How long are YOU going to tolerate rudeness?

Michael Deacon is right.

Could we be a little more polite, please?

And so was I.

Bread and games - and he ***** your granddaughter, too!

I wish I weren't.

But when people actually equate basic good manners with fascism (see the comments below Deacon's original article) I'd say we're safely on the road to HELL.
The survival of the "thug-est".
A Darwinian inferno.

Still, there is something you can do. (There always is.)
Heed a wise man - who, admittedly, ended tragically (but his legacy hasn't) - and "you BE the change you want to see in the world".

Kill 'em by kindness.

Or, heck, just follow these simple rules, again courtesy of Deacon & Co. (= all who think like him):

The Politeness Manifesto

As a matter of fact, if you are shopping for a teenager whom you'd like to teach good manners (preferably without whips), you could do much worse than to buy the charming - and actually useful - book Do the Right Thing: A Teenager's Survival Guide for Tricky Situations. In what seems the ultimate irony (but is it, really?), it was written by Jane Goldman... who happens to be the wife of the offensive antihero of this post.


And finally, my heartfelt New Year wishes for all of you out there, in here, all around, nowhere, everywhere:

MAY EVERYTHING YOU WISH ON OTHERS
HAPPEN TO YOU

And I really, really mean it. :)

The Consciousness Button

Sounds like an exciting, very "quantum" new gadget, eh...? ;)

But I am simply referring to the button on your right side: the one that supposedly registers the current "state of consciousness" of the world.

I just noticed, a few minutes ago, that it changed colour rather suddenly: it went from dark orange/red to light orange/yellow. In other words, the "cohesion" of the world consciousness, as measured by the website, just dropped considerably.

Assuming the measurements are at least coherent, I can see only one major reason for such a drop: a huge portion of the territories within the ex-Soviet Union, notably Russia (or at least a part of it) just entered the new year.
In other words, a huge chunk of the world population just said: "Midnight is over, 2007 is done with - can we go to bed now?" (Even if they don't go to bed, the "expectation" is over.)

I think it's a likely scenario.
What do you think?

Anyway, I know I won't be celebrating.
And I am not expecting anything.
I never do; but this year even less so.

The year 2007 is - or has been - beyond words.
My life disappeared: brutally, suddenly (only not really) - it all went poof.

Beyond words.

It's a year that never should have been.
(I know many of you feel the same way.)

And yet I cannot celebrate its passing.
I cannot celebrate another separation, as artificial and trivial as it may seem.
I cannot - do not want to - walk into a future, when my future is behind me.

Unless I rewrite it.

Until I rewrite it.