Casting Light On Myths
Back in my sadly deluded childhood I used to read books. No really. In one of them, there was an account of the life of Jesse James, or more pointedly, the end of it. Now Jesse wasn't a Scottish homosexual as you might expect, but an American unemployed irregular soldier who took up banditry to pay the bills in the 19th century. Stranger than that, he became famous for being shot dead from behind by one of his mates.
Anyway, yesterday I saw a tv film about the man, and in typical modern Hollywood style he was depicted as a pretty boy hero, a martial arts expert, turning into a stuntman periodically n an effort to wreak vengeance on the dastardly railroad baron.
Its that birth of a legend. Robin Hood made the same transformation. We know him as the dispossessed Earl of Locksley, defender of the downtrodden Saxons against their Norman overlords, stealing from the rich and giving to the poor. So why did Errol Flynn burst into wealthy Nottingham Castle and hand back the stag he'd just illegally killed? Maybe things were different in the days of Black & White.
That happens to be my point. Look how these people change. They start as social undesirables, and end up becoming noble heroes that fight for the right to give movie stars two years work.
It's occured to me that as a social undesirable that won't conform, I stand a great chance of being remembered as a famous hero in two or three centuries.... Caldrail Hoody - The hero that claimed from the state and gave to the shops....
Switch Off of the Week
On the news I saw something about the Great Switch Off. Everyones supposed to turn their lights off to demonstrate they want action on global warming. Apparently this started two years ago in Sydney and no-one's found the on-switch since. This does mean of course that since the climate change brigade can't see anything in front of their face, they're not going to able to change anything whatsoever. After all, is it not true that ideas come with light bulbs?
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