Musing about time

Was wondering today just how much of our lives we waste actually wasting time?

Given Facebook, Twitter and countless other apps that we now have to idle away time its a wonder many of uss actually accomplish much at all these days?

Was also thinking about experimenting with a period off-line, so to speak, well without the above said apps at least? I've often comtemplated a retreat weekend, wither spiritual or to focus specifically on a work project, but I was thinking some more about this after reading one of my friend Kristen's posts about how she found the snow days we all had in Blighty at the start of this year a positive experience:

http://kramblings.blogspot.com/2010/01/indeed-great-paradox-of-writers-life-is.html


Anyway I'm wasting time again, I should be on my way home, I've lots of books I want to read, and I'm famished and fancy being 'Jamie' in the kitchen tonight

Flushing Sound...

Is it me or is this country going down the toilet?

No I have not joined the ranks of Daily Tory-graph readers who blame the country's demise on the hordes of immigrants flocking to the UK to live a life of luxury on UK unemployment benefit.

No that's the least of the country's woes.

Increasingly I look around and cannot believe that this is the same country that once had a worldwide empire, a country that endured the might of the Luftwaffe's and the hardship of rations and wartime austerity.

From streets and countryside increasingly buried under discarded litter, to health and safety regulations that border on absurdity and a populace seemingly incapable of doing anything for itself unless regulated to do so by a nanny state that at times begins to look like Stalinism I now find myself calling the 1980s and the 1970s the 'good old days' in comparison!!!! (and how absurd is that?).

Today walking to my local Sainsbury supermarket at 7.30pm on the picturesque cobbled high street in the centre of Guildford I pass a drunk openly taking a piss on the steps leading up to the 200 year old Holy Trinity Church while two further drunks (middle aged and booze-hardened/weathered women) traded obscenities at each other. And this in a so-called ' no-drinking zone' where offenders face the prospect of a £500 on the spot-fine. LOL Naturally no police in sight (despite the omnipresent CCTV cameras) and naturally no-one said or did anything.




So decided to e-mail the council to complain... thought their response might make for an interesting and amusing example of all that is wrong in the country to my readers (if there are any of you).

Later...

The healthcare debate -- some stats

Some interesting stats on health care:

The UK in 2006 spent 8.2% GDP on health of which 80.9% was government spending (incidentally putting pay to the lie that a) there is no private healthcare in the UK and b) if there is that it cannot compete with a monopoly provider). Finally as a proportion of the total government spending (the budget) the UK government spent 16.3% on healthcare.

The US by contrast in 2006 spent 13.2% GDP on health of which 45.8 % was government spending. As a proportion of the total budget the US government spent 19.3% on healthcare!

Ergo the US which has does not have a public healthcare system spent more taxpayers dollars on health than the UK government where we do have a public free-for-all health service.

Make of those stats what you want given the current debate on health care in the US.

(Stats are from the latest World Health Organisation report which some people will claim is a communist organization funded by the UN which itself wants to repress the rights and freedoms of the American public -- especially the ones who carry assault rifles to healthcare debates).

Meetings

Why was I absolutely exhausted after 7 hours of inactivity in our annual Departmental away day today? I say 'away' when in actual fact we had it at the University on the 2nd floor of our building, as opposed to the 5th floor my Department occupies.

Am I the only one who finds such meetings as counter-productive as they are productive? Sure everyone gets the time to air their views and thoughts but little concrete invariably emerges from these things.

At one point today when I was beginning to lose the will to live I started wondering just how many millions of people were sat in meetings at that very moment all around the world? All those minutes and hours where productive workforces actually cease to be productive so they can, in most cases have discussions about how to be more productive!! I also began to think about all the coffee, tea, biscuits, finger food etc that such meetings and committees themselves generate.

Finally I began to wonder whether animals had meetings!! Dogs definitely not, monkeys? Possibly. Cats? for certain... plotting every night how they will take over the world come the Armageddon. But for the most part meetings are unlikely to be part of the animal kingdom's experience nor was primitive man in his cave worried about whether he needed to establish a criteria for selecting which animal he was going to kill for dinner tomorrow.


Clearly I spent too much time thinking about anything other than what I was supposed to be thinking about! Which is why when right-wing and left-wing nut jobs start spreading conspiracy theories about secret cabals meeting to plot the takeover of the world financial system/US government (insert as appropriate) they clearly have no experience of how they work. If there was a secret cabal plotting to bring about World Socialism they would still be on agenda item 1 -- minutes of the last meeting.

Burma and Tourism

Always been a tough call whether to travel to Burma, one of Southeast Asia's last unspoilt destinations or not given the detention of Suu Kyi and given the odious nature of the military Junta and its brutal suppression both of dissent and the country's ethnic minorities. On the one hand since much of the country's up-market tourist infrastructure is owned by the junta either directly or indirectly foreign currency would be going directly to the regime. On the other hand small-scale tourism puts the same resources into the hands of an impoverished people and provides vectors for the transmission of ideas and information.

For years Suu Kyi called for a tourism boycott on the country but in a week that has been full of political theatre Suu Kyi now appears to have softened her stance as I reported earlier. Quite who the 'close acquaintance' through who she has made this announcement is remains unknown, most likely her doctor, but it marks another move on the complex chess board that is Burmese politics.

For more detail see the story in The Telegraph below.

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/travel/destinations/asia/burma/6026879/Burma-opposition-leader-Suu-Kyi-Tourism-might-help.html

Progress on Burma?

A chink of light perhaps?

Senator Jim Webb today won the release of John Yettaw, the American whose intrusion on Aung San Suu Kyi led to her recent sentence, and an unexpected meeting with the detained Burmese opposition leader. This is a significant development. Only a few weeks ago the country's leader, Gen Than Shwe, refused to allow UN Secretary General Ban Ki Moon a similar visit to Suu Kyi.


http://tiny.cc/yp1w4

Another reason why this may mark the beginnings of a new approach towards Burma is that Senator Webb, head of the Senate Foreign Relations Subcommittee on East Asian and Pacific Affairs, has been a strong proponent of moving to a new policy of engagement with the generals.

This also comes a day after there were reports that Suu Kyi has softened her stance towards tourism to Burma. Whereas previosuly she had called on a complete boycott, unsubstantiated reports yesterday suggested she was now calling for people to visit the country but to avoid tourist companies and hotels that were owned by, or linked to the Junta.

To early to say where this goes next but this could mark the start of the new approach Hiliary Clinton hinted at several months ago when she made a speech in which she said that neither sanctions nor the ASEAN policy of constructive engagement had worked and that a new approach was needed.

More on Burma

Links to a couple of media interviews I did recently on Burma.

Background was that there was a conference/convention planned in Jakarta this week of Burmese exile groups including the so-called government in exile headed by Sein Win, the cousin of Aung San Suu Kyi. At the last moment it was cancelled by the Indonesian government following a complaint by the Burmese foreign ministry. The Indonesian government balked lest it look like they were sanctioning the government in exile. The only real significance of this meeting (which took place effetively in private anyway) was that previously the groups participating were deeply divided over strategy and vision, so the fact that came together to forge a common front is noteworthy since the last time there was a common position among the ethnic and pro-democracy groups was in 1947 on the verge of independence. However the Junta certainly and most of Burma's neighbours in ASEAN take such exile groups seriously as events today have visibly demonstrated.

Anyway two reports:

http://www.radioaustralia.net.au/connectasia/stories/200908/s2655929.htm

http://www.voanews.com/english/2009-08-13-voa57.cfm





P.S. Having problems posting hypertext links the app does not seem to be working? Anyone help?