I'm late, I'm late, I'm very very late...

Browsing the net this week, I stumbled across this amazing mini-lecture on our changing perspective of time by Professor Philip Zimbardo of Stanford University, the mind behind the infamous Stanford Prison Experiment.

Perhaps most interesting is Professor Zimbardo's thoughts on how technology is rewiring our brains, and why, as consequence, the traditional cirriculum of active teacher-passive pupil and rote learning is doomed to fail.

The killing fields of Cumbria

Twelve people have been confirmed dead so far today after the carnage wrought by gunman Derrick Bird in the Cumbrian seaside town of Whitehaven.

As is so often the case, news networks quickly rounded up a gaggle of acquaintances and friends, who to a man described him as "polite", "mild-mannered", "placid". His friends said he was "good craig", while his local ladylady declared he was a good egg.

How, then, do we broach this gap between the public persona and the bloody reality of events? The Guardian reports a man who knew Mr Bird telling Radio 4: ""I can't see how this piece fits into his jigsaw. It's just completely out of place."

Perhaps, scary though it is to admit, the truth is that we don't need to. Maybe it is quite possible to be a well-functioning citizen and a cold-blooded killer? Isn't that the basis of shows like Dexter, where we root for the serial murderer on the flimsy premise that he only, er, y'know, murders bad guys?

The Not So Big As You Imagined Society

One of the great fallacies/thought farts of this election has been Cameron's idea of the "Big Society", which basically translates as: "should you have any problems, it's not our fault, you're on your own kiddo."

This is politicians abdicating responsibility, giving up on The State. It harks back in the most transparent way to Thatcher, whose genius was to somehow convince the British electorate that, even after unemployment had reached 3 million, it wasn't the State's place to intervene.

And if you don't believe me, how about this from the Times, not usually the most Labour-friendly of papers:

"If the Conservatives get in, Osborne will be overseeing the biggest spending squeeze since 1945 as they engage in their traditional pastime of scaling back the welfare state. Over the decades, the main task of any Tory administration has been to come up with a new, euphemistic way of describing how it will scale back the welfare state. Cameron's pop is the coining of the phrase 'Big Society'. Big Society, charities and voluntary organisations will, apparently, step in and pick up the slack in areas where once the welfare state existed.

For anyone wondering if this might work, Cameron's former tutor at Oxford, Vernon Bognador, appeared to explain:

"That is the philosophy of the 19th century," he said, briskly. "What does 'Big Society' really mean? That if you become destitute the Salvation Army will step in? It doesn't work. That's why we invented the State."

The Frontline of Homelessness

I arrive just before midnight on a windswept Yorkshire evening (let's face it, aren't they all?) to meet Fred Tidball, 63, and Dan Copperwheat, 21, Night Support Workers at St George’s Crypt in Leeds.

The crypt was converted in 1930 by the Reverend Don Collins to provide solace to those feeling the hardships of the Depression and now operates at what Dan calls “the frontline of homelessness in Leeds", the only place prepared to take the “street homeless” (those with no bed for the night and no referral). Service-users frequently include those suffering from alcoholism, drug and gambling addictions, mental illness or domestic violence.

I am met at the door by Dan, a Sports Science student at Leeds Met University, who ushers me into a small reception area with small brown leather armchairs and a white tiled floor. First impressions are good. If this was a hotel, I’d happily stay in it, the result of an elegant refit unveiled in February this year. I hear Fred before I see him, a booming disembodied voice echoing through the corridors. A former alcoholic himself, who lived homeless for several years, he has worked at the Crypt since 2006 and greets me with a knuckle-crunching handshake.

The revamp (covered by the Guardianlocal here) was more than cosmetic though, and the hostel now offers more than just a meal and a bed for the night. Team leaders work throughout the week to find clients new, more permanent accommodation. As Dan poetically puts it: “Now it’s not just a plaster on a gunshot wound.” Nevertheless, the crypt only has fifteen rooms, so they inevitably have to turn people away, a fact sorely acknowledged by Dan, who tells me: "I’d love to be able to take everyone, but we just physically can’t.”

It’s a peaceful night tonight, a few groups of young men pass through, but that isn’t always so. Dan calls it “a challenging job, perhaps the most challenging”. Fred tells me that in the four years he has been at the Crypt, he has been threatened with knifes, broken bottles, one man told him he’d set him on fire, and one even pulled a gun. “I told him if he didn’t put it away, he’d be leaving the Crypt with metal fillings,” he tells me with a mischievous smile.

Nevertheless, the pair’s enthusiasm for the job appears undimmed. Both practising Christians (though Fred is keen to stress that he isn’t the “bash-people-over-the-head-with-a-Bible-kind”), the pair stress that the positives far outweigh the negatives and both talk of the job in terms of a religious vocation. "You wouldn't do this job if you didn't have some sort of calling," is how Fred puts it to me.

Asked of the frustrations of their jobs, they cite the fact that they often don’t get to hear about the success stories (interestingly, a paramedic friend told me a similar thing recently). Dan is pragmatic about this though: “people are not here to rebuild their lives, we’re here to bridge the gap between homelessness and sustainable, ‘positive’ accommodation.” Fred qualifies this slightly: "we're not here to rebuilt their lives, but we are here to encourage them to take the next step."

There are good news stories though, and it's those that make it worthwhile. Fred regales me with a story about a former resident at the crypt who he helped get off the drink. "He paid me the greatest compliment I've ever had," Fred tells me. "He said, "You're the most devious bastard I've ever met." But he meant it in a good way!"

As I wind the interview up, Fred approvingly quoting Muhammad Ali line "Even if I emptied garbage cans, I'd aspire to be the best garbage collector there was." It seems a perfect encapsulation of the commitment and passion they demonstrate for their job. As he says as he shows me out, back into the alcohol-fuelled chaos of a Saturday night in central Leeds: “At the end of the day, we’re all here for the folks that come through that door”.


For more information on the work done at St George's Crypt, and the work that they do, see: http://www.stgeorgescrypt.org.uk/

I want money, that's what I want...

A brilliant piece of spoofery from American satire sheet the Onion, daring to imagine a world in which those in control of global money flows woke up and smelt the coffee.

http://www.theonion.com/content/news/u_s_economy_grinds_to_halt_as

Protestors, Put The Eggs Down

I watched the recent egg-throwing protest against the BNP with a sinking feeling in the pit of my stomach.

As BNP leader Nick Griffin fled the scene, faced besplattered with yoke, the ambient irony levels were raised to intergalatic proportions by Unite Against Fascism member Donna Guthrie, who told the BBC: "We don't believe in free speech for fascists".

Now egg-throwing might be cathartic, and it might "signal opposition", but it is an idealistic pipedream to think that such stunts will make BNP voters question why the party incites such heated opposition. On the contrary, it's far more likely to have several extremely counter-productive effects:

1) It immediately puts the backs up of everyone who voted BNP. The message it sends, in essence, is: "Dear electorate, you were wrong to vote for this man. Please try again." Which is perhaps not the message Anti-Fascism campaigners want to send to a nation of voters who already feel frustrated and patronised.

2) Egg-throwing gives credence to the BNP's notion that there is a "liberal conspiracy" that prevents people from talking honestly and openly about race and immigration. The irony of a protest against mob rule consisting of an elected MEP being screamed at by a mob, pelted with eggs (an act which is, technically, an assault), forced to flee and then having his car surrounded is a bit much to take. Which leads me on to the most important point:

WE NEED PEOPLE TO HEAR WHAT THE BNP ACTUALLY STAND FOR

An awful lot of swing voters who voted BNP did so on the grounds that the three mainstream parties had failed them, so now "it's time to give them a chance" or "let's see what they have to say". And that's exactly what needs to happen - their views need to be exposed. You only had to witness Nick Griffin squirming under David Dimbleby's questionning to realise that this was the way forward. He needs to be asked, again and again:

1. what would you do for the health service? In particular how would you deal with chronic understaffing problem caused by your immigration policy?

2. Remind us, why is it black people can't join the party?

3. So, what happens if everyone rejects your offer of voluntary repatriation?

Of course, there's also an important distinction to be made between what the all-new, shiny rebranded BNP claim they want to do (e.g. softly-softly voluntary repatriation for those who moved here post-Windrush) and the reality (for example, watch Nick Griffin telling a room of American Nationalists that hopefully one day the BNP would be in a position to say that "every last one must go"):


This, then, is our challenge, to publicize the true face of the BNP. Denying them a platform to speak is simply letting them off the hook. To use a good solid racist metaphor, let's give them the rope to hang themselves with.

and finally...

3) Tossing dairy products at racists simply demonstrates to a lot of the nation that the BNP are disliked by worthy, politicized students. Which, frankly, for a lot of people is a good enough reason to vote for them.

Why Economists Are in Need of Some Greek Tragedy

This week, Alan Greenspan, the man who held the world's purse strings in his hands from 1987 to 2006 as Chairman of the Federal Reserve, admitted to a congressional committee that his hands-off, free market ideology was beginning to spring leaks. His words make for fascinating reading. Asked by Congressman Henry Waxman "Were you wrong?", Greenspan replied:

Partially...I made a mistake in presuming that the self-interest of organisations, specifically banks, is such that they were best capable of protecting shareholders and equity in the firms...I discovered a flaw in the model that I perceived is the critical functioning structure that defines how the world works. The overall view I take of regulation is, I took an oath of office when I became Federal Reserve chairman. I'm here to uphold the laws of the land passed by Congress, not my own predilections.

What's really surprising about Greenspan's admission to the House of Representatives is just how flimsy his basic dogma seems in the wake of recent developments. Conventional economics has always treated people and organisations as rational actors who will always act in their own self-interest. The absurd presumptiousness of this position, even its silliness, should be clear to any layperson. Most people would surely concur with Jonathan Swift, writer of Gulliver's Travels, when he wrote to his friend, the poet Alexander Pope, of "the falsity of that Definition animale rationale, and to show it should be only animale rationis capax." Put simply: man is not a rational actor, merely capable of rationality.

People do things all the time that are damaging to their self-interest: abuse drugs or alcohol, sleep with an unsuitable person, fail to control their temper or emotions. The Greek's even bequeathed us a word for it - cacoethes, defined by Chambers Dictionary as "a bad habit or itch; an uncontrollable urge or desire". Shock horror, driven by greed or just a desire to continually create and open up new markets rather than shore up existing ones, bankers might not always act in the interests of their banks or clients. They are fallible, not acting for our best interests in the best of all possible worlds.

Still, given that ideology is so unfashionable in both American and British politics at present, Greenspan's words seemed almost otherworldly, as he presented his realization of "flaws" as a kind of religious doubt, a wavering of his faith in complete deregulation. When Congressionman Waxman pressed: "You found that your view of the world, your ideology, was not right, it was not working?", Greenspan essentially agreed: "That's precisely the reason I was shocked because I'd been going for 40 years or so with considerable evidence that it was working exceptionally well."

So how has the media responded to Greenspan's bombshell? Jim Randel at the Huffington Post applauds Greenspan's forthcomingness "in acknowledging that he miscalculated the events which have led to the worst financial crisis in the United States since the Great Depression." Randel paints the former Fed Reserve Chairman as an ideologue living in the "Washtington bubble", blind to the anarchic reality that deregulation has created.

This airy attitude to risk does seem to characterise Greenspan's tenure in the Federal Reserve. For instance Greenspan was an enthusiastic backer of deriatives, the chopped-up parcels of saleable debt that brought inter-bank lending to a standstill. As Greenspan told the Senate Banking Committee in 2003:

"What we have found over the years in the marketplace is that derivatives have been an extraordinarily useful vehicle to transfer risk from those who shouldn't be taking it to those who are willing to and are capable of doing so. We think it would be a mistake to more deeply regulate."

Come the credit crunch, Greenspan was left floundering: "Those of us who have looked to the self-interest of lending institutions to protect shareholder's equity, myself especially, are in a state of shocked disbelief. Such counter-party surveillance is a central pillar of our financial market's state of balance."