Today, fight the power

Yes! Fighting the power! I've always wanted to fight the power since I first heard Public Enemy spit some dope rhymes in a song about fighting the power a while back... Can't remember the name of the song though...

This week is actually Closure Week, where I'm supposed to catch up with an ex-girlfriend and analyse the relationship in order to gain 'closure'. But I have to wait until I can see Amanda to sort this one out (although it is worth noting that I have had closure from this near-decade-ago relationship for a long time, but I'll play along Benrik!). So, as it is, I am still attempting bonus tasks.

Another ambiguous one today (or yesterday, blah). My first step is to work out who the power is from the following options; church, government, media, corporations, military-industrial complex, or alien mind-control. The second step is to see whether my fighting of said power will result in a victory, defeat, or draw.

I firmly believe that classic 90's dance group Snap have the power, seeing as they wrote a song about having 'the power' (though, again, the name of the song escapes me...). They openly admitted to it too! And if they have the power, surely they also have the power over the power, thus making them THE power. Right? One to think about...

The word 'power' has honestly lost all meaning.

Anyways, I hit up the ever trusty Google to research which of the listed groups is the power. As I did this, I played 'Fight The Power' (I remembered the title!) by Public Enemy for inspiration. Plus, if the song was succesful enough in it's aims, it might just do the job for me.

Through extensive research (Yahoo answers, basically), I decided that the government is the power. After all, the government controls the media, corporations and military-industrial complex (though I couldn't find anything on if the government was controlled by aliens). The church would have been the power, a long time ago, but not really so much nowadays. So, yay! I get to fight the government.

So, I loaded a train with bombs and drove it straight to beneath the Houses of Parliament! Success!

Ahem. Nah. I didn't get quite that radical, alas. In case you hadn't noticed the lack of news on the Houses of Parliament being blown up. Fortunately, an oppertunity (of sorts) arose to fight the government. My sister Meg had applied for an Adult Learning Grant, a company that grants money to students... But only if they're doing their first qualification course. Meg was doing her second, so was rejected, much to our dismay. We didn't think that the amount of qualifications she had done should make an iota of difference to whether or not she can get a loan. So, it was time to fight the power (or, at least, take a lunge at it's legs and gnaw on them slightly)!

My technique wasn't particularly revolutionary. But hopefully it will do the trick. It's tried and tested, I guess. I wrote a letter to the Adult Learning Grant company to appeal their decision, complaining that it was unfair to only grant first qualification students legible for loans. It wasn't an angry letter, but probably should have been. However, I wanted to be a lot more subdued in my attack. Here is the letter;

Dear sir or madam

You recently rejected my sister’s application for an Adult Learning Grant, and we wish to appeal against the decision. Whilst you do state that students are only legible for the grant if they are doing their first qualification course, and my sister is doing her second, we feel that this is extremely unfair. It shouldn’t make a difference whether or not a student is taking their first, second, etc., qualification, the fact remains that as a hard-working learner, they are just as legible as anyone else to be given a grant if necessary. In my sister’s case, the money is extremely important to her learning, as money is needed for the bus in and out of college each day, any trips on the course, and books needed to learn, a situation made more difficult by the fact that she has recently lost a job.

I hope you can understand why the grant is important to her, and hopefully won’t neglect other people who are taking qualifications beyond their first.

Yours sincerely,
James Small

Obviously, this will probably need to be rephrased as being from Meg, and she hasn't checked over the letter yet, but this is the foundation for my blistering assault on the government. Once she has approved a final copy, I will send off the letter, and let you know whether my fight against the power was a win, lose, or draw. Okay, so yes, it's not the power, but it's a subsidary of the power. And I'm taking out the legs first...