When I first saw Ani DiFranco play, I was 19 and she was 28. I’ve followed her career over eleven more albums (twenty in total) and at least ten live shows; even now, twelve years later and so much life in between, her work remains a fixture.

The songs have evolved as she’s grown older, and maybe I’ve evolved along similar lines, because they still resonate with me. Ani has always played impassioned, powerful, empowering music for progressive people fighting for a better world than the one we’re expected to settle for. What’s extraordinary is that, contrary to the way she’s often portrayed, her music is joyful and unconstrained – perhaps more now than ever. These aren’t songs of the oppressed. On the contrary: this is music of change.

Sadly, she has no European tour dates planned. But if she’s coming to your neighborhood, seek her out. The first time I saw her was transformative, and each concert has been better than the last.

The arts community Central Station has sent me to cover the Edinburgh International Film Festival this year. I’m attending films and events in between my usual Internet work. So far it’s been a blast – I’m intentionally drawing together various social applications (Twitter, Audioboo, Flickr, etc) to create different kinds of pieces that aim to provide different perspectives on the festival and convey a sense of the overall atmosphere.

Here’s my blog over at Central Station, which I’ll be updating throughout the festival. You should also check out my partner in reporting, Sasha de Buyl-Pisco, who will be blogging over here. (She’s a prolific freelance writer who can normally be found at Taxidermy Mouse.)

The front page of the Sun today has the Conservative candidate David Cameron painted like Obama, portraying him as the only hope for the future of the country. The Conservatives themselves have pushed this comparison with their “vote for change” election slogan.

I can’t help but see another parallel.

The US election in 2000 was a close-fought race between the Democrats, who had been in power with Bill Clinton as President since 1992, and the Republicans, who had re-launched with a promise of delivering compassionate conservatism. Ralph Nader, the campaigner who amongst other things helped it to become mandatory for seatbelts to be installed in cars, ran as the Green Party Candidate.

You probably remember how it went down. The Republicans eventually took the Presidency, despite not actually winning the popular vote. George W Bush went on to become one of the country’s most notorious leaders, seemingly an empty-headed figurehead for a greedy, fundamentally religious party that stood for very conservative values and the rights of big business over the needs of ordinary people.

Today’s election is very closely-fought; the Conservatives, Liberal Democrats and Labour Party are more or less head-to-head. None have much of a hope of an outright victory, and the Conservatives have stated their intention to lead a minority government if they have to.

Johann Hari’s piece Welcome to Cameron-Land is worth a read. It describes the Hammersmith and Fulham local constituency, which the Conservatives have controlled for two years:

People who took [their promise to move beyond Thatcherism and make the poor better off] at face value were startled by the first act of the Conservatives on assuming power – a crackdown on the homeless. They immediately sold off 12 homeless shelters, handing them to large property developers. [..] They said the homeless were a "law and order issue", and a shelter would attract undesirables to the area. With this in mind, they changed the rules so that the homeless had to "prove" to a skeptical bureaucracy that they had nowhere else to go – and if they failed, they were turned away.

[…] Debbie Domb, 51, is a teacher who was diagnosed with multiple sclerosis in 1994. She had to give up work, and now she needs 24/7 care. […] She "panicked" when a bill came through saying she had to pay £12.50 for every hour of care she needed. "I thought, ‘Oh my God, how am I going to do this?’ The more care you need, the higher your bill, so the most disabled people got the highest charges.

It goes on. The Conservatives believe that these sorts of reductions in services are necessary to achieve even a small reduction in taxes (in the borough above, it was a 3% reduction in council tax). A local youth centre, bequeathed to the public in the Victorian era, was sold off. Unbelievably, a local park was partially turned into a private polo ground. Cameron praised the council for all they were doing.

Indeed, it would appear that the Conservatives’ central “Big Society” idea – dismissed as “bollocks” even within the party – revolves around devolving responsibility for public services to citizens. It sounds great on paper, but is likely to lead to exactly the kinds of closures described above.

One final, nauseating quote from Johann’s article:

When David Cameron came on one of his visits to the area to cheerlead for the council, she asked him about the threat to her home – and he accused her of "black propaganda". When she explained that the council itself had admitted to having plans, Cameron snapped: "If you don’t like them, you should stand for election."

Meanwhile, Philipa Stroud, a Conservative MP who has shaped many of the party’s policies, ‘founded a church that tried to "cure" homosexuals by driving out their "demons" through prayer’:

"She wanted me to know all my thinking was wrong, I was wrong and the so-called demons inside me were wrong. The session ended with her and others praying over me, calling out the demons. She really believed things like homosexuality, transsexualism and addiction could be fixed just by prayer, all in the name of Jesus."

Stroud wrote a book, God’s Heart for the Poor, in which she explains how to deal with people showing signs of "demonic activity". […] In the book she discusses the daily struggle of running the hostel. "One girl lived in the hostel for some time, became a Christian, then choked to death on her own vomit after a drinking bout. Her life had changed to some extent, but we wondered whether God knew that she hadn’t the will to stick with it and was calling her home."

She denied these John Ashcroft-esque allegations – presumably the quotes from the book were taken out of context – and Cameron defended her:

Asked if he believed homosexuality could be cured, he said: "I don’t believe that, and she [Stroud]’s actually put out a very clear statement to say she was completely misreported; she believes in gay equality."

This rings hollow, even if Cameron himself believes in GLBT equality: another Tory, Philip Lardner, was sacked after he described ‘homosexuality as "not normal" and called for a public ban on promoting gay relationships to be re-imposed.’

Many people don’t seem to see the connection between a party’s stance on equality issues and how they approach governing for the breadth of their population. However, the implied VAT rise – a regressive tax that will hurt more the less money you have – is another signal of intent:

Labour has ruled out an extension of the 17.5% rate of VAT on vital everyday goods such as food, children’s clothes and bus fares. […] But the 120-page Tory document – given a showy launch at Battersea Power Station in London – did not even mention VAT which hits pensioners and those on the lowest incomes.

And it raised the prospect the Tories will either increase it to 20%, or extend it to food, children’s clothes and bus fares – or all. The independent Institute for Fiscal Studies warned: "Given the current forecasts, the Conservatives were wise not to make a "read my lips, no new taxes" pledge in their manifesto. William Hague only went so far yesterday as to say: ‘We’re not looking for tax rises’, which doesn’t rule anything out."

Meanwhile, despite clear indications that immigration expands output rather than causing unemployment, the party has been putting out a disingenuous message designed to appeal to xenophobes:

David Cameron’s Tories were accused last night of dog-whistle politics after the Conservative leader appeared on the front of flyers saying the floodgates had been opened to mass immigration. Critics say the flyers are alarmist and misleading because they imply limits could be imposed on entrants from EU countries such as Poland.

Last night, the party’s frontbench was forced to distance itself from the hard-hitting material, which was put out under the name of Cameron’s home affairs spokesman, Andrew Rosindell. It bears a picture of both men, says that immigration has caused a population explosion, and declares "we simply cannot go on like this".

Across the board, Conservative policies play to their base: better-off people who fear societal change. A far cry from their campaign slogan.

Update: Potentially illegal shenanigans by the Conservative Party at a polling station:

Keith Yost has written a really interesting article about his time with the Boston Consulting Group in MIT’s newspaper, the Tech. I was drawn to the agreement he was asked to sign when he left the company:

Much of it looked boilerplate, like any common compromise agreement used in Europe — in return for some money, I would stipulate that I hadn’t been discriminated against on the basis of race or gender, etc.

But the rest was very clearly a non-disclosure agreement, and it made me uncomfortable. I signed a non-disclosure agreement when I first took the job, but that only covered BCG’s intellectual property and client identities, things that seemed entirely reasonable to protect. This agreement went much further. Not only did it bar me from making any disparaging comments about BCG or my work experience, but I wouldn’t even be allowed to reveal the existence of the non-disclosure agreement itself. The implication was clear: I could either be a cheerleader for BCG or stay silent, but anything else would bring swift legal retribution. When I asked to have the non-disclosure clauses removed, I was told that the agreement was a standard offer to employees, and that its terms were non-negotiable.

The whole article is worth a read. It’s a damning indictment of the consulting sector, and is indicative of an attitude towards both employees and customers that I can’t subscribe to. “I got the feeling that our clients were simply trying to mimic successful businesses,” Yost notes, “and that as consultants, our earnings came from having the luck of being included in an elaborate cargo-cult ritual.” Nice work if you can get it.

On Saturday, November 23rd, 1963, the day after John F. Kennedy’s assassination, the BBC premiered a new show for family audiences. It had been devised by Sidney Newman, a Canadian ex-pat who had become head of drama through a successful career at ABC (an ITV franchisee, not the American channel), his team of writers, and Verity Lambert, a young producer who had just joined the BBC, still under supervision from more her experienced colleagues. The idea was to create an exciting, accessible drama show, but also that the audience would be educated about the world around them through the medium of time travel and the analogous lens of science fiction.

It’s Saturday, April 3rd, 2010. The 31st series of Doctor Who (not counting three movies, one series of feature-length specials, four Christmas specials and a long-running series of semi-independent radio plays) is going to premiere tonight. I, for one, cannot wait.

I’ve devoured Doctor Who ever since I can remember. I watched Peter Davison’s Doctor when I was tiny; when I learned to read, I ploughed through just about every single Target paperback novelization. When I learned to write, I wrote stories inspired by science fiction, and tales of saving the world. My life’s ambition as an eight year old is my life’s ambition as a thirty-one year old: to write for Doctor Who. My hopes were dashed completely when the series was cancelled in 1989. Had I known that it would be revived again in 2005, I probably would have gone into creative writing instead of computer science. My projects – Spire Magazine, Rum & Monkey, Elgg – would never have happened, but my God, I would have had a chance, however slim, of contributing to Doctor Who.

Many of the show’s writers contributed to Virgin Books’ The New Adventures series, which followed on from Sylvester McCoy’s final season. It turns out that this, at the time, was the single best way for new writers to get published. What an opportunity! Unfortunately, they fizzled out when I was eighteen, so although they provided fertile ground for many of the writers of the revived series (Russell T. Davies, Mark Gatiss, Gareth Roberts), I didn’t get the chance to try my hand. I might well have not been accepted, but I regret never submitting a manuscript.

So why do I feel this deep affinity for what is, after all, just a TV show?

There are plenty of other well-written, sympathetic drama shows, of course, but Doctor Who is alone in building high-tension stories around a pacifist. He never holds a weapon, and whereas a difficult situation in 24, say, might be alleviated with a few deft punches and a round of bullets, the Doctor saves the world each week through intelligence, empathy, diplomacy and tolerance. I’m a pacifist too: even paintball guns give me the shivers. I’ve never punched anyone in my life, and I hope I never will. I’m not competitive with other people, preferring instead to work together, and I believe in embracing difference, not enforcing conformity (citizenship tests, as an aside, are an abomination), and treating people as equals, no matter who they are or where they come from. The Doctor, as a character, shares my values.

The Doctor is an outsider: the ultimate immigrant. He’s got a British accent, but he’s not from round here. Although he wants to help and has a deep love for people, he’s never quite on their wavelength. I grew up in a culturally conservative Oxford as a boy with an English accent but a Dutch / Swiss / American / Ukrainian / Indonesian background, who didn’t know exactly who he was but knew that he didn’t conform to the football-playing male stereotype emerging on the playgrounds. The Doctor spoke to me. Awesome people could feel like complete outsiders too.

The longevity and popularity of the show proves to me that, despite a fair amount of evidence to the contrary, these values – pacifism, empathy, tolerance and understanding – are something most of us share in common. When I have children, I can’t wait to introduce them to the Doctor, the Daleks and the Cybermen; it’ll still be here, and I’ll have no qualms about doing so. Doctor Who is a family show with an electrifyingly progressive heart: you can’t get more inclusive, or more exciting, than that.

I love this post from Max Klein: if you don’t have a non-mainstream opinion, you can’t be successful.

Human society discovers things because of obstinate people. People who are told repeatedly that they are wrong, but they persist. People who believe they will find something and keep on going forward, even though it seems like nothing will ever be found. Don’t be fooled – 97% of the people who do this will waste their time and find nothing. But as a society, we need those 97% to also try, so that the 3% will find the things that will change the world.

The world is designed to support homogeneity: it makes us better consumers and more readily-employable citizens. To some extent, fitting in is useful. The ideas surrounding the rule of law and cultural norms around violence, to take two examples, are good. But above all else, you need your own compass about what is true (in the factual sense) and what is right (in the moral sense).

For me, the most important developments in the 20th century were to do with human rights: the freedom to vote irrespective of what kind of genitalia you have, the freedom to be seen as an equal no matter what color your skin is or where you come from, the freedom to communicate and to have access to information, and the freedom to love whoever you want (as long as it’s consensual). There’s a lot of work still to do, but these things came a long way during that century, and the totality has improved all of our lives. Progressive values have, I believe, created a better world – but each of these fundamental aspects of living in the 21st century is due to a small group of brave people who dared to defy convention and think about what was right.

A couple of weeks ago, David A. Kessler published an alarming article in the Guardian about how fast food companies are deliberately formulating their food to be addictive. Perhaps this shouldn’t be a surprise in itself, but what came as a shock to me was how brazen they were:

Initially, KFC meals were built around a whole chicken, with a pick-up surface that contained "an enormous amount of breading, crispiness and brownness on the surface. That makes the chicken look like more and gives it this wonderful oily flavour." […] "The smaller the piece of meat, the greater the percentage of fat pick-up," said the food designer. "Now, we have lots of pieces of a cheaper part of the chicken." The product has been "optimised on every dimension", with the fat, sugar and salt combining with the perception of good value virtually to guarantee consumer appeal.

[…] Rewarding foods are rewiring our brains. As they do, we become more sensitive to the cues that lead us to anticipate the reward. In that circularity lies a trap: we can no longer control our responses to highly palatable foods because our brains have been changed by the foods we eat.

Generally, fast food is made with very low-quality ingredients, tarted up with the fat, sugar and salt combinations described above in order to make the overall meal feel satisfying. Those same factors make it addictive, so how can we fight back?

My hunch is that just as everyone now knows what cigarettes do to your body and why they’re bad for you, a widespread educational campaign might help here, in conjunction with the kinds of high-profile food campaigns that people like Jamie Oliver are involved in. Fast food also shouldn’t be subsidized with public money: schools, colleges and government buildings should not be serving it. (It amazed me last year that the only cafeteria in the US National Air and Space Museum’s colossal Udvar Hazy Center is a McDonald’s.)

I’m not a food hard-liner. I love chips, pizza, fried chicken and so on a lot more than I should. I certainly don’t think it should be banned, and sanctions shouldn’t be placed on the people who make and sell it – although conspiring to subvert the public’s health should be a crime. However, obesity is expensive; it’s “now considered at least equal to smoking as a preventable cause of premature death”; it ruins lives. At the very least, it’s time to start talking about its biological effects.

Plenty of media attention has been given to foods we Absolutely Must Not Eat, but the facts are more compelling than any scare story. Where are the ads that talk about how fast food changes my brain chemistry and destroys my body?

Photo by ebruli, released under a Creative Commons license.