This morning a wonderful thought popped in my head - What if the Titanic hadn't sunk and made it to New York in record time to be greeted by an ecstatic crowd? And so it was that my son found me, deep in thought stood vaguely near the toaster. My feet had walked me to the toaster, whilst my mind deep in thought, had forgotten to instruct my hands to fetch the bread first and put it in the toaster. So I tried to explain what had distracted me and why his breakfast was late, but somehow the conversation got on to quantum physics. (Drat - distracted from the distraction that distracted me from making breakfast!)
Until my teenager tutted and said "Mum you're crazy! You are unstable without dad around! He is the calming yin to your yang!"
Well obviously I just laughed at him (yes still chuckling now) and at the same time was totally astounded by his maturity and understanding. Kids can come out with some of the most amazing insights (that totally distract you from what you are doing and leave you immersed in thought!) Dad has been away with work for some time and will be for some time more, so if you wish to read the opinions of a less 'crazy' lady, then maybe April will be a good month ;-)
Everyone I have spoken to about Citizenfour the documentary on Edward Snowden thinks I am crazy (which I am Ok with, as I am sure they mean 'crazy genius' rather than 'crazy insane'), except for a lady I sat next to yesterday who had no clue what Citizenfour was and didn't recognise the name Edward Snowden. Her father was a fairly senior officer in the armed forces, and she knew the government was tracking all her communications.
My response to my son and everyone else is "Watch Citizenfour! Then you can decide if I am crazy or not." I thought I knew from all the leaks reported in the News, that the government was collecting data on everyone. But I think that the hacking of Angela Merkel's phone was a distraction from this. We know they shouldn't have any reason to hack her phone, but I think we already suspected that our governments were spying on all the influential figures around the World anyway. The trouble is that this makes the population think that it is only the 'important people' who's communications are being monitored, and nobody is 'watching' us. But Edward Snowden describes that all of the data about everyone is being tracked and recorded and they can search through this data for whoever they want to find out about, for whatever reason.
Conspiracy : A secret plan by a group to do something unlawful or harmful.
This is a conspiracy. The US and UK governments are colluding in secret for their own aims. Neither I nor Angela Merkel pose a terrorist threat, so we shouldn't be spied on.
Theory: A supposition or a system of ideas to explain something, especially one based on general principles of the thing to be explained
This is no theory though, because Edward Snowden has provided us with the evidence, and lots of it has been published in the Washington Post and The Guardian. This is fact. I am not a theorist ie creating a theory about something we don't know. The fact is that the government is conspiring to illegally collect and store data about us that is private.
(A theory based on this principle, might be to say that there can't be thousands of Russian troops in Ukraine, because all this illegal data gathering would have led to some evidence being uncovered, such as logging increased phone calls of Russian troops, or emails describing their fighting in Ukraine, or determining their location through their cell phones, or even images from peoples phones showing tanks or Russian soldiers near Ukrainian landmarks. Who needs to wave a handful of passports around when access to private communications can be obtained - unless of course it is just a lie so there is no real evidence.)
I am just saying, that before you jump in and use the C and T words together in a derogatory fashion, make sure you understand who is doing the conspiring and what it may be doing to your freedom and rights.
I realise that writing two posts on Citizenfour could give you the impression that I am obsessed with it. Rest assured that no such thing is true and between thoughts about climate change, peak oil, the fate of the Titanic, foraging, gardening and raising kids, it is not something that I will be spending time dwelling on. However I am glad that I know how low our government will stoop to have the upper hand, and how heroic the likes of Edward Snowden are for telling us the truth. I hope I would be brave enough to be a truth-teller in his situation.
Meanwhile today..... the dog has just got a weeks reprieve from having her jabs, because this post has distracted me and we have missed the appointment at the vets! I had better get myself over to the allotment, despite the threat of showers, because my mind is clearly too distracted to get any meaningful work done. If I start in the middle of the plot and just dig, I can't go wrong :-) Digging is such physical work that nobody will question if they catch me leaning on my fork deep in thought. Because I am obviously just catching my breath, and not wondering how different life would be now if the captain had heeded the warnings about icebergs.
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