THOUGHT FOR THE DAY

THOUGHT FOR THE DAY

MAMMA MIA.

Your children are not your children.

They are the sons and the daughters of Life’s longing for itself

They come through you but not from you and though they are with you they belong not to you……..

Many, these days, claim that their kid is their best friend; a certain type of person, usually one of the striving-to-be-correct who so plague our times, will make that statement, that best-friend shit, as though it merited a Nobel prize, rather than its proper reward of a punch in the face, a week in the shit corner and expulsion from the Tribe; I don’t know how such a shocking state of affairs has arisen, that people who consider themselves to be mature, adult, can talk such rubbish, but there it is, talk it they do. And believe it.

We mentioned, previously, the infantilisation of millions, tens of millions, by the marketing miracle that is JayKay Rowling; Terry Pratchett with tits. Apparently grown-up persons delight in sharing not just their kids’ hard-back comic books but also the argot of youth, at least, that’s the word, On the Street. Not content with dominating the public discourse and civic adminsitration with their tut-fucking-tutting, these, Thatcher’s wretched, now colonise even their children’s landscapes, sharing. Best friends.

You may house their bodies but not their souls,
For their souls dwell in the house of tomorrow,
which you cannot visit, not even in your dreams.

These people live as if no discernible or valid difference between youth and maturity existed, all really good mates, wanking about in a consumerist culture first developed in response to the economic opportunities presented by rock ‘n’ roll and which has been hoodwinking them ever since; look, they grin, fuckwittedly, Fairtrade rock ’n’ roll, conscientious consumer chic, nirvana in the shopping mall, it is as though, for them, life is a teenage continuum, really cool.

Parts of culture transcend generation-specific compartmentalisation; generally they become known as Art. There are high points in music, cinema, art, literature, and so on which can be quite legitimately shared and appreciated by several generations of the same family, it’s just that Coldplay isn’t one of them.

A flood tide of divorced children, multiple families, steps of this, that and the other relationship, has eroded some of the previous formality, the demarcation of parent and child relationships, the separation of powers; the formerly natural rebellion of child against parent now seen as a failure to communicate, to be corrected as error, rather than absorbed as growth, all involved in this dire Happy Families rigmarole are diminished, feckless children over-empowered, adults hamstrung.

You are the bows from which your children
as living arrows are sent forth.
The archer sees the mark upon the path of the infinite,
and He bends you with His might
that His arrows may go swift and far.
Let our bending in the archer's hand be for gladness;
For even as He loves the arrow that flies,
so He loves also the bow that is stable.

Mr Gary McKinnon, 43, a hacker who has violated US military computers and faces extradition, has a mother whom the striving-to-be-correct would insist upon calling formidable; intolerable mouthy old bag being considered sexist and derogatory, however accurate a description it might be. It is as though Janice Sharp’s entire copper-rinsed life had been building to this climax, her media showdown with the US government. Mr McKinnon is 43 and appears capable of speech and thought, engagingly so, on the rare occasions that he pleads his own case rather than, as has been the case, permitting his mother to plead hers.

Mr McKinnon, 43, was sophisticated enough to, seemingly without malice or criminal intent, ransack Uncle Sam’s military software, endangering the Republic, the last great hope of mankind and now the criminal justice system which gave the world Cuban waterboarding vacations wants to kick McKinnon’s autistic ass into jail. It has escaped the attention of the clever boys and girls of MediaMinster that the most catastrophically serious compromising of US security in modern times was that which occurred, almost unbelievably, in the early days of George Dubya’s illicit presidency; George, though, the architect and beneficiary of Apocalypse is unlikely to be extradited to anywhere. McKinnon’s sophistication, in his search for evidence of UFOs, may result in him being sent to the Pen for a long, long time.

Mr McKinnon’s abandonment, by parliament, to our cousins’ lynchmob jurisprudence seems, given his offence, a bit unjust; mind you, this is the government which promised Iraqi women that they would thank Geoff Hoon for the evisceration of their children. Those ungrateful bitches still haven’t come forward, proving, perhaps, that Mr Hoon is altogether too kind, too compassionate a human being. It comes as no surprise then, with so many parliamentarians and journalists in pubescent thrall to Obamalama, the Emperor of Good, that poor Mr McKinnon will suffer rendition and durance vile for his trespass into Satan’s cyberspace. Given the States’ delight in frying, gassing and shooting mentally impaired offenders, Mr McKinnon’s advisers are probably well aware that, as far as the home of the Brave is concerned, a fruitcake is only one step up from a nigger; best keep them off the streets so’s decent people can drive around eating hamburgers and shooting each other.

This, of course shouldn’t be happening, simply on the bare bones of the case and particularly given the disparity between UK and US extradition criteria, not to mention President Hillary Trousers’s efforts to stifle the UK High Court providing, in themselves, a current indication of US ethics. A-ha-aha-aha-ha-ha.

You may give them your love but not your thoughts, For they have their own thoughts.

But it is McKinnon Mere and not Uncle Sam who irks the most in this miserable tableau. We already know that Murrca exports mayhem to every corner of the globe, and it is unsurprising that Westminster will not prevent him importing our citizens for his home consumption; the UK and the US are awash with natural injustice, with bent cops and whoring judges, mendacious expert witnesses, there is hardly a day passes, never morning wore til evening but, in our befouled courts, some poor heart did break; there is nothing new in our legislature and our jackanapes home secretary all lining up to fuck Mr McKinnon but there is a new dimension to delight skymadeupnewsandfilth - the mother as gobby champion, as constitutional expert and media manager is slightly novel, especially given that her child is 43 and relatively normal, indeed, given the mental health of most in our stinking jails, Mr McKinnon is probably closer to normality than most we class as offenders.

Ms Sharp is not unique though, in mothing to the flame of aggrieved celebrity. The great statesman and peacemaker, Marty Kneecaps McGuiness, in a stellar career as head of BarbarianAtrocitiesRusSoTheyAre, blew-up the town centre of Warrington and several of its unfortunate inhabitants, one of whom was the schoolboy, Tim Parry. Tim’s father, Colin, as though primed all his gabshite life, immediately launched a media career which led to at least one UK household loathing the sound of his voice, his vain, smug, oily presence onscreen, his spurious expertise in grief, in counter-terrorism, his fronting a radio show on the subject of grief management, his entire worthless, jumped-up bandwagoning on the cruel death of his son, his, yes, his best friend.

HRH THE DUCHESS PRINCESS NAZI OF KENT

WITH SOCIAL CLIMBER, COLIN PARRY, OBE

Parry's mrs, the boy’s mother, left him, unable to endure his vanity a moment longer, and who could blame her? Colin Parry, an arsehole as rank as the revolting Gerry McCann, has departed, as far as we know, the public stage, although he runs a life coaching and motivational business, he may still be available for pantomime; he’s maybe down at the boy’s graveside, doing a photoshoot.

Rose Gentle’s boy, Gordon, was one of the youngest to die in Iraq. Killed unlawfully, said the inquest, by the absence of IED protection. Gordon had been cheated, screeched Rose, he had only joined to learn how to drive, didn’t expect to get shot at, bombed, not in the Army. Nothing would do but Rose standing for parliament, the louse, bully, cokehead, liar and Neanderthal sexist pig, Tearful Tommy Sheridan, withdrawing his own Scottish Socialist Party candidate and Rose triumphantly winning a ful three per cent of the votes, so concerned by Gordon’s death were her Glasgow neighbours, so impressed by her celebrity shouting.

People get killed in the Army, they may have thought, in the construction industry, fishing, farming; often things should have been better arranged but a grieving and doubtless guilt-ridden mother serves no purpose but her own and tarnishes her son’s memory, making of him not honoured fallen but whinging Momma’s boy. If Gordon Gentle had been killed by something against which there simply was no protection – a sniper’s round, maybe - his mother may have felt easier about his loss but he died in a wartime happenstance, they happen in all wars and it is a soldier’s job to make war, not read the Highway Code. Gordon Gentle joined as an adult, to treat him posthumously as a simpleton who thought he was just there to get a driving license is to demean him more gravely than did those who killed him. Our boys or theirs, warriors kill each other as sneakily as they can; ambush, ruse de guerre, knife, garotte, bomb, bullet and worse, he who fights and runs away, lives to fight another day.This is a filthy business which irredeemably disgraces all in parliament who voted for it, they are the culprits, not Rose Gentle but one wonders, wearily, whatever happened to No Comment, This Is A Private Matter, one wonders how in such a short time we have descended into caterwauling gabshitery. In the Nazi war, Rose Gentle would have been tarred and feathered.

To watch an afternoon’s television is to be assaulted by unrestricted legions of charity bandits acting, they would have us believe, on behalf of cats, dogs, donkeys; of children and old people; of the blind, the cancerous; of the starving, the homeless, the battered and beleaguered, the limbless, the flyblown, the refugee, the flooded, the droughted and the earthquaked, just two pounds, two pounds a month, just two pounds, save a donkey, bring water to the thirsty, hope to the damned, just two pounds can make a difference, phone now, do it now, just two pounds. You could sign your fucking life away to these bastards, become a charity case yourself. And they come pouring through the letterbox, unbidden, freighted with bookies’ pens and Did-You-Know sanctimony, just two pounds, or as much or as little as you can afford.

And then there’s the poor bastards in Burma, in Tibet, in Darfur, the poor bastards in Zimbabwe, in Iran, the poor bastards in the forest fires, wherever they are; the poor starving bastards in India and Pakistan, the street children in Brazil, the donkeys flung off the roof by Dirty Dago bastards, there’s this old hippy bint with the tattoos and a hundred children, left one of them in Goa to be murdered by the holiday of a lifetime. There’s that Debbie Purdy wanting a government grant and a round of applause to murder herself with. Seems like every time you turn around there’s another hard luck story that you’re gonna hear, some whining, demanding victim of something wanting to give you an earbashing, right from their own, personal corner of Hell. And now to this groaning burden of others’ tribulations Mother McKinnon would add the plight of her 43 year old son, Gary, the Harmless Nerd. With Asparagus, whatever it is, bad manners, some self-obsession, some made-up headshrinkers’ nonsense, that a good punch in the mouth would cure, would have cured, too late now.

They come late to the barricades, barging forward, these brief celebrity monsters. And where have they been, all this time, while Ruin took root, maybe being best friends to their revolting spawn, certainly watching TV, schooling themselves in how to talk to Camera, just on the off-chance that stardom, Gerry McCann style, might beckon from beyond tragedy’s curtain, Come over here, step into the light, Grieve for us. What about Rage ? Do you do Rage?

Ahh, they cry, suddenly like some sorrowful saint, weeping for the world, this is my son and I wouldn’t want anyone else’s son to go through this; better Mother McKinnon, that you had chided him for his recklessness, his sense of entitlement, than that you now seek to embroil all in his misery; if, as you claim, he is too special to stand trial abroad – and who, frankly, cheeky cow, isn’t? – then he was too special to have been allowed to trespass all over the Top Secret entrails of history’s mightiest engine of oppression. A 43 year old who needs mum to hold his hand now, needed her to smack his bottom then, isn’t that what QED means; either this bloke is responsible for himself or he isn’t, this woman would bend reality inside-out, they all would. Was McKinnon ever on a demo, to protect the rights he now demands, was his mouthy Ma? How dare they now assume that their folly is Just Cause for others?

Sorry, Ms Sharp, but I couldn’t care less about your 43 year old son. I don’t care if they put him in the electric chair. That’ll teach him, and you, not to come that old Autistic bollocks, twenty-five thousand volts, he’ll really see some UFOs when that goes off in his eyeballs. You know these autistic types, you can talk to them until you’e blue in the fucking face and they still insist they know better and then they say Oh, fuck me, I’m ill, can’t put me on trial for anything, not fair. Gordon Brown, he’s another one.

The freak Warhol may or may not have coined that fifteen-minute thing, Marshal McLuhan certainly predicted that in an age of electronic technology minority groups could no longer be suppressed and although parliament seeks to suppress and own our communications it applauds the street-twitterers of Iran, endorsing McLuhan’s credentials as a futurist.

Whether it is described by junky-chic aphorism or a more reasoned understanding of the power of media, the Fame thing is as real as pain; nobodies, like Parry, Gentle, McCann and now Mother McKinnon and the dreadful Purdie woman, thrust themselves to prominence, their worlds rise and fall before our eyes, their sorrows momentarily ours, their vanity and stupidity entering our bones, corrosive, polluting, toxic, Ruin’s bleating adjutants.

Before this onslaught of self-pitying drivel, modesty, reason and humility flee. This endless caravanserai of fathomless individual grievance tramples the footprints of better days. skymadeupnewsandfilth’s Kelvin McKenzie, Piers Moron, Toilets Maguire and this Tory hatchetman, Coulson, have made shit of our discourse, cranked-up the volume of Self until common cause is drowned-out.

I guess we, many of us so well-taught, teach our children badly.Many of us cannot let slip the arrow that should fly. We teach them not to honour and respect us and fear our disapproval but to like us. There’s been a crash on the levee, water’s gonna overflow. If we would resist Ruin’s card-sharping, jive-talking, shape-shifting regiments then the very next time a person of a certain age tells us that his son is his best friend, we must make unto him the sign of Ruin. And punch him in the face, hard.

Je touche le chapeau a M Kahlil Gilbran.