Oleuanna

I’ll try this again……again

Oleuanna — Tue, 27 Jul 2010 04:50:43 +0000

For all those who don’t follow my angry whimpering tweets, I have been absent from my lovely blog due to a laptop explosion and the inability to replace it. ‘Apparently’ food, rent and my child are more important…..

But there appears to be a light at the end of my crack pipe* and a laptop is on it’s way this weekend….yAy ! Christ I am the sad story of the recession arn’t I? One womans struggle to survive public sector redundancies and in all places Scotland…not really well known for it’s development opportunities in the best of centuries!

I do realise no one will have sympathy (bastard public sector workers grrr may they all rot in their do gooding hell) and then there is that student thing I do, with my fancy ideas on sustainable development, I deserved everything I got eh? (I know you balanced people won’t have these views, those who do know who they are)

ANWAY my poverty is coming to an end and I am now armed with a laptop several large blog worthy subjects and the never ending desire to set fire to dribbling party politics and that, my fist shaking Muslim hater, possibly means YOU.. (once again you know who you are)

Thanks to those who hung in there you will be rewarded.

*No I don’t smoke crack….. Can’t afford it but somedays I feel that I have.

The Atheist Police

Oleuanna — Sun, 11 Apr 2010 22:01:02 +0000

‘Dawkins and Christopher Hitchens, the atheist author, have asked human rights lawyers to produce a case for charging Pope Benedict XVI over his alleged cover-up of sexual abuse in the Catholic church.’ (Times online click the pic)

I think it’s about time we challenged the Catholic church, why and how are those people of the church above the law? This is no longer the dark ages. I come from a Catholic background and I remember the rumours in school about Father Alex but nothing got done about it and from what I gather, he just moved to another school. Are we going to just keep accepting that this is some insidious lurid norm? And I would bet anyone who went to a Catholic school has a similar story and an obsequious Father Alex lurking in the parish?? The government is stupidly happy to over regulate social workers, teachers etc.. Why not the bloody church?

The word priest has now become synonymous with pedophilia, surely if you were in charge of the Catholic Church you would want to quash this reputation, put the foul stench of abuse as far away from a religion that loves taking the moral high ground, surely you have some respect for our kids and communities. But no..the Pope and the priests as a whole stand firm that their god shall do all the punishing necessary. How arrogant and sick can you get? I don’t mean to bring it up…but you haven’t exactly proven beyond reasonable doubt that a god exists and relying on this spaghetti monster hasn’t really helped the world thus far or have you fuckwits still not noticed? And if you are not doing anything about this within your church don’t have a go at me, I don’t have a problem with your freedom to believe what you want but protecting and not facing up to this disghusting problem, makes me loose respect for your beliefs.

The Pope is visiting Glasgow soon, if Dawkins doesn’t manage to pull this arrest off, I sure as hell am going to seek him out and tell him what I think of his immoral lack of action. We wouldn’t accept it within any other paradigm and quite frankly your god is not my god. In my society and within my beliefs, grown ups are trusted not to interfere with children and if they do, they need psychiatric help or punishment in this fucking life time! Do you honestly think this god of yours would condone this and if so what does that say about Catholicism, more importantly what does it say about those people that sit in a Church supporting it? STOP GOING TO CHURCH UNTIL THE PROBLEM IS ADDRESSED!!!

Such is life…..

Oleuanna — Thu, 01 Apr 2010 18:10:05 +0000

So this morning after a very limited conversation with my University (nothing new there), it was agreed because of my lack of ability to pay for my last year, that I defer my dissertation until September 2010. I have to be honest I feel bloody relieved. I have worked so hard in the last two years just to get to this point, then the recession kicks in and us self funding students are put in the position to beg, borrow or steal and we know how the tax payers feel about that right? You would never hear the end of it! (hold on…I am a fucking tax payer?) And the money issue was seriously detracting from questions and critical analysis about Sustainability ..it was all becoming a little too ‘ironic’.

And yes I know I am a wee bit old to be studying and doing odd jobs to survive especially when I have a teenager but she is the reason I’m doing it. Yeah ok and I want to be an intellectual super hero, not those stupid types that wear tights and panse and are usually known as socialists who can only argue with withdrawal of their labor, holding people who need those services to ransom with a picket line (I hate that with a passion) or indeed those mongs that become an MP just to fund their kudos and of which shall be known as the capitalist parasites….no! I mean I want to be one of the thousands that get unmentioned working frontline in post conflict or climatically damaged areas, obsequious enough for you?

It’s hard to put my studies down …I love studying. I can not tell you how much I love to pick up a book and find something new to struggle with, interpret, define and then wake up with my head on my laptop with crisps hanging out my nose just to be awarded that glowing moment when you actually get a theory and then have the audacity to challenge it. For a person like me to have to put that down for a couple of months is comparable to NOTHING!!! But at least it gives me time to find a permanent (well only in their eyes) job, and talk to my newly found research University in France CIRAD I can not explain how many multiples I am having with this find. Why am I telling you this?

It should be obvious….

I’m back !!

My apologies

Oleuanna — Mon, 15 Mar 2010 00:23:03 +0000

How rude of me to start a new website and fail to engage with it. Can you forgive me? Anyone who was listening would know I am battling resistance and writing a dissertation on Sustainable Development ontology vs epistemology for it’s long term implementation….blaa blaa blaa. Actually I’m loving it and I didn’t need to choose such difficult theories but as the course pissed me off so much with it’s hidden agendas and in my opinion inability to focus on a true meaning for Sustainability, I thought I would be a smart arse and do something clever. Subsequently everything else will have to take a back seat till these 15000 words are emptied out of me.

But whilst you wait for me to shout and scream at the world again, click on this and tell me what’s wrong with this picture. No word of a lie I spent an hour just watching it but can you tell me why?

What point Substance Dualism?

Oleuanna — Thu, 28 Jan 2010 14:12:13 +0000

Click here to view the embedded video.

Because when you are dead you’re dead?

Public information film…..

False Dichotomy….

Oleuanna — Thu, 28 Jan 2010 13:47:05 +0000

Click here to view the embedded video.

And the importance of Critical thinking

Public information film…..

Noam Chomsky – The activist from the troubled times…

Oleuanna — Thu, 28 Jan 2010 12:57:29 +0000

If we don’t believe in freedom of

expression for people we despise,

we don’t believe in it at all.

Noam Chomsky

I often wonder as I grow older will there be any signs of me slowing down in my views, making life easier at dinner parties by not necking the Sancerre and pointing out the failings of Capitalism at the nearest white person, rendering me more conservative mainstream and ultimately middle class and grey.

Then I am reminded of the radicals that still lurk in our midst, untouched by conformity and leaving me with a smirk of joyful defiance as I continue to pull on my mod jacket, and ride my environmentally hugging moped. Chomsky is one hell of an intelligent influential man and a true radical anarchist that defines himself as a Libertarian Socialist.

He has enabled me not to feel dirty about my Socialist past influences because Socialism and freedom are inseparable! I keep forgetting in freedom, which isn’t difficult when I am surrounded by such a distinct lack of it. I agree with him on a lot of his views and feel what sullied the meaning of Socialism was the cold war propaganda and pulls of power.

“For the Bolsheviks, the goal of the farce was to extract what advantage they could from the moral prestige of Socialism, for the West, the purpose was to defame Socialism and entrench the system of ownership and management control over all aspects of economic, political and social life”.

But I’m not going to get into the political debates, just want to throw out a gentle reminder to all of us that don’t want to conform to stay strong. Just because the rest of them are comfortable in their woollen jackets slopping off to the poll stations to scribe the inevitable, doesn’t mean us radicals should be disheartened.

Intellects ARE the power – I have always defined my life with this but as he says with such knowledge comes great responsibility, it is up to us to expose the lies of governments and not join their corruptive power. People are so afraid of the telling the truth, of course for some that could mean death but for the rest of us it’s the only way to start getting rid of these dictatorships that hang over our lives.

He’s eighty-one and still defiant and if you haven’t discovered him till now and need some inspiration just to get you to the next stage of your activism, well here he is. I’m finding him an unclenched fist approach to my understanding of development and continued poverty and if you knew me, then you would know it’s a lot safer to be around me at parties now…just.

Hat Tip to ViceUk

That ‘Business’ of Climate Change!

Oleuanna — Wed, 27 Jan 2010 22:20:21 +0000

This is rather a long video of Jeff Rubin, the former Chief Economist of CIBC World Markets (Canadian Imperial Bank of Commerce). He is a very clever proven predictor of significant economic changes and well worth listening to. This does go on for a while so save it till later if you don’t have time, I can assure you it is a very good speech. May be hard to digest in places but I will no doubt address this issue frequently, of course please feel free to correct, challenge or to add to this thinking. He states that the recession was not caused by the sub-prime market but our ever increasing energy costs. Anyway evaluate for your self.

Click here to view the embedded video.

I am incredibly late with this report and you will probably find this has been circulating for months so my apologies. I guess it sticks in my mind as it keeps refreshing the floor of one of the many forums I’m a part of, which is one that deals with Climate change and Sustainability. So I am just curious as to why this has not been talked about more? Not even a Channel 4 documentary effort. Are we or we not running out of oil? Apparently not.

The future is about triple digit oil prices, which is the cost to get the oil out of the ground not the lack of it. We need to stay in recession as potentially we will not be able to replace the oil that we will consume in the next six years if that, so not the prime sub-market as we were led to believe was the causation. As he points out how can Japan have hit a deep recession before anywhere else? The OECD countries who signed up to the responsibility of the omissions in the atmosphere will soon become redundant of blame as the developing countries start to increase in their omissions. As the west is regulated, they will obviously move their business to the unregulated countries bloody obvious isn’t it look at ChiAmerica.

The global economy is questionable and I could see in time us starting to see a shift to keeping it to local economies. Bailing out the banks may be something we will see again but they are not the problems it’s the cost of energy. I don’t think Tax is the answer when has it ever been? Transportation is the biggest problem but can every country produce their own goods effectively? It really does run it home just how badly not just local but how world economies are run.

This is an ongoing discussion, I’m still trying to work out the possible implications.

UK Elections ’shrugs’

Oleuanna — Wed, 20 Jan 2010 02:48:57 +0000

I shouldn’t have that reaction, I do realise that. I should be excited that finally we can get rid of naughty, nasty Labour and get a new party voted in, which will enable all my desires to come true in a land that will be led by fresh grounded thinking and brilliant Economists. They will have intrinsic understanding of social determination, sort out the benefit system, talk to parents and not dictate to them, stop making the banks gods because they listened to what we wanted as individuals and as a country. I can appreciate that this is far from an easy task and in the same breath of hope comes the prospect of a bit more refined Blaaaaaair for my liking.

Today the class project was to mock the potential leader of the UK…..my efforts

Yeah …..I know…

A lot of marches are about to kick off this summer, no one marches in the winter…strategically I think we could gain ground but you know us British and our inability to cope with weather, lets not even challenge climate change, if it doesn’t effect you it’s a lot easier to negate it ! (yeah I have a lot on that subject to come). Anyway for those not in the know the dreaded elections are here again.

The mud has begun to fly, Libertarians hate the UKIP, Labour and Tories hate the Lib Dem, they in turn I think hate themselves. BNP is a threat to no one but my god they really think they have a chance and so on and so on, who knows they might succeed, their idiocy is a lot more transparent and straight forward than the rest. It’s just a matter of time. I don’t vote, I have NEVER voted and you can be guaranteed unless Ron Paul migrates over here, I will never vote. Who would, no…who COULD I vote for? Party politics doesn’t work or has no one noticed? Apparently not.

Friend of mine told me it is my ‘civic duty’ to vote. But tell me, if you are a communist in this country, who do you vote for? Or a Libertarian? Or a Lib Dem? I think you understand my thinking. No? If your party hasn’t got a Pongo abelii chance, in a poorly organised forestry management strategy of surviving, isn’t it just a token, if not a wasted effort to plant one tree as seventy are hacked down around it? Why do it? And if you are going to do it…..invest in a better result !!!

There has to be another way of getting rid of the current strong party politics, rather than strategic voting which I abhor and it’s still not intelligent enough to work. I think a civil independent collective has to take over. NO NOT ANOTHER FORMATION OF A YET ANOTHER SHIT PARTY! But just the bravery to try something new. Libertarianism would be refreshing as long as it’s not run by any of the angry racist elitist members I have met, yeah it’s not just OH. I find these attitudes/tendancies with a lot of UK party members, they are seldom academics so it doesn’t really bother me. But there is some interesting thinking behind Libertarianism, in the right minds maybe in the future I could see it as a valid alternative, just needs commitment and hard work.

I’m all for Ron Paul for PM or an endangered species…. if our politics stopped being so bullshittingly shit, hegemonic and exclusive, concentrated on the disengagement of it’s people from politics, stopped pretending that class structures no longer exist, then all those people who don’t know how or who to vote for, actually might start paying attention. People are so lost, begging to be led and there is NOTHING! Just your specialised groups ignoring the rest of the flaccid population – you bloody idiots!

Incidentally, I’ve had enough….I’m off to France much better food and xenophobia over there.

Hello….

Oleuanna — Fri, 08 Jan 2010 01:40:08 +0000

Welcome what do you think? Don’t answer that, if you knew how long it took just to get his page up and running you would understand negativity will not be well received but this is an unmoderated site so constructive honesty is more than welcome, as ever. Anyway thanks for coming and taking a look, possibly joining or at least bookmarking for later reading and possible further investigation. I have a lot in store for this space, the blog continues but concentrating more intrinsically on the development needs of various countries and society’s around the world. Eventually the blog will start to show my thinking and development through my last year of my MSc and on to the research I am going to do, which will concentrate on regions in Africa. At the moment I want to tackle the replacement of food aid and the need for agricultural investment but by the end of the year it could be education for sustainability or conversion and diversification in the arms industry or maybe post-conflict reconstruction. I may try to combine the whole lot, we shall see.

So this is why I have decided to have a website, it’s not a mad ego trip, I need a place to think and get feed back as I discover what will be the best and most beneficial question to answer over the next six years that WILL enable some understanding and who knows, possibly make change occur. Well if I am to be honest, I actually want to end poverty and starvation and stop a couple of wars, then swing by Obama’s house and get that damn Nobel off him and put it on Africa’s mantelpiece…(even though my dreamy gazes at the Ochils tell me that could happen, my (our) inability to stop corruption within governments, damn, within people tells me to pick my battles wisely)…. I’ll settle for getting out and working in Africa for now.

More pages will develop as the month goes on, resources, research, literature and hopefully a global community so I can share my work and other people can do the same. It’s not a place to be precious about ideas, I don’ t care if you steal my ideas just as long as you implement them and implement them non-profitly and well. I feel very strongly about people needlessly dying especially when we can do something about it and I don’t mean telling people what to do or forcing my ideal on them before anyone thinks I’m armed with a god or socialism.

I will still shout at the UK and it’s inhabitants and laugh at the silly and as you know I love a good argument, some things will never change but some of my silly has to go if I want to exact some real change (what balloon?). So enjoy the nibbles, drink the Clos du Mesnil, don’t vomit in my plant pots and hopefully I’ll see you back here soon, I have a lot to talk about.