Making the news today....

[kevinjohnsonmbe]

12 minutes ago, Gimlet said:

The theme park mentality is evident everywhere you look with the anthropomorphising of animals, a woeful ignorance of the native species of these islands, both fauna and flora, and the idea that nature is a sideshow for human entertainment and the countryside a public playground, a place to use, abuse and consume rather than curate as custodians.

 

TPM is a reality. We live amongst it. It's in government, the media, represented in every newspaper letters page, and it saturates social media. When you live and work in the countryside, you don't have to go looking for it. It slaps you in the face every day. I was merely anxious to ascertain that another subscriber to baby-think had not been appointed to the cabinet. 

My cautious optimism was that, early indications were that in Eustace (regardless of his ministerial proficiency) it had not. I hope I am proved right. A useless minister who means no harm would be far less destructive than a gifted vandal.

 

 

Fundamentally, I’d suggest, it depends on whether one’s opinion is based upon the view that agriculture, and those responsible for it, are perceived as ‘custodians’ of the countryside or as the culprits of The industrial exploitation of it. 
 

There are, obviously and inevitably, degrees of interpretation and areas of middle ground.

 

For my part, I certainly don’t have any optimism that Eustice will play the middle ground at a time when wholesale review and redirection of agriculture and countryside stewardship presents itself after Brexit. 

 

Next time you get that smack in the face, try asking yourself, Am I just casting my gaze upon that which I’ve become accustomed to seeing or should / could it actually be better if I opened my mind...

 

 

 

 

[Guest Gimlet]

My mind has never been closed. Nor have my eyes and I've never much liked what I've had to cast my gaze upon. You mistake me if you think I'm a standard bearer for super-industrial agriculture. Yes there is indeed a huge post-Brexit opportunity to de-politicise and de-corporatise an agricultural industry that has been driven into a productivity and environmental cul-de-sac by our imprisonment in the CAP. 

 

I'm not suggesting Eustice will be a good minister, nor do I support him because I know nothing about him. That was why I posed the question in the first place. I was guardedly relieved only that he didn't appear to be an urban fantasist. Whether he is a step in the right direction or the continuity candidate for subsidy-milking big agri I've no idea. But I will be judging by actions and results not third party opinion.

 

 

 

 

Edited February 13, 2020 by Gimlet

[kevinjohnsonmbe]

13 hours ago, Gimlet said:

As he's from a farming background (1) and has experience of that ministry (2) and isn't an infantilised urban ecomentalist who thinks the countryside should be a Farthing Wood theme park (3), I'm cautiously optimistic about his appointment. For what reasons should I not be? (4)

 

10 hours ago, Gimlet said:

I'm not suggesting Eustice will be a good minister (5), nor do I support him because I know nothing about him (6). That was why I posed the question in the first place. I was guardedly relieved only that he didn't appear to be an urban fantasist (7). Whether he is a step in the right direction or the continuity candidate for subsidy-milking big agri I've no idea. But I will be judging by actions and results not third party opinion (8).

(1) At best, damned by faint praise; more likely (IMHO) set to become a lacky of the NFU and a champion for continuation of the recent historic exceptionally poor practice - not least of which, that which financially rewards corporate, 'charitable' and landowning interests to the direct detriment of the actual workers of the land and the environment.

 

(2) Forgive me for forming the impression that you appear to have a tangible antagonism towards those with the temerity to speak out against current species / habitat loss and environmental exploitation in modern agriculture.  Have I made an unfair assessment?   Who are these 'infantilised urban ecomentalists' that you rail against?  Name names, let's have a good look at them....

 

(3) '...cautiously optimistic...' has changed to "...nor do I support him because I know nothing about him...'  and '...I'm not suggesting Eustice will be a good minister...  I'll just leave that there...

 

(4) See (1) & (3)

 

(5) See (3)

 

(6) See (3)

 

(7) See (2)

 

(8) Maybe some common ground there and that's why I viewed Gove (albeit an easily 'unlikable' type) as one of the best, briefly, in recent times. 

 

 

[kevinjohnsonmbe]

11 hours ago, Gimlet said:

The theme park mentality is evident everywhere you look with the anthropomorphising of animals, a woeful ignorance of the native species of these islands, both fauna and flora, and the idea that nature is a sideshow for human entertainment and the countryside a public playground, a place to use, abuse and consume rather than curate as custodians.

 

TPM is a reality. We live amongst it. It's in government, the media, represented in every newspaper letters page, and it saturates social media. When you live and work in the countryside, you don't have to go looking for it. It slaps you in the face every day. I was merely anxious to ascertain that another subscriber to baby-think had not been appointed to the cabinet. 

My cautious optimism was that, early indications were that in Eustace (regardless of his ministerial proficiency) it had not. I hope I am proved right. A useless minister who means no harm would be far less destructive than a gifted vandal.

 

 

It wasn't so much a request for an explanation of TPM but rather an ironic reference to your use of the 'confirmation bias' phrase....  Maybe too subtle?

Edited February 14, 2020 by kevinjohnsonmbe

[Stubby]

Caroline Flack is dead so my son tells me . No idea who that is . Shame though .

[Khriss]

41 minutes ago, Stubby said:

Caroline Flack is dead so my son tells me . No idea who that is . Shame though .

... Husband beater allegedly, saddened for her family. K

[Commando]

Complete waste of a life....the pressures of falling from grace I guess. Very sad

[Mark J]

"Go on it, get those salacious media tidbits; click on the papers sites that profit from destroying people, that divide the country, that answer to none.
Being a violent person makes you a ****. But profiteering from that misery, not seeing it as morally reprehensible but instead as a pay packet, makes you a vulture ****.
But it only exists because of demand.
Read the details of the misery, click to find out more, you'll not believe what happened next.
And if you buy their sordid papers, buy their tawdry magazines, click on their ragebait websites, watch the bullshit tv, you're encouraging it.
How many people from these shitty "reality" tv programs are dead now? The same bullshittery that has given us an endless horde of overpreened morons and a cadre of shit****s like Trump, Sugar, Hopkins.
But keep watching them.
Keep clicking on those stories.
Keep the machine going.
Keep the death and hate and media shittery and moronic banality soiling our existence. "
Jez Hunt.

[Mark Bolam]

Poor lass.

You’re right Mark, the hypocrisy is staggering and sickening in equal measure.

[Stubby]

10 hours ago, Mark J said:

"Go on it, get those salacious media tidbits; click on the papers sites that profit from destroying people, that divide the country, that answer to none.
Being a violent person makes you a ****. But profiteering from that misery, not seeing it as morally reprehensible but instead as a pay packet, makes you a vulture ****.
But it only exists because of demand.
Read the details of the misery, click to find out more, you'll not believe what happened next.
And if you buy their sordid papers, buy their tawdry magazines, click on their ragebait websites, watch the bullshit tv, you're encouraging it.
How many people from these shitty "reality" tv programs are dead now? The same bullshittery that has given us an endless horde of overpreened morons and a cadre of shit****s like Trump, Sugar, Hopkins.
But keep watching them.
Keep clicking on those stories.
Keep the machine going.
Keep the death and hate and media shittery and moronic banality soiling our existence. "
Jez Hunt.

And in spite of all the above I still don't know who she is/was ....