Thoughtland

PK column in The National: We may live in dangerous times but we don’t have to accept our fate

By Pat Kane. First published on JUNE 24TH, 2017

‘CATASTROPHE” is the keyword of the moment. And if we want to address the various states of disorder and disaster it refers to, we should dwell for a moment on the usages of the term itself.

It comes from the Greek katastrépho: “I overturn.” Nothing could seem as starkly catastrophic as the Grenfell Tower disaster – a community in the sky quickly “turned over”, via a wall of flaming panels, into a charnel house. It’s also the exact term used by those local activists who had been warning for years of the building’s flammability.

PK column in The National: I'm up for a bit of the well-being sociologists say autonomy brings

By Pat Kane. First published on JUNE 17TH, 2017

IT’S crazy out there, no doubt about it. Hard to know how to orient yourself, in what sometimes feels like a rattling-apart of many established structures.

In this moment, I think there are psychological benefits in pursuing Scottish indy politics. It allows you to grab on to some of the biggest topics – economy, technology, energy, welfare, the utility of force – and at least connect them to some real democratic forces.

PK column in The National: A focus on the day job came at the cost of our independence ideals

By Pat Kane. First published on JUNE 10TH, 2017

STRANGE “defeat”, when this number of SNP seats would once have passed Margaret Thatcher’s rule — that a majority of representatives for independence in Scotland guarantees a new nation-state. But the rules have changed since — and to be fair, in its pursuit of a legal indy referendum in 2014, the SNP played its part in changing them.

But if this is instead a “victory”, it’s a gey strange one. One that includes both Alex Salmond and Angus Robertson, the vital past and the leading present of Scottish Nationalist politics, being removed from their seats by an overt and covert coordination of cross-party Unionist campaigning.

PK column in The National: Medical cannabis conversation has to be held to get over our 'reefer anxiety'

By Pat Kane. First published on JUNE 3RD, 2017

EVERY family knows someone like this, often in their advanced years: the person in chronic, maddening, oppressive pain.

You come upon them of a morning, when you cheekily bound through the door on your surprise visit. And she’s at her chair, beloved head in hands, moaning low and long. “Never mind me... you must be fed-up seeing me like this... but this bloody, thumping, never-ending pain...”

You’d do anything to help them (though often simple conversation can be the thing that pulls them part-way up the tunnel of their agony). Would you do something illegal? If it could stand between your friend or relative, and the relentless hammering away at their nerve endings. No hesitation. Whatever it takes.