Aiming for zero

Having graduated, if that's the right word, from 30 pageviews a day a week or so ago, then 20-odd earlier this week, then into the 'teens' over the past couple of days, I now seem to be into single figures. Zero isn't far off, evidently.
But that's not necessarily all bad. If there's no-one here but me and the mouse, anything I might want to say, short of getting the blog nuked, I can say without fear of offending anyone, because there's no-one around to offend. So I might as well begin with the arrant, disgusting hypocrisy of so-called 'Christians' in the wake of the case I alluded to yesterday, the unconstitutional 'prayer banner' at a Rhode Island high school. The teenaged girl who was brave enough to stand up to the bullying and bigotry in her community has been deluged with electronic 'hate mail' in the days since the judgment, up to and including threats of rape and even death, simply, as various commentators have correctly said, for telling the truth and standing up for the American constitution. There has, reportedly, been some law enforcement investigation of the threats made against the girl, but I hold out little, if any, hope that any of the perpetrators will be held to account for their hate crimes - unlike, I have no doubt at all, if the positions were reversed, and a Christian teen was receiving death threats from atheists in similar circumstances. In that instance, not only would the authorities be all over the case, but I strongly suspect that lynch mobs would be roaming the streets. The forces of reaction on this side of the Atlantic have weighed in as well, an article in the Daily Mail implying that those evil atheists have forced the school to remove a banner which simply entreated students to 'be kind to each other'. I'm sure Ms Ahlquist might have a view on the 'kindness' of her fellow students and other in her community who have been responsible for much of the abuse she's received. The paper's stance is hardly surprising, though, after David Cameron's venture into the preaching of theocracy last month - if Cameron stood up and advocated killing every non-Christian in the world slowly and painfully, the Mail and its ilk would find a way of putting a positive spin on it, given the level of servility they display to all things Tory.
While I'm on the subject of nasty fascists masquerading as mainstream Conservative politicians, I've had the misfortune to hear a couple of adverts for the film The Iron Lady on the radio this afternoon. Given the incalculable damage Thatcher and her policies did to this country, the hagiography surrounding her is especially distasteful. I'll freely admit my partiality in this issue, given that my dad was one of the millions of her victims, for no crime on his part more heinous than being a coal miner for 45 years of his life. I'm almost never a malicious person, for all my misanthropy, but I would shed no tears at all if that appalling petit bourgeois harridan suffered a painful demise, just like my dad did.
A brief interlude to speak to my wife, which achieved nothing except generating more friction. Even if we, by some miracle, manage to extricate ourselves from the financial quagmire, the point to which our relationship seems to have ebbed might still be terminal. And, to be honest, the way I'm feeling about it at the moment, I'm far from being convinced that it's even worth saving, aside from the effect it would have on our daughter. I've spoken, in one or two contexts, about thresholds of tolerance, and I get the feeling that I might be getting close to mine. If where I've found myself in my life was what I really wanted, wanted the most, then I might be more inclined to 'go the extra mile' of compromise, but to suffer all the heartache for something that is, at best, a second-best, even if the optimum is unobtainable, might be becoming unsupportable.
Well, given that, just to add to my joy in living at the moment, my commute to work is going to take almost twice as long as usual this evening because the trains are diverted in connection with engineering work, I guess I need to make some effort to think about getting ready. I doubt that cutting short this post is going to cause anyone to lose much sleep, in any case - not even me.

Love & best wishes to all
Sammy B