Why Proportion is Important

A LOT of people today talk about “balance”, “ying and yang”, “karma“, and even “the golden mean“, but what they’re actually talking about is proportion.

It is not hippy airy-fairyness, it is not mystical or spiritual.  Proportion is dry and practical.  The word is mostly associated with arithmetic or mathematics — along with ratio, percentage, fractions and decimals.

How To Learn Lessons

OUGHT we to get rid of someone who has been caught doing wrong, or ought we to given them another chance?

Put another way, how can lessons be learned from experiences if you are taken out of the situation?

I am thinking just now about the current “expenses scandal” where MPs have been caught red-handed fiddling expenses.

In any area of work, mistakes can be made, and lessons are gleaned from the experience — but only if

Why Jailhouse Rock is Gay

ELVIS made it a hit. It’s been covered by the Blues Brothers and many others. But Jerry Leiber & Mike Stoller’s “Jailhouse Rock” is a very strange song indeed. It is all about homosexuality in prisons. There can be no question of that.

You see, it is

Why Hypocrisy is Good

AN hypocrite is someone who hides intentions or true personality. At least, it is almost everywhere except where people speak English.  For some unknown reason, in English, the word has a different meaning.

When someone preaches something, but practices the exact opposite, then (but only in English) that person is accused of being an hypocrite, or of acting hypocritically. I am going to show that being an hypocrite is (a) normal, (b) healthy, (c) necessary for a civil society, (d) honest and (e) one of your human rights.

When Politics Died

IN the USA you could be a Democrat or a Republican, in the UK you could be for the Conservative & Unionist party, the New Labour Party, or the Liberal Democrats.

The logic tells us all that if you are for one, then it follows that you are against the rest.  The difference has to be something to do with what the political party stands for. But things have now changed; politics died.

Why Not Forgive?

FORGIVENESS is out of fashion at the moment.

I think it is a great shame; forgiveness is a measure of civilisation, of how far we have progressed, or advanced – how civilised we have become.

Unfortunately, the present hunger is for revenge and retribution. We demand punishment for people who have done wrong, especially when

Why Nothing Lasts

ON TELEVISION, archaeology showed us all it was possible to dig down a bit and discover fossils or ancient encampments from times lone gone. They always seemed to be digging, and this remains the case as far as I can ascertain.

In my humble opinion, this seems to suggest that if you leave something alone for long enough, it will become covered over. I think this is significant.

I was quite young when I first realised this was what had happened, and further enquiries provided a startling conclusion: man was at war with nature. It was a constant battle too, with no let up.

Anything that man left alone would corrode away to

How Words Manipulate Part 2

IN a previous article posted on this blog, I attempted to show how easily we are manipulated by the wording of copyright restriction notices (see How Words Manipulate of January 2007). I wrote that article because it had become annoying enough in my mind and I needed an outlet.

Recently I have been getting annoyed by the rhetoric of the gutter press, magazines, web sites, radio and television — especially when journalists interview serious professionals who cannot resort to quips or soundbites, or when politicians are involved!

That is why I have returned to this subject. This time I want to concentrate on how we are manipulated by the spoken word — by what is known as

Where Is the Quality?

WE LIVE IN A BLAND WORLD. Devoid of personality, free from character and lacking in wit.

We have created a world of political correctness, of feminine sidedness and equality, an irrational and fundamentally dishonest world. A good question would be “why?” — but I suppose no-one is allowed to ask that!

How Punk Won

THE music business is all but dead.

It didn’t really last all that long either — but it lasted a lot longer than anyone thought it would.

Although few will shed tears at its passing, as far as I can ascertain, the global music recording business began with a man crying!