Cradlegrave

[The Legendary Shark]

A lot of people, not just on this thread but everywhere, have opinions on whose fault it is that society seems to be falling apart. Some blame economics, some blame governments, some blame the justice system, some blame the parents, some blame the offenders themselves, some blame the media, some blame immigrants and some even blame aliens or the shadowy machinations of Illuminati-like secret groups.

I've thought deeply about this in the past and my conclusion was unsettling and embarrassing. You see, it's my fault.

I put up with the fact that there's nothing for kids to do in my area or in many other parts of my country. I put up with my politicians not keeping their election promises and seeing election as a goal rather than a job. I put up with Profit being the driving force behind everything. I put up with the top 10% of the population of my country owning 90% of my country's wealth. I put up with the very idea that there are underprivileged areas in my beloved islands and that there's not enough money to invest in my people. I put up with pundits demonising certain elements of my society. I put up with a lot of shit and, because I put up with it, many of my fellow countrymen (and countrywomen, of course) are suffering. I put up with the idea that there's nothing I can do about it.

Well, that's all bollocks and I don't have to put up with any of it.

I know I can't change it all on my own, but I can do my bit. I refuse to be intimidated by the moody teens that gather on the playing field at the top of my road and I refuse to get upset by the empty cans and broken bottles they leave behind them. I often pick up after them and put their rubbish in the bin when I'm out walking the dog. I don't do this for myself and I don't do it for the kids; I do it for the unknown 5 year old who'll be charging about the field one afternoon and doesn't particularly want to spend time in hospital with slivers of broken Stella bottles in his feet. I do it because I have pride in my village, my county, my country and, most of all, in my neighbours - yes, even the assholes. Maybe I'm a loony, I don't know, but I think that if more of us showed just a little pride in our communities, admitted that it's our fault and performed just a couple of selfless acts a week then this country would be a much better place.

It's my fault and I can't put everything right, but I can do my bit.

"Do not wait for leaders; do it alone, person to person."
Mother Teresa (August 26, 1910 - September 5, 1997)



Oh, and Cradlegrave was awesome.

[JayzusB.Christ]

I often pick up after them and put their rubbish in the bin when I'm out walking the dog. I don't do this for myself and I don't do it for the kids; I do it for the unknown 5 year old who'll be charging about the field one afternoon and doesn't particularly want to spend time in hospital with slivers of broken Stella bottles in his feet.

Fair play, I try to do the same myself round where i live.  I spent years and years complaining about the litter in Ireland then realised I was doing absolutely fuck all about it myself.  It's like voting, I suppose - your complaints about the government mean absolutely zero if you never even tried to vote them out.

[House of Usher]

Well, one does what one can. Once, when I was unemployed and writing up a dissertation, I used to pick up all the bottles and cans on my walk to Tesco and by the time I got to the recycling banks I always had a carrier bag full. And I reprimanded the college superintendant's kid for dropping a Mars bar wrapper. I picked it up and held it out and said "I think you dropped something." That's a favourite phrase of mine (when I've assessed the level of risk and worked out my exits). An old lady in my neighbourhood picked up a crisp packet in her front garden and threw it over her garden gate into the street. I went straight over and as she disappeared back indoors I picked it up again and threw it back into her garden. And I vigorously kicked a car blocking the pavement outside the front of Tesco Metro, where lazy arseholes are always parking on the pavement despite double yellow lines and the abundance of parking round the back, and the service the store offers whereby they push your trolley through the back of the store for you.

These days I'm far too busy scraping together a living to devote much time to putting the world to rights, but I feel I'm still doing a bit for society by working in a low-paid community education job and making eight adult ed. courses available which otherwise wouldn't be. Not that it really helps to reduce crime and antisocial behaviour on the estates.

[TordelBack]

I often pick up after them and put their rubbish in the bin when I'm out walking the dog.

I'm practically religious about picking up bottles (in particular) and cans when I see them, still bearing a large crescent scar on the underside of my foot from one unpleasant experience at the Sandymount sea baths as a nipper.  Walking our favourite beach on Summer weekends, we take bin liners with us and usually fill one each (half dozen, on a Bank Holiday).  There's a recycling centre in the fucking carpark ferfuxache.    My mother has a nice collection of abandoned tents she's collected from the sand-dunes and cleaned up, very handy for sourcing replacement poles and guys when the need arises (aw c'mon lads, it's my mother).

I too adore the phrase "I think you've dropped something" (carefully employed), and it almost always has the desired effect (assuming you pick your targets).  

Did I mention (more than 20 times) that littering is my pet peeve?  For me, it's the simplest indication of a failure to understand a connection between oneself and one's fellows and  environment, and big glaring sign saying "I'm all that matters, and anyway none of this is of my making".  It's also one of the clearest shortcomings of applying Rational Choice Theory to crime.  If we're all equally likely to commit a crime, and equally likely to be detected, why do some of us litter and some of us pick it up?  Why do some people clean up their dog's shit even when they're out of sight of their peers, and others leave it for the next toddler to fall into?  The determining factor is an understanding that we as individuals and groups influence, even create, our environments rather than having them forced us on by some outside power that we must resist through bloody minded selfishness.

That John Smith and his sprawling cancer grannies, doesn't half make you think.

[JayzusB.Christ]

Did I mention (more than 20 times) that littering is my pet peeve?  For me, it's the simplest indication of a failure to understand a connection between oneself and one's fellows and  environment, and big glaring sign saying "I'm all that matters, and anyway none of this is of my making". 

Hear hear. What gets me too is the so-called patriots with tricolour tattoos dropping litter all over the country they so deeply adore.

[Peter Wolf]

they dont like it when their victim fights back.

Ah, yeah, but sometimes they stab you in the head with screwdriver. That's what most people are scared of which stops them fighting back. Always assess the level of threat and know where your exits are.

Its a jungle out there.Perhaps i have just been fortunate to never have had to disarm anyone with a knife or whatever.I never really think about the risk TBH and i just do what i have to do if i have no choice and its unavoidable and i can become rather unpleasent if someone i dont know takes liberties and invades my personal space .


They are better off finding someone else to abuse or annoy or beat up because if they choose me then they have chosen the wrong person.

*

I quite often pick up litter outside here and clear the church garden across the road as i cant stand the sight of litter.
Why do some people drop litter and others dont ?

All i know is that some people are stupid and lazy and selfish with no pride in themselves or their surroundings.

Other than that i was always taught that dropping litter is wrong and i got such a bollocking for dropping litter in the street on a family day out to Tunbridge Wells when i was 12 that i can still remember it to this day.Suffice to say i never did it again.I think upbringing has a lot to do with it.

[Peter Wolf]

Not an unsatisfactory conclusion to this strip and it seems pretty final.It wasnt the ending i expected although i didnt know what ending to expect anyway.

It seems like Mary was some kind of insectoid creature and she finally gave birth to lots of little insectoid creatures.It makes me wonder how she managed to reproduce without the assistance of another insectoid creature unless she had the help of one of the human characters.Just a thought.

I read it as the sound of crunching celery and the screams that was described in the final episode was the destruction of the little insectoid creatures like they were being squashed or something like that.

The end seemed pretty final .

[House of Usher]

It's also one of the clearest shortcomings of applying Rational Choice Theory to crime.

Digression:

On another site I'm currently engaged in an argument with Ayn Rand enthusiasts. What an odd lot! They're going on about how rational self-interest is the only basis for morality; altruism is immoral and so is welfare provision, etc. Now they've started bringing up charity, which is a right laugh! Marxists deny the need for charity, because the state should provide through collectivised resources and shared responsibility. In Buddhism, Islam and Christianity, charity is a religious duty. In Ayn Rand's atheist laissez-faire capitalism, there's no element of duty involved in the provision of charity, so why would anyone, acting according to rational self-interest, give charity to anyone else? What a lot of mean-spirited wankers.

I read it as the sound of crunching celery and the screams that was described in the final episode was the destruction of the little insectoid creatures like they were being squashed or something like that.

I think you may be the only one. I think everybody else read it as the sound of larval insect maxillae or radulae devouring Skully. Thanks for getting us back onto Cradlegrave again!

[Dog Deever]

Hats off to ye Shark- I'm in total agreement with your sentiments-
"If you want to change the world, better start by changing yourself."
"It's in the mirror that the real war starts."

[Peter Wolf]

It's also one of the clearest shortcomings of applying Rational Choice Theory to crime.

Digression:

On another site I'm currently engaged in an argument with Ayn Rand enthusiasts. What an odd lot! They're going on about how rational self-interest is the only basis for morality; altruism is immoral and so is welfare provision, etc. Now they've started bringing up charity, which is a right laugh! Marxists deny the need for charity, because the state should provide through collectivised resources and shared responsibility. In Buddhism, Islam and Christianity, charity is a religious duty. In Ayn Rand's atheist laissez-faire capitalism, there's no element of duty involved in the provision of charity, so why would anyone, acting according to rational self-interest, give charity to anyone else? What a lot of mean-spirited wankers."

I had to laugh when i found out that Alan Greenspan is a follower of the doctrine of Objectivism.

[House of Usher]

I had to laugh when i found out that Alan Greenspan is a follower of the doctrine of Objectivism.

That's something the Rand followers are arguing about. Apparently Greenspan is some kind of terrible splitter and his actions are completely divergent from her 'philosophy': "What Greenspan did as Chairman of the Fed was in contradiction to Ayn Rand's beliefs. Greenspan was no follower of Ayn Rand's ideas. If he did cause the financial crisis because of his constant manipulation of interest rates it was his own doing, certainly not Ayn Rand's." It's only Ayn Rand's followers who were angry at Greenspan. Nobody on the other side of argument has even mentioned him or engaged with Rand's supporters disavowal of Greenspan and his actions.

[Peter Wolf]

It cant have been Ayn rands fault as she is dead.

Of course it was his own doing.What a stupid comment.However they are partly right though.

Its sounds like the Rand followers are trying to distance themselves from Greenspan because they dont want the association but he is/was a follower and he attended her funeral.

Followers claim he has been acting in opposition to Rands ideas for 40 yrs yet he liberalised the money markets etc which let the financial sector more or less do what it wanted to do and then when it all went wrong which it was obvious it was going to do although he claims it wasnt he tries to blame the collapse on his philosophy that the self interest of banking organisations etc would mean that they would be capable of regulating themselves and would act responsibly.

Which they didnt.

He may not have followed her ideas to the letter as she wasnt an economist but i think its safe to say that he was influenced by her and adopted her ideas or philosophy into an economic model.

Objectivism advocates personal freedom and property rights for individuals but so does Capitalism but there are certain areas of life where that shouldnt apply and it was idiotic to let the banking/investment sector act out of self interest and regulate itself.

[Peter Wolf]

Alan Shrugged.

 

[Emperor]

I suppose it had to happen:

A wannabe Don Juan was tempted to a motel in Wisconsin by the prospect of a tryst with one of his numerous lovers. But instead of a night of passion, according to court documents, he found himself confronted by four angry women – among them his wife and another girlfriend – and on the receiving end of a revenge attack grisly enough to make any philanderer think again.

Prosecutors are investigating the convoluted incident that ended with the man tied to a bed with his penis superglued to his stomach, an apparent punishment for his womanising ways.

www.guardian.co.uk/world/2009/aug/04/philanderer-has-penis-superglued

I await the news that kids on run down estates have started suckling black, oily milk from the suppurating teats of some monstrous OAP.

[House of Usher]

Prosecutors are investigating the convoluted incident that ended with the man tied to a bed with his penis superglued to his stomach, an apparent punishment for his womanising ways.

They just got the idea from Rose in Two and a Half Men.