An Open Letter To Twitter

So I'm having a party at my house and everyone's invited, right? There are so many people there from all over the place and it's kicking. You get the usual party antics - people pair off and go upstairs to find a quiet room; others square off and shout and bawl for a bit until one of them storms off. But in general, everything's cool. Everything works.

But then I start to get disturbing reports. I hear from multiple people that one of my guests is showing child pornography to anyone that wanders near enough. I already know that some of the guests at this party are kids themselves. Multiple people seek me out (You can always find me in the kitchen etc.) and ask me - beg me - to remove this person. And it's my party. My responsibility, ultimately.

So what do I do?

Well - if I'm Dick fucking Costolo (CEO of Twitter) I put my fingers in my ears, shut my eyes and go 'LA LA LA LA LA I CAN'T FUCKING HEAR YOU LA LA LA LAAAAA.....' or something to that effect, anyway. And then I turn around and have another glass of 'Fuck You All' Punch.

Well, Dick - I'm here to tell you that your party sucks. The atmosphere might be great on times, the guests might be varied and interesting, but your house rules suck balls. 

To allow accounts that openly distribute child porn on Twitter and THEN drag your heels for DAYS while countless people plead with you to take action? Son, you need a fucking slap. Hard. It was lucky that so many of your 'guests' took it upon themselves to report what they found to external authorities, because it looks like you were too fucking busy being the big CEO  to take any notice yourself. Oh, and before you throw some bollocks in about your security measures being 'updated' and 'improved' - this was taken from a report in January 2012:

The Child Exploitation and Online Protection Centre (Ceop) has urged Twitter to address its fears that some paedophiles use the site to discuss abuse and link to pornographic images.

Twitter said safety was a high priority and it acted immediately on complaints of inappropriate behaviour.                           BBC News Online, 11 January 2012

Which is clearly a massive pile of bullshit, Dick. 

Sort it fucking out before your party crashes early.

JH

Twatmobs And Tattle Tales

Hello. Remember me? I used to blog here.

The black dog, he been sniffing around, see. He don' make me wanna do much, no sir. 

I find I've been really quite subdued; almost oppressed in my ability to produce anything other than an incomprehensible whining noise when asked a question that isn't 'cup of tea, Jase?'

Even this - this is forced. Forced because I'm really rather ashamed of myself and my inability to achieve - but also because I know it's part of a gyroscopic process. The process of creating fuels the desire to create. It's true. 

Even my time on Twitter's suffered because of it. If I'm not in the mood to communicate with anyone, then I'm just not. Real life or online, it's all the same to me. And that galls me too, because there are a lot of lovely weird odd sexy interesting people on 'The Twitter' that I generally (and genuinely) like interacting with. 

Of course, it's not all snakes and no ladders. I've had my 40th birthday present early, from my wonderful daughter and her lovely mother (If you want to stay great friends with a partner who you clearly can't live with, I thoroughly recommend splitting up - just saying). After years of feeling like I've had a limb removed, I have a bass guitar again. You know that bit in Thor when he gets his hammer back and shit starts getting real? Yeah, that's right. Still fucking got it.

Enough preamble. It's the 2012 Olympics. The biggest and most expensive misdirection operation the UK has ever embarked upon. The country's most vulnerable and needy are being pissed all over from the great heights of Westminster. The old and infirm are being brutalised, and our free speech is now non-existent. Which leads me to the reason I'm writing this blog.

Today, a 17 year old kid was arrested because he said something a bit out of order on The Twitter. It was aimed at one of our Olympic 'stars', thereby generating a wave of hatred from thousands of people, and some subjective attention from our fine news media. The phrase 'Twatmob' has been used in the past to describe the massed outrage against an individual on forums such as Twitter, and it strikes me as a perfect descriptive word for it. A Twatmob. A mob, comprised of twats. Yeah. Perfect.

I read his timeline. Went from cocky posturing to confusion, to fear, attempted apology, fear again, anger, outrage, fear and back to anger as he tried to process what his smart-assed comment had caused. 

Had it happened at poolside, there might have been an altercation; perhaps even a scuffle. Claire Balding might have been accidentally punched in the face. It would have made the news, certainly, but the Twatmob would not have been invoked. 

There are lots of wonderful things about The Twitter. But to think it might inadvertently be the final nail in the coffin of truly free speech isn't doing much for my desire to engage with it on any serious level anymore. Of course, I jettisoned Facebook ages ago. And it's the change in the collective psyche that Facebook is largely responsible for that has created this situation. 

The technology changes, and it creates new shapes for our consciousness to fill. But It's a more fascistic, hysterical, overreactive version of the hive mind. It's the kind of collective that will report dissent, that will obey the party rule without question because the alternative is to allow chaos to rule. Just black or white. No 50 shades of fucking grey here, kids.

You're one of us, or you're not. If you're not, prepare to be outcast.

JH

Moral Philosophical Quagmire #1

Four girls under the age of six. 
Now again, in bold. Four girls under the age of six. 
Look at that fucking sentence. Keep looking at it until those words dissolve and become meaningless; make them irrelevant to you, like I've had to do to stop myself from exploding with rage. And then, once they've become transparent - lost all their weight, their power, their potential to engage you on any level whatsoever, then keep reading.

Because those four girls that now mean nothing to you were part of the body count that one US Staff Sergeant just racked up in a personal skeet shoot in Kandahar. Took his gun, left the base in the middle of the night, chose some doors, kicked them in. Ended the lives of eleven children, three women and two men. Tried to burn some of the bodies for good measure.

Tell me, reader...

...are you a parent? Are you a father or a mother to a bright, precious, beautiful child? A mischievous, loving, infuriating, amazing, frustrating, incredible son or daughter that makes every day on this planet full of lies and death and corruption and oppression and pain just that bit more bearable? Do you, as I do, lie awake, terrified of what you'd do - how you'd cope - if they were suddenly taken away from you?

Do you look at the news footage of the man in Syria, or the woman in Palestine, or the family in Egypt, all cradling the lifeless bodies of their own children? Do you see it in their eyes? Lying in wait behind the grief and the despair? Do you recognise it? Do you see it in yourself?

THE DEFINITION OF TERRORISM (Dictionary.com)

noun

1. The use of violence or threats to intimidate or coerce, especially for political purposes.

2. The state of fear or submission produced by terrorism or terrorisation


So tell me, Obama. Tell me, Cameron. Tell me how what YOU do, what YOU sanction and YOU condone differs from the above definition?

Tell me. I'm all fucking ears.

Hey, reader. Chances are you live in either one of the two countries I just mentioned. If you don't, congratulations - perhaps you actually DO live in a democracy or a 'free' country (increasingly unlikely, I'll admit). Be warned. If you are American or British, and you agree with what I've written here, your government considers YOU a terrorist. You are a threat because you dare to disagree. This is not democracy at work. This is fascism. 


And this will not go away, this will not end, without the forced removal of our current tyrants. They will not go quietly, they will try and tell you that everything they do is for your safety, security and long-term benefit. They will show you monsters that live overseas and tell you how those monsters are planning to slaughter you and dismantle everything you hold dear. They are frantically trying to hold onto an economic model that cannot survive because it's based entirely on a lie (fiat currency). They know it will eventually fail, but they will pretend it can be regenerated by hard work and sacrifice on our part. They steal our money and call it taxation. They keep us ignorant and call it 'state education'. They slaughter innocents in their thousands in other countries and call it 'the war on terror'. Why? Because they still think they fucking can.


The US soldier that slaughtered sixteen Afghanistan innocents the other night has no doubt been asked the question 'why?' many times since he handed himself in. As yet, the media has given no reason.

I can't help but try to fathom his logic, to understand why he'd do that himself. As a father to two children back home, why he'd take a gun and end the lives of those little children that already had their lives ruined and their childhood taken away by a war that shouldn't be happening.

They say he's done four tours of Iraq. He's as indoctrinated as it gets into the US Military mindset. But ask yourself. Did he suspect or know what effect his actions would have on the war, on the perception of the U.S. in the eyes of the world and in particular in the eyes of the Afghan people, before he went out that night?


I suspect the answer is yes. A part of me believes that the atrocity he committed may have put a bullet between the eyes of the War machine itself. To do something so completely without justification or compassion, acting as a representative of an invading nation, is to hold that entire nation to account in front of the world - to force them to justify the unjustifiable. And it can't be done. The Afghan people want this man's blood, and rightly so. The anti-US sentiment is off the scale, and rightly so. They, along with their lapdog the UK, are invaders, usurpers and bullies.

One can only wonder what was in that soldier's mind. But he MUST have known his actions would have terrible repercussions for the 'campaign' he was part of. And if that were true, might it not also follow that he purposely committed an atrocity that couldn't be ignored in order to deliberately generate an adverse reaction to it?


That's a really fucking uncomfortable thought.


JH

HERE he comes...crawling back...

I'm SORRY, okay? 


Fuck. It wasn't as if I was just not bothering, I swear. I've been genuinely busy. I've nursed a single-level domicile in one of the better parts of Kill City back to health, become a grand master at IKEA, exorcised a spirit from the deepest corners of my heart and played the fourth emergency service at 4am by staying on the phone whilst drunken Rock Star exes walked miles home alone after being left stranded yet again by things loosely referred to as 'friends'. 

Reminding her that 'friends' don't fucking leave you halfway across Brighton without cash or company at 4am when you've got work at 8 isn't the best conversation topic when she's trying to speed-march home in leopard-print platform heels. She'd rather talk about happy stuff. She forgets who woke who up halfway across the fucking country at 4am. But hey. I guess the fact I can do that says something in itself. 

I'm a sucker, perhaps?

Naah. I give a fuck. I do. I walked her home (albeit remotely), she got in safe, happy days. And alright, that in no way constitutes an explanation or excuse as to my absence from blogging for the better part of two fucking months. I know that. But I've had very little access to the necessary hardware to be able to blog - almost all my online contact has been via my phone for weeks, and writing a fucking text message or a tweet on that without wanting to smash it into pieces is hard enough. Attempting a blog would be unnecessarily torturous. So I didn't bother.

But now I'm back...

From outer space...

You just walked in and found me here with this sad look upon my face. You should have changed the stupid lock. You should have made me leave the key. Cos I've been eating all your biscuits and I've helped myself to coffee...

See what I did there, Gloria? I took the lyrics of your popular gay anthem and subverted them for entertainment purposes. You should try it. Anyway, did I mention this is my first blog for ages? Well it is. And as such, I've had a bit of a think. Previous paragraphs notwithstanding, I'm gonna write about something I find positive and uplifting this time, and if I do spin off into a vitriolic rage (it's more likely than not to happen, let's be fucking honest) it'll be entirely reasonable and justified under the circumstances. Happy days? Cool.


Anyone who's read my Twitter profile will  see the words 'reality engineer' together, and one or two of you might have wondered exactly what I meant by coupling those words and using said coupling as a descriptive device to define what I sometimes get up to when I'm not getting up to other things. Clear? No? Well I'm about to proffer a petite 'explanation-ette'...

Most Reality Engineering involves two things:

One: being in a certain place at a certain time where 'some shit' be 'goin' down'.

Case in point - my journey home on public transport after taking small out for the afternoon. Bus stops en route to change drivers. Existing driver packs up and fucks off, leaving thirty plus people on a bus on the side of the road. Waiting. This is what a Reality Engineer (TM) would call a 'Sandpit Event'. It follows much the same rules as ordinary cause/effect or action/consequence reality, but has a great deal of scope for influence or manipulation in order to effect a range of outcomes.

In this case, a fucking mutiny. :)
Now I'm sitting somewhere up back, surrounded by feckless college teens and DNA bargain bin rejects with neck tattoos. What the fuck is compelling everyone to get their necks tattooed these days? Does a swallow's arse sticking up over the collar of your Man U shirt sound that much of a 'must have' to you? Does it improve your chances of dipping your weenie into one of those big lumpy velour sacks of watermelons you lot call 'women'? I can't see it myself. I'm sure the same result could be achieved by loudly spitting on the ground while waving a Greggs Steak Bake in the fucking air. Anyway. Where was I? I was at the back of the bus. And I'd noted with interest the following things:

1. No replacement driver waiting to take over at our stop OR making their way toward bus from depot, perhaps 200m away behind us. 
2. Our current bus driver is VERY fucking eager to pack up, lock up and fuck off. Meaning he's aware of the fuck up, but isn't prepared to take responsibility or do anything about it. 
3. There are currently 3 potential 'Agents' on this bus.

Which brings me to the other thing you need for a bit of Reality Engineering:

Two: The AGENT (an individual or individuals prepared to subvert / divert the existing course of reality).
Now when it comes to Agents, you can do it yourself, by all means. All it takes is the balls to stand out from the crowd. Nobody really likes to stand out from the crowd - we draw attention to ourselves and, eventually, someone else will stand up and say 'who put THIS cunt in charge?' - but if you want to play, and I mean really play, with the universe - then you have to engage with it on a direct level...

And out of the three potentials I've clocked when this whole situation began to unfold, it took almost exactly five minutes before Agent 1 got up out of his seat and pointedly looked out of the back window to see if there was any sign of a driver, before sitting back down and loudly grumbling about how 'bloody ridiculous' it was...

Here we go. We're on. Time to give reality a little 'nudge'...

He looks around again and this time I allow him to catch my eye. I take off my headphones, letting him know I'm willing to listen. Again he repeats how 'bloody outrageous' it all is and that they're 'taking the piss'. I hold up eight fingers to represent how many minutes have passed - increasing his annoyance.

Time to call reinforcements. I call down the bus to nobody in particular:

"Anyone see any numbers for Stagecoach (for it was they) on any of those posters?"

I get replies:

"Nothing. Not surprised they don't give you a number to complain. Bloody idiots."

"Terrible isn't it. They just don't care, do they?"

Bang. Just like that, we're a team. All thirty-odd of us. But I'm not the leader. He is. Agent A. The General is on his feet, down the bus and out the door because he's seen a figure approaching with the unmistakeable Stagecoach fluorescent jacket. And as he charges down the aisle of the bus, he causes a wave of rising bodies to follow suit and decamp, en-masse, in his wake.

Uh-oh. Problem. Young, female, foreign driver. This isn't her bus. She's waiting to relieve the next one along, and she has no idea what the fuck she's walked into. This mob, that just three minutes earlier was sitting tutting to themselves in a terribly British manner, are now sharpening the fucking pitchforks and about to lynch her from a fucking lamp-post. Time to deflect the anger, I think.

"Of course, we're ALL aware that YOU aren't directly responsible for this..."

The General glares at me briefly, but he knows I'm right. After that, things become a great deal more civil toward the girl until the next bus arrives - which, joy of joys - contains a ticket inspector. The poor girl practically throws herself onto the bus, tears out the current driver and shoves the inspector in the direction of the General, who - with his massed ranks behind him - is oh so eager to tell him what they all think of his shitty company.

Upshot is, we all boarded the new bus, and the final crowning moment came when the Inspector bravely suggested that we all line up and display our tickets before we embark. To which, a lovely old Doris that had been silent throughout finally snapped, waddled up to him, stuck her finger in his face and spat:


"YOU can FUCK OFF. I'M not queuing up and I'M NOT fishing round for my bastard ticket AGAIN. I showed it once. YOU want to learn how to do your BASTARD job properly. Now GET OUT OF MY WAY!"


And like that, we were homeward bound. So what have we learnt? We've learnt that if you have the balls to stick your head above the parapet, sure - you'll get it blown off from time to time, but sometimes...just sometimes - you'll get sexy kisses. Or something. Be well.

JH