World Gone Mad

It's only Tuesday and the world's gone mad already. I am currently on my 8th painkiller, so you'll be treated to a sedate dose of Pew today, which is probably for the best, considering the sorry state of affairs the world finds itself in at the moment. The human race seems hell-bent on repeating history.

Since I have the luxury of hiding behind the excuse of severe sedation, let me risk a wild theory. Survival of the fittest. It is well know that "intelligent" people generally produce less offspring. So they end up forming a negligible niche of society and the world is populated predominantly by the Other Kind. While Evil Genii sadly tend to fall in the "intelligent" category, they need not procreate, for they have the power to make the Other Kind follow their every whim, whether voluntarily by persuasion/manipulation or involuntarily by brutal oppression. Nevertheless, they often seem capable of accumulating a substantial following. And, more often than not, Evil Genii lead the world of Other Kinds into destruction. So... coming back to that whole "Survival of the Fittest" concept. I am strongly in favour of renaming it: "Temporary Survival of the Dumbest & Evil-est, Eventual Extinction of All".

Did I mention I was in a bad mood? And severely sedated? Good. Just for your information then, I've just stuffed my face with an entire Toblerone bar, so the sugar rush will soon start adding to the fun.

To continue then:

Kim Jong-il in all his divine wisdom decided to go ahead with his muscle-building exercises, thereby ignoring a globe of opposition. Which, if we're all serious about this for a moment... is something that was to be expected. It's not hard to see that threats and sanctions by an international community led by the biggest nuclear superpower in the world, would fail to hit their target. Excuse the pun. Threat breeds threat. And when has an attempt at negotiation with an evil genius manipulator ever turned out OK? I had a whole sensible analysis in mind for a different approach to the matter, but it seems to be buried somewhere underneath the sugar rush that's kicking in, so I will have to come back on that in a later post.

Russia's managed to silence one of their most effective political critics Anna Politkovskaya by resorting to the trusted Mafiosi method of liquidation.

And Flanders has managed to make headlines in New Zealand's otherwise unworldly media, by proving once again it is one of the most delusional communities in the EU. Flanders can pride itself of having one of the world's best education systems (source:PISA), a social security system that most countries would be envious of, a health system that is working well enough to process deferred British patients as well as its own, a crime rate that is still lower than in most of its neighbouring countries and an unemployment rate well within acceptable limits. Yet SOMEHOW, Flemish people are growing malcontent with their lot. I say it's plain greed, boredom and stupidity. Go live in another country for a while and you'll realise how nicely cushioned our community really is.

That 20% of voters have chosen Vlaams Belang, a blatantly extreme right-wing party, as their choice selection makes me feel that Flanders too, is inundated by Other Kinds. In the paper this morning, Van Hecke states: "Our recent gain in Flanders is to be attributed to our ability and efforts to tap into concerns over a perceived rise in crime, degradation of inner-city neighbourhoods and increase in asylum-seekers." I am sure none of you will have missed the poignant use of the word "PERCEIVED". Not "ACTUAL". To tap into a perception. If even the party itself recognizes that it is a matter of people's perception then I have to say, they are by far more intelligent than their voters. And that is a very sorry state of affairs indeed.

-what we choose to see-

(Disclaimer: The reason I chose not to live in Flanders is NOT because of discontent with life there. It's mainly to do with the staggering flatness of the place not lending itself to forms of entertainment such as hiking, bouldering, wild games of hide-&-seek and general outdoorsiness.)