and intellectual values of the Middle-Classes as pretentious. I'm not going to defend the wealthy ghetto, however. As is, I'm beginning to think that perhaps I'm just too infected with the value system of the aristocracy and gentry to ever regard such enclaves as anything other than appropriate tax-farms. This is, after all, the point behind ghettos.
Didn't have to go onstage until after the Rugby, by which time everyone (including me) was in fine form. I shouted myself hoarse, bit my fingernails, and celebrated wildly, along with everyone else glued to the screen. I thought France outplayed us in many areas of the game, but we got stuck in, and kept in touch and eventually....
Tonight it's Argentina against South Africa....and we meet the winners in the final.
I didn't think I'd ever say this, but come on Argentina, play up, play up, and play the game.
St George's Hill is a walled enclave the size of a village just outside Weybridge in Surrey. A rich person's ghetto, it has private security guards and is difficult to get in and out of. I finally persuaded the goon at 'Checkpoint Charlie' to let me through, and I eventually found the Tennis Club.
One of the band members asked me if I liked the big houses around here. I had to reply that six bedrooms and half-an-acre isn't my idea of a big house (though considerably larger than the one I live in at present) and ghettos, even if wealthy, aren't my thing.
I spend a lot of my time defending the Middle-Classes against folk that regard the competent, professional, and intellectual values of the Middle-Classes as pretentious. I'm not going to defend the wealthy ghetto, however. As is, I'm beginning to think that perhaps I'm just too infected with the value system of the aristocracy and gentry to ever regard such enclaves as anything other than appropriate tax-farms. This is, after all, the point behind ghettos.
Didn't have to go onstage until after the Rugby, by which time everyone (including me) was in fine form. I shouted myself hoarse, bit my fingernails, and celebrated wildly, along with everyone else glued to the screen. I thought France outplayed us in many areas of the game, but we got stuck in, and kept in touch and eventually....
Tonight it's Argentina against South Africa....and we meet the winners in the final.
I didn't think I'd ever say this, but come on Argentina, play up, play up, and play the game.
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Date: 2007-10-15 09:58 am (UTC)*shrug* ghettos - of whatever stripe - are odd. The wealth ones exist here too with an excess of artificial rules.
(I live basically on the edge of a poor one... or at least as close as Canada gets to one. It's not that bad here mostly)
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Date: 2007-10-15 10:05 pm (UTC)Vespasian did similar when he came to power. Rome had been bankrupted, and Vespasian was the son of a man risen to the middle-classes through his tax-collector father.
Aristocratic/Barbarian values often designate those rich enclaves farms of a kind.
When it comes to tax, I suppose, I'd prefer me to be in charge of your money, than the other way round: which is the Republicans' contention. It's just I know what they'll spend the money on....and what they've spent it on up to now.
Control of resources, control of the income flow, the Dems have it in their power to do something about this situation. I don't know if they've the balls to do it, or the smarts enough to sink the whole rotten regime.
But these are the signs that the dissident Americans actually understand what's been happening. If I were particularly cynical I might opine that it's a shame there aren't any American monks....they make such good pictures when the security services beat the living shit out of them.
I don't think enough of the US people are too bothered about the seeming criminality of their government: how many are actually calling for regime change? Blair stepped down because his position was untenable. Bush can't and won't: too much stuff to ensure never sees the light of day to deal with first, though I'd guess the act has been pretty clean for about...well since Cheney decided to spend more time with his family, or somewhere around then.
And if Hillary wants to win over the die hard fraternity, all she has to do is trade off health against the personal freedom abusing, wiretapping, email perusing, present administration. She should be libertarian about freedom, but caring enough to offer a helping hand. There may be better ways of saying it too.
Winning play, I reckon.
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Date: 2007-10-16 01:30 am (UTC)I think you've estimated about right. She's a good politician and apparently as hard as nails... I don't know what really to expect with her other than she probably could scare people into change - and has a lot of the same values as her husband. (read: she's not another Thatcher)
She's not nice. Not at all... but it's starting to look like she's a likely next Big Hat person.