AMERICA ON DRUGS.....

A recent finding reported on NBC News that the use of anti-depressants has increased by 400% in the past three years was more than alarming.  It is estimated that 1 in 10 American adults are taking mood altering medication.  There are proposals that grief be treated as a disorder and treated with drugs.  And they believe they are the beacon of democratic society.  

Something has gone wrong.  The aspiration for a perfect life is embodied in the opening credits for the Real Beverly Hills Housewives with the statement... 'Most people think I've got it all...but I want more.'

I like the Real Beverly Hills Housewives.  I can imagine being a neighbour and watching my over the top neighbours through my twitching curtains.  I do not live in the United States but I like watching American News and Lifestyle.  Now that guilty pleasure is actually disturbing me.  Perhaps I need medication.

Gray Dourman

http://www.magichelix.com/   

SCOTTISH NATIONALISTS AND EUROSCEPTICS ARE BLOODBROTHERS...

The idea of an independent Scotland is no different than the idea that the UK is not a natural and beneficial member of the European Union.  Both ideas are misguided and mistaken.  Greater integration of commerce, politics and citizenship is desirable.  It is the objective of gobalisation and the integration of humanity into a single, co-operating community.  There is nothing wrong with promoting cultural identity and uniqueness.  Scots can play all the bagpipes and eat all haggis they want.  English Eurosceptics can love Tony Hancock and drink all the tea they desire.  Yet should they want to withdraw from integrated markets, they in their corrupt nostalgic ideology, are returning to the ideas of protectionism and narrow pursuit of national interests that spawned the most destructive cataclysims of the C20th, the world wars.  When times were good we talked of a world economy that delivered prosperity on a fair and moral platform, of integration and shared wealth.  Let us not return to the evils of segregation, nationalism and isolation.  Say no to a return to the fractured state of little Britain, little Scotland, little......

Thank You
Gray Dourman

http://www.magichelix.com/ 

OLD ROCKERS ARE UNDIGNIFIED...

I saw Steven Tyler, the mouth from Areosmith sing the Star Spangled Banner at Sunday's NFL Championship game and I cringed.  I physically cringed.  Surgically enhanced, professionally styled, a sort of rock version of the Real Hollywood Housewives (highly recommended reality television), Tyler looked and sounded positively dreadful.  In his prime, he could rock, no doubt about it.  Nobody begrudges his long hair, although it appears to be totally fake.  He is a man of common sense and fair reason.  He has fathered an adequate actress, Liv.  But I am a senior citizen.  My whole cultural context emerged from rock.  It has been the soundtrack of my life.  I still listen to it, old and new.  So why did I react so viscerally?

There are aspects in our psychology as individuals that we are unaware of, yet which dictate our idea of ourselves.  Growing old disgracefully a catchy, whimsical idea when some cinema idol expresses the notion, in reality is something of an embarrassment.  It indicates that in truth we haven't grown at all.  If what excites in our dotage, is what excited us in our youth, we either didn't get enough of it, or didn't learn from it.  Tyler's absurd, rock scream at the end of the national anthem was more a cry for help than of defiance.

Best
Gray Dourman
www.magichelix.com    

THEY FORGAVE NEWT, BECAUSE HE CLAIMS GOD HAS...

The idea that a constituency with the democratic traditions of Republicans in South Carolina would actually vote for a man with a history of low moral and ethical choices as they have with Newt Gingrich just because he has asked for the forgiveness of God, is evidence that mature democracies display the same moral decay as all other forms of government.  No one, least of me, would begrudge any man a pardon from a higher authority for past sins, but to put that man in a position determine the well being of a wide and vulnerable society surely calls into question the collective sanity of the Palmetto State Republicans.   Mitt Romney ain't no angel and certainly has stains on his own  ethics and sense of fairness and there is absolutely no evidence that he believes in a collective and cohesive society, unless of course it offers opportunities for financial exploitation and as for that lunatic creationist Santorum, well.  And therein lies the dilemma as I see it.  What has happened to the United States of America?  Has greed and righteous arrogance destroyed the very thing many of us admired about the country, the freedom to believe as one believes, within the context of a society that has the capacity to act upon and reflect the wishes of the widest possible constituency.  Today I despair of what America has become and would welcome the emergence of a new moral leadership.

Regards

Gray Dourman

www.magichelix.com   

OUT HERE IN THE WILDERNESS

Completing Hunter S. Thompson's biography was almost as sad as the his ending.  It was a wonderful illustration of the futility of aspiration.  Success in whatever form is empty.  If one is compelled to do something, whatever it may be, from writing to watching TV, that is what must be done, for it is in the action of doing that the magic and joy of life emerges.  

For they say unto you, compromise or whither away. I say you whither away, anyway so do, not say. 

http://www.magichelix.com/core/sequence/diogenes.htm 

WHERE TO FROM HERE

The dawn of 2012 in London was grim and grey.  Inside, warm, comfortable, the good books about my bed, the gentle breathing of my lovely wife next to me, the snoring of my teenage son in the room next door, all remind me that amidst dry reality is the comfort of hope.  Just the idea that the new year may bring reward for past labour, recognition for past endeavour, a greater understanding of the whys and wherefores of personal and geopolitical history as it plays out on the streets, in the media, in parliament, in my home, is enough comfort my soul and quiet the anxious voices that scream 'THE END IS NIGH!' down the phone.  So here's wishing you all...a happy new year!