Apathy Jack writes:

Right, I don't want to think about my school for a day or two but I still want to look at the idea of schools.

Of course, I'm too distracted to think of something properly, so I'll let this one be a Q and A session about New Zealand's schooling system.

Any questions?

If you can't think of any, feel free to use this as a discussion starter. (Article for those of you with dialup, but the videos are worth downloading for those of you with broadband.)

(And no, that isn't my school, but I am insanely jealous...)

Now, are you telling me that's not worth twenty shekels?

Josh writes:

Having begun to dip my toes in Auckland's bloated property market, I am forced to come to terms with the fact that this is one situation where I will not be able to avoid one of my biggest pet hates: bargaining.

I like things simple -- you give a fair price; I pay it. Not for me the spirited back and forth of offer and counter-offer -- I can't fucking stand it. Now, I know people who are good at it; I know people who actively enjoy it; I know it's the norm in many cultures, but that doesn't change the fact that for me, there's just something off about it.

That "something" is this: bargaining is lying. I say "this is all I will pay." This is a lie -- I can and will pay more; I'm deliberately starting low. They say "this is the least I will accept." This is also a lie -- they'll take less; they're deliberately starting high. So I reply "OK, I can afford a bit more," immediately proving that I was lying a moment ago, and they counter "OK, I'll take a bit less," doing exactly the same. And we continue, lying to each other's faces, admitting as much, and continuing to do so over and over again until we meet somewhere in the middle, but presumably closer to the starting point of whoever was the best liar.

And that's the other thing I don't like: the competitive aspect. I'm not comfortable with the idea that I can "lose" what should be a straight-forward transaction. You might say I'm being too serious -- bargaining's not serious competition, it's a game. Not when were talking about hundreds of thousands of dollars for a bloody house, it's not. And even then, I'm not a great liar, so it's a game I'm shit at -- no-one likes playing a game they're no good at.

In conclusion: Waaah!

More Stuff

Apathy Jack writes:

Conversation between me and the new Art teacher.

“Thanks for the muffin.”
“I didn’t give you a muffin.”
“No, but you gave one of my Year 9s a muffin for being good in class, so she came and gave it to me.”
“Why?”
“She knows about my muffin tax.”
“Your what?”
“Look, I’ve trained my Year 9s up well, and the first lesson they needed to learn was the one about the muffin tax. There’s got to be some advantage to teaching, and I figured out early on that it was never going to be the looks of gratitude on the innocent faces of education-hungry urchins as I nurtured in them a lifelong love of literature. So I decided that if I could get the odd muffin out of it, the job would all be worthwhile...”

...

I’ve been in a bad mood lately, so, of course, I’ve been rereading Roomanitarian by Henry Rollins. Today, however, I realised that wasn’t helping, so I’ve cut out the negative influences, and removed all Rollins from my presence.

To whit: I’ve lent all of my Rollins books to students.

Yes, that does help.

Well, no, alright, it almost certainly won’t help their moods, but they’re teenagers – they were going to feel like that anyway...

...

While I’ve never liked the effort of getting to know new students at the beginning of the year, it does have its advantages. They all know me by reputation, so I don’t have to prove myself, as do the new teachers, but I do quite like the looks I get from the ones who haven’t been in my class before.

Like today, when my Year 12s were a bit distracted. It was a last period on a hot day, and they had been set a fairly demanding task. Attention wandered, and quite a few went off task. I couldn’t be bothered raising my voice to get their attention (like I say, it was the end of the day, and it was very hot – I was as tired as they were) so I just clambered to the top of one of the desks and started talking normally.

Once I had said my peace, one of the students new to the class asked me why I was up there.

“To get your attention.”
“Aren’t there better ways?”
“You’re listening to me, aren’t you?”
“Good point.”

...

A student came to see me this morning. This is one I’ve written about a few times before – one I thought was lost, but who we got back.

She came to tell me that she wasn’t coming back after all, and to explain why. Her reason was a good one – good enough that I am willing to discount the many, many hours of work and worry I and others have put into her return.

Normally, I am detached – my kids’ pain hurts me, but they’ve come to me because I’m an adult, and I need to be together for them. Not today though. I kept it together, but it took so much effort.

My heart is broken by this one.


A couple of periods later, an ex-student who left last year came back to see me. This is another one I put a lot of work into, to no avail.

She is coming back. She came to visit me to tell me that the Dean had put her into my class.



This place fucking kills me. Good thing it usually saves me as well...

For the love of Gosh, won't someone think of the Politicians?

RSJS writes:

Right, not being one to give a flying fuck at a rolling doughnut when it comes to children, “Green” Ministers of Parliament, or the Intertubes, I have been aware of the hubbub about “CYFSWatch” as one is aware of sports, of the antics of local celebrities. It’s information you have, but at a low volume, and you’re unsure how it got in your head – like someone snuck in during the night and read excerpts from “Woman’s Weekly” at you or similar. But regardless, the site go bye-bye:

http://www.nzherald.co.nz/section/1/story.cfm?c_id=1&objectid=10425243

I didn’t care that it lived, nor do I care that it died. However I am vaguely perturbed at how easy it is to get such a site folded up and drop-kicked out of the Internets, or at leastthat which is synonymous with the Internerd, Google. Thankfully, though those vehemently opposed to the site and who threatened to move heaven and earth to eliminate this angry exposé, this web-lurking scourge of the CYFS goon-squad from the face of the planet and who are, presumably, nasty, duplicitous, manipulative devil-worshippers whose nipples dribble black blood, this tangent the site was taken on dealing not with CYFS but some poorly-written aggressive posturing aimed at a political Muppet could not IN ANY WAY have been carried out by someone connected to the site-killing campaign. At all. Agent provocateurs are French and fifth columnists are a thing of Len Deighton novels. And fat jowl-jiggling thugs with leftie-bashing blogs who quote the attacks verbatim to show how Bad and Wrong people are should be drowned in pig-fat, but that’s another story.

Good afternoon.

Red Spelled Backwards Is Der

Apathy Jack writes:

Been officially back for just over a week.

Here’s how that’s worked out.


Hugzor I

So I walk into my room, and, as my Year 9s are filing in around me, I notice that one of the chairs is occupied by a student I thought we’d lost. She leaps up and hugs me. I hold onto her tightly and tell her not to leave. After all of the work we put into this one, it was killing me to think we had lost her. But there she was.

Sitting at my desk, I find a note written by one of the creatively maladjusted students who hang around in my room in the mornings. For the last two years she has been wagging too much. It got out of hand last year, and – her behaviour being the result and cause of problems at home, if you get what I mean – the parents called in lawyers. She made a commitment to stop wagging. It was the effort of a few teachers – the fact that I was one of them makes me happy, but isn’t really relevant.

The note she has written is random, on a scrap piece of paper, presumably apropos of whatever she was discussing with her friends while I was out of the room. It reads simply: “Being at school everyday, miracles happen.”

That strikes me as the truest thing I’ll hear this week.


How to lose stuff part the first

“Hey Mister, I still owe you all of those books you lent me last year.”
“Hold on to them as long as you want.”
“Good, cause I sort of want to keep them.”
“You can.”
“What? Seriously?”
“Yes. If you want them, you can have them.”


Hugzor II

Headed to an assembly, one of my new Year 9s launches herself at me and hugs me. She was a witness to the display earlier in the morning between me and my special kid, and she is precocious enough to take liberties – and the piss - despite only knowing me for a week.

I raise my arms above my head and squeal “Get it off! Get it off!”

It’s probably best that she learns how high school works early on...


How to lose stuff part the second

“I saw (insert name of miscellaneous Lost One) over the weekend.”
“How is she?”
“Good. She still has some of your books.”
“I thought she might.”
“And more of your stuff.”
“Like what?”
“You’ll get angry.”
“No I won’t.”
“She has some of your CDs.”
“Meh. Anything I couldn’t find at the end of last year due to my shoddy record-keeping, I chalked up as a lesson. Anyway, I’ve built a certain amount of redundancy into my lending library.”
“What does that mean?”
“You’ll notice how I have two copies of a lot of these books now...”


Is this a tale of rough justice...?

So far (and I know it’s only early days...) it looks like I only have one really bad student. This is bordering on a miracle: Usually you count bad students by the class-load. He has gone out of his way to disrupt the lessons and annoy me, and has cast a pall over an otherwise near-ideal class.

Fortunately, his friend has decided to straighten up and fly right this year. The end result is that twice in the four periods I have so far taught them, the disruptive kid has been punched in the crotch.

And just so we’re clear: I don’t mean some manner of laddish play fighting punch – on both occasions the disruptive kid has screamed in pain, fallen out of his chair, and spent some minutes in the foetal position moaning and gasping.

But that’s still quieter than he was before, so I’ve designated his friend official Warden, and given him crotch-punching privileges.

Yes, Society, this does make me a good teacher.


Reunion with an ex-student

“Hey Sir.”
“Hey, how are you? How’s life?”
“Good. You know that problem I talked to you about last year?”
“Yeah.”
“I solved it.”
“I gathered that. That was the right decision?”
“Yeah.”
“Good. I thought it was. How’s your partner?”
“Uh, good.”
“‘Uh, good’ is different from ‘Good!’ What’s up?”
“We broke up.”
“I’m sorry to hear that. Why?”
“I told him about that problem I told you about, and he had a different opinion about it than I did.”
“Ah.”
“Yeah. He wanted to keep it...”


I want to be played by Micelle Pfeiffer

There’s the scene that I don’t think works as a written anecdote. It makes me wish I had a camera, trained actors, some lighting techs, and an army of Christina Aguilera clones so I could film some of this stuff. (There is a school of thought that one doesn’t need a Christina army to make movies, but I figure they certainly can’t hurt...)

The scene:

A FEMALE STUDENT is standing on a chair, writing “Remember to get my marks from last year” on the whiteboard in letters big enough to take up the whole surface of the board.

A tired looking TEACHER is sitting at his desk, slumped slightly.

TEACHER: Must you write it so big?

FEMALE STUDENT: You said you forget things. I’m making sure you won’t forget this.

TEACHER(sadly): I’ll probably remember...

FEMALE STUDENT: You didn’t remember when I asked you yesterday.

A MALE STUDENT sitting in front of the TEACHER’s desk picks up a whiteboard eraser, and carefully aims at the FEMALE STUDENT.

TEACHER: No.

MALE STUDENT: Come on, I can get her.

TEACHER: No!

OTHER MALE STUDENT: Bad dog!

MALE STUDENT looks almost sad at the mistake OTHER MALE STUDENT has made, and, like it was a chore, stands up, and rolls up his sleeves. He walks slowly over to OTHER MALE STUDENT, and stands menacingly over him.

MALE STUDENT: What?

THIRD MALE STUDENT points at MALE STUDENT.

THIRD MALE STUDENT: Bro, what’s on your arse?

MALE STUDENT: What?

THIRD MALE STUDENT: There’s something on your arse. You must have sat on something.

TEACHER(sighing deeply): I thought I cleaned these chairs...

MALE STUDENT: Oh well, I’ll just have to wipe it off.

MALE STUDENT sits in the lap of OTHER MALE STUDENT, and starts bouncing up and down, to cries of “fag” and such forth from classmates.

OTHER MALE STUDENT: What do you want for Christmas, little boy?

TEACHER: I think we can all figure out what he wants for Christmas. Now can we do some work here...?

Fade to black, sounds of bouncing, grunting, and faint sobbing throughout.


Stationary

As part of my newfound position as teacher in charge of a bunch of stuff, they’ve given me a raise which amounts to around twenty dollars a week, after tax.

I have had one day off in the twelve since the kids came back, and, last weekend, I bought twenty dollars worth of stationery to handle the paperwork that the new stuff entails.

Still, I can’t complain – it did allow me to have the following conversation with my ex-student who works in the stationery shop.

“What are you going to do with all of those folders and files?”
“I’m going to file things.”
“Since when have you done that?”


Shite-erer Of Worlds

I am moving behind the tree line and will be fading from the world as most know it to be. I think it’s time to say goodbye to some things. It’s time to terminate things. It’s time to maim things so they remain alive long enough to get finished off by predators at dusk. It’s time to close accounts, let the end be the end and done.
-Henry Rollins

Those who follow the politics of Hoodrat Academy for Higher Learning may remember that the Creator and the Preserver have put in an application to be co-heads of the department.

They have the support of almost every other teacher in the school, and of some national English bigwigs we’ve had some dealings with. I myself wrote a very passionate letter detailing how incredibly well the department was running under their temporary aegis.

Yesterday, they found out that there had been no applicants for the position of HOD except the two of them.

The Principal is re-advertising the position. He is so against the idea of giving it to my guys that he isn’t considering their application, even though the absence of an HOD means that we have a retired Maths teacher and a retired Home Economics teacher teaching classes in my department, even though the three of us are preparing over a dozen lessons per week each for these relievers on top of all of the other additional duties we have assumed, to say nothing of our normal workloads. Even though he doesn't have anyone else at all.

This sends a very clear message about how much we are valued. We all work through our lunchtimes, and on our weekends. We have stayed at the school despite the horrifying working conditions, and we three are the only English teachers in years to produce classes with literacy rates which match or surpass the national average. We have been loyal to a school that has not earned it, nor rewarded us for it. We have bled sweated and cried for our students – and in our cases this is not a trite epithet; between us we’ve literally done all three in the service of our school.

And we now find out that it means nothing to the Principal.

He hasn’t officially turned the application down. If he does, I hand in my resignation. Which is sad – to get a new job, I’ll probably have to cut my hair.

And, of course; abandon students who I love like they were my children, who have told me that I’m the only teacher they can rely on, who I have promised that I will be there for, to help them survive high school, no matter what.

But so long as I keep making jokes about how shaving my beard is the worst thing I’ll have to face, I’m sure I can block all the other stuff out...

RIP

That Morthos Stare writes:

Rest in Peace, Bolly.

Killed by Car

Spared, at least, the epitaph:

'Died of Natural Causes'

Objectivism Redux

Sir Arthur Streeb-Greebling writes:

Heavens, thirty-four comments and a few blog links, I am impressed. I'll try to address some of your points to sort of wrap things up (although you're all most welcome to keep on going).



Josh.
I don't agree with your objection to "sheeple" so much, I kind of like it, along with "Helengrad" and "Nanny State" because it confronts people without, being abusive or over the top. And Objectivism does belive in fallibility. They just don't shout it from the rooftops so much.

My take is that Objectivism is a virtue based ethic, because rights come after the virtues, and you have a fair way to go before you even get to the virtues.

Rand starts off with the question "What gives rise to ethics". From there she goes on to the fact that Life is a conditional form of existence, that human beings have free will, and that human life is the standard of moral values. To go to the next step, the virtues, you have to make the choice to live. If you chose "Yes", then you move on to the sort of actions that you must take to sustain your life. If "No," then you can stop here..

The Values in Objectivism are Reason, Purpose, and Self Esteem. After the Values come the Virtues. Virtuous, acts involving Rationality, Independence, Integrity, Honesty, Justice, Productiveness, Pride, The Trader Principle, and Benevolence, are that enable us to keep our values. After this, and after establishing Rand's concepotion of Egoism, do we move on to Rights. Objectivism defines Rights as a moral concept that defines how individuals should act towards each other in order that each person can freely act out the virtues and values.

Rights come a fair way through the system, before the virtues, which themsel;ves come after a fair bit of (dare I say it) philosophical work, and so I would term Objectivism as more virtues than rights based. But I think your misunderstanding serves my point well. Objectivists spend far too much time banging on about Rights, and not enough on establishing why and they are rights, and on living out the virtues - especially benevolence and the Trader Principle - themselves.

That Morthos Stare.
Sure Perigo was a pratt here, but as Josh points out Nola was hardly at his best either. Perigo, to be fair, does have good quailities. The fact that there is libertarianism in New Zealand to the extent that it is - my guess is there are around 6,000 of us - for starters, the Libertarianz political party, the Free Radical magazine, "sheeple" and "Helengrad".

I look forward to your take on Objectivist Epistemology. I haven't looked at it much myself, the ethics and politics are more my thing.

Apathy Jack.
Good story, and one where Bates provides an excellent example of how to make sure your political philosophy never gets any traction. Simply don't show any interest in solving the problems people have with it.

Far too many libertarians, myself included as I have done the same thing Bates did, make no effort at persuasion. You need to sell your ideas to your audience, you can't just be an arse and hope that the truth of your conclusion will do all the work, fighting through your lack of argument and hopeless presentation. Effective persuasion is as simple as following Harry Browne's points here.

Hewligan.

And, personally, I refuse to believe that "Freedom" just refers to paying less income tax.

It doesn't. It does to the National Party, who are happy to keep government the same size but with less income tax, but to a libertarian "freedom" is less income tax, but also a much smaller government. And of all the viewpoints on the spectrum I would class a liertarian as the least likely to sell his principles out.

Rich.

One problem with libertarianism is that it's unattractive to most rational voters.

True. And libertarianism is unattractive to most rational voters because libertarians are often unattractive to most rational voters - the explanation of why being the point of this exercise :-). You are right later on where you claim that people often benefit from government services - they do, and they will keep voting for government services unless the libertarian manages to sell them the idea that not only will those services still run under a libertarian system, but they will be better, cheaper, more efficient, and moral.

Anonymous.

I think you go too far, at least with how the party is at present. If you go to the Libz site and look at the people currently involved you would find an overwhelming majority of good people. Bernard and Julian are of very high calibre, as is Scott Wilson and yes even Peter Cresswell (despite his odd irritating snipes at academic philosophy). Bates is a good guy as well, and Nik Haden also came across as perfectly sane when interviewed about his census burning on the radio.

Paul.

I think your first point is correct. From what I have gathered Objectivists don't like how in Philosophy you spend a semester being presented with all sorts of viewpoints and arguments, be it in ethics or philosophy of mind or whatever. To them, Philosophy is pretty much settled now and it should be taught as a science like geology where you learn how the world works.

Re: Humanism, you might find this interesting. I don't know how you can put Humanism in the same cluster as Marxism and Objectivism myself, Humanists don't actually believe in anything. You might not like Objectivism but at least there is something there.

Lyndon.

Firstly, Objectivism is not a cult. This explains why not. Unfortunately the orginal seems to have been taken down, so a google cache is all I could find.

Discussion between Duncan / Josh / That Morthos Stare / Rick.

Duncan, thank you for coming in to bat for Objectivism (lighten up about the cartoon though).

Josh, I think Objectivism puts certainty and context together by saying that something is "contextally absolute", as in "to the best of our knowledge at this time 'x' is the truth". But I haven't relly studied Objectivist epistemology and we await That Morthos Stare's take on it.

That Morthos Stare is also correct with his philosophical elitism. I can't stand people just bandying the word about "This is my philosophy" "Deepak Chopra is a philosopher" Fuck off. Whether government run or private, "Philosopher", just like "Doctor" and "Lawyer" should have something behind it. You can't call yourself a botanist because you have a vege garden, you are a gardener. You can't call yourself a philosopher because you've had a bit of a think, you've just had a bit of a think.

That should do for now. If I get another thirty comments we might keep on going, but I think I've made my point and everyone else has made theirs so we'd all end up going around in circles. I'll try and find a video on Youtube of a baboon masturbating into a car at one of those drive in zoos for my next post for a bit of balance.

Apathy Jack writes:

Creator “I spoke to the Deputy Principal again about the fact that my Year 13 English class is literally twice the size of most other Year 13 classes.”
Me “How did that go?”
Creator “Her only response was that your Classics class was also quite big.”
Me “That’s an unfair comparison. The only reason my Classics is so big is because the twisted cult of personality I’ve developed around myself means that kids are lined up to take any class I do, regardless of what it is.”
Creator “‘Cult of personality’. I like that.”
Me “I don’t, it makes my classes too big...”

In Mammoriam

Josh writes:

To "borrow" from Mr. Slack:

So, Farwell
Then
Anna Nicole Smith

You fucked an
Old
Old
Old man

And never got to
Spend his money
In the end

A lesson
For all of us

Apathy Jack writes:

See, the good thing about there being only three of us left in my department is that our Indian contingent has pointed out that as well as being the Christian Trinity, we can be the Hindu Trinity: the Creator, the Preserver, and the Destroyer.

Creator and Preserver are the other two, for reasons that are funny (or at the very least; apt) if you know them. I was automatically given Destroyer – I assumed because I ruin everything and spoil all that is good. But as it turns out, The Destroyer destroys evil things, and my fairly direct hand in the resignation of the HOD earns me that title.

Short version: I have a better job than you, because during the course of your working day you probably didn’t get the chance to say:

“I am become Shiva, Destroyer of Worlds. Finally!”

A post with this many links is really a sign that Jack's holidays have been going on too long...

Apathy Jack writes:

So, your school gets an influx of young Emos. But, rather than belittle them or hit them with cheese, as would all right thinking people, you decide to cure them. You get them to believe that you are the arbiter of alternative music, so they’ll trust your choices, and you can lead them to The Way And The Path, away from listening to My Chemical Goodcharlotte, and other bands out there on the fringes, so to speak, of bad music.

So you spend a year building up your alternative cred – lending them Sisters of Mercy， Joy Division and the like. You make sure that you have better, and cooler, options ready for whatever they can suggest:

“You like Flyleaf? Let me lend you this Tura Satana CD. You like Alexis On Fire? Let me lend you some Mastodon. Panic At The Disco, you say? Those lyrics aren’t as clever as the ones Clutch have come up with – have a listen.”

And then they catch you at Real Groovy buying Billie Piper’s autobiography.

A year’s worth of cred-building...

Oh well, at least I can console myself with Billie Piper’s autobiography. It’s a problem with its own inbuilt solution, really...



And no, The Internet, I feel no regret, and I haven’t learned any sort of lesson from this. Screw you.

So Much Pedantry It Would Shatter Your Spine

Josh writes:

Oh dear, The Herald, I am very disappointed in you. From today's editorial:

Maori have reminded the bridge managers that they readily hoisted the Team NZ petard during the America's Cup.

No they didn't.

A petard is a bomb used in mediaeval warfare to blow open walls or gates. I'm pretty sure Team NZ doesn't own one, and if they did, I doubt that it would have been dangled off the top of the Harbour Bridge.

The confusion comes, of course, from the expression "hoist by his own petard," which most people have heard of, but bugger all know the meaning of. People don't know what a petard is, but they do know what "hoist" means, so figure a petard must be some sort of structure you hoist things up on (in this case of the Herald, the meaning seems to have mutated further into a thing which gets hoisted up like a flag). Unfortunately, in this context, "hoist" is an old-fashioned word (Shakespearean, in fact -- the expression is a line from Hamlet) meaning "thrown into the air". A person who is "hoist by his own petard" (note "by", not "on") is metaphorically blown up by his own bomb.

Tune in next time, when I explain what a dangling participle is. (Hint: Despite what you may have read elsewhere, this article doesn't contain one.)

Wrong Thoughts

Josh writes:

OK, now you know I've said repeatedly and at length that I think "political correctness" is a bullshit concept that at best means nothing more than "left wing stuff I don't like". Sometimes, though, an example of the sort of thing that usually gets slapped with the PC label is just so god damn irritating that I can conceive of the levels of disgust that cause people to invoke it...

So part of this year's SuperBowl Kavalcade of Konsumerism is an ad for the Nationwide Insurance company featuring the former Mr Britney Spears rapping in his generic whiteboy way before snapping back to "reality", where he finds himself reduced to a dead-end job flipping burgers in a fast food joint. The moral being: get insurance or you'll end up working a shit job when your white trash sugar mommy ditches you. While this seems like a somewhat cynical attempt on Kevin Federline's part to both engender sympathy and claw at the limelight, it's a bit of a laugh all the same.

Not so, according to the National Restaurant Association, who are shocked and aghast at the portrayal of burger flipping as a shitty job. Even though it, y'know, is. Quoth association CEO Kevin Anderson:

"We think that it is demeaning and we think it's offensive, and I'll tell you what, we've got a lot of restaurant operators who are very mad at Nationwide right now,"

They're offended, offended I tells ya, and they're not gonna stand for it. They're mad, they're upset, they're a pack of whingeing twats. Something has indeed gone wrong with the world if I find myself agreeing with Kevin Bloody Federline and against something that would doubtless be labelled "PC gone mad".

DAMN YOU, NATIONAL RESTAURANT ASSOCIATION! DAMN YOU FOR MAKING ME SIDE WITH KEVIN FEDERLINE!!

I must go now and scour the filth from my soul. (It won't come off -- I scrub and I scrub, but it won't come off...)

Today I shall be annoyed by... (Spins Wheel of Irritation) The Police. Don't stand so close to me...

RSJS writes:

“Our sincere thoughts are extended to all those persons involved and their supporting families”

This line comes from a mostly-automated police letter sent out to advise people investigating a serious crash that the serious crash goon squad are still measuring skid-marks (snigger). And the longer I stare at it, the less it makes sense.

Not merely because this letter was sent to me and I’m far more interested in the report from the poor gumbooted sod out mopping gravel-thickened blood off the motorway than whether a machine is extending sincere thoughts at random strangers, but also because the whole extending-of-sincere-thoughts creeps me out. A lot. I keep thinking about some kind of earnest Mormon xenomorph with eight Aryan-blue eyes and a long proboscis bristling with mind-control whiskers trying to dry-fuck my ear and control my thoughts. Sincerely.

…not to mention the phrase doesn’t give an inkling about the sordid nature of the thoughts themselves. Frankly, I think the Plod sincerely think those involved in this matter were bipedal cockroaches crushed by the vindictive hand of Old-Testament Jehovah (which would make for a good brand of sippin’ whiskey… “80-proof Old Testament Jehovah – God’s Wrath in a Bottle”) and so can extend their sincere thoughts of “Ha hah, squashed like bugs. LIKE BUGS!” to those random “persons” they might be thinking about.

And is the supporting family a slight on those who aren’t being nice enough to crash victims? No extended proboscis-sincerity for families in general, only “supporting” ones. By whose definition? How supportive must one be to get a sincere thought from a policeman’s porn-choked ‘puter? Donating-a-kidney support or text-message-of-sympathy lip-service support? Are we graded on a curve? How can we check? Who should I be talking to? Why won’t you love me? WHY?

…and the next sentence of the letter’s no better…

Apathy Jack writes:

Olthwaite, did you know about this? Someone tell Litterick.

Now the only argument is which one of you gets to wear it on your chest and become Captain Atheist!

Contest for Brain Stab readers: What would Captain Atheist's youthful sidekick be called?