Some Crackpot Cogitations

I'm what our society calls poor. I'm not as poor as a woman, in say, rural India, but as I'm in Australia, and not India, I completely reject that as a valid point. By Australian standards, I'm as poor as you can get, and I live on government sponsored welfare payment at a rate way below the poverty line, and live a lifestyle way less prosperous than the majority of Australians.

I would love to work, but I cannot. One of my children has severe autism, and requires a carer, twenty fours a day, seven days a week, for eternity. My government appreciates my work as a carer, they send me a letter every year telling me so, and rewards me by not allowing me to function in society, in the same way as an honored payer of income tax would. Natural result of a capitalist economy. You have to put in to get back.

We all know capitalism sux, but we're simply not using our imaginations in thinking of alternatives, because communism and capitalism are not the only systems to choose from. Money is just something some guy made up one day. Most our our "money" is just numbers stored in a computer, it doesn't really exist. The longest ever presentation of The Emperors New Clothes has been in full swing, with a mostly unchanging cast, for generations.

Here's my favorite vision of a crackpot, utopian, not so distant future. I'd like to see a society based on something I call "Prosperity Based Equality", which sounds enough like politico speak for some to think it may be legitimate. Simply put, to achieve the broadest and most encompassing version of equality, we must eliminate the "have nots" of society by transforming them the "haves." I propose we do this simply by giving them MORE.

Sounds like leftist thinking, I know. So let's give the rich more, too. Let's give everyone more. Let's keep giving until everyone is equal. Until every single last person has more than enough. Every starving, downtrodden and oppressed soul, in every corner of the globe, in every shanty town, village and ghetto, let them all have prosperity. Regardless of what they have contributed to our capitalist society, let them all have an equal share in the planets bounty.

Our blue and green planet, trapped in it's endless orbit around the sun, is the source of everything. It's waters, it's minerals, it's crops and livestock are needed by all of the species we like to call humanity, for the most basic of all needs, survival. None of us chose to be born, once alive, we must survive. Why should some profit from what we all need to survive?

Capitalism is a failure. It has failed to provide for the majority of people under it's care. It's a tired, stupid, immoral, and greedy philosophy that could only benefit from a bullet to the head. That said, many people are afraid to try another system, much like a beaten wife, who returns to her abuser, in the forlorn hope that he will change for the better, this time.
How could we make this prosperity based equality real, without too much disruption to the average citizens way of life? By adding more numbers to the rows of figures in the records of all the intangible money. Maybe we could add an infinite number of zeroes. Before the decimal point. A simple virus, adding zeroes forever, to every bank account, everywhere. Until there are too many zeroes to count.

Economists will be spitting expensive coffee all over themselves if they should read this, but economists are nothing but the bastard children of capitalism. Asking them to consider this is akin to asking a devout man of god to disprove the existence of a deity. Economists will hate it, hungry women in the Sudan will not.

Let's give this system a name. Let's call it the Crackpot Infinity Doctrine. Give everyone an infinite amount of money. That's more than enough for even the greediest person. Sure, some fool will try to charge $1000000 for a loaf of bread. So what? You have an INFINITE amount of money, that will never, ever run out, because that computer virus can keep adding zeroes forever. You can afford to pay $1000000 for bread.

In fact, if everyone has an infinite amount of money, there's no need to exchange it for goods and services at all. The grocers account will not read infinity, plus the price of three bananas, when he closes his till at the end of the working day. Nor will the governments expenditure of $27 billion on, say, health care, make even a dent in an account containing an infinite amount of money.

All good capitalists, read on, despite your abhorrence. I know you've paid taxes and worked hard. That should not mean that some live, and others die. You'll still have to work, or there will be no goods and services for us to enjoy with all our prosperity, but instead of doing it for profit, do it because it's right, and it needs to be done. The really disgusting jobs, the one no one wants to do, will be rostered, and done by all, as community service.

Sure, some people will reap the rewards of the Crackpot Infinity Doctrine without having contributed, either because they are unable, or unwilling to do so. If a person is unable to participate, through illness, disability or circumstance, they should not be excluded from Crackpot Prosperity. If they are unwilling to participate, I'd like to know why, but regardless of reason, they do not deserve starvation and squalor, and they should, too, be able to participate in the bounty provided by Crackpot Prosperity. The majority of people would work and participate simply because they already do so, for a system that provides them with much less.

It's a crazy, crackpot idea that will never see itself become a reality. Unless some naughty little hacker gets inspired. But ask yourself, why is it so crazy to think that through better management and dispersal of the planets bounty, we can all be prosperous? Maybe you'd rather we all stick to a system that oppresses the majority. In which case, check yourself. We may be a "prosperous" nation here in Australia, but we will never be free while someone, somewhere, is hungry.

Because one night, capitalism may get drunk, beat you up and rape you, like an abusive partner, and leave you broken, bruised, bloody and destitute, just like it has countless others. It could turn on you. In fact, if you live long enough, it will.

Sent from my iPad, which, by the way is fantastic.

Telephonophobia! (stop calling, stop calling, I don't wanna talk anymore)

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Telephone phobia (telephonophobia, telephobia) is reluctance or fear of making or taking phone calls, literally, "fear of telephone".Telephone phobia is also considered to be a type of Social Phobia or Social anxiety problem.
Sufferers typically report fear that they would fail to respond appropriately in a telephone conversation,and fear finding nothing to say, which would end in embarrassing silence, stammering, or stuttering.The associated avoidance behavior includes asking others (e.g. relatives at home) to take their phone calls and exclusive use of answering machines.As a result, the sufferers avoid many activities, such as scheduling events or clarifying information.
Another reason is the sufferers may believe that people who ring bear bad or upsetting news.
As it is common with various fears and phobias, there is a wide spectrum of severity of the fear of phone conversations and the corresponding difficulties.In 1993 it was reported that about 2.5 million of people in Great Britain have telephone phobia.
Among other occurrences, telephone phobia is a common symptom of bipolar disorder: the sufferers are nervous to talk to other people over the phone.
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Once upon a time, in a leafy, middle class suburb of Sydney, a family of good, God-fearing, bible thumping Baptists of a conservative nature raised a brood of children
under a eucalyptus canopy. The local church stood stoically and quietly one street behind their rambling, comfortable home that featured an enormous yard where children of all ages had played cricket, soccer and climbed trees, playing make believe in the huge boughs of a giant jacaranda tree, that had seen much, and remained silent.

The family told their own fables and folklore, as all families do, and the youngest of the clan had developed a chapter, exceptionally well written and grammatically correct, devoted to nothing but her tendency to converse, too frequently, too loudly, and about entirely the wrong kind of subject of matter for well-bought up young lady.

Like many an adolescent female of her generation, her interests morphed from dolls, to horses, to hours talking on the telephone, in hushed whispers to her closest confidante. Utterly normal and mundane that may have been, it nevertheless called for the constant repetition of the girl child's first word, which took on the proportions of an omen of things to come.

Her first word, you see, was spoken over the phone. Her mother, as the folklore would have it, had the child on her hip when she answered the telephone, and as people are apt to, said, "Hello?". The precocious child grabbed the phone and, most likely after thrusting said phone in her mouth and covering it with baby goo, also said, "hello, ho, ho!", because talking apparently takes a while to get really excellent at, and as a first attempt, the child had managed not just communication, but telecommunication, with both a greeting, and an insult.

The child grew, and her linguistic ability continued to develop as she learnt to string sentences together. Her first two sentence were, "Get Yost!", and, "Shuttup", which were roughly translated to adult English as, "get lost", and, "shut up, shut up now, or I'll hit you!". She asked questions, and then questioned the answers, she argued and debated, she was cheeky, and should not look at her elders in the that tone of voice.

She once was able to use the telephone, as any normal person does, until a series of events culminated in her seeing a simple method of communicating with those who aren't within earshot as a form of torture and humiliation.

If you're at all familiar with the habits of young women, you'll not be at all astonished to learn that she would call friends, family, and even acquaintances, to discuss current affairs and matters of extreme personal importance, or simply to while away the time. At first she would call them on big, heavy, rotary dial phones, with long, curly cords and a hand piece you had to hold to your ear, and then lighter, more modern looking units, with push buttons, and a primitive memory function that could store six numbers.

It all changed. She had been in the habit of calling Ms Voulez-vous, and as theirs was a close, one might even say sisterly, relationship, she called her often, and often for absolutely no reason. Over many years, this had been the practise, and our protagonist was stunned when the status quo abruptly changed.

Ms Voulez-vous had recently embarked upon a relationship with a man who loved a good singalong around a piano, in a variety of bars, after he and the other patrons had all partaken of a least a few beverages of the alcoholic variety. The Irish Maitre De, as we shall dub that long ago figure, would often forget the words and saw nothing at all untoward in substituting anything he failed to recall with a series of scooby-doo's and lah-de-dah's. Our young protagonist enjoyed both the company of these fellow people, and the locale they frequented, being one the more upward inner city enclaves that young people favored, nestled as it was in the very heart of the Sydney metropolis.

Ms Voulez-vous, though, became distracted. She would cut short the conversations, and seemed to have no time to chat any longer. Our protagonist felt slighted and shut out, and resolved to try harder, but it was to no avail. The distance grew, and became an abyss. And then all was revealed.

The phone calls were coming at what can only be described as a very inopportune time. A time at which the telephone ringing, answered or not, could only be described as an unbearable distraction. That's right, oh noble reader, our innocent, baptist raised protagonist had developed an uncanny ability to ring every, single time Ms Voulez-vous and the Irish Maitre De attempted to, as consenting adults often do, perform the act which is commonly known by a variety of uncouth terms in the widely used vernacular, and the one we will choose, is SHAGGING!
When the young lass in question became aware of this, she was mortified, and really quite disappointed in herself by the discovery that she had never really considered that the people she called may actually be busy, literally and/or figuratively busy. To add to her misery, Ms Voulez-vous had seemed really angry at her, and she had to not a clue how to make it up to her.

She ceased making phone calls, except for the ones related to her employment, as she was never herself whilst at work, wearing, as we all do, the mask of servitude, that obliterates the individual. And also the ones to her mother, whom she continued to check in regularly.

She no longer had a phone that you could dial out on, a development that occurred after a particularly brutal phone bill in the kind of share accommodation that made British TV series, The Young Ones look like clean living Mormons, and Ms Voulez-vous moved to northern pastures, unable to say goodbye. She didn't hear from her again until she received the invitation to the wedding of Ms Voulez-vous and the Irish
Maitre De.

By now, the subject of the inopportune timing of her phone calls had seeped into the family legend, making our sad protagonist the butt of many a joke, probably not mean spirited in intention, but further reinforcing her nagging intuition that the telephone was no friend of hers.

She successfully avoided the phone almost completely during her flirtation with alternative lifestyles, and resisted the urge to fall headlong into the mobile phone frenzy that began to engulf society, for a while, anyway. She did eventually give in, and would get $30 credit, that would last a year, and still have credit left when the term expired. The telephone had become a tool by which other people could contact her, and her superstition that the use of the phone would only cause humiliation and financial ruin continued.

Most people didn't even notice, and if she told them that ringing people made her feel anxious, and her palms would become sweaty as the fear of unavoidable social rejection enveloped her, they would laugh at her, so she learnt to remain silent. To this day, more than twenty years after the event, she still doesn't ring people, unless requested. It's kind of like how vampires can only enter your home if invited in, she can only call if she's invited to do so.

This doesn't stop people from ringing her. Her telephone rings constantly, the people on the other end of the line completely unaware of her inability to do the simple task they have no trouble with. She wishes it would stop, but manners prevent her. She does see the irony of the telephonophobic girl being at the mercy of a phone that never stops ringing, but she would probably rather it wasn't mentioned.

It's a stupid phobia, but it keeps the phone bills down.

Sent from my iPad, which, by the way is fantastic.

How terribly rude.

Yesterday morning, I arose. I always do, and it's a trend that's sure to continue until it stops, and as I'd rather not dwell on that, we'll just get on with yesterday. I arose, as I have already stated, and gulped down huge, warm cups of coffee, several of them and took in the familiar aroma of mornings at my humble abode.

I grabbed my trusty iPad, which may or may not be a tool of the devil but is really funky either way, and checked facebook. That done, I headed to my blog, to check if anyone had actually read it, and then hit the share button.

I'm sure you can envision how perplexing a dilemma I found it to be when facebook, my beloved facebook, wouldn't allow me to post! I tried again, but to no avail. Devastated, or at least slightly peeved, I hobbled slowly to the kitchen to sulk, and drink more coffee. And possibly to whinge, complain and moan just a little.

Once I'd completed the required amount of whinging, I began to formulate a plan so cunning you could put a tail on it and call it fox. It consisted of a three prongs that went something like this : fill in stupid online forms to tell facebook that I am neither spam, nor offensive, or if I am, can they forgive me anyway due to my natural charm and charisma, then post updates whinging about how I've been censored and how unfair it is to be oppressed, thirdly I contacted my secret army. Of one. Every great movement has to start somewhere.

Having contacted the magnificently plumed Great Peacock Empress of the North (that's right, it pays to have friends in high places, or at least on high ground), my trusted ally immediately posted my blog, and registered her protest at the persecution of the plumed people of the south. (All hail the Great Peacock Empress of the North. Long may she live.)

This morning I arose again. I had my coffee, I checked the now not so beloved facebook, and hoped it was feeling less treacherous today. It was. It let me post my silly blog! Then, the nagging in the less charitable portion of my brain commenced. Who had reported me? Who was the veritable viper I had nursed at my less than ample bosom?

Sherlock Holmes may have been able to solve the mystery for me, but as he wasn't at hand, I simply scratched my head. More concerning is why. Why choose to flag something as spam, when an alternative would be to simply not read it. Termination of the friendship wouldn't have bordered me, so I wonder what possesses someone to choose the most punitive response at their disposal.

This isn't an important blog. It has no meaning or purpose at all. It just is. I'm glad I offended someone. Usually means you're doing something right.

Sent from my iPad, which, by the way is fantastic.

Part Two, or the continuing tale of how I became a crackpot.

None of this will make any sense if you haven't read part one of this saga, so I do suggest you read it. Or not, if you don't mind whether or not it makes sense. Here's a link http://crackpotschemes.blogspot.com/2011/01/part-one-or-how-i-became-crackpot.html

And now, if you'll take my hand, we can go wandering together through my own little memory lane, it's the early nineties and I'm in my heavy metal bimbo turns earth mother fashion phase. The cow shed is gone, and I've moved back to Sydney, flicking light switches on and off, and marveling at televisions and taps that either miraculously or magically produce hot water.

The Prussian arrives, unexpectedly and certainly unannounced, and he has baggage in quite gob smacking quantities. Both kinds of baggage. He unplugs the phone and gives me the news that the Engineer, whilst spending time in the bush, misplaced his mind and seemed to be having an extreme amount of difficulty relocating it.

The tale he told of my beloved, quick witted friend left me boggled. The Engineer had commenced a relationship, which for some reason necessitated a visit to a counsellor, who recommended a psychologist, who recommended a psychiatrist, who prescribed him something. The Engineer changed, not for the better.

He left his home, and slept in a tent in the bush, he didn't wash or eat regularly. He developed rages. The Prussian and the Smuggler became afraid of the man who was wearing the Engineers face, but whom they could not recognize as their friend. The Engineer deteriorated further. He heard voices in his head, and his speech began to slur. His doctor added more drugs, dulling and addling a brilliant and unique mind.

Then came the rampage. Beserker. The Engineer went on a destructive rampage, physically attacking his friends, destroying their possessions. He drove one car into another until they were both twisted steel, then got into his own car and drove away. They didn't see him again.

The Prussian, wearing his paranoia like an old and favored pair of comfortable slippers, hesitated not in declaring the breakdown of the Engineer to be the handy work of a conspiracy by huge pharmaceutical companies, who use people as guinea pigs.

I was doubtful. Drugs, alcohol and isolation seemed like things that could send anyone a bit nutty. The Smuggler departed for overseas. I thought, perhaps, that this may have been one of those moments when life changes for all, but no one is aware at the time, and my new big city friends didn't find the Prussians idiosyncratic views to be as endearing as I did, and to my great shame, I began to pull away from my friend.

We crossed paths and kept in touch as I got on with the business of being a mother to, now, two young children. My second born son was possessed of radiant beauty and a quick and inquisitive mind. I delighted in his development, in his enormous vocabulary and his almost perfect pitch when he sang Old McDonald.

Motherhood kept me busy, as any mother will know, so I spent less time keeping up with the .adventures of the Smuggler and the Prussian, although I did have a covert meeting with the Prussian to say goodbye when he told me he was going into hiding. We met in a dark corner of an a dingy, old mans pub, having first ascertained that we weren't being followed. I never minded indulging him. He thought an up and coming crime syndicate was after him, as he was a loose end in the Juanita Neilsen case, that regularly sends shivers through the collective spine of Kings Cross crime. Truth or fiction? Who knows......

My children grew, happy and healthy. Suddenly, that all changed. The day my second son received his routine vaccinations, he became ill. He regressed. He lost all speech over a fortnight. It was inconceivable. Impossible.

Doctors visits, frustration, and an inexpressible sorrow now made the previous business of motherhood seem carefree. It was autism. At that time, the internet didn't have a lot more than star trek and porn, but it put the chances of this happening to us at 1 in 10,000. Today the figure is much, much lower, around 1 in 160.

His regression was brutally fast. The possibility of a vaccine reaction was raised early on, then dismissed, so I was stunned to discover that thousands of other parents were reporting the same thing.

The Prussians words started to ring in my head, ominously. I, unwittingly, while trying to find a way to help my son, had spoken against conventional wisdom, and was labelled "anti-vaccination". I had become a crackpot.

To be continued....................
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Part One. Or how I became a crackpot.

I've been a crackpot for many years, and have done many crackpot things as a result. I've lived in isolation, without the modern conveniences that electricity delights us with, without running, fluoridated water, without flushing toilets. Yeah, without luxury too.

That lifestyle was without many other things too. No traffic, no telemarketers, no door knockers, no pollution and no hassle. Or at least a considerable reduction of those things, there was after all, once a whole convoy of cars traveling Ducks Ridge Road, three of them, and some would count that as traffic.

It was in this environment that I first became exposed to views that seemed ludicrous to my ever so sophisticated 21 year old mind. However, I digress, back I go to the gist of the story.
We called our home, Hippy Heaven, although it's official name was Lot blah blah, and our fellow bush living neighbors had failed to figure out how to run a commune prior to our arrival, and were still debating the issue. Not exactly peace, love and mung beans, people.

Rewind. I'm twenty one, pregnant with my first child, and an old friend, whom we'll call the Smuggler, bumps into me on the street of a strange town, far from where we both belong. Over coffee, the Smuggler suggests we move into the cow shed on his neighbors property, which probably doesn't sound as charming as it actually was, in it's home spun, renovated way. Three rooms, concrete building. The greenest hills you have ever seen, and a rainforest in the backyard, there was no way I could resist.

The Smuggler had just purchased a Baptist church, one of those fantastic a-frame buildings that sprung up everywhere in the 1970's, and the plan was to pull it apart and rebuild it on the top of his mountain. He'd paid for his mountain, and his church, with money he'd made smuggling a variety of things for a number of years. At one point in his career, if you care to call it that, he was smuggling diamonds through Vietnam where he became acquainted with the notorious Charles Sobraj, but to spend time with him gave lie to the idea of this man as a dangerous menace to society. The Smuggler was an intelligent man, well versed in many fields, willing to learn and happy to work with his hands. A wonderful dinner guest.

Assisting him in his endeavor to pull apart and rebuild the church were the Prussian, appearing more like an officer of the law than the devoted dissident he was, and the Engineer, who looked like a colonial figure, complete with wild bushranger beard, he drove like rally driver and had the sharpest mind I have ever been fortunate enough to encounter. There was one other man, insignificant, and one I'd rather not spend much time recalling. We'll call him, if we must refer to him at all, as the Dickhead. And me, pregnant, in pink King Gee overalls.

The Smuggler had assigned me the task of de-nailing, and over the next two months I removed every single nail from each and every piece of wood associated with that church. I also bought more overalls. Orange, white, and black floral. I was the very essence of pregnant, demolition site chic.

The Engineer, with his Scottish ancestry, showed signs of being gripped in the fury of a berserker as he worked. He was tireless, and happy to converse as he worked. He explained to me, while sending nine pound roof tiles down a track on the A-frame roof that reached speeds of forty kilometers an hour, how to make land mines, how engines work, how to do so many things, and how so many things operate. We discussed history and literature, society and culture on a building site. We formed a firm friendship.

The Prussian was always coming and going, to and from his many secret meetings. He loved a good secret society. Eccentricities abounded, we'd go to visit people with phones, and he'd pull the connection out of the wall to prevent that Powers That Be from listening in on his conversations. His police radio scanner was constantly monitored, as he was convinced it was the only way to really know what was going on. He regularly conversed with people in positions of authority and influence, or so he said. I doubted it then, but since, some of those names have become prominent. Go figure.

It was these three men, whom I won't dub as wise in any conventional sense, whom I turned to, when it became apparent that I needed to get to the hospital, seventy kilometers away, to give birth, and the Dickhead had not only not put petrol in the car, but spent the petrol money on beer. Being born in a stable may have been good enough for Jesus, but I wasn't having a bar of it. We left my cowshed, stable or what have you, and headed next door.

The Smuggler, the Prussian and the Engineer discussed the dilemma, and then proceeded to siphon petrol out of the available cars there, and made me porridge, on the basis of needing a good meal to supply the energy requirements of the coming ordeal. I finished my breakfast, went to the hospital and had a baby.

With a baby in tow, I became less mobile, so the crackpots came to me, literally. There was a regular parade of dissidents and freaks, left wing, right wing, on a wing and a prayer, the poor and the rich alike, all espousing their own political, social and or religious heresies. I made coffee and cooked meals, and got on with the business of being a mother, but I listened, and there was one central theme to the craziness.

The Powers That Be are not at all cuddly or benevolent. And I got on with that child raising business, while my friends plotted and schemed as the kettle boiled.

Years pass. The Smuggler has passed away, the Prussian is in hiding, he says he knows where Juanita Neilsen is buried, and the Engineer went completely and utterly batshit crazy in the bush.

Strange how the things they discussed around a wood fuel stove, in a humble abode, smack bang in the middle of nowhere, came to pass. I won't bother you with the details, but it's enough to provide me with a nagging sense of distrust in governments, the media, and really big corporations.

Today, there's countless sites, with countless people offering wacky theories for everything. It's a good thing, as whether these crackpot theories right or wrong, those people are thinking, and not just being told what to think. That's why crackpots are dangerous. They think, and that alone vastly increases the chances that one day, one of them will have the correct thought. And maybe even repeat it.

My first born was named in honor of the now deceased Smuggler, and I would like to think that if the Smuggler could see him today, he'd smile........

To be continued..............

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Crackpot Gardens in The Local Community?

Severe flooding has devastated huge tracts of Queensland and Victoria, leading to the loss of lives, livelihoods and homes. Without doubt, this is a national tragedy, and it's going to affect us all.

Food shortages, people. Both long and short term. Oh, sure, there will be enough food, it'll just cost more. Considerably more. And there's nothing we can do but pay more. This time. But, if we change how we do things, we can ensure that next time Australia is hit by some kind of natural disaster, and it certainly will be, we can navigate out way through the mire of food shortages.

It's a simple idea. Every community has a school. Every school has huge amounts of wasted land. Vast expanses of grass that no one is allowed on. Every school should have a huge community garden, which the members of the community can work in (after appropriate background checks), and the produce is available to all members of the community.

The benefits to such a program would be many. School children and their parents would learn more about healthy eating, and as gardening can be hard work, they'd get plenty of exercise. Poorer members of the community get access to free fruit and vegetable produce. Older people get a chance to interact and participate in the community, letting the younger generations benefit from the experience of the older, and hopefully wiser, generations. People new to a community would have a place and a task to aid integration and new relationships in their new community.

Imagine if this had been in place in Brisbane. Many school gardens would have been lost to the floods, but others would have survived, and that food could be distributed to those in the worst affected areas, allowing them to eat, healthily even, without the population resorting to panic buying and price gouging.
The means of survival, food and clean water, have to be localized, so when services break down, as they inevitably do when the proverbial hits the fan, each community has a measure of self sufficiency, and the ability to lend a good Aussie hand to the communities around them that have been hit hardest.

Of course, this means that some will never contribute, but still have access to the produce. I don't have a problem with that. Everyone needs basic food and clean water, regardless of their individual contribution. We feed those in jail. We should feed everyone.Its about the ability to survive.

Please not the picture above, of a spectacularly well built, attractive young woman, is that not testament to the benefits of this simple plan? No? Well, it got you to read it.

Return of the Remote Nazi

I never wanted to become a tyrant. Freedom fighter, well,maybe, but I've always been kind of attached to the notion that I don't have a tyrannical bone in my body. I was...........,wait for it
........WRONG!

Last year I had a spate of house guests. One of them kept changing the channel and turning the volume up to uncomfortable levels. I asked him to cease, desist, quit it even, but to no avail. It was clear that strategic action was needed, and needed immediately.

I seized control of the remote and threatened terrible things to any and all who attempted to learn the ancient art of changing the tv channel, or any other settings, manually. This knowledge became forbidden to all but me, and my first born son in what you could call a nasty case of feudal system syndrome.

Those were terrible times, my friends, and terrible things were witnessed by all. It saddened me to take such extreme action, but our hardships were overcome, and we rewarded with joyous blessings of Doctor Who, and volume that doesn't cause lasting hearing damage.

The time has come to once more fight for my remote, but this time I must fight against my own people. This time, the oppressor of the television is my own children. Never has the need for cunning and strategy been so pressing, never before has my once peaceful kingdom seen such unrest (as long as we don't mention the unmentionable party incident. Any of them)

Hard times call for hard measures, and good leaders need to be able insert cliches, willy nilly like, into absolutely everything, which I just did, so woohoo for me, and I'm completely assured that guarantees my ability to emerge from this battle victorious.

Now, if only I could remember where I hid the remote.
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