Life Between The Ups And Downs

When The Lord so loves who he punishes
whither love where there is no punishment?

Whither hope without the risk of wrath
for unknowingly 'being disobedient'
because it was the only way of discovery?

  

People Who Fight Like Hell

to get what they want at all costs
will always get some of what they want,
but they rarely get it all.
What they will get as well
is their own hell, made personal
from all the efforts
that got them where they are. 

Monumental Insults Worth Repeating

for their literary qualities and brio
are few and far between,
allow me to repeat the following;

Karl Marx on Lord Palmerston (1784-1865)
the multi-titled Prime minister (1855-58 159-65)
so far he is the last Prime Minister to die in office,
a position that I hope will be promptly superseded,
by the present incumbent, to whom I'd apply the following 

'What he aims at is is not the substance,
but merely the appearance of success.
If he can do nothing [then] he will devise anything.
Where he dares not interfere he inter-meddles,
not able to vie with a strong enemy
he improvises with a weak.....
In his eyes the movement of history
is nothing more than a pastime
expressly invented for the satisfaction of Lord Palmerston.'       

When Seeing Is Disbelieving

What chance does any sort of belief have?
click here for a forty minute audio profile
of the author, from the BBC World Service.

Bunkered!

Billionaires are reported to be
buying up land in New Zealand
in which they will build bunkers
that will withstand 
the end of the world.

Don't they realise
that the scale of their wealth,
as compared with those with less,
is one of the smaller reasons
for the wrath of the earth to come?
And they will earn them a wrath in their wealth
that not even they will be able to hide from?

It could be worse though,
these billionaires could be
building 'world class' golf courses
with which to drink the planet dry,
to quench their rarefied pleasures....    

Anything But The truth

Roman rhetorician and teacher Quintilian (35-100 A.D.)
said 'A liar needs to have a good memory'
I would dispute that,
there are many other needs that if met
would  make a liar's lies stick
at least as much as a good memory;

1-having a person a charisma
that stops others questioning you.

2-being the of the dominant gender
in your society and never addressing your equal,
who might challenge you,
only addressing your inferiors.

3-knowing how to use anger in a controlled way
to stop your audience questioning you choice of words.

4-always lead conversations
away from who you are,
what you said and when you said it.

I am sure there are many similar but smaller rules
that when a liar follows them would disguise their lies
but I will leave the reader to think of these rules, themselves.... 

Picture Set Of The Month - August - Soviet Era Bus Stops

These neglected masterworks of modern art

exist on roadsides from the shores of the Black Sea
to the endless Kazakh steppe

they show the range of public art from the Soviet era  by giving a glimpse into the creative minds of the time.

The range of places represented by these bus stops
include Kazakhstan, Turkmenistan, Uzbekistan, Kyrgyzstan,
Tajikistan, Ukraine, Moldova, Armenia, Georgia, Lithuania,
 Latvia, Estonia, and Belarus, 

Here is the website that will help you find
more about the bus stops and other subjects
the photographer has covered and give you
the explanations for photographing them.