When labour-savers are headache-givers
Piers Akerman
ONE of the great lies about so-called labour-saving devices is the inevitability that, in time, the frustration they will create will undo any saving of physical or mental labour that may have taken place.
It’s a little like the concept of free time, time which is not employed actually being busy earning income and racking up hours, some of which may later be redeemed at a very uneven rate of exchange, say, 50 weeks’ work for two of ``free time’’.
Free time should really be called earned time. At least the word holiday conveys the accurate sense of a break from one’s usual occupation while free time is anything but.
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OLDEN TIMES
Tim Blair
There are two types of “women’s rights women”, reports the New York Times:
There are the intellectual, well-bred women, possessed with the idea that with the ballot woman would be able to right their own wrongs and elevate the administration of public affairs. Their argument, in this stage of civilization, seems to us mistaken, but they present it reasonably.
One the other hand the shrieking sisterhood is also with us, and growing in vigor and audacity. We may fear the worst.
That’s from late 1908, which should give us pause when considering how today’s mainstream views may appear to readers one century from now. The NYT‘s archives are a spectacular resource; in 1913, for example, the paper spoke with “English shipping man” J. P. Birch, who believed UK suffragettes were “nerving themselves up in some artificial way to their deeds of violence”. Crack-fuelled British feminists aside, Birch also offered this opinion:
The town of Port of Spain, for instance, is absolutely free from graft, in spite of the fact that the police are colored.
This was such an unremarkable line for its era that it passes without comment. Yet 37 years prior, in 1876, the Times ran a brilliantly Swiftian editorial following anti-Chinese violence in California:
There are other and, if possible, worse vices to which the Chinamen are notoriously addicted. They wash themselves and wear clean clothing. This loathsome practice naturally renders them hideous in the sight of the “hoodlum,” and it is not surprising that it is generally regarded as a direct insult to Democratic voters.
It’s a rare thing to say about any Times editorial, let alone one published 132 years ago, but read the whole thing.
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HAROLD PINTER
Tim Blair – Friday, December 26, 08 (04:09 am)
British playwright Harold Pinter, an occasional target around here, has died at 78.
UPDATE. US singer and actress Eartha Kitt has died on Christmas Day at 81:
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MAN-MADE WARMING
Tim Blair
It’s the answer to every humiliated warmenist’s prayers: the Snow Dragon Snowmelter, a 9,000,000 BTU baby able to convert snow into something that matches Al Gore’s predictions ...
Take for instance a football field covered with 6” of snow. This would cost about $5,000 to remove with a traditional snow haul. But, melt it away with a Snow Dragon® Snowmelter and you realize a savings of over 55%, which translates into over $2,800 you just kept in your pocket. With a Snow Dragon® Snowmelter, all your tenant and customer parking spaces, as well as airport runways and parking lots, will be clear and available for less than half the cost of a typical snow haul.
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Eight killed in Santa shooting spree
A man dressed as Santa has slaughtered at least six people at a Christmas party before setting the house alight and killing himself.
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Man stabbed in family Christmas fight
A South Australian man was stabbed nine times on Christmas Day in a family fight that ended only when a third family member whacked the alleged attacker with a golf club.
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