Today is blogactionday for poverty.
So I was having a mooch through news stories, websites, organisations, trying to find something worthy and good to say.
Most were all about how I could give, give, give; money, money, money.
The one that really caught my eye was www.poverty.com and this page in particular.
Right now. At this very moment in economic time, how interested do you think my government is in a letter from me?
Especially one asking for 0.7% of the national income to be used for aid in poor countries?
You may not have noticed but my government has just used nearly £40 billion of taxpayer money to bail our economy out!
Precisely, what is 0.7% of FUCK ALL?!
People ARE focussed on poverty.
Their. Impending. Fucking. Own!
I know, I know.. Not having clean water and living on a $ a day is an absolute horror to be happening in 2008.
My point is that maybe blogaction for ‘poverty’ could have been delayed.
I’m not feeling particularly generous at the moment.
Sorry, but I bet I’m not the only one thinking it.
Ok. This is quite a scary story but the airport official is class!
“Surprisingly this hooligan was not British,” said an official at Pulkovo. “I understand he was from Uzbekistan where they also like to drink but cannot control themselves so well as Russians.”
Surprisingly? Not British? Cheeky fucker!
I have been trapped on a train with pissed up Russians.
A depressing bunch of melancholic singers who wept and crooned from Nizhny Novgorod to Kirov.
A group that could’ve been Irish, such was the range and depth of their dysphoria.
They sang Kalinka, I sang The Fields of Athenry and a ‘communication’ took place.
They shared their vodka and stole my toilet roll!
I had cash, jewellery and cards, but they stole my fucking toilet roll.
That’s why ‘we’ will never understand poverty.
The world is poorer though.
Poorer for the loss of a brilliant, funny and fair man.
A man who made University seminars a joy to attend and the smoke breaks full of laughs.
A man who encouraged me to apply for the exchange semester in Amsterdam with the line,
“Christ, you should go for that. You’d be like a pig in shit!”
Bob Walinski-Kiehl, you were a gentleman, may you now find peace.
Tune of the day!
3 comments:
My condolences Sleepy..I suspect from what you wrote that he was no bore, a rarity, a passionate teacher who gave a damn and dug deep.
Found this:
http://news.scotsman.com/latest-south-east-news/Lecturer-died-in-car-park.4594527.jp
May he find rest and justice..
A
Artemesia.. Thank you. I'm gutted.
Gutted for him and gutted for his family.
That's the guy. My local paper reported the story the day after but with no name, obviously.
From the earlier report it looks like it may have been suicide.
Just too sad.
Poverty is a very complex issue and often, just throwing money at it is to put a sticking plaster on an open wound. Frequently, in my opinion, deep, political and or religious change are what is needed. Sometimes even that isn't enough.
You and I both worked at a school with a lot of poor kids. Some were from decent, honest families who had little income, some lived in poverty because although there was enough income, it was being misused. Some had everything they needed to get out of it but wouldn't from pure idleness. The range is almost endless.
But yeah, the timing was just shite.
Post a Comment