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Doom and Gloom
02/09/2004 09:46 pmIzzie has got the grumps. After a gorgeous morning and a sunset by the beach, Iz suddenly got a crank attack sitting at the computer trying to access the various Cyberian portkeys. Most of them seem to be on a go slow or something. There is something about the world wide wait that makes even placid pythons like Iz start steaming at the scaleseses.
Maybe it's just time for some jungle juice and the Iz is getting withdrawal symptoms. Also had yet another fit of procrastination. So much for a new month and a new beginning. Good intentions never got the work done.
Last night the Iz was at work and it was about twenty minutes before going home time that the Iz went to help Dolores go to bed. Dolores is of course not her real name but it is most eminently suitable. She is a rather frumpish, bitter and twisted woman with an inflated sense of her own importance and her favorite activity apart from commenting on the severe lack of mental capacity of every staff member or resident excluding herself is to sit in front of her television getting endless fixes of doom and gloom. At the time of the Bali bombings, she was positively glowing with excitement at being so much more well informed than any of the rest of us. (She also has beady piggie eyes and Iz wonders if anyone out there knows a single person with piggie 'Peter Pettigrew' eyes that is not mean, treacherous, pedantic or grasping?)
Well - back to the original point of this squiggle. Iz walked into the room and the voices on the television seemed oddly familiar. It happened to be the picture version of a documentary that Iz heard on the radio a few months ago and was so impressed with that she stayed up until 3am one morning to hear the repeat.
So once 9pm came, Iz spent the rest of the evening glued to the goggle box gawking at the US soldiers and finally got to see what the Baghdad Beegees really looked like. Some of the footage from this film "Soundtrack to war" by George Gittoes was used in "Fahrenheit 9/11" but what Iz particularly liked about this film was that it was so down to earth and you could relate to the various characters as real people and not just their roles as soldiers or Iraqis. Iz was particularly amazed at just how many of those soldiers wore glasses and bore absolutely no resemblence at all to the usual image of a gung ho guttersnipe just ready to shoot crap and get lots of medals. There was the occasional one of those and they just loved blasting death metal from their tanks while cruising down the streets.
There was also so many images of burnt out cars and gutted buildings that one would never ever see on Fox "News". Iz wondered about how many Iraqi firefighters died climbing the stairs to rescue people from the burning buildings but unlike in New York, we will probably never ever find out about them in the western media.
You really got the feeling from this movie of what it would be like to be on your guard all the time and never knowing if the car that goes past is some family just going about their daily business or some suicide bomber who wants to get you. The soldiers who give the benefit of the doubt sometimes don't live to tell the tale but the ones who suspect suicide bombers and get it wrong have to live with the fact that they have children's blood on their hands and it drives some of them crazy.
Many moons ago, Iz was in Belfast on several occasions. It was so like a city under seige and Iz just could not help but feel sorry for the British soldiers patrolling the streets on foot or in tanks who had no idea who was friend and who was foe and what the hell they were doing there in the first place. Just like the Americans, the poor things thought they were over there to help and just could not understand the rarely concealed hostility towards them. Many of the American soldiers seemed genuinely shocked at the less than welcoming reception that they got. Iz figures that they must have watched lots of Fox "News" at home.
Actually, Iz could not help but remember when folks were making all that fuss about Ian Thorpe winning all those medals that it was a sheer act of fateful forgetfulness that he is even alive at all. And yesss. Not only is he quite cute but is also a very decent and dignified gentleman. Iz does not of course know him personally but there was a big fuss when he got disqualified from the Olympic team for falling off the starting blocks. He must have been pretty peeved but he accepted the decision of the petty bureaucratic swimming officials to not be allowed to compete and did not jump up and down and throw tantrums like most folks would have. But anyway, what Iz originally wanted to say was that he was staying in New York one September day several years ago and had plans to go with his mates up to the top of the Twin Towers to take some photos of the city. But silly sausage forgot his camera so had to go back to the hotel to get it. But by the time he did there was no longer any Twin Towers standing.
With any tragedy, it is so often a matter of pure chance who lives and who dies. People are on holidays or ring in sick or replace a worker who has rung in sick or even start a new job in the building on the day some such misfortune happens. Some folks may even have just gone down the road to some shops or something trivial.
Izzie finds that whenever there is a documentary or whatever about some sort of tragic event, it is nearly always more memorable when they follow the advice of one rather famous humanitarian of the last century who is reputed to have said something like "One death is a tragedy. A million deaths are just statistics"
Iz found that the Michael Moore film "Roger and me" by looking at the effects of unemployment on a small group of people in one town and then revisiting the same town again in that most recent movie got the message across far more effectively than talking to a bunch of egg head economists or showing those ghastly 1930s style unemployment queues. In fact Iz was so impressed that she has added Flint, Michigan to her list of 'must see' places in North America.(Along with Montreal, Salem, Boston, San Francisco and New Orleans)
The film finished at 10pm. Another girl who was working until then was utterly amazed and astonished to hear that the Iz does not have a tv at home. Bad enough having only a broomstick and not a car like most normal folks but not having a tv is enough to guarantee pride of place in the Hall of Freaks and Wierdos.
And on the subject of freaks and wierdos, a no lesser person that our esteemed and Fearless Leader (and deputy Sheriff for GWB) has declared that the GREENS are kooky, crazy and dangerous to know. So it looks like it will be Guantanamo Bay for evil terrorist anti-American Izzie!
(Must save the 'Why I will not vote for the Prime Mendacioussss' rant for another day - it's going to be even longer and grumpier than this one)
Maybe it's just time for some jungle juice and the Iz is getting withdrawal symptoms. Also had yet another fit of procrastination. So much for a new month and a new beginning. Good intentions never got the work done.
Last night the Iz was at work and it was about twenty minutes before going home time that the Iz went to help Dolores go to bed. Dolores is of course not her real name but it is most eminently suitable. She is a rather frumpish, bitter and twisted woman with an inflated sense of her own importance and her favorite activity apart from commenting on the severe lack of mental capacity of every staff member or resident excluding herself is to sit in front of her television getting endless fixes of doom and gloom. At the time of the Bali bombings, she was positively glowing with excitement at being so much more well informed than any of the rest of us. (She also has beady piggie eyes and Iz wonders if anyone out there knows a single person with piggie 'Peter Pettigrew' eyes that is not mean, treacherous, pedantic or grasping?)
Well - back to the original point of this squiggle. Iz walked into the room and the voices on the television seemed oddly familiar. It happened to be the picture version of a documentary that Iz heard on the radio a few months ago and was so impressed with that she stayed up until 3am one morning to hear the repeat.
So once 9pm came, Iz spent the rest of the evening glued to the goggle box gawking at the US soldiers and finally got to see what the Baghdad Beegees really looked like. Some of the footage from this film "Soundtrack to war" by George Gittoes was used in "Fahrenheit 9/11" but what Iz particularly liked about this film was that it was so down to earth and you could relate to the various characters as real people and not just their roles as soldiers or Iraqis. Iz was particularly amazed at just how many of those soldiers wore glasses and bore absolutely no resemblence at all to the usual image of a gung ho guttersnipe just ready to shoot crap and get lots of medals. There was the occasional one of those and they just loved blasting death metal from their tanks while cruising down the streets.
There was also so many images of burnt out cars and gutted buildings that one would never ever see on Fox "News". Iz wondered about how many Iraqi firefighters died climbing the stairs to rescue people from the burning buildings but unlike in New York, we will probably never ever find out about them in the western media.
You really got the feeling from this movie of what it would be like to be on your guard all the time and never knowing if the car that goes past is some family just going about their daily business or some suicide bomber who wants to get you. The soldiers who give the benefit of the doubt sometimes don't live to tell the tale but the ones who suspect suicide bombers and get it wrong have to live with the fact that they have children's blood on their hands and it drives some of them crazy.
Many moons ago, Iz was in Belfast on several occasions. It was so like a city under seige and Iz just could not help but feel sorry for the British soldiers patrolling the streets on foot or in tanks who had no idea who was friend and who was foe and what the hell they were doing there in the first place. Just like the Americans, the poor things thought they were over there to help and just could not understand the rarely concealed hostility towards them. Many of the American soldiers seemed genuinely shocked at the less than welcoming reception that they got. Iz figures that they must have watched lots of Fox "News" at home.
Actually, Iz could not help but remember when folks were making all that fuss about Ian Thorpe winning all those medals that it was a sheer act of fateful forgetfulness that he is even alive at all. And yesss. Not only is he quite cute but is also a very decent and dignified gentleman. Iz does not of course know him personally but there was a big fuss when he got disqualified from the Olympic team for falling off the starting blocks. He must have been pretty peeved but he accepted the decision of the petty bureaucratic swimming officials to not be allowed to compete and did not jump up and down and throw tantrums like most folks would have. But anyway, what Iz originally wanted to say was that he was staying in New York one September day several years ago and had plans to go with his mates up to the top of the Twin Towers to take some photos of the city. But silly sausage forgot his camera so had to go back to the hotel to get it. But by the time he did there was no longer any Twin Towers standing.
With any tragedy, it is so often a matter of pure chance who lives and who dies. People are on holidays or ring in sick or replace a worker who has rung in sick or even start a new job in the building on the day some such misfortune happens. Some folks may even have just gone down the road to some shops or something trivial.
Izzie finds that whenever there is a documentary or whatever about some sort of tragic event, it is nearly always more memorable when they follow the advice of one rather famous humanitarian of the last century who is reputed to have said something like "One death is a tragedy. A million deaths are just statistics"
Iz found that the Michael Moore film "Roger and me" by looking at the effects of unemployment on a small group of people in one town and then revisiting the same town again in that most recent movie got the message across far more effectively than talking to a bunch of egg head economists or showing those ghastly 1930s style unemployment queues. In fact Iz was so impressed that she has added Flint, Michigan to her list of 'must see' places in North America.(Along with Montreal, Salem, Boston, San Francisco and New Orleans)
The film finished at 10pm. Another girl who was working until then was utterly amazed and astonished to hear that the Iz does not have a tv at home. Bad enough having only a broomstick and not a car like most normal folks but not having a tv is enough to guarantee pride of place in the Hall of Freaks and Wierdos.
And on the subject of freaks and wierdos, a no lesser person that our esteemed and Fearless Leader (and deputy Sheriff for GWB) has declared that the GREENS are kooky, crazy and dangerous to know. So it looks like it will be Guantanamo Bay for evil terrorist anti-American Izzie!
(Must save the 'Why I will not vote for the Prime Mendacioussss' rant for another day - it's going to be even longer and grumpier than this one)
