Similar thing has been happening here with access to a range of government services. Job centres. I got a shock back in January, trying to help a grown up daughter who was sick, navigating a system that can work superfast when it wants to. But for the user, the online requirement is actually an obstacle course. No such thing as linear progress. This sounds like a snapshot of a social infrastructure collapse, whether orchestrated or imploding under its own weight. In a dystopian novel called The Four Gated City, by Doris Lessing, it all began with the inability to get a plumber to come and fix a dripping tap. I need to read that again. I hope the licence comes pronto, Syd.
First, thank you for listening. I appreciate it. Second, yes, it all felt dystopian. I remember thinking, "I don't belong in this world." I hope your daughter is doing better.
She might be, thank you Syd. A new part time job after a long black chapter of despair, Devil card style. You may feel you don't belong in this world, and in a sense, maybe you don't, star-traveller. But you make it better for being here. x
Too true. for good or ill (mostly ill). Hopefully without getting (too) political, the elephant in the room is that a certain party pushes downsizing, ostensibly so they can prove that government services really can be adequately done with less. Unfortunately (as a number of them have said in less guarded moments) the real agenda is to compress government until it's too small to do anything decently, thereby making self-fulfilling the prophecy that "government is the problem."
And in truth it is, the fly in the ointment being that it's *their* style of government that's the problem. *That*, of course, they will *never* admit, even when totally unconscious. And the "photo-ID" voting requirements they institute go custom-made hand-in-glove with that same intent, to make it as hard as possible for their adversaries (women, "those people," senior citizens, et al.) to vote. When you look (not even hard) at the hyper-specific language used in those laws, it's *very* obvious that they want to restrict voting, not make it easier/more secure. *This* old honest conservative really gets torqued about that sort of crap, since it most definitely is NOT in line with either "traditional conservative values" *or* The American Way.
Apologies for the rant; I didn't start it out to be that way. But like Mammy Yokum, "Ah has spoken."
Similar thing has been happening here with access to a range of government services. Job centres. I got a shock back in January, trying to help a grown up daughter who was sick, navigating a system that can work superfast when it wants to. But for the user, the online requirement is actually an obstacle course. No such thing as linear progress. This sounds like a snapshot of a social infrastructure collapse, whether orchestrated or imploding under its own weight. In a dystopian novel called The Four Gated City, by Doris Lessing, it all began with the inability to get a plumber to come and fix a dripping tap. I need to read that again. I hope the licence comes pronto, Syd.
First, thank you for listening. I appreciate it. Second, yes, it all felt dystopian. I remember thinking, "I don't belong in this world." I hope your daughter is doing better.
She might be, thank you Syd. A new part time job after a long black chapter of despair, Devil card style. You may feel you don't belong in this world, and in a sense, maybe you don't, star-traveller. But you make it better for being here. x
I think that is one of the sweetest things anyone has ever said to me. Thank you. 💕
Yes, he does. It's been almost 30 years since we last saw each other F2F, but he's still simpatico.
Too true. for good or ill (mostly ill). Hopefully without getting (too) political, the elephant in the room is that a certain party pushes downsizing, ostensibly so they can prove that government services really can be adequately done with less. Unfortunately (as a number of them have said in less guarded moments) the real agenda is to compress government until it's too small to do anything decently, thereby making self-fulfilling the prophecy that "government is the problem."
And in truth it is, the fly in the ointment being that it's *their* style of government that's the problem. *That*, of course, they will *never* admit, even when totally unconscious. And the "photo-ID" voting requirements they institute go custom-made hand-in-glove with that same intent, to make it as hard as possible for their adversaries (women, "those people," senior citizens, et al.) to vote. When you look (not even hard) at the hyper-specific language used in those laws, it's *very* obvious that they want to restrict voting, not make it easier/more secure. *This* old honest conservative really gets torqued about that sort of crap, since it most definitely is NOT in line with either "traditional conservative values" *or* The American Way.
Apologies for the rant; I didn't start it out to be that way. But like Mammy Yokum, "Ah has spoken."