The one thing I cannot stand about life in London is the hidden expense of daily living – economically and socially.

Income taxes are usually a relatively moderate 22% on the average salary. This pays for your National Insurance (social security pension, which *I* will never have the luxury of collecting), and full health insurance. Not such bad things in and of themselves, and I admit it is refreshing to walk into a doctor’s surgery or hospital, and walk out without ever having to reach into my wallet.

however there are a million other insidious ways the government takes more then it’s fair share. there’s the council tax – a local government fee which is usually £400+ per year, depending on where you live. then there’s the congestion charge – £5 a pop anytime you want to drive into the city centre during working week hours. there’s the speed cameras – £60 fine for every offense, no matter how minimally over the speed limit. there’s the parking permits, and parking fines should your pay and display ticket run out whilst you are trapped in a post office queue. there’s mot (automobile inspection fee), and road tax (registration fee). there’s the insane price of petrol (equivalent to about $6 USD per gallon!), the insane price of tobacco (equivalent to about $10 USD per pack), the insane price of public transport (how about a $2 USD bus ride, or a $16 USD daily tube travelcard), the insane price of food ($2 for a dozen eggs).

it all adds up, little by little. in the states, you can easily get by on $20/day if you are frugal. here, £10 a day is a laughable ideal. and it’s spirit crushing. for all the talk about human rights, your life is invaded at every turn. you are constantly recorded, told what is good for you, what you can and cannot do. there are millions of “traffic calming measures” like speed humps and roundabouts and buildouts (narrowing the lanes to one car width). here you can go to jail for anti-social behaviour (rowdiness, excessive noise, hanging out on street corners, general nuisance behaviour) and hate speech (racial epithets or unpopular far-right political views). anything considered unsavoury or extreme has a law against it, and there’s one CCTV camera for every 29 people in the UK.

and for all the taxes and regulation, i find little evidence of a superior quality of life. Racism and poverty and benefit fraud exist here. Crime and public safety are still a major concern of day to day life. Utilities and services are often more poorly managed (witness my rants about the tube). The uk is not any sort of utopian society.

it’d be one thing if there were measurable improvement for all the restrictions we put up with, but instead all i feel is a deep sense of disheartening disillusionment and bone-weary tiredness.

it took seven years in nyc to feel this worn out, ground down, wrung out by minor trials of daily life. congratulations, london – you’ve achieved it in two.

Like this post

Unlike

Been a while since i ranted and raved about the good ol’ u.s. of a., and I figure it’s long overdue, so here you go…

read it for yourself: the new yorker’s hersch on the u.s. plans for iran

why the american way of life is doomed to become obsolete (thanks for the link, a)

More money for killing

New record budget deficit

“I really don’t like being lied to repeatedly, flagrantly, intentionally”. related: that’s *my* senator

meanwhile, bush bursts the bubble of the hubble

and test your piss-poor geography (for which I blame my inadequate ameri-centric educational system)

and totally unrelated, except that I miss snow – cape cod had 3 feet of snow in the latest blizzard. my sis was under a blanket, eating nachos and watching the patriots, with snow drifts up to her window.

looks to be a long week ahead, so bundle up, break out the jd, and stay warm.

Like this post

Unlike

my friends back home are all liberals who voted for kerry. And since the election, they’ve felt raw with frustration, sadness and helplessness.

these are the people who are part of sorryeverybody.com, the ones who want to stand up and be counted as saying “he’s not *my* president”. They’re pouring out of the woodwork.

and then there are those of us on the other side – who stand with you in solidarity for the next four years. apologiesaccepted.com

mark morford poignantly summarises a wellspring of feeling

take a look:

(photos courtesy of sorryeverybody.com)

Like this post

Unlike

If you’re as disheartened and disillusioned as I am about the election, please read this.
Mark Morford gets it right again

Like this post

Unlike

safety in numbers in a terrifying terrorist world

jobs and prosperity at home

environmental safeguards for the earth

education which teaches thought, not rote

very probably, a woman’s right to choose

separation of church and state

right to privacy and free speech

unknown number of civilian and military lives

respect

…shall I go on?

Like this post

Unlike

Looks like i will not be moving back home to the States for at least another 4 years. Not that I was going to, but I would’ve liked to have had the option.

I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again – Americans are dumb-as-a-box-o-rocks stupid. Once again, pandering to the lowest common denominator wins the day. Forget about co-operation. Forget about leading by example. Forget about peace and prosperity.

Instead, we have once again allowed ourselves to be ruled by fear, mass hysteria, a sheeplike mentality.

We will never be the truly great nation we have the power to become. We decline our opportunity to be a massive force for good in the world. We sneer at alliances and friendly nations. We are determined to cut off our nose to spite our face.

Eventually, we will pay for this arrogance. I shudder to think.

And who will be on our side then?

Like this post

Unlike

I have here in my hot little hands, one gin-you-wine, cer-tee-friable, 100% pure, finest grade Colombian absentee ballot.

are you jealous?

also – debate number 3 is tonight.

if you think none of this matters, here’s an email I received recently:

> > > > The women were innocent and defenseless. And by the end of the night, they were barely alive. Forty prison guards wielding clubs and their warden’s blessing went on a rampage against the 33 women wrongly convicted of “obstructing sidewalk traffic.”

They beat Lucy Burn, chained her hands to the cell
bars above her head and left her hanging for the night,
bleeding and gasping for air. They hurled Dora Lewis
into a dark cell, smashed her head against an iron bed and
knocked her out cold. Her cell mate, Alice Cosu,
thought Lewis was dead and suffered a heart attack.
Additional affidavits describe the guards grabbing,
dragging, beating, choking, slamming, pinching, twisting and
kicking the women.

Thus unfolded the “Night of Terror” on Nov. 15,
1917, when the warden at the Occoquan Workhouse in
Virginia ordered his guards to teach a lesson to the
suffragists imprisoned there because they dared
to picket Woodrow Wilson’s White House for the
right to vote.

For weeks, the women’s only water came from an open
pail. Their food–all of it colorless slop–was infested
with worms. When one of the leaders, Alice Paul,
embarked on a hunger strike, they tied her to a chair,
forced a tube down her throat and poured liquid into her
until she vomited. She was tortured like this for weeks
until word was smuggled out to the press.

So, refresh my memory. Some women won’t vote this
year because–why, exactly? We have carpool duties?
We have to get to work? Our vote doesn’t matter?
It’s raining?

Last week, I went to a sparsely attended screening
of HBO’s new movie “Iron Jawed Angels.” It is a
graphic depiction of the battle these women waged
so that I could pull the curtain at the polling
booth and have my say.

I am ashamed to say I needed the reminder.

All these years later, voter registration is still
my passion. But the actual act of voting had become
less personal for me, more rote. Frankly, voting often
felt more like an obligation than a privilege. Sometimes
it was inconvenient.

My friend Wendy, who is my age and studied women’s
history, saw the HBO movie, too. When she stopped by
my desk to talk about it, she looked angry. She was–with
herself. “One thought kept coming back to me as I
watched that movie,” she said. “What would those women
think of the way I use–or don’t use–my right to vote?
All of us take it for granted now, not just younger women,
but those of us who did seek to learn.” The right to vote,
she said, had become valuable to her “all over again.”

I wish all history, social studies and
government teachers would include the movie in their
curriculum… we are not voting in the numbers that we should be,
and I think a little shock therapy is in order.

It is jarring to watch Woodrow Wilson and his cronies try
to persuade a psychiatrist to declare Alice Paul insane so that
she could be permanently institutionalized. And it is inspiring
to watch the doctor refuse. Alice Paul was strong, he said,
and brave. That didn’t make her crazy. The doctor admonished
the men: “Courage in women is often mistaken for insanity.”
> > > >

woman, man, black, latino… whoever you are, and whatever group you belong to, *someone fought courageously on your behalf for the right to vote*

don’t let it be in vain.

Like this post

Unlike

i have never felt such intense rage. sadness. frustration. horror. shame. all in the space of two and a half hours.

i didn’t want to watch this movie. but i felt compelled to.

the grief of reliving september 11th. the violation of being stripped of my civil rights. the abject helplessness of watching murder at the hands of my government.

the stark horror of watching it all unfold, and being able to do *nothing*.

i hate you for it. i don’t want to feel this way. but i hope and pray i am not the only one. from the numbers in the theatre tonight, i don’t think i am alone.

and that gives me hope.

Like this post

Unlike

lots of sporting news. and some not-so-sporting news.

the red sox are back on track. we like curt. we likey him a lot. kate and mitzi head down on a road trip tomorrow to baltimore to see tim wakefield kick some oriole ass. i’m very jealous.

my other b-boyz (yayyyyyy!!!!) start their stanley cup playoffs against montreal (boooooo!!!), and i’ll be listening over the internet.

in the not-so-sporting news…

iraq has turned into a bloody nightmare, saddam has been ferried out in secret, and yet georgie is being his usual blustering intractable self… at the expense of human lives. the *only* positive to come out of this insane disaster, is that people may finally be starting to wake up.

in the meantime, back at home, amnesty puts facts to what we already knew: america’s judicial system is in the same class as those of iran, china, and vietnam.

and because we now live in this kind of world, it is seemingly not enough that we all have national insurance numbers (the brit equivalent of the social security #). not enough that we are constantly under surveillance by cctv. not enough that we have to have tv licenses, and driver’s licenses and (soon) biometric passports. now they want a national identity card. mark my words, the u.s. will not be far behind.

only one more sleep til the long weekend. i daren’t look at the weather forecast, since a) it will be wrong and b) even if it’s good, it’ll be wrong.

i need a break. the state of the world is getting me down, and while it won’t make anything better, rainy or sunny, a weekend away from news of bombings and bloodshed and fear will do wonders for my sanity…

have i mentioned i can’t wait?

Like this post

Unlike

I’m scared. I’m scared and so deeply deeply sad for the fathomless capacity of man’s inhumanity toward man. There no longer seem to be any limits to what we will do to each other, in a time when causing pervasive fear and random chaos has become the ultimate tool of any group with a political agenda or an axe to grind. In a climate where recognition and respect for an otherwise fringe cause is proportional to the size of the violence it can perpetrate.

it makes sense when you apply it to al qaida or eta or the ira. but try it on for size with bush and israel and zimbabwe, and see whether the shoe fits as well?

and I am so fcking *mad* with the u.s. we pay all sorts of lip service to wiping out global terrorism, and yet constantly, insistently perpetuate it through our actions, leaving people bewildered as to why our “war on terrorism” is so clearly *not working*, failing massively, in fact, and at a mind-numbing loss as for what other approach to take. we don’t know any other way of thinking about it.

i don’t know how to live in this kind of world. *no one* knows how to live in this kind of world. and that’s why the strategy of fear is so effective. that’s why walking down the street in a major metropolitan city feels like being at the center of a giant bullseye. that’s why daily goddamn news reports of suicide bombers and masses of civilians dying barely register a blip on our mental radar. that’s why it’s so hard to remember that we didn’t always have that small permanent gnawing knot at the pit of our collective stomach.

there’s got to be another way to live. it’s just a matter of how long it will take people to wake up and cry out for something more than *this*…

Like this post

Unlike

i find it enormously ironic (no, not in the alannis morisette song way, but in the true sense of the word) that “the darkness” are taken seriously. i’d have more respect for them if they acknowledged they were supposed to be tongue-in-cheek. or maybe they do. gawd, i’m so confused. perhaps therein lies the appeal (confuse and conquer?) i mean, look at the lead singer: give him a haircut and a tie and he could be an accountant for price waterhouse coopers. they’re like a “spinal tap” for the naughties. then again,“spinal tap” actually had multiple albums. so maybe the biggest joke is on us.

ahh, the joys of urban life. in the past three weeks i have 1. been hit by a car 2. been spit on by a stranger and 3. seen a fox lapping up a big pile of vomit.

does any actually *stand* for anything anymore? a-rod is a pussy. in his negotiations with the red sox the man swore he didn’t want to play for the yankees, didn’t want to play third base (derek jeter already in ss), and was desperate to get out of texas, even playing for a lot less money. but in the end, it was all about the benjamins, and he will apparently suck hard on george steinbrenner’s big fat ass if it’s spewing enough dollar bills.

they will go to spring training with a payroll of about $185 million. that’s more than six times what some of their competitors will spend and approximately $50 million more than their closest pursuers, the Red Sox, will part with.

i grew up loving this game. i never believed it was anything holy or pure. i’ve always known it bore as much resemblance to a “game” as a high stakes poker table at vegas resembles “recreational betting”. but i am rapidly losing my taste for anything associated with it that does not occur in 9 innings on a field shaped like a diamond. baseball may be a business, but where’s the sport in that?

i hate linking to salon.com articles, but this article (part 1) and this (part 2) about the cointelpro-like tactics being taken against anti-war demonstrators in the name of “anti-terrorism” is some of the scariest shit i’ve read in a while. worth watching the annoying commercial for.

i’d rather vote for a vomit-eating fox for president than george bush.

and there’s this guy, who reasonably enough assumed that since he was not breaking any laws, he didn’t have to show cops his id, but was arrested for refusing to do so. and he’s managed to take it all the way to the supreme court who have decided his case has enough merit to warrant a hearing in march.

america is becoming one giant police state. rights, liberties and freedoms are being eroded from beneath our very feet, every day. the political mood is leadenly oppressive, the news is sensationalised, ordinary citizens are intimidated and confused and stunned into submission. as the united states goes, so goes the world, and i’m not so sure that it’s any better elsewhere, but if a nation with the power that america has, no longer has any ideal of moral highground (not that we could ever claim we held it, but at least we had the ideal), no sense of noblesse oblige, no hint of a token gesture of trying to lead by example, well then the sad, sorry, state of the world that we spend so much time bemoaning has a bleaker future than any of us could imagine.

as if you needed any more reason, please join the aclu today!

Like this post

Unlike

say it ain’t so. or wait, is it? okay, so I have lost a lot of respect for kerry in the past two years, ever since it became glaringly obvious he had surveyed the scene and decided to start sucking major ass in his bid for the dem. presidential nod. but really now, he’s the best chance we have of kicking bush to the curb, and do we really need to give the rest of the world another reason to say “look at those funny uptight americans, getting all het up yet again over where a politician decides to stick his stick”? i didn’t think so.

speaking of uptight…it’s a puppet.

i know! let’s bomb ‘em

completely unrelated to anything: m&ms and science. my question is: why waste perfectly good m&ms???

okay, i’m gonna say it: yankees suck and then they suck some more.

finally, one last spot-on cartoon about the breast brouhahah (pretty damn sure I spelt that wrong, but anyway… if you are hung up on esoteric spell-checking, go read another blog.)

(tecnical note: i went through all the trouble of setting up an xml and rss feed, only to become convinced that bloglet is not working. i am trying to find alternatives (an rss-or-atom-to-email converter) for the overflowing wealth of people who are interested in staying up to date on my useless daily drivel, yet a)don’t want to have to download an rss feed aggregator application or b) visit a website to read about updates to my website, which is just sooo silly. i will keep y’all informed.)

Like this post

Unlike

so one of the first things you have to get used to about living in london: you’re on candid camera. all the time.

seriously, everywhere you go, there are signs proc;aiming “cctv in operation”. on the tube. in the cornershop. in bars and restaurants. on public streets. from the time you venture out your front door in the morning, you are almost continually being watched, in the name of fighting crime. one camera for every 14 britons.

which is a little bizarre, since london doesn’t generally have very much crime to begin with, especially when you compare it to most major metropolitan u.s. cities. i’ve travelled all sorts of places at all hours of the day (generally whilst inebriated), and never once felt unsafe. sure, they have petty crimes like thefts and vandalism, and even some not-so-petty crime like assault or rape. but for the most part, you are statistically pretty damn safe.

it’d be pretty easy to attribute it to all the surveillance, right? people don’t commit as many crimes because there’s a greater likelihood of being caught on tape. and after a while, you kind of do away with the notion of personal privacy anywhere outside your home, and all the little cameras start to fade into the background noise. most people are willing to give up personal freedoms for a measure of security. and you come to understand that you are *not* presumed innocent just walking down the street minding your own business, you are constantly a potential criminal.

the problem with that theory, is that it doesn’t hold water. in my experience, londoners *don’t* feel safer than say, new yorkers. perhaps even less so. i never had as many people warn me to be careful in my seven years in new york, as i have in the less-than one year i’ve been here. in spite of all evidence to the contrary, londoners seem to feel very much threatened.

and the problem is, the cameras don’t deter crime. a recent study shows that “security cameras were effective in tackling vehicle crime but had limited effect on other crimes. Improved streetlighting recorded better results.”

so next time you see a cctv sign, smile and say “cheese” – you may not be any safer, but you are a lot more photogenic…

Like this post

Unlike

just how fucking repressed *are* americans?!?

this is just getting waaaay too ridiculous. janet has become the biggest internet search term of all time. justin says his family was embarrassed. jc chavez can’t play at the pro-bowl. e.r. can’t show an elderly woman’s breast.

and in true american fashion, someone is suing for cbs and mtv for “serious injury”, officially making us the laughingstock of the world.

get a grip people! haven’t we got bigger things to be outraged over???

this cartoon sums it all up perfectly.

Like this post

Unlike

Jayzus, our president is confused. Apparently he never got the memo on separation of church and state.

How can you knowingly continue to define marriage as something “sacred”, and then say it is the government’s obligation to protect it by defining it? Marriage as a religious contract “under the eyes of god” is something the churches have no problem circumscribing for themselves, and most define it as being between a man and a woman. Which we may not like or agree with, but is perfectly within their right to do.

Marriage as a legal and social contract, upon which the government has decided to confer certain rights and benefits, is a whole different animal. because you cannot then deny those rights to a certain group of citizens, based solely on sex or sexual orientation.

The federal government can (and does, to date) leave it up to the states to decide what the requirements for a legal marriage are, what state benefits are bestowed, and what particular arrangements it makes to ensure that people are not discriminated against. thus the civil unions in vermont. You can’t do that and then turn around and say “we don’t like your definition, so we’ll alter the constitution to nullify your definition, tell you how to apply your state laws, and uphold our anglo-judeo-christian religious beliefs”.

he’s dangerously mixing religious morals and federal laws. and what irks me most is that he doesn’t seem to understand the difference between the two (aside: yes i know he also does this on the issue of abortion, however that’s a bit murkier because of the science involved, so one can argue that there is room for debate, even if he *is* only debating from his moral viewpoint). “civil unions”, “domestic partnerships” already exist in many states, and if they confer the same benefits, what does it matter what it is called? they are, for most legal intents and purposes a “marriage”, so for that matter, why not just call *all* contractually binding civil partnerships “civil unions”, and leave the religious “marriage” to the churches to sort out?

hmmm, wonder how his “man and woman” definition applies to, say, a transgendered person?? love to see the pols arguing that one out on capitol hill…

in any case, here’s the mass supreme court brief on proposed “civil unions” as an alternative. some pertinent excerpts:

“Because the proposed law by its express terms forbids same-sex couples entry into civil marriage, it continues to relegate same-sex couples to a different status… The history of our nation has demonstrated that separate is seldom, if ever, equal… [emphasis mine] Neither may the government, under the guise of protecting “traditional” values, even if they be the traditional values of the majority, enshrine in law an invidious discrimination that our Constitution, “as a charter of governance for every person properly within its reach,” forbids… The bill’s absolute prohibition of the use of the word “marriage” by “spouses” who are the same sex is more than semantic. The dissimilitude between the terms “civil marriage” and “civil union” is not innocuous; it is a considered choice of language that reflects a demonstrable assigning of same-sex, largely homosexual, couples to second-class status… The bill maintains an unconstitutional, inferior, and discriminatory status for same-sex couples.”

restores some of my faith in our government. god bless the mass. supreme court justices.

Like this post

Unlike

geez louise. it’s flippin’ wet out there. it’s rained nearly every day since new year’s now, and I’m pretty damn tired of it. i give up even taking out my ‘brolly, because it’s just gonna turn inside out for the 8 millionth time. and in more weather related news, this weekend in alicante (previously forecasted to be a balmy 18 degrees, and 21! degrees just the other day) is now supposed to be 10-12. which is just like here. only not as wet.

however, in spite of the dreary outlook, my mood has brightened considerably, because it’s official! the pixies are back!!!

in other music news, wanna buy a record label? beastie’s old label, grand royale, is up for sale for the bargain basement price of $10K. if i were a millionaire, i’d buy it just for the nostalgia factor.

Also, Sen Kennedy takes shrub to task in a capitol hill-wwf smackdown kinda way. “President Bush said it all when a television reporter asked him whether Saddam actually had weapons of mass destruction, or whether there was only the possibility that he might acquire them. President Bush answered, “So what’s the difference?” The difference, Mr. President, is whether you go to war or not.”

But let’s just forget iraq, and concentrate on something easier, like putting men on mars. besides, apparently it has offended esteemed representative tom delay, who found it “disgusting.” my heart bleeds.

more politix: analysis of the moveon.org anti-bush ad winner. then there’s this hypocrisy as well

that’s all for now. rant off. i’m going to go try and keep warm huddled over Bossanova…

Like this post

Unlike

…tear my freakin’ eyes out.

george bush has a blog…

Like this post

Unlike