Simplisme

I’ve enjoyed Natalie Solent’s writing over at the Samizdatian lair for well over a decade, and this latest one of hers is no disappointment.  The actual topic is some MEGO (my eyes glaze over) piece of political arcana called “Tactical Voting Websites” or some such rubbish, but it was her description of the ultimate microwave oven (seriously) which got me going — a microwave which she bought for her father, who didn’t want anything complicated or he wouldn’t use it.  Here are its technical specs:

It had two dials, How Hot and How Long.

Compare that to her own modern one which does everything (badly) and has features which she has never used, and that probably puts her in the company of just about, well, everyone in the world.

I would buy one of her father’s microwave ovens in a heartbeat, as long as it had one teeny-weeny additional feature:  the 30-second one-touch full-strength blaster — but I wouldn’t cry bitter tears if it didn’t.

You know what’s coming, don’t you?  Compare and contrast:

On the left:  useless shit that over-complicates your life and costs far too much, all while achieving pretty much the same result as the fine stuff on the right.

Don’t even get me started on cell phones.  As far as I’m concerned, mobile phones could have stopped right here in terms of design:

…while adding all the later system features we’ve come to know and love [eyecross].  (Am I the only one who needs about twenty minutes to send an intelligible 3-line text on an iPhone or Android phone?  Great Mercury’s blistered fingers:  do they design modern phones’ “keyboards” using a three-year-old girl’s fingertips as the model size?)

I’m not a Luddite, by any means.  I am an unabashed follower of Occam’s Razor, however, which in this context means that simple tasks can best be accomplished using non-complex tools — “best” being a combination of utility and cost.

Nativists

The word “nativism” is often used as a pejorative term, referring to people who are chauvinistic and want to restrict their country’s inhabitants to its “native” peoples, or likewise want to preserve the country’s original culture (whatever that is).

There’s another kind of nativism that has nothing at all to do with the people  of the country, but of its flora and fauna.  Ignoring the animals (fauna) for a moment, let’s look at the flora (foliage, plants and trees).  An example of this is (of course) South Africa, where there has been a great push to restrict and even destroy what are called “foreign” plants — even if said plants were imported more than a century earlier and are now as “native” as any other plant.  Thus the jacaranda trees, which are so popular and so widespread that the nation’s capital Pretoria is known as the “Jacaranda City”, and the northern suburbs of Johannesburg are likewise full of these trees with their gorgeous purple flowers.  Here’s an aerial view of Joburg’s northern suburbs:

…and what it looks like at street level:

But to the Seffrican government, because the trees originally came from South America (back in the 1880s), they are “foreign”, may no longer be planted or even maintained, and in fact can be chopped down for firewood without penalty.  Sic semper Africanis.

But that’s not the full purpose of this rant.  This is.

Let’s say that you own an area of great natural beauty, but a bunch of the fauna in the area are not native to the area.  So you partner with an organization which concerns itself with the “national heritage”, agree with them to restore the area to its original state, and set about removing various shrubs, flowers and bushes.  Then the following happens:

Scottish Natural Heritage had agreed a tree management plan for ‘selective felling’ of non-native trees on the island in 2013 but did not tell landowner Luss Estates of the change to the plan for the widespread killing of more than 300 trees.

David Maclennan, SNH area manager for Argyll and the Outer Hebrides, said: ‘Although Luss Estates was party to the original management agreement in 2013, which posited the removal of rhododendron and, by selective felling, of ‘non-native species’ over a five year period, Scottish Natural Heritage accepts that the subsequent amendment, which proposed to kill all the beech trees on Inchtavannach in a single operation by chemical injection of glyphosate was not shared with Luss Estates Company.
‘SNH apologise for what was, with hindsight, an error on our part.
‘We should have ensured that Luss Estates Company was informed of and consented to the proposed operations.’
He added: ‘The speed, scale, and visual impact of the operation was much greater than anticipated and we recognise that this has caused considerable detriment and upset to Luss Estates Company and to Sir Malcolm Colquhoun personally. For this we unreservedly apologise.
‘There remains a need to undertake works to remove fallen timber from agreed areas – and we have offered to do this through a new agreement.’

Here’s a pic:

All those dead trees were poisoned by the SNH.  And forgive me, but a little “oopsie” apology wouldn’t cut it with me.

Were I Sir Malcolm Colquhoun (the owner of the estate), the “new agreement” would insist that the poxy SNH not only pay for the removal of the dead beech trees but also take on the cost of planting new fully-grown trees as replacements (look up how much it costs to replant a single fully-grown pine or oak tree, then multiply it by 300).  Then I would include in the agreement a demand for the hanging of the SNH manager who signed off on the poisoning action, and a public flogging of all the minions who actually performed the filthy deed.  (“Ve voss chust obeyink orders!” is indefensible.)

My ire in all this is not caused by the damage to the estate — at least, not much — but by the sheer fucking arrogance of an organization which thinks it can just ignore the property’s owner and do whatever they want.

And yes, I know that non-native species can cause damage to the indigenous fauna — witness the kudzu overgrowth in the Southern states of America — but beech trees are native to Britain (just maybe not in that area of poxy Scotland), so that was never a concern.  As far as I’m concerned, this is all of a part of the stupid Scottish Nationalist movement, where anything not Scottish is awful and needs to be removed or destroyed.

If I were His Lordship, once the dead trees are replaced I would order my groundskeepers to shoot these SNH pricks on site, but no doubt someone would have a problem with this.

Although the mindset of the South Africans and the Scots is identical, I can somewhat excuse the South African government’s war on the jacaranda because they’re stupid fucking Africans;  but the SNH weasels?  Strap them all to large rocks and toss them into Loch Lomond, the tartan fuckers.

Tough Question, Simple Answer

…I think.

Reader TR sends me this head-scratcher:

“I must ask a question. When you refer to apartheid, you — like nearly everyone else — refers to it as an ‘evil system.’  Given what has transpired since the end of apartheid, is it appropriate to rethink that?  With the chaos that South Africa has experienced as it has descended to the African mean of madness, perhaps a more appropriate viewpoint is to think that apartheid was simply a logical adaptation to the presence of a population that simply cannot support or sustain a First World standard of living, done by people who very much valued the First World society they had created.”

Let me address the several issues contained in the above.  To anyone who was exposed to its machinations — let alone directly affected by it, as most South African Blacks were — apartheid was  truly evil:  only the absence of extermination camps differentiated it from the Nazism of the 1940s.  In actuality, Blacks couldn’t live or work in “White” areas except by permit, couldn’t own businesses in White areas, couldn’t be promoted past a certain point when they did work outside the “Black” areas, and were forcibly resettled into Black “homelands” without legal redress or the ability to resist.  Social intercourse between Blacks and Whites were restricted, by law, to business interactions only — any kind of interracial sexual activity was legally classified as “immorality” and summarily banned, carrying appallingly-high penalties in the breach thereof.  Crimes by Whites against Blacks carried penalties far more lenient  — to the extent of semi-official toleration — than those by Blacks against Whites, which were severely punished.  The education system favored White children over Black children and continued throughout life — to where “White” universities were ubiquitous but “Black” universities could be counted on one hand, with a couple fingers left over.  (Lest anyone is offended by the comparison to Nazism, simply substitute “Jews” for “Blacks” and “Aryans” for “Whites”.  That would have been Germany, from 1933 to 1945.)

So the disappearance of apartheid cannot be seen as anything other than a Good Thing.

Now, what has replaced this abhorrent socio-political system is not good, at all;    indeed, what has since happened in South Africa is typical of most African countries:  massive corruption, bureaucratic inertia, inefficiency and incompetence, and a level of violence which makes Chicago’s South Side akin to a holiday resort.  (For those who wish to know the attribution for much of the above, I recommend reading the chapter entitled “Caliban’s Kingdoms” in Paul Johnson’s Modern Times.)  Where South Africa differs from other African countries is twofold:  where in the rest of Africa the preponderance of violence and oppression was Black on Black — and therefore ignored by the West — apartheid was a system of White  on Black oppression (and therefore more noticeable to Western eyes).  The second difference is that apartheid exacerbated the virulence of the “grievance” culture which demands reparations (financial and otherwise) for the iniquities of apartheid.  This continues to unfold, to where the homicide rate for White farmers — part of the taking of farmland from Whites — is one of the highest in the world, and the capture and conviction rates for the Black murderers among the lowest — a simple inversion of the apartheid era.

Speaking with hindsight, however, it would be charitable to suggest (as Reader TR has done) that apartheid was “simply a logical adaptation to the presence of a population that simply cannot support or sustain a First World standard of living, done by people who very much valued the First World society they had created.”  While that statement is undoubtedly true, up to a point, and it could be argued that apartheid was a pragmatic solution to the chaos evident throughout the rest of Africa, it cannot be used as an excuse.  Indeed, such a labeling would give, and has given rise to the notion that First World systems are inherently unjust, and a different label “colonialism” — which would include  apartheid — can be applied to the entirety of Western Civilization.

The fact of the matter is that when it comes to Africa, there is no good way.  First World — i.e. Western European — principles only work in a socio-political milieu in which principles such as the rule of law, free trade, non-violent transfer of political power and the Enlightenment are both understood and respected.  They aren’t, anywhere in Africa, except where such adherence can be worked to temporary local advantage.  Remember, in the African mindset there is no long-term thinking or consideration of consequence — which is why, for example, since White government (not just South African) has disappeared in Africa, the infrastructure continues to crumble and fail because of a systemic and one might say almost genetic indifference to its maintenance.  When a government is faced with a population of which 90% is living in dire poverty and in imminent danger of starvation, that government must try to address that first, or face the prospect of violent revolution.  It’s not an excusable policy, but it is understandable.

That said, there is no gain in rethinking apartheid’s malevolence, as Reader TR asks, because apartheid was never going to last anyway, and its malevolence was bound to engender a similar counter-malevolence once it disappeared.  Which is the main point to my thinking on Africa:  nothing works.  Africa is simply a train-smash continent, where good intentions come to nought, where successful systems and ideas fail eventually, and where unsuccessful systems (e.g. Marxism) also fail, just fail more quickly.

So there’s no point in reevaluating apartheid:  it was a savagely iniquitous and evil system, and the best thing that can be said about it is that it was no different to any other  tribal system already in existence in Africa — except that it was loudly and proudly unapologetic about its foundation (“Blacks are genetically inferior to Whites”), its goals (“protect the White race”) and intent (“keep the races apart”).

And yes, while apartheid existed South Africa worked better as a country — roads, medical care, electricity generation and distribution, financial systems and the economy all worked well, to the envy of the rest of the continent and even outside Africa.  But it was too evil a system to last, its benefits excluded too much of South Africa’s population and ultimately, its First World efficacy cannot be used to excuse it.

And many, many thanks to Reader TR for bringing up the topic.

Britfood

Now that we’ve all somewhat recovered from the gluttony of Thanksgiving and all the leftovers have finally been polished off, I believe it’s safe to approach the topic of food once more.

Some research was done in Britishland to see how its inhabitants view the country’s “traditional” dishes.  The foods were ranked on how the respondents placed them on a tier (“God” all the way down to “Crap”). (At this point, my Murkin Readers should refrain from saying “It’s ALL crap” because that would be wrong, and you would be at risk of being labeled “ignorant” by the owner of this here back porch.)

Here are the results:

Now, I have tasted every single dish* in the above, and in fact, I grew up eating a lot of them.  Some are not only beloved, but can be regarded as part of the extreme top of Kim’s Food Triangle.   (*I have never touched Jellied Eels, whose existence can only be ascribed to Satan’s Work, and the thought of ingesting the slimy shit makes me throw up in my mouth, and not a little either. )

Nevertheless, I beg to differ with many of the rankings, thus:

Some explanation ad comment:

  • Crumpets (a.k.a. English muffins) are really just toast, i.e. an accompaniment to a meal.  (Crêpes are another matter altogether, but they’re European, not British.)
  • Cottage- and shepherd pies taste like bland gray hamburger meat covered with mashed potato.  Ugh.
  • Steak ‘n kidney pie could easily make my “God” tier, come to think of it, as could bangers ‘n mash.
  • Welsh rarebit:  chunks of crispy toast in hot beer cheese with fresh tomato pieces… nom nom nom.  If I want to lure my kids over for dinner, I only have to say that this will be on the menu.
  • All the lower-tier dishes pretty much belong there, and I will only eat them out of politeness to my host.
  • I have no idea why sausage rolls weren’t included;  in fact their omission makes the entire study even more suspect than it already is.

All the rest should be self-explanatory.

Oh, and by the way: a “ploughman’s lunch” is not  as pictured in the chart;  made properly, it consists of a cheese roll, an apple and a pint of beer — being what would fit in a farm worker’s lunch bag without falling to pieces and/or messing up the inside of the bag.  I don’t know where they got all that other crap, but it’s bullshit.

Here’s my personal Trifecta Of Yummy:

Brekkie:

Lunch:

Dinner:

Were it not for the fact that Doctor Killjoy believes that weighing 500 lbs is A Bad Thing, I’d eat that lovely stuff each day forever.  With a sausage roll for tea.