Waiting for the bus. One goes past going the other way. On it is a picture with the words "Gears of War - Never fight alone", .. I don't quite know why it makes me laugh. (Maybe you can tell me.) Something to do with the possibility of a Donald Trump in the White House grabbing women's crotches, "Because you can do that when you are well-known". Here's the picture:-
Oh, sure, .. It's a game. Just a game, .. and what's more, only designed to appeal to young adle-scence. What's that got to do with anything (besides me an' Julio down by the schoolyard I mean.) What's that? .. Like Pokemon (?) ..(Yeah?) .. Oh well, .. (I think that's my point).
And just by the way somehow my mind jumps to this morning's news where it is being announced that a coalition of forces is assembling in a bid to retake the city of Mosul from Isis, which we can watch in real time on newsfeeds.
Refresh memory. .. Mosul. Check. Remembered because there was a dam there that was said to be under structural threat, that could release a catastrophic flood if ISIS ...
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mosul_Dam#Instability_and_remediation
But Google earth anyway (for the dam). Dams are a fair size (and there's a few), but reflect on the "Relentless imperative of Flatness" (of geological process) and think "shallow", .. and with a good pair of wellies you could probably walk across them and not get your feet wet.
Flat land, .. and then remembered, .. the names of places shown, .. Ramadi, Falluja Tikrit, ... Abu Ghraib, even, ..I see Haditha. I know what a hadith is, but I check it out on the Wiki anyway for confirmation and think, "Let's take a closer look on the google", and click on a panoramio pic. Almost immediately I come up with this one of a fellow in a mosque. Peaceful. Just further down the list on the google search page I see something about a massacre, .. read it (some) (I don't remember hearing about that) and think "how did we get from that 'yesterday' to the news today?" Under what /whose 'aegis'? What really is the cause of all this sectarian violence that won't go away? And am reminded of the sectarian violence in another place, Ireland, not so long ago, that went by the name of 'The Troubles". But it could be in many places.
But what chance, when they are fed 'games' like the above and come to regard it as the norm via the nightly news, and wait for the day when they too can be 'Soldiers of the Cross' (Or the Koran), with a wee death's head to wear till they can string a few real ones on their belt. Jesus! What sort of a world are we living in?
Poor old Pope, holed up in the Vatican, .. a hostage of everybody else's sometimes-beliefs. And Julian Assange and Edward Snowden holed up too, .. on account of The Great Satan. [How many Islamic equivalents are there? (Question)] Or is that a many-headed hydra needing decapitatated?
What a world, .. stranger than fiction - until you get the hang of it, when even sheer lunacy seems ok.
So, ... what's for dinner? (Let's go and see if the power's still on.) (And if there still is one.)
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(20161020)
Talking about the Pope being holed up in the Vatican (hostage to people's emotional /spiritual needs) and the possible election of The Donald to the White House, we should note another newsworthy event creeping out from under the carpet, namely the proposed takeover of out public houses by science on grounds (presumably) that we should have a world based on rational thought, rather than an emotional irrational one based on religion, and that we should begin by recognising something that seems to have escaped the vegemite sandwich - that beer is something of a (hic!) r'l'g'n, that should not be encouraged.
"So, what'll you have?"
"Dunno, .. what's the Pope drink?"
"Creme de menthe."
"Ok, a pint of that then."
(Courtesies :=: Oor Billie.)
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(20181008)
(Couple of years later) Well, 'The Donald' happened. We've moved on, ..Isis has dropped off the radar but has been replaced by something even more onerous - 'women's boddies and who owns them' (baby?) - and as if that wasn't controversial (!?) enough, their importance when it comes to electing Supreme Court judges in America, when somebody's say-so (true or not) half a century ago can carry a whole "Me-too" country along with it, except for those charged with the responsibility of authentication of the said say, who are left floundering in the wake of the accusations. Talk about infantile madness?!
Where does the time go? September has just past (again) and with it the commemoration /celebration(?)(not sure which) of Ashura., so (memory lane) I look it up (images) and am somewhat disappointed to see hardly any blood, when in previous years the streets have swimming in it, though I think a lot of it must be red paint. (Blood is more crimson than that, but the intended coercion is still there.)
I think the decline in anguish (going by the present lack of blood) is encouraging though. It was said this year they're being encouraged to donate blood rather than spill it, .. so that might account for Google's emphasis on crowds rather than blood - unless there is some algorithmic manipulation going on, which I think is probably the case, now we're "going forward" into a brave new world.
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(20200120)
And later still. My blogstats show that somebody clicked on this page (tco probably), so I'm curious to have a look at it again, .. see what I wrote. And see there's a reference to Donald Trump, which is topical because his impeachment trial is just beginning. The man is a study in hubris even more than I am (thinking you can change the world in some way). Everybody's encouraged to get engaged with it enough to try, but woe betide you if you do. So, .. mixed messages. "Give somebody enough rope and they'll hang themselves", .. isn't that what they say? It certainly looks as if Trump is in trouble (with the hanks of it coiling round his neck). It is, of course, not a referendum on Trump. Before he was president I'd only ever heard of the guy via reports in celebrity gossip columns, but after he got elected very quickly got the picture. I tracked him for a couple weeks or so. That was enough. It's been a few years now and it's been a downward spiral. The media keeps talking up what a terrific job he's done of the economy and employment, but that doesn't seem to gel with what some representatives for the various states /counties say. It's a great pity Ocasio-Cortez isn't old enough to take him on. That would *really be the test to waken people up because of course (again) all of this 'impeachment' is not about Trump, except insofar as the danger that extreme narcissism poses when it is coupled with psychopathy and gets itself into the topmost position of power, and draws to itself all the attendant psychophants with their own agendas), it's about the people who voted him in and what they see in him - and the just-mentioned mafia-mob. What is it that attracts people to slogans and nationalism and racism, versus policies for making life better for everybody?
And just a word here about psychopathy (psycho, pathy ==> illness of the psyche), because it interests me (some). It is 'that of the soul which connects us to others'. It's not about looking in mirrors or showing off or any of that (though it is included), it's a totally inverted way of positioning the self to others and the world, and far, far more than can be explained in a couple of lines - which is why it is not regarded by the medical profession as an illness. (It's just too ingrained in people.)
That woman Cortez, put her shoes where her mouth is, for two years (I think), and wore them out talking to people in the street. I just hope she can stay the course, and puts America back on the track it was meant to be (going by that green garden gnome at the gate anyway), rather than the swamp it is in very great danger of becoming under Trump. Meanwhile Nancy's done a *great job* nipping this whole personality cult thing in the bud by making the Republican Party take a good look at itself, because it is they, more than anyone, who are under scrutiny for what they stand for, .. hanging on to Trump's coat-tails and pork-barelling slogans and pointing and head-nodding say-nothings, and generally rabble rousing. There's the difference, .. Trump and crew say a slogan and let it hang in the air while the crowd screams its head off. Cortez talks policy and shuts them up with a wave of the hand if they get too noisy, and gets on with what else (of policy) she has to say. I like that. Very much. In the beginning I had hopes for Trump. With his 'charisma' (as it could have been), but it's changed. Has it? Seems to me anyway, though I'm not really in a position to judge. Checking his interviews when younger he's certainly a self declared, very vindictive guy who values loyalty over virtually anything else (so long as he's top dog). But he can certainly appeal to people, though to what, exactly, is a moot point. But he very quickly showed neither his head nor his heart are in the right place.
I just hope Cortez can hang on to herself. It's a heavy load to carry for one so young. And then there's family and all that. America is a leader, but it is on a cusp of something that could be very dangerous for the *world* - or its salvation. Cortez is more than herself. She is a Woman for the Age. And a Leader. All power to her.
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