World War Three

Who knew that World War Three was going to start
with the 2014 Russian reclamation of The Crimea
from modern Ukraine, a mere 70 years after
Russians reclaimed all Ukraine from Nazi Germany
who invaded Ukraine between 1941- 1944.
Russia got their third bite at Ukraine from 2022,
where they propaganda/excuse became that they
were seeking to de-Nazify Ukraine, as if they had failed
to de-Nazify Ukraine nearly eighty years before
and had to hide their previous failure.

Now the third world war is being extended as a cyber war
in European air and airport control, and drones that make the skies
unsafe for planes to the point where plans for peacetime civil travel
is getting disrupted, before it gets totally discontinued.

   

Re:Tired

I was tired yesterday
I will be tired tomorrow,
I will be tired the day after.

I am fine with that: I was born tired.
Feeling tired is my proof that I am alive. 

First Family Values

We can measure how much thicker
blood is than water when we compare
how money and power are shared out.

When elections are well regulated,
the ballot is confidential, and changes
of government are both fluid and light,
a peaceable transfer, who complains about that?

Whereas in a kleptocracy that denies how bloody
and thick it's self interest is, whilst the first family decide 
how national and local government decline,
and what sort of media smoke and mirrors
seems right to mis-explain all this to the masses.   

 

It Is A Pleasant Surprise To Me

 

To see how the regimes with the one of the worst human rights records in the world inspires their most creative citizens to make such inventive, and easy to understand, world cinema. Proving that the power of the image, and good editing, are a craft to cherish forever.

Would that other countries too poor and too easily unsettled to have civil rights records that withstood close scrutiny had the history of the creative arts that Iran has, with which to contribute to world culture in spite of their absence of stable laws, and other hallmarks that are the pride of wealthy, more equitable, societies.  

A Question Of Truth

Truth is a necessity, as much as sanity.
Both are in short supply.

What truth should I hold on to today?
To imagine that I am grounded,
from the dazzling array of insanities
that the world, the heavens,
and the expanding mass media,
that offers me as a choice today. 

Perhaps the weather
will look after me better
than most human language.    

What We Can't See And Why It Matters

I have an appreciation of science,
even though it is a subject 
in which I was bad by design
through how I was taught it.

One reason I like my science
is because, absurd as it might be,
it has units of measurement
for things that public can be told about
where they will never see, directly,
the thing in itself. Only it's effect.

Science has built those units of measurement
into it's vocabulary which helps people believe
in what scientists can never directly see,
and yet make seem rational in conversations.

I can't say that holiness and eternity 'don't exist',
nor can I say that whether, if those concepts had units
of measurement more people would place more store by them
than they did before when they believed without measure.

All I know is that in so far as they are known to exist
their existence is defined by how they defy language.   

When Blatancy Is The New Integrity

And what is most on show in the media we know
is a double strength double standard of such blatancy
that it has to be presented as 'the new integrity',
then we can only guess at the size of the lie
before it multiplied, who the liar told first,
and who was made to swallow the lies, after that...

The long chain of command
that chose to accept the task
of vomiting this propaganda
as far around a fractured world 
as a global media could project it.   

The Truth About Vanity

How do you make a narcissist laugh?
Feed him a line about the weakness
of those he affects to despise. A line 
that makes their perceived character
a joke that does not need a punchline.

Only don't make the description of weakness
in others too truthful, it might reveal
to the recipient the truth about their vanity. 

The Recognition

Buying time to lay waste to the future,
using pointless speculation, is the popular way
for the few to make the many live out pasts
that cut them off from seeing the past
as an invention, where if those times
were examined with a little rigour
they would fall apart the instant they were recognised.  

When Small Is Not Beautiful

The smaller and neater
modern technology becomes
the easier it is to sell in adverts
and the less I like it. Screens I can't read
and keypads with buttons too small
and sensitive for me to use them,
doth not a happy consumer make.  

Abdullah Al-Derazi

Was the 300th person in 2025
to be executed in Saudi-Arabia
for protesting against a regime
that he could not see clearly enough
in advance of his becoming an adult would punish him.

His family were never told of his imminent death,
they were never going to say 'Goodbye' to him,
nor will they be given the body for burial,
where Saudi Arabia likes to punish the family
as much as they like to criminalise individual.

Abdullah Al-Derazi enjoyed raising birds by hand
No more will he hand-rear birds and nurture them,
the way he long dreamed of doing with his father.  

Saudi Arabia ranks at no 36 out of 172 countries
 in the ranking of the worst civil rights records,
between Turkey and Pakistan, with Azerbaijan close behind.
At no 1, the worst country in the world to live in is Iran.   

Expect more executions to be announced soon, or left click here.

It's Okay

Because the simple life will be the repetitive life.
But when living within our means is what we repeat
there is practicality and virtue in such repetition. 

 

The True Story Of The Boston Tea Party

In the accepted explanation of the Boston Tea Party,
the tea in the port was thrown into the sea by rebels,
rebelling against the high taxes imposed by George III,
on the British colony where those who told the story
try to present the idea that the colonised would have accepted
being an under-represented, were they charged far less tax. 

Whereas the true story was that those who threw the tea into the sea
were rebelling against both the British and the colonial authorities.
They did not want to be taxed and felt no need of representation,
before any authority, refusing even the policing of the colony.
They wanted to be the pirate-government that others would defer to,
they wanted to be the authority that taxed and subordinated others.

Pirate kings in and of  their own lawless domain.

This idea is being tested to the max with the Trump system of tariffs,
where many feel the boats, their booty, and the trade are all intact,
and have long left the harbour for other markets.

Thoughts And Prayers

Some prayers are just words
some words can be more than they seem.
Other words are less than their presenters
present those words as being. On the whole
I prefer the silences that lead to the thoughts
that open us up to the choice of change for the better,
that cannot be reversed by circumstance when adopted. 

La-La-Land

The longer I live alone,
when the landline does not ring,
the better I feel about the silence.

The isolation began when neighbours
who I thought wanted to know me
encouraged contact via facebook,
rather than conversing in person.

Then we moved to message by whatsapp
when they began to have even less to say
than they had when they had me use facebook.

It felt to me like they had moved away,
perhaps in their heads they had,
when they found a freer life in video games
where they met better neighbours
and went to live on La-La-Land.  

False/True Negatives

I used to believe that I was not part of my birth family
-that they only wanted me when I was of material use to them,
and called it 'cupboard love' when I sought acceptance. 

In my utopianism I imagined that I could choose
who I might be liked by, who would accept me, 
no question asked. But Covid severed too many connections....

Looking back at the time I still lived in hope.
There were many hopes that made me feel better,
they extended to use of words like 'homophobia',
with the many variants, where it's sponsors hoped
the changes they fostered were positive and permanent,
A reset of reality that could not be reversed.

I was almost convinced that through language alone
the world might be changed forever. But not quite.

Part of me knew that government is a matter
of legal mechanisms, 'Levers of power' where such levers
can be used in different combinations, to different effects,
regarding wealth, choice, and power across the strata of society.

But everyone in my chosen family avoided asking 
what might happen when an unrepentant fascist
grasped the use of state power and spoke and acted
with no sense of being even slightly capable of error,
or in need of the need to seek forgiveness.

In such times every statement from every 'great leader',
take your pick from Trump, Sisi, Putin, Orban, many others,
is more right because of whoever the speaker is, than wrong
and damning with their crude and weak grasp of the details.

Thoughts In Retreat

In a new world built on shoutiness
where the loudest world leaders
cut through the most, using propaganda
to promote the newest weapons of war,
when we can't trust a word they tell us
- particularly when they speak
in the tongues of hybrid warfare,
I find my best thoughts in firm retreat
from the noise of warfare that surrounds me. 

Such Economy With Language

'There is actually almost no detail about how it [the twenty point peace plan] is going to be implemented.

President Trump essentially stated the destination, but he did not state how to get there. That seems to be his style.

It is important to get some clarity about what the deal is and what it isn't.

It is not a peace deal. It is not a peace process. It is a ceasefire and hostage agreement.

That is a considerable achievement in itself, and it tries to go on to state where it wants to go on to, but it does get there. And that is the real problem.

I listened to every word Trump had to say yesterday and it was like the process had not been even started.

And Trump, I listened to all he said yesterday, Trump is talking as if the deal is done when it has not even started. At Sharm El-Sheikh [in Egypt] they* signed something they called The Trump Declaration For Enduring Peace and Prosperity. It is full of aspirations [Bowen audibly swerved his way past the word 'waffle' before he said 'aspirations'] but once again it is almost devoid of  content.'. 

- Jeremy Bowen, international editor for the BBC, summarizing the biggest world news story of the last few days. 

*Egyptian President Abdel Fattah el-Sisi, U.S. President Donald Trump, Qatari Emir Sheikh Tamim bin Hamad Al Thani, and Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan

  

   

  

World Mis-Leadership Made Personal

It is strange how much I try to keep faith
with the worlds of language, news, and politics
when so many weak world leaders remain in power
because they disappoint-as if if they led from the front
they might show others how to lead and be ejected
from their role in a shot. They remind me of my father,
a man who had far more right to ownership
and far more choice in law and custom
than I would ever have, both as a child and adult.
Such that what he mentored me in most was error
hidden and sustained by anonymity, more than I knew.

I don't blame him for not wanting to be parent,
any more than I blame world leaders for leading
their countries astray. The news still interests me
through it I see more clearly how the world is misled. 

  

Grief Is A Road Some Navigate More Than Others

After the scorched earth war policy
comes the self congratulatory ceasefire
where nobody knows how long the arms
will remain silent, but everyone hopes
it will be long enough for the living
who investigate, to clear away the rubble
that was once housing and retrieve the dead
from where they were crushed and died instantly,
so the living can own their sense of loss with dignity.  

The Common Currency

Overstating the case, or the argument,
is the common currency in modern politics,
where, aided by an overspun media,
there is no opposite to being 'in emit mode',
where in person, people might speak, think,
and listen - all at once - to make a conversation.

Thus 'A peace plan', as it fills the news,
is much nearer being 'A framework for a ceasefire'
than it's planners can admit, and 'a 20 point peace plan'
where 19 of the points remain bare outlines
for future government actions
that are not even at the planning stage. 

Thus who speaks to who
and what they might say to each other,
and who might chair such meetings, 
remains unimagined and unexplained.

The Common Currency remains
the ability to speak about the future
without listening for where it will start from,
where people wish that their leaders lead
through listening to their people instead. 

The Last Gasp Of Pink Floyd

was released 29 years ago this week when keyboard
player and writer of the band, Richard Wright,
released his second solo album 'Broken China'
to acclaim from fans of the band, with none of hyper
-promotion of the last full band album
'The Division Bell', but an EPK and interview.
Please left click here to hear 'Broken China'
in all it's chilly electronica-style grandeur for yourself.    
     

 

If A.I. Was Your Girlfriend

Elon Musk and every other billionaire tech bro
have redesigned human relationships as the best
a man's money can buy, with the available technology.

Their new fashion for avowedly heterosexual men,
who fantasize about real women, the reality of whom
ensures that the unreality of the men do not stand a chance,  
is the ever amenable and always changeable A.I. girlfriend.

There the man chooses her design, based in real life models
he has met where men can think once, twice, and think again,
about the design of the ideal A.I. woman of their choice
who will never complain that the man is a fantasist: if she did
then the A.I. woman would cease to exist as the man's fantasy.

  

Competitive Insanity

As The Autocrats Club selects new members
from across the world, neighbour of Russia -
Georgia - is the latest where the vote has been counted,
and consensus as evidenced with the shrunken freedom
of the press in the reports that do get released, the competition
for the most destructive and insane leadership of the year
still remains a hot race between the hidden hand of Hamas,
the military and propaganda power of Likud, and the lameness
of The Republican Party in America. There, for all three,
every reason why they can't do exactly what they want
is somebody else's fault, for anyone other than them to fix. 

Between Words And Actions

As world leaders pronounce
about the world they want to see,
putting the 'me' into the media 
before an audience that is tailored
by the advertising revenue their words earn,
we should note that whilst speeches
start and stop on television, the wars
that are started by all these words 
take a lot more than mere speech
to stop once the arms are taken up.     

Ineffective Democracy

We have a choice of reasons for being shocked
by modern politics, we can be appalled
by people who register to vote but refuse
to enter the polling booth and make use of it,
not even to invalidate their ballot card, or be appalled
by people voting in their thousands. But by the nature
of the list of candidates, whoever the voters choose,
their vote makes no difference to the overall result.

It Is Being So Contrary

That keeps me most consistent.

Here's Looking At You, Kid

 Jane Goodall with Tess, a female chimpanzee
at the Sweetwaters Chimpanzee Sanctuary, North Nairobi,
 in 1997. Photograph: Jean-Marc Bouju. For contact
that is more human to human with/from Jane Goodall
please left click here. She was a true prophetess
of our times, as is the way with all these things, 
far more than we realise....  

 

Picture Set Of The Month - October - Pointillist Landscapes By Ferdinand Hart Nibbrig

'View of Zoutelande on the Island of Walcheren'
an isthmus close the southern border of The Netherlands  
as painted by Dutch neo-impressionist painter
Ferdinand Hart Nibbrig (1866 - 1915). 

'Bulbfields in Bennebroek' in the North West
of The Netherlands as painted in 1900 by Dutch painter
and sometime theosophist Ferdinand Hart Nibbrig (1866 - 1915).

'Spring in Blaricum', a pointillist painting depicting
Northern Holland by the Dutch artist
Ferdinand Hart Nibbrig (1866 - 1915). 

'Landscape in the Eifel' a pointillist painting
of a region of Germany, as painted by the Dutch
neo impressionist artist Ferdinand Hart Nibbrig. 

'A View of Vlieland', a pointillist landscape of one
of the West Fresian Islands off the coast of The Netherlands
as painted  by the Dutch artist Ferdinand Hart Nibbrig (1866 - 1915).

'Landscape in the Eifel' by the Dutch painter, lithographer,
and illustrator who was known for his pointillist and divisionist
style, Ferdinand Hart Nibbrig (1866 -1915).