22 October 2012 (Monday) - Democracy

On Friday my routine was put out by the Treacle People being on a few minutes earlier than usual. Today they weren't on at all. I didn't like that. With satellite TV boasting hundreds of channels of drivel, it's amazing how little there is worth watching at any time; let alone at 6am. So, over a spot of brekkie, I went on-line where (not surprisingly) not much was happening there either.
 
The morning was foggy. Foggy and dark, which didn't make for easy driving. As I drove I listened to the news. The Jimmy Saville saga is now getting silly. The media has taken to raking dirt against those who didn't rake the dirt against Jimmy earlier. Surely this is a dangerous route for our so-called "news" providers to be taking. In future any hint of potential scandal against anyone will have to be front page headlines purely to prevent future allegations of cover-ups against those who produce front page headlines of dirt and allegation.
The news also railed against a cover-up of police corruption during the miner's strike of 1984. It's no secret that there were problems in the police forces of those times. History has recorded what went wrong and the riots that came as consequences. Surely there must be something more news-worthy than raking up stuff from thirty years ago?
In fact there was very little worthy of note in the news other than the surprise revelation that he ex -head of the metropolitan police has announced that he feels that the general public should boycott the upcoming elections for the positions of police commissioners. Apparently police forces are now to be accountable to elected officials. It's a good idea in principle, but it has the problem of all democracy in that will the right people get elected. Who is standing for the position of police commissioner in my area? I didn't know so I found out.

Surprise, surprise. I don't know of any of them. I've never heard of any of them. And most (but not all) are standing on the basis of their political affiliation; making the same tired promises that we have come to expect from all politicians.
I don't believe in democracy. It's a good idea in theory but in practice it's rubbish. It doesn't work. We never have the choice that the whole thing promises. Has anyone ever voted for the elected official that they actually want? Don't we actually just kid ourselves into feeling we have a democracy when in fact we just get to choose between (probably) unsuitable candidates that someone else has chosen for us.
Surely in this day and age we should have the technology to be able to select a list of suitable candidates on the basis of personality profiling and career/life experiences.
As it is I for one will be using random guesswork to hopefully select the least unsuitable candidate to be our police commissioner.

Work was dull. Quite often when Steve and I find our days off co-incide we go off geocaching together. Today I was working but Steve wasn't. I got an intermittent stream of texts as Steve walked wound South Ashford finding the "Fudge's Follies" series of geocaches I put out a few weeks ago. It would seem that the logs in some of them are rather damp. Replacing them will give me something to do on this week's day off.

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