The Hope of Transparency

I don't care and I won't give my thanks
when all the green-wash advertising
put up by the wealthy, and the banks,
subsidises the space I take up
in the social media;
I did not ask them to do it.

I'd rather have nothing to say
and no means of saying it,
than knowingly be part of the screen 
that slowly blind the masses
as to the actual state of the planet. 

Radio Daze

Every day an endless tide of non-events
and scenes without denouement
wash through me via my radio.
With every hourly news bulletin
I forget what I was listening to before
and I'll forget again if I leave the radio on.

The measure of my mental health
is remembering to turn the radio off
when I know that I have heard enough
and I won't be able to concentrate on any more.   

My Second Christmas Card Of 2021

Adolph Richard Fleischmann 1892-1968

Untitled || Ohne Titel, circa 1952

 

Have They Checked Their Travel Insurance?

I have been slow to comment
on the modern 'migrant problem',
just as I have been slow to reflect
on the causes of said migration; war
famine, disease, and global warming.

But this much I will observe,
when slavery was an accepted trade
the ships that the slaves
were trafficked in were far safer
than the flimsy rubber dinghies
that today's migrants are given
to take to the English channel with,
to get as far from the famines, wars,
and diseases that bedevil their once safe,
now unstable, 'home countries' as they can.

Also slave owners had to buy
insurance for their captive cargo,
c.f. The Zong Massacre.Whereas
modern, more voluntary, migrants
have to travel by faith alone,
through hostile environments
that are far nearer being like
that they seek to escape from
than anyone would want to know.

At that rate buying insurance
for making sure of your profits,
whether your cargo lives or dies,
looks like sure proof of hubris,
and being well fitted for Hell
when you are ferried to the next life. 

Artifice Of Intelligence

As Alan Turing would surely have observed
the problem with artificial intelligence
is less that it is artificial, and more
to do with whether it is intelligent.

 

My First Christmas Card of 2021

 

Picture Set Of The Month - December - Ruined Houses In Ireland

In 1842 a German writer and geographer
called Johann Georg Kohl travelled around Ireland,

he observed, “Ireland is the country for ruins.
Here you have ruins of every period of history, from
the time of the Phoenicians down to the present day.

Not a lot has changed since then, other than
subsequent decades supplementing the number
of ruins found here almost 180 years ago.

A well-preserved ruin, masonry cleaned up, gravel paths
 installed, regularly cut lawns, can no doubt expect
a longer twilight life. For those who need the masonry
to crumble because of the ivy, the experience 
 will always disappoint.