149. Technology...Huh!

HOME.

Paranoid nationalists and web graffiti writers.
In the Middle Ages when a bedlam of bigots held sway, anybody who was different would eventually be dragged to the stocks, the ducking stool, or the stake.
Bigots are suspicious of different. It is something they cannot understand. It frightens them. And because it frightens them, they hate it.
Now, with email, a fast growing army of hate merchants are using the web to decry anything that might be construed as a threat to the volatile and vulnerable USA.
Puerile propaganda is circulated worldwide - excluding countries ruled by despots - and is invariably accompanied by a chain-letter style threat as to the consequences if it is not passed on.
Such offerings to come my way lately have been forwarded by liked and respected friends - presumably unwilling to accept the consequences of not passing them on - and appear to have been initiated by American jingoists who claim to have discovered the best ever (1) reply made to a dismissive French customs official (2) explanation of the Muslim terrorist situation, and (3) answer to anybody questioning gun-happy lawmen.
(1) turns out to be the usual “When I came through here in 1944 there wasn‘t a Frenchman to be seen” old chestnut, (2) is headed: A German’s View of Islam, and has allegedly been written by a Dr Tanay, “well-known and well-respected psychiatrist” (believe that if you will). Emanuel Tanay, M.D. compares Muslim fanatics rampaging across the globe in the name of Islam to Nazis who were allowed to take over because the peaceful (German) majority did not speak up…(I thought those who spoke up were put to death, but perhaps that’s me being simplistic) and (3) contains the droll reply made by a sheriff in Florida when asked why 68 bullets had been pumped into a cornered (illegal immigrant of course) murderer: “Because that’s all the ammunition we had.”
It isn’t just gung-ho Yanks, either.
We were bad-mouthing people long before 1776. and still are. The following is the latest English example sent to me:
A tourist walked into a Brighton curio/antique shop. After looking around for a while, he noticed a very life-like bronze Statue of a rat. It had no price tag, but it was so striking that he decided to buy it anyway.
He took it to the owner and said: 'How much is this bronze rat?'
The owner replied: 'It's £12 for the rat, and £100 for the story.'
The tourist gave the owner his £12 and said: 'I'll just take the rat, You can keep the story.'
As he walked off down the street, he noticed that a few real rats had crawled out of the sewers and begun following him. This was a little disconcerting, so he started to walk a little faster, but within a couple of blocks the swarm of rats had grown to hundreds, and they were all squealing and screeching in a very menacing way. He increased his speed and ran on towards the beach, and as he ran, he looked behind him and saw the rats now numbered in their MILLIONS, and they were running faster & faster. By now very concerned, he ran down to the pier and threw the bronze rat far out into the water. Amazingly, the millions of real rats jumped into the water after it and were all drowned.
The man walked back to relate all this to the shop owner, who said: 'Ah, you've come back for the story then?'
'No,' said the tourist, 'I came back to see if you've got a bronze Muslim Fundamentalist Cleric, a couple of illegal immigrants, scousers, Man Utd fans and anything French!'
It’s light hearted bigotry which could get a few laughs in the pub. Brownie points may be obtained by replacing scousers and Man Utd fans with drug dealers and expenses fiddling politicians.
At the risk of coming across as a po-faced politically correct prat, I have discontinued forwarding these emails. I’m fed up with paranoid nationalists and web graffiti writers preaching spite is right.
Gossip, even juicy gossip, should be confined to corner shops.
What?
No, I wouldn’t go to a bullfight, a cockfight, a dogfight, or an execution, either.

READING.

Karen Rose.
If you’re looking for gore aplenty Kill for Me (subtitled Kiss the Girls and Make them Die) by Karen Rose should satisfy you.
Hell, at 500 plus pages it should satisfy a vampire.
Daughter Roz gave it to me to read. She enjoyed it. I ploughed through it: thought it had little plot and all the subtlety of Dexter.
Guess I’m getting old.

FILM.

Avatar.
Halfway through this James Cameron film I was convinced he was taking a stand against any nation that waged war simply to appropriate another nation’s natural resources..
I checked on Google and apparently he had no such thing in mind.
Pity.
Alice In Wonderland. (2010)
My Leader has never been one of, or for, the Alice band, so she didn’t watch this DVD. Granddaughter Jess and I watched. I think she saw it all.
I went to sleep somewhere between Johnny Depp’s Mad Hatter tramping up and down his tea table and Mia Wasikowska‘s Alice returning to the real world and turning down her soppy, aristocratic, suitor.
Gather Tim Burton directed and that Alice is the highest grossing film of 2010 so far.
I’d have slept less comfortably in the cinema but I’d still have slept.

FOOTBALL.

Japan 1 - England 2.
“England won,” I said to the cat Shadow who had not bothered to move from his chair in the computer room. “Three goals in it, all of them scored by the Japanese.”
“How was that then?” he asked, more out of idle curiosity than interest.
“Seven minutes in and Japan scored the first goal. Wasn’t until the seventy second minute that one of their defenders converted an England cross into his own net and ten minutes later another of them managed the same thing. That’s what won the game for us. None of our bloody lot could beat their goalkeeper. Frank Lampard even failed from the penalty spot!”
“Ah,” he said, “now I understand why you were bellowing down there.”
I was indignant. “Bellowing? I don’t bellow; haven’t bellowed for years. Raised me voice a bit, perhaps…”
“Well, your raised-me-voice-a-bit echoed all the way up here.”
“Go on!”
“It did…I can tell you what your raised-me-voice-a-bit said…it said: ’Bloody ‘ell, Lampard… apart from Christine Bleakley, when did you last score!?’”
“Oops,” I said. “Heat of the moment...I recant.”
“Don‘t bother, they won‘t be reading you, you‘re not the Screws of the World,” he said.
“You did the right thing staying in your chair,” I said. “It was a friendly, played in Graz: the Japanese were the home team so I guess they’ve annexed Austria.”
“Do you not trust them?” he asked lightly, and added: “I don’t trust Siamese cats.”
“Pack that in, “ I said. “You’ll be the next one sending me racist emails.”
England 1 - U.S.A. 1.
First World Cup game and the cat Shadow, taking advantage of some good weather, was away on the rooftops listening to music from the distant pop festival. When he eventually graced us with his presence at suppertime, I told him the result.
“Who scored?” he asked.
“Steven Gerrard scored ours and a chap called Clint Dempsey persuaded Robert Green, our goalkeeper, to score theirs.“
He saw off his cat milk, demolished his food and headed back towards the cat flap.
“Waste of time watching it then,“ he said, “let alone putting up with that bloody great wasps’ nest in the crowd.”
“I had the sound turned down.“
“You could have been out here listening to some music,” he admonished, pushing his way through. “Sometimes I despair of you, mate.”
Thinking about the match, so do I.

AND HOME AGAIN.

Isle of Wight Pop Festival 2010.
It’s here again, to the joy of granddaughter Jess and over sixty thousand supporters from the mainland: some even came from as far away as Totland.
This year seems to be pensioners’ year, with lovely old people like Blondie and Paul McCartney in evidence.
My Leader and I will not go (we can hear most of it from the house) but when I am asked if I went I shall reply: “Liked Mr. Hudson: didn’t mind Shakespears Sister: couldn’t understand a word Jay Z jabbered, but the girl singer with him was good...”
We watched the television coverage and that was enough.

Technology...Huh!

If you had read this post earlier you would have seen the heading Technology! Wow! and this last item, similarly headed, giving credit to the technological genius who invented it.
'It' was the picture of a woman whose head and eyes followed every movement of your mouse and who would clearly speak any words you typed in for her.
It was sent to me by Ian Dillow, one time head of PR at Wessex Regional Health Authority, and it was fantastic.
Unfortunately it was also too clever to hang around for an indefinite time. In a few days the lady was not for talking.
I think it may be possible for you to obtain something of the idea by Googling
Free demo to create avatars using Text-to-Speech (TTS) by SitePal.
So far as I'm concerned, it was nice while it lasted.