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Online nowAdvaita25: Ben is a 37 year old single guy from Hereford, England, UK.; Likes 3,635 pages, 354 videos, 1,111 photos • 538 fans • Received 156 reviews; Member since Nov 04, 2005

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Full Marx if you can see history repeating itself | Business | The Observer: May 11, 9:54am 2 reviews economics, politics, capitalism, marx •http://www.guardian.co.uk/business/20...; So unchecked capitalism tends ultimately to eat itself then? Who'd have thunk it.....

From the page: "Marx's work is usually discredited by association with the failed centrally planned economies of eastern Europe and elsewhere, and by the failure of capitalism to collapse as he had predicted. But Marx s Marxism was never a prescription - it was Lenin and Stalin who froze it into dogma - much more a developing argument; and as Wheen notes, any errors are eclipsed and transcended by the piercing accuracy with which he revealed the nature of the capitalist beast .

In fact, apart from the predictions of capitalism s impending demise, it is remarkable how much its sharpest critic got right. Along with creeping monopolies, growing inequality and the all-absorbing momentum of the capital markets, Marx foresaw many of the effects of globalisation, which he called the universal interdependence of nations , not least the effects of an international reserve army of the unemployed in disciplining and depressing the wages of workers in the developed economies.

His description of the cash nexus foreshadowed the economic rationality at the centre of today s mainstream economic and management theories. Most prescient, as writers as different as the Austrian economist Joseph Schumpeter and the billionaire trader George Soros acknowledge, was Marx s insight that capitalism s most potent enemy was not outside but inside: market fundamentalism, in Soros term, or, for Schumpeter, the waves of creative destruction that would eventually swamp whole economies. Capitalism, as is now clear, has most to fear from capitalists."

May 10, 4:15pm: Can't seem to get around to posting anything at the moment
My reciprocal correspondence is very flaky too
I do apologise...

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Skype - beyondis; Yahoo Messenger - beyondis; ICQ - 36309150

Having reached the friend limit I can't add any more people
Please don't feel affronted when I'm unable to respond 'in kind'

PICT9520.JPG on Flickr - Photo Sharing!: May 10, 4:12pm 1 review nature, photography •http://www.flickr.com/photos/beyondis...; More pictures from the latest batch here - if I weren't feeling so apathetic I'd have posted more than one of them...

YouTube - The Smiths - Accept Yourself - Live: Apr 18, 2:29pm 1 review music, video, the-smiths •http://youtube.com/watch?v=hAxpvw4qOZQ; Accept Yourself - The Smiths

Every day you must say
So, how do I feel about my life ?
Anything is hard to find
When you will not open your eyes
When will you accept yourself ?

I am sick and I am dull and I am plain
How dearly I'd love to get carried away
Oh, but dreams have a knack of just not coming true
And time is against me now...oh
Oh, who and what to blame ?

Oh, anything is hard to find
When you will not open your eyes
When will you accept yourself
For heaven's sake ?
Anything is hard to find
When you will not open your eyes

Every day you must say
Oh, how do I feel about the past ?
Others conquered love - but I ran
I sat in my room and I drew up a plan
Oh, but plans can fall through (as so often they do)
And time is against me now...

And there's no-one left to blame
Oh, tell me when will you ...
When will you accept your life ?
(the one that you hate)
For anything is hard to find
When you will not open your eyes

Every day you must say
Oh, how do I feel about my shoes ?
They make me awkward and plain
How dearly I would love to kick with the fray ...
But I once had a dream (and it never came true)
And time is against me now...
Time is against me now...
And there's no one but yourself to blame

Oh, anything is hard to find
When you will not open your eyes
Anything is hard to find; for heaven's sake !
Anything is hard to find
When you will not open your eyes
When will you accept yourself ?
When ?

Mar 16, 1:24pm: Val

If I think of you today
It's not because it's been a year
Since your breath went away
For your presence in my thoughts
Will never be determined
By as limiting a construct
As chronology

The bond between us
Was something timeless
Formed from light
And harmonic forces
A connection like that
Doesn't just fade away
When a physical separation
Comes to pass

How my soul chose well
When putting me in your care
You steeped me in love
A love without side
Encouraging expression
Sowing seeds of curiosity
Infusing me with tolerance
And respect for life
In all its forms

So on this noteworthy day
I can but follow
That last piece of advice
From the letter you gave me
To read after you'd left
I'll keep it simple

My beloved mother
I miss you
I thank you

Ben - 16th March 2008

Dont hit the panic button | By genre | guardian.co.uk Books: Mar 14, 7:37am 1 review literature, books, review •http://books.guardian.co.uk/reviews/p...; Humanity has never had it so good. Most people around the world are better off and will live longer than their ancestors. If we could hold on to that perspective, we would all be much more relaxed. But we aren't relaxed. We are anxious and stressed. We are scared that bad things will happen to us: nuclear war, cancer, child abduction. As for keeping things in perspective, Homo sapiens just isn't cut out for it...

Evolution has taught us to prioritise anecdotal evidence because, unlike statistics, our imaginations can process it into something resembling our personal experience. 'It could have been me' is a common response to news of a disaster, although usually the mathematical probability of it actually having been you is infinitesimal.

What scientists took decades to prove, marketing executives and politicians have known all along: fear sells. Gardner is forensic in his dissection of bogus claims in advertising and politics, just as he is lucid about the science explaining why they work. His chapters on the risk of being a victim of crime or terrorism provoke a peculiar mix of comfort and despair. It is heartening that the danger is slight; it's unsettling how skewed our political system and consumer culture are towards convincing us of the opposite.

The only antidote Gardner offers to that sort of thing is a redoubling of our mental efforts. The primitive part of our brains might be open to seduction by alarmist politicians, but, given enough time, the rational part can step in and stop us going all the way. Think more, Gardner exhorts, think harder.

Victoria Coren: Time to bring back happy Hollywood | Comment is free | The Obser…: Feb 25, 2:13pm 1 review arts, film, media, commentary, victoria-coren •http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfr...; Not sure about the 'bring back happy Hollywood' bit (having enjoyed many a film with a plot meandering in and out of melancholia) but I agree with the gist of what the article says.

From the page: "When I was a teenager, I knew a lot of boys who saw only nastiness in the world and wanted all art to reflect it. They wore a lot of badges on their donkey jackets and listened exclusively to music by people who had committed suicide. They watched a lot of Steven Berkoff plays. They liked films where everybody died. They smoked angrily at the fairground and refused to go on the Dodgems. I say teenage boys ; I was exactly the same myself. Luckily, we all cheered up once we started having sex.

But when these grumpy teenagers grow up into pretentious film directors, we should be careful not to revere a vision that we should actually pity. Don t let them make you feel stupid for wanting light with your shade and hope with your tragedy. They haven t hung on to a deeper truth that we ve forgotten, they ve failed to see a deeper truth that we ve learnt.

They scorn sweetness and optimism because they don't feel it, therefore they're blind to it, therefore a glimpse of better nature in narrative will strike them as sappy and bourgeois and misconceived. Frankly, they need to go on more picnics.

I don't know why these goths have got a sudden grip on Hollywood; perhaps the whole Western world is feeling guilty. Fair enough, but there's no point lying around flaying ourselves. A film could just as easily remind us that there is always a way to make things better and that's always what most people want. Horrible things happen despite, not because of, the deepest instincts in human nature.

Ignore these patronising movies that tell you the opposite! Slip into your flannel pyjamas tonight and root for The Diving Bell and the Butterfly. Then go out tomorrow, give somebody an apple and smile at a traffic warden."