New Pioneers of Old Frontiers

I really wish I'd said it first, I really, really do. Really! But I didn't, and what's worse is that I heard it first during a popular TV drama. Even worse than this, on American TV- that is of the US of A- those who, so often in the broadcasting of such 'opinions', seek not to address the issue 'confronted' but rather to hide the bigger problems behind nothing more substantial than a glitzy facade of freedom.

So exactly what was it that I wish I'd said first? And by 'first' I really mean first, as in at that perfect moment, launched into the air at that exquisitely judged moment of honed perfection, in order to really nail the argument. To really knock the stuffing out of some sanctimonious git! It would be a shame to waste such a thought upon less than a substantial audience, or, at the very least, a long-time nemesis. The wisdom, of which I write, was, "And so would slavery," proffered in response to the claim that abolishing the minimum wage would create jobs.

The US TV programme in question is really almost irrelevant; more than likely the programme nabbed the idea from somewhere else entirely. Even if the line was original, as seems highly unlikely given all of the great speakers in the world, it wouldn't have been the light-bulb-moment of one astute character, it would have been the creation of a team of script writers, the result of hours of bouncing ideas off of one another in order to create maximum effect, hardly the spontaneous line of judged perfection, which was, 'naturally,' how it was presented upon the TV.

Thankyou Teo's photo

I don't think, for the merest second, that I'm the first person to have been impressed by something spoken upon the 'silver' screen; I know for certain that I'll not be last. There are just so many words out there, strung together in such perfect fashion as to appear, at times, to almost undermine some of the greatest speeches ever to have been penned and delivered.

Of course, historians and others would be quick to point out that great wisdoms and speeches are invariably best judged to be great in the context within which they are delivered. These same people might also go on to correctly argue that any speech or line delivered in a fictitious context cannot realistically be judged 'great', not historically great at any rate. Perhaps the best that Hollywood (and not just Hollywood) can ever hope to achieve is simply to accurately repeat already historically great speeches.

And really, we should endeavour to keep this ever in mind. As I've already written, 'there are so many words out there'. If we are to become dazzled and less discerning as a result of such a bombardment- how many TV channels are there now?- we could even find ourselves judging the world's most significant historical moments according to the fiction of Hollywood.

I realise that this might, on the surface, appear a tad alarmist, but have you ever sat and listened to people talking on the bus, as they perhaps piece together their latest gleaned wisdom? Have you ever sat and pondered the puzzling growth in the number of 'significant' US citizens who appear in all sorts of supposedly-historically-accurate Hollywood blockbusters? Perhaps during a Hollywood-recreated-moment in which you thought, until this moment, that no US citizen had even been present?

Thankyou bandarji

It would be a shame, would it not, to see historical reenactment going the way of a significant bite of the music industry? All of those once great songs that are, perhaps, beginning to grate ever such a tiny bit, as they are rehashed yet again, by Simon Cowell's latest aspiring, "I've dreamt of this moment all of my life!" teenager. I realise, of course, that this is just a tiny blip in the larger music world- and thank the lord above!- but the blip seems to be growing, like some form of aggressive and inoperable tumour. A dark, dark shadow upon the latest x-ray of the music industry, as joyfully presented by prime-time TV and radio.

History, quite apart from it's huge academic credentials, should be important to everyone; an informed electorate, imagine that! Imagine a country served by politicians elected by people desperate not to repeat the mistakes of the past. We'd quite literally be rewriting history, we'd certainly be heading in a vastly different direction, with vastly different people at the helm. Vastly!

And, it's so darned easy to write people into history, isn't it? But, it's altogether different hoping to scrub them- the mistakes- out again. Hitler... Stalin... Thatcher... Which is why we should endeavour not to keep repeating the same mistakes, time and time again.

I'd be right, of course, in assuming slavery to have been much more of a mistake than a benefit to society, wouldn't I? I'd also venture to assume that I'm right in having spotted a not too tenuous link between slavery and the abolition of the minimum wage.

See, just because it's been secreted within American TV, it doesn't necessarily mean that there won't be a few choice cherries worth picking.