Is ANYONE Seriously Suggesting Providing Ukraine with Intercontinental Ballistic Missiles (Either Nuclear or Otherwise) & Moreover Authorizing Their Use Is EVEN REMOTELY a Sign of Wisdom? Or of Why He (as in Joe Biden) - as He Himself 'Erstwhilely' Suggested - Ought to Still be Running the United States of America...&/Or Moreover Thereby Controlling the Destinies of 7,500 Million Fellow Earth-Dwellers in His Hands?

 God help us all - and most of us thought that Donald J Trump was bad enough!

Hey, Why Is Outgoing US President Joe Biden Scrambling to Give His Fellow Citizens Not to Mention Earth-Travellers Reasons and Justification For Americans' (Admittedly, Seemingly Utterly) Inexplicable Decision to Choose Donald J Trump a Second Time at the Ballot Box a Couple Weeks Ago?

Would (the MAGA Rump of) D J Trump's Supporters Contest the Result of U S Presidential Election 2024 If It Failed to Go In his Direction?

Damn right they would, leading to the long-feared round two of the American Civil War! 

If America Shortly (Keeping Strictly to My BlogPosts These Past Three-Some Hours, Excepting the Words (to That Effect) of Another Wag/Political Junkie Here at Our Main Public Library in Dunedin, New Zealand) Decides to Flirt Once More with 'the Donald'...

then God help them (and All our Planet), they''ll (& we'll) need (every last ounce of) it...& then some! 

Worry About the Soon, Much-Anticipated, Even - Oftentimes - Predicted (Even Prophesied?) Return of Donald J Trump to This World's Most Powerful Position? No, But Be Duly Concerned About the Return, the Second Advent, of Another, Long-Heralded One...

For this same Jesus...shall so come (back to Planet Earth) in like manner as (He went) into heaven...

at the last trump...the trump of God... 

& except ye repent, ye shall all likewise perish.

For, as He Himself declared, in a wholly different - yet not altogether unrelated - context:

I will show you whom you should fear...fear Him which after (H)e hath killed (the mere body) hath power to cast into hell(fire);

yea, I say unto you, Fear (h)im.

A *Certain Incredibly Well-Known Politician/Leader of the Free World of Yesteryear Once Declared: **"Better dead than red!"

Hey, not if it/that means the obliteration of our species - made in God's own image - from the face of Planet Earth...

*'Everyone' knows the individual concerned, but if you reckon you don't, here're 3 clues (fit for a crossword puzzler): *conspiracy-ridden *republican (NB the small 'r') royalty *everyone remembers where they were 

**And no, I'm not alluding to the century-and-a-half plus conflict between communism and capitalism here, but obviously to the age-old conflict now bursting anew into open conflagration in the Middle East.

Once Again Our Planet Appears On a (Sure as Heck) Trajectory Towards Armaggeddon & Oblivion...Beginning in the Middle East & (Possibly Quite Literally) MUSHROOMING Out From There

 Dear LORD, save us from ourselves and help us (homo *sapiens) before it's forever too late!

*I'll leave it up to an impartial observer from another planet/visiting 'alien' or otherwise to conjecture as to the merit or otherwise of the human species being thus attributed innate wisdom!

(As I've Said So Many Times Before -"but No-one's Listening"(As Smeagol-Gollum Once Declared to Samwise Gamgee & Frodo Baggins)), Continually Poking the Borax in Vladimir Putin's Face - However Undoubtedly Justifiably - Will Only End in Tears - For All Us Earth-Dwellers

Yes, war rarely ends in any real victory for anyone - least of all for those (however innocently and unjustifiably) caught up in it... 

President Biden's Unexpected Visit to Ukraine a *"Spectacular Strategic Move"? **Spectacular Strategic Stuff-Up, Rather...

And whatever folk have unkindly said about the unfortunate former United States President, Jimmy Carter, even he could teach Joe Biden a lesson or two in realpolitik in foreign affairs. Especially at this time. 

*/** Certainly 'spectacular' in terms of greatly hastening the likelihood of WW111, and 'strategic' in thus giving Vladimir Putin all the justification before his own people he could possibly wish for in using it as an all too convenient pretext for upping the ante with the West over Ukraine, claiming - in not all that far-fetched a manner - that the U S is all but engaging in a proxy war (via Ukraine) already with Russia (supplying them with all but the most powerful of weaponry to prosecute the war successfully with Moscow), so, hey, who can now blame us (Russians) for blowing the Americans' cover and calling this what it evidently is, i.e. a full-fledged assault upon our (Russian people's) essential sovereignty and nationhood?

Woe Betide a West Sleepwalking - Nay, Now Actively, Consciously Marching - Toward WW111: Blithely Ignoring, Miscalculating a Rabid Russian Bear 'With Nothing Left to Lose': So You're Telling Me/Us All That the Russian Leader's a Madman, But Not Mad Enough to Use Nuclear Weapons When Push Comes to Shove & When Backed Up Against a Wall? Then I'm Sorry - YOU'RE The Mad One

"The war [in Ukraine] has (just/now) gone to a (whole) new level" - "the Russians are getting sick of losing". As one German woman on the street in Deutschland said the other evening: "I have a bad feeling" (about her Government's sending of high-powered German 'Leopard tanks', at the behest/request of the American Administration/European Parliament/Union, to the frontlines in Ukraine); "I'm afraid how Putin will react."

Exactly/precisely. Couldn't have put it better myself. 

Meanwhile (according to BBC Radio) tensions in the ever-fraught Middle East are once again - surprise, surprise - rising/"excalating". (That latter adjective being employed, oddly and ironically enough, by United States Secretary of State Anthony 'double take', blind leading the blind, he of blinkered thinking Blinken, who has the sheer gall to be warning of this very thing whilst undertaking a fly-in visit there over coming days, whilst 'back in the USA' he and the Biden Administration are doing their level best to escalate tensions with Russia to the point that if WW111 eventually eventuates, well who'd'a guessed.)

Postscript: Where are you Angela (Merkel), when you and your nation so desperately need you...you *ought to have left the helm in Deutschland earlier, in time to make a ***successful run for the leadership in the United Nations, that ****oh so useless and ineffectual body of platitude purveyors...

*As is admittedly common for me - and doubtless somewhat annoying and frustrating for my readership -  a whole mass of contradictions-in-terms, for obviously were Merkel to have remained at Germany's helm she'd never have even been able to make a run for United Nations Secretary-General. And of course she didn't do so, ultimately both losing her position (by her own volition) as German Chancellor as well as the opportunity to seek that leadership role in the UN. And admittedly only a few **select politicians throughout the world have ever managed to perform such Lazarus-like feats and come back out of the wild blue yonder to regain political power when their nations most desperately needed them. 

**Wartime British Prime Minister Winston Churchill obviously being one of these to readily spring to mind.

***For at the time of the last leadership contest thereabouts, one which incidentally featured former UN #3 Helen Clark, one-time, long-serving New Zealand prime minister, it was well 'bandied about' that the only area (as in major world region) that hadn't had a U N Secretary-General up to that point had been the old 'Eastern Bloc', and that therefore if a credible leadership contender had emerged from such a place they'd have been hands-on favourites to succeed the then retiring UN Secretary.

And guess where Ms Merkel herself haled from? Yes, the old Eastern Germany, very much a part of that selfsame 'bloc' only 33-or so odd years ago...

****Of course one could also legitimately ask why anyone, let alone someone of such political gravitas as Merkel, would be even remotely interested in heading up such a body of incompetents, to which I can only suggest that while she may well not (have) be(en), she could hardly do worse than the present (not to mention previous) incumbent/s of said office. 

Moreover - and infinitely more than Germany itself - 'what the world (so desperately) needs now' is such a tried and true individual who has proven so adept at foreign affairs over such a long spell, one who indeed showed herself well capable of helping resolve global standoffs and crises; for who can really deny that we have come to a time when our world stands upon the very precipice and threshold of calamitous ruin? 

Meanwhile back in your homeland you've been succeeded by someone whom, as (?Lieutenant?) Burkholder might have responded to Colonel Klink (in that *****great 'ole situation comedy of the 70s, Hogans Heroes), has seemingly embraced Burkholder's own lifetime motto:"I know *******noth-ink!"

*****Accepting the validity of Jewish critiques of the show claiming it tended, no doubt, to ******downplay the seriousness of what was then transpiring in the Third Reich; but childhood memories nevertheless always remain dear and cherished, and hard to replace no matter how reasonable/logical the argument may well be...

******Much as Yours Truly roundly criticized the film Jojo Rabbit for doing a little while ago.

*******I.e. nothing. (********Says it all, doesn't it.)

********As in knows nothing much about those things (in the political sphere) that really matter, that well behove a leader of such a major Western nation - with such a well-known, much-fraught history - to know.

"I Told You (I.e. Anyone/Everyone Willing to Listen) So", But You Simply Wouldn't Listen...A Golden Opportunity for 'Peace at Last' Has Been Missed/Wasted, & Will Probably Never Come Again

Like any half-decent (& semi-rational)  person, I utterly abhor Putin (the man and all he stands for), as I also, for that matter, do the likes of Trump and Xi...

But, it's sad to have to say - yet again: I told you/y'all so...

Vis-a-vis the public shaming and humiliation of Vladimir Putin by the U.S. recently, a moment where it was abundantly clear and palpable that the Western Superpower was sticking it to Russia and especially its leader - in every which way possible...

...and that, as a direct - if, naturally enough, unacknowledged - consequence the (previously unremitting and seemingly indomitable) resolve of the Russian leadership - military generals all the way up to Putin himself - which had clearly over preceding days been starting, however tentatively and hesitantly, to lessen/weaken, was once again hardened - and I believe inexorably...

So that President Putin's words very words this (NZ/Southern Hemisphere) New Year's Day (Northern Hemisphere's New Year's Eve) - that "the West was intent on destroying Russia" (to all those viewing President Zelensky's visit to America to address the United States Congress) - doesn't actually look /seem so very far-fetched after all...

But let me quickly explain myself.

This visit signified/demonstrated/shouted from the rafters at least three significant things:

*the battle in Ukraine could now be (however wrongly) depicted/portrayed (convincingly and credibly) to Putin's countrymen and women as 'the West versus Russia'

*the only acceptable result in the eyes/sights of the US Administration/political establishment was/is total humiliation for Russia and shaming of its leader

*a worrying sense of smug superiority and gloating over the enemy (i.e. Russia by the US) was once again being played out upon the world stage - in sheer/stark and wholly unambiguous terms.

TO BE CONTINUED...

  

 

Whoa - What a Fraught Move (& Then Some!) I'm Sorry to Have to Say/Declare to One & All (Though the People Who Most Need to Hear/Be Listening Simply Aren't): Volodimyr Zelensky's "Surprise, Surprise" Last-Minute, 'Hush-Hush' Trip to the US of A - to Speak to America's (Combined) Houses of Representatives...Is Bound to End in Tears - for Our ENTIRE Planet...As I've Intimated Before, There's NOTHING As Feral and Reactive as a Frothing, Cornered Bull (Which is EXACTLY What Vladimir Putin IS At Present), & To Think That Things Were Just (the Previous Day) Starting to Look a Wee Bit Better With the Russian Leader Finally Declaring What the Whole World Has Long Known: Yes, 'Operation Ukraine is Not (Presently) Going According to Plan'... But Sadly the Americans Now (& Zelensky Himself) 'Upping the Ante' Could Very Well Lead to the End of Life As We Know It On Planet Earth: You've Been Warned!

Is This For Real? - I.e. Reports of Al Gore's Promotion of 'New & Improved' Technologies to Facilitate the Tracking & Monitoring of People Using Exorbitant Amounts of Carbon (Thus Contributing Overly Much to Climate Change)...

If this (i.e. attempting to mitigate climate change by policy prescription/legislative enactment) ain't one of the factors eventually leading/contributing to an America-wide (and ultimately global) sunday law, it's hard to imagine what could be...

...except, perhaps, legally instituting/establishing Sunday as a car-less, shopping-free day...

...and eventually boycotting those who refuse to comply/go along with the majoritarian view...

Some Stuff the World's Masses Undoubtedly Never Hear About God's Own/Godzone/Aotearoa-New Zealand...and the World's Media Is Only Too Frightened/Unwilling to Report...But Is Nonetheless True Every Whit (and Well Worth Your Knowing, I Reckon)...

How about a story involving/incorporating tikanga, a relentless witchhunt, true dinkum homophobia, false memory syndrome & a blatant, flagrant miscarriage of justice...

It's the untold story of a now dead man, exonerated post-death, by New Zealand's highest court...

...one moreover almost completely ignored on the very day he was effectively exonerated - at least during the first hour or two after the major breaking story was announced elsewhere - by this nation's (generally) pro-Government (and certainly anti-Christian and supposedly LBGT-friendly) state-run nationwide radio station, RNZ National...

Sadly you'll have to await another day, Google and Blogger willing - and for some reason they ain't been of late - to hear the full, unvarnished details...

...and knowing my (bad) luck with the selfsame of recent times/years, you may well be waiting a very long time indeed...

Watch Out When a Wounded Bull Is Cornered - However (Completely) Justified That Cornering May Well Be...

I.e. the greater that Ukrainians fight back - even (spectacularly) succeed against Putin & Co - the more infuriated and incensed the Russian leader has become...

The more humiliation justly meted out upon Putin et al, the more inexorable he will become...

Hey, but please spare us the *illusion/delusion that the West has been willing to entertain nuclear Armageddon **over mere trivia (though evidently the selfsame cannot be said of the Russian despot). 

*I speak of (and doubtless rather naively to) those who somehow or other believe the entire war (as per the Western media portrayal thereof) is just another species of 'fake news'...

Are you kidding, people? Who in their right - or, for that matter, even wrong - mind would seriously be prepared to contemplate global annihilation over a made-up war which was merely the well-planned fabrication of folk in military bunkers or bureaucratic silos with nothing else to do with their time?

But if that's really how you think then I respectfully suggest it's you who need urgent mental health treatment, and all the rest...seriously!

**Though there is nothing at all that is worth precipitating WWIII over...

NOTHING, NO NOTHING.

Nuff Said.

Praise God There Yet Remain A Few TRULY COURAGEOUS Folk - In This Case, Men - With the Intestinal Courage, the Guts, to Voice (If 'Only' By 'Voting With Their Feet') A Decided "NO" to Putin & His War Machine...

May God On High give them safe passage wheresoever they may travel/end up...

...even if - unavoidably - a few 'bad eggs' end up going along with them/being taken along unawares in their very midst... 

There Is No Accounting For How Much Evil and Destruction That One (In)Human Being Can Bring About...Given Enough Time & Opportunity: MAY God Almighty Help Us All!

But first and foremost may God save/deliver the people of Ukraine...

Though the Media Beat-Up (Over King Charles' fountain pen 'tantrum') Was Perfectly Understandable, Even Highly Predictable (& Then Some)...

Spare a split-second's (empathetic) thought, folks...

Hey, love 'im or 'ate 'im, the guy's just lost his own dear, beloved Mum...

'And the Wrath of Man Shall Praise Him': Yes, Even the Wicked Can Rise to the Occasion & Speak Words of Wisdom When the Opportunity Presents/Occasion Demands

But that proves nothing, except that one day - maybe a whole lot sooner than any of us realize - the entire universe will, in a similar way, in unison declare the LORD just and merciful and proclaim:

Great and marvellous are [T]hy works, Lord God Almighty;

just and true are [T]hy ways, [T]hou King of Saints.

Who shall not fear [T]hee, O Lord, and glorify [T]hy name?

for [T]hou only art holy:

for all nations shall come and worship before [T]hee;

for [T]hy judgments are made manifest.

Incidentally, to whom do I refer? 

A certain present-day Russian leader not known for saying much worth hearing, especially these days.

But the words of his inexplicably gracious and apt tribute to Elizabeth Windsor are true through and through, and will to his own abject and unending horror one day return to haunt his expiring agonies...

...no, not in an unending hell which someone like he himself might well cook up and dish out unmercilessly upon his enemies, but in God's comparatively merciful Lake of Fire wherein he and his ilk will meet their final, irrevocable end...

...with no second chance - for all of eternity (a pretty long time, I understand).

Postscript:

That this by chance is my 700th blogpost seems incredibly serendipitous, especially in light of the sheer significance of the death of Queen Elizabeth and the fact that she only just realized her 70th jubilee...

Yes, A Refreshingly Non-Partisan World Leader of Immense Stature & Gravitas Has Passed Away...Sadly, Her Kind Will Never Come Again (in This Life)

Within Nine Days A Second Larger-Than-Life Figure Has Completed their Earthly Sojourn: Adieu Elizabeth Windsor

With Mikhail Gorbachev (here's hoping) you will 'wing your flight on angel wings' (carried by a panoply of angels) to heaven...

As beautifully expressed - in somewhat more poetic language, admittedly - by the King Apparent this very day (of his assumption of royal duties and prerogatives), notwithstanding his somewhat faulty theology thereabouts...

For such will not occur till 

the last day...at the last trump...the trump of God

It Might Not Be News to Anyone, But a Great Person Has Recently Departed This Life, Though an Indifferent, Historically-Ignorant World Could Care Less...-Yes, I'm Not Embarrassed to Have to Repeat It: Rest in Peace, Mr Gorbachev, Sadly 'Your Kind' Will Never Come Again...to This World's Everlasting Shame & Regret

As the One-Time Soviet Leader, the Late Great President Mikhael Gorbachev, Today Departed This Life...the Tragedy of How His Entire Life's Work Has Now (As He Himself So Rightly Understood) Been Effectively Undone By An Inadvertent, Wicked-Minded & Evil-Hearted (My Words) Successor *Cannot But Come Home to One & All...

*If they're paying any real attention, that is - and regrettably, few seem to be...

But at least he himself can rest in peace, well knowing (if no longer) that he himself did what he could to secure world peace for time and immemorial...

But as that wisest of men Solomon once said,

Wisdom is better than weapons of war; but one sinner destroyeth much good [italics all mine].

(It Had Looked Like) All Donald J Trump's Chickens Had Finally Come Home to Roost (for Him) As His (Ragtag Assortment of) Roosters One-by-One Chickened Out (on Him)...

But like ye proverbial magician extraordinaire he's managed to pull yet another rabbit out of his (grab-)bag of perpetual (Pandora Box) tricks (and treats)... 

"If You're Innocent, Then Why Take the 5th Amendment [To Refuse to Speak/Testify Under Oath]?" "Only Guilty People Take [Invoke] the 5th Amendment!" Right You Are, Mr (Ex-)President, Right You (Most Certainly) Are...And Guilty - Guilty - Guilty - As Charged: Self-Condemned (Like the Hapless Pharisees and Sadducees Millennia Ago)...

But regrettably it won't do a thing to stop you running again for the Republican Party nomination in 2024, securing this (by hook or more likely crook) and going on to re-take the presidency...

...and your nation and our world down with you...

Because, I sadly suspect, that King James Bible reference to 'the last trump' may well indicate that you'll be the very last American president to disgrace that once noble office before the Real Master returns...

...and deals to you and every other last evildoer...

For not he who commends himself is approved, but whom the Lord commends.

But Sir John Key Nevertheless Makes a Salient Point: Is It Worth *Going to WW111 Over?

*Though admittedly he didn't say so directly, but by implication the suggestion Pelosi's visit was "at best reckless, and at worst provocative and dangerous" we can at least surmise the gist of what he's implying...

However, sadly for himself, as a highly popular and electorally successful New Zealand Prime Minister - except for her 2020 landslide quite overshadowing his successor (in such regards) - one could; and I most certainly do charge his own government and/or his personal leadership thereof with letting New Zealand foreign policy flounder in a sea of self-servingness akin to selling one's soul to the very devil...

*for not extending the selfsame mercy to refugees that his own grandmother received fleeing the Holocaust...

*for actually flying God's Own proper, real, legitimate flag at halfmast upon the death of the Saudi prince of the day...

*for essentially making everything in terms of NZ foreign policy up for grabs to the highest bidder - irrespective of the moral illegitimacy of doing business with the particular nation in question...

Bravo to Someone (I.e. Speaker of the United States Congress & Second-In-Line to the American Throne, Nancy Pelosi) Willing to Stand Up to the Chinese Colossus By Touching Down in Taipei, Taiwan...But If By So Doing She Inadvertently, However Unjustifiably, Triggers the Ire of the Chinese Dragon, the Oriental Behemoth (Which Some Biblical Scholars Regard As Having At Its Disposal & One Day (Soon) Recruiting a '200 Million Member Army' to the Last Days' Middle-East-Sited 'Battle of Armageddon'), Some Could Equally Justifiably Enquire: Is It Worth the Price?

But some would counter (as JFK so memorably did on a couple very significant occasions, helping bring our world the closest to World War 111 as it's ever been up to now - excepting the Ukrainian situation obviously): 'Better dead than red" (i.e. better free to think, speak, do and be, even if that ultimately cost one one's very life, than to be subject to subjugation of mind, voice, life and being).

Or as the narrator in the brilliant 'War of the Worlds' double album expressed so poignantly to his beloved Kerrie: 

"There are some things worth living for...even some things worth dying for."

Or as the very prescient, even prophetic hymn writer James Russell Lowell put matters in his oh so insightful, arguably inspired hymn 'Once to Every Man & Nation' (stanzas 1,2,4a,b):

Once to every man and nation 

Comes the moment to decide,

In the strife of truth with falsehood,

For the good or evil side;

Some great cause, God's new Messiah,

Offering each the bloom or blight,

And the choice goes by forever

'Twixt that darkness and that light.

Then to side with truth is noble

When we share her wretched crust,

Ere her cause bring fame and profit,

And 'tis prosperous to be just;

Then it is the brave man chooses,

While the coward stands aside,

Till the multitude make virtue

Of the faith they had denied.

Though the cause of evil prosper,

Yet 'tis truth alone is strong,

Though her portion be the scaffold,

And upon the throne be wrong.

Or as Sir Cecil Spring-Rice put things a little differently in an ode, admittedly, to that now rather unpopular and admittedly somewhat discredited notion of 'my country, right or wrong', i.e. in his nevertheless beautifully expressed and sublimely affecting masterpiece 'I Vow to Thee, My Country':

I vow to thee, my country, all earthly things above, Entire and whole and perfect, the service of my love: The love that asks the reason, the love that stands the test, That lays upon the altar the dearest and the best; The love that never falters, the love that pays the price, 

The love that makes undaunted the final sacrifice.

(Stanza one.)

May we each (come to) possess such a love and undying passion for the truth no matter what price we may ultimately pay by/for cleaving to it, and our life here - whatever that in the hereafter - will not have been in vain...

But EVEN WORSE BY FAR, Evidently America Has Been Shown to Have Been Involved in Training Ukrainian Troops Upon Ukrainian Soil PRIOR TO THE RUSSIAN INVASION...

But in including this shocking but apparently absolutely correct claim (cited upon a recent global edition of the New York-based radio programme 'Democracy Now'), however unbelievable it may well be...

I in no way, shape or form consider it provided the Russian dictator and his military cronies/lackeys even a skerrick of justification for invading the fair land of Ukraine...

...much less for carrying out the war crimes and crimes against humanity which the world has witnessed ever since that fateful day (of February 25th, New Zealand time, I believe)...

If President Biden Proceeds with His 'Executive Order' to Revoke the US Supreme Court's Own Revocation of 'Roe Vs Wade', He'll Be Entering Dangerous Territory & Stirring Up a Hornet's Nest of Ongoing, Never-ending Political & Cultural Trouble & Repercussions...

Joe Biden Needs to Tread Exceedingly Carefully, For His Ongoing Presidential Leadership of the United States of America is Looking Increasingly Precarious, & THAT'S JUST GOING BY HIS UNPOPULARITY AMONG DEMOCRATS...

And his decision to walk back his commitment upon the Washington Post correspondent is shameful in the extreme!

And That 'Minority-Affirming' & Racially 'Progressive' British Labour Has *Virtually No Dark-Skinned, Much Less Refugee-Born &/Or Middle Eastern or Asian (or African) Person In Its Highest Echelons...Whereas the U K Conservative Party Has Had (At Least) Three of its Twelve Leadership Contenders Coming From Such Backgrounds, All of Whom Have Served in Some of the Very Highest Cabinet Positions of Recent Times...One of Whom Might Very Well Go On to Secure That Much-Coveted Position and With It the Prime Ministership of the United Kingdom...

          Disclaimer: Is it my fault that Blogger et al are assiduously rearranging and re-ordering the layout            of this particular blogpost? Hardly!

*Evidently fake news once again (see immediately preceding blogpost), as not only had Keir Starmer 'appointed...the most female and ethnically led shadow cabinet in [British] history' (according to 'Diversity Today' on April 6th, 2020), but Jeremy Corbyn's own ones had 'been the most diverse in [British] parliamentary history' (according to 'The News'), with this important caveat: 'the [then] current composition [of Corbyn's shadow cabinet] [was]n't the most diverse ever (taking either gender or ethnicity in isolation'.

          Nevertheless, surely one expects as much from a party profusely professing equity in all things,                  whereas supposedly the UK Conservative Party has hardly - at least historically - ever been                        associated with such...

          That's the point I've been seeking to make, but yes, it's ever a dangerous temptation to seek to make            the facts conform to our own pre-conceived opinions!

Anyhow, how many and what percentage of Labour leadership aspirants, let alone ultimately successful ones, have been 'ethnically diverse' as such?

Isn't It - More Than 'Just a Tad' - Interesting/Intriguing Even How A Political Party (I.e. the U K Conservatives) So Renowned/Infamous For Its (Supposedly) 'Rabid Right-Wing' Politics Has Now Had Two Female Leaders - Each a Prime Minister (One For Over a Decade, and THAT Three-Four Decades Ago) - & *Potentially (If Fairly Unlikely, Admittedly) Soon a Third...Whereas 'Liberal' 'Gender-Friendly' UK Labour Has *Yet to Select Its First Female Leader, Let Alone U K P M...

*Two of the remaining candidates contesting the Conservative Party leadership (and hence Prime Ministership) being (well-respected and popular) women in the party.

Postscript: (Sunday July 17th)

Indeed evidently I  -  wholly - underestimated the number of women contesting the leadership, and hence the relative proportion/ratio of female to male candidates seeking that office...

As the globally-acclaimed, British patriot, and admittedly shamelessly pro-Tory international (British-based) newsweekly the 'INTERNATIONAL EXPRESS' reported (New Zealand edition, Thursday July 14th) in 'Who would you bet on being the next PM?', five of the twelve Conservative Party MPs seeking the nomination are/**were women...

...which to my reckoning is around 42% of the total, close enough to 50% or half far as I'm concerned...

Post-Postscript: (17/7)

My sins have caught up with me, King Solomon's Proverbs noting how '(s)he sins who hastens with his (her) feet', for indeed, as 'Diversity UK' (April 6, 2020) noted, the new shadow cabinet that Keir Starmer appointed that day was 'the most female and ethnically led shadow cabinet in [British] history'.     

In addition, 'The News' back on October 4, 2018 noted Jeremy Corbyn's own shadow cabinets to have themselves been the most diverse ones in parliamentary [British] history, if not strictly speaking the most diverse ever - 'taking either gender or ethnicity in isolation'.

*Yes, I'll concede Labour has had at least two female deputies (over recent times), so perhaps even more in its history (I'm not sure of the corresponding number for the UK Conservatives), but far as I've ever understood, none of these ever stood a chance in hell of succeeding to Labour leadership much less British prime ministership...

**My use of the imperfect past tense being quite deliberate as there have already been a number of elimination contests undertaken, the actual result of which I'm at present admittedly not wholly au fait with...

...except that long-term favourite Rishi Sunak is still standing, as is Penny Mordaunt...

On the Contrary, For 'Getting Brexit Done' - In the Process Almost Singlehandedly Securing the UK Conservatives Their Most Resounding Electoral Victory Ever/In 100 Years - For *'Defending' British Statesman Extraordinaire Winston Churchill When His Defenders (At Least Amongst Today's So-Called 'Intellectual Elite') Have Become Few & Far Between...In a Churchillian Act of Statesmanship Putting His Money Where His Mouth Was Vis-a-vis Russia's Horrific Invasion of Ukraine & Shameless, Shameful Butchering of Civilians There (Whether Young or Old, Disabled or Able-Bodied), Even Venturing (More Than Once) Onto Ukrainian Soil to Show the United Kingdom's Heartfelt Solidarity with Ukrainians...

 ...Boris Johnson ought to be thanked...and even if he ain't - by self-righteous Western 'progressives' - anytime soon, he'll have earned Ukrainians' undying gratitude for time immemorial...

And, moreover, if this planet lasts long enough - which, admittedly, it probably won't - the plaudits of the history books in time to come...

And for the Likes of Former EU Chief Negotiator on Brexit, the Recent French Presidential Candidate Wannabe, Michel Barnier, to Have the Bare-Faced Cheek to Pontificate As Johnson Exited the Scene...

Yes, what a spectacle to denounce someone (PM Johnson) who - whatever else one might happen to say -  stood strong for sovereignty both at home (vis-a-vis the Brexit) and abroad (in the Ukraine)...

...while - according to a news report in Aotearoa-New Zealand a couple days ago (though I cannot find any such reference upon the internet) - Monsieur Barnier is only now declaring (as the head of a human rights watch outfit, I believe it was reported) that

he believes Russia may well be committing war crimes and/or crimes against humanity in Ukraine...

All I can possibly respond with is:

Well, what a revelation! Who'd'a guessed?

Boris Johnson 'Lacking in Moral/Ethical Integrity'? Evidently, Even Unquestionably - Playing Fast & Loose With the Truth Readily Comes to Mind...

But for someone (who happens to be a political leader of one of the UK's four component 'nations'), to wit Scottish First Minister Nicola Sturgeon, who singlehandedly character assassinated her reputable predecessor, Alex Salmond, to have the gall, the temerity, to dare to level such a charge against her perennial political foe Boris Johnson, is just a little bit rich, and even exceedingly hollow... 

Indeed, Having Said Much of the Foregoing, If (As We've All Now Heard) Putin Et Al ARE SO VERY KEEN to See the Back of Boris Johnson, Positively Rejoicing Even in a Perverse if Wholly Predictable Spate of Schadenfreude at His (Quite Predictable) Demise... Perhaps He Really Wasn't - ANYTHING LIKE - the Unmitigated Disaster & Embodiment of Moral Evil the (Largely & Vehemently Anti-Brexit) Mainstream Media (Both in the UK & Elsewhere) Were Ever Depicting Him...

Yes, if the likes of Ukraine's 'man of the hour', folk hero of the day Vlodomyr Zelensky, sees Johnson in polar opposite terms...

...then you needn't guess which of these two men - Vlodomyr or Vladimir - let alone various  ('right' or left) streams of ideology Yours Truly at least would much rather be eternally associated with...

However, If Boris Johnson Supposedly Is the Sum Incarnate of Moral Evil Upon Present-Day Planet Earth, It Would Seem Necessary - Indeed Long Past Time - to Seriously Question, Even Impugn, the Sanity, Judgment &/or Morality of Those Making Such An Utterly Ridiculous, Even Preposterous, Insinuation

Ever Looming Larger Than Life, Perhaps Not Only the Best But Arguably the ONLY Way to Do Proper Justice to the Legacy of Boris Johnson the Politician...Is To Say That He Passed the Personality (& Charisma) Test With Flying Colours, But Flunked the Character Test With Spectacular Form

But he left a number of interesting landmarks along the way and across the ongoing wreckage of his political career, and these I will endeavour to evaluate in blogposts to come, suggesting that while he ultimately and spectacularly failed the character test (whilst pursuing his lifetime political fantasy), he left a legacy that suggests a much more nuanced and complex person, about whom and about whose ongoing legacy, as New Zealand's own Gerry Brownley has well stated, 

the history books may well be much more kind.

A Real Clayton's Apology If Ever There Were One - I.e. the Apology You Give When You're Not Really Giving An Apology: Boris Johnson Bows Out, Suitably Chastened But Not Remotely Contrite...

In a Trumpesque 'anything but an apology and/or acknowledgment of the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth' staringly him and every reasonable-minded onlooker blindingly in the face, Boris has bowed out...

...a colourful, idiosyncratic (and *in some ways iconoclastic even) character **the likes of which the United Kingdom and the watching world had seldom seen before and doubtless will never ever be seen again...

*Admittedly Johnson showed himself anything but an iconoclast when it came to fearlessly championing his lifetime idol and hero Sir Winston Churchill from folk who were themselves iconoclasts of the very first degree and very worst order.

**Although of course a similar statement/'argument' could obviously be made about Donald J Trump in his own respective sphere.

However, Also 100 Years Ago (Presumably), the Conservative Party's '1922 Committee' Evidently Set in Motion An Historic Process, And Though Somewhat Flawed, It Would Seem - But Who Could Possibly Have Foreseen the Unusual Circumstances in Which Its Usefulness Would Now Be Demanded? - It Must Now Be Employed to Get Rid of Someone Who Has Seriously Outlived His Usefulness...

Though Yours Truly overnight felt that a special letter to Prime Minister Johnson would have achieved the desired result - and in a more seemly fashion, surely, and infinitely less humiliating to Boris than what has been transpiring blow by blow, hour upon hour, over recent days - 

the game is over, the writing's on the wall, for none other than Boris Johnson himself...

As a noted prophet said of a partying king (Belshazzar), self-indulgent to the very last whilst his empire was crumbling all around him,

God hath numbered thy [administration], and finished it.

Thou art weighed in the [political] balances, and art found wanting.

Thy prime ministership is [splintered into smithereens], and given to [one better than yourself].

*'Apologies' to the Older Testament biblical prophet Daniel, I simply couldn't resist...

**'Taken' (so to speak - in very generous paraphraseology) from Daniel chapter six (King James Bible).

At Long Last - & That Despite Internecine Resentment & Opposition - British Labour Leader Keir Starmer Has Bitten the Bullet & Turned A Corner: Yes, Brexit Is Here to Stay - Indeed, It Was Delivered to the U K Conservatives With Boris At the Helm Amid the Greatest Election Landslide, Bar None, In Pretty Well 100 Years...

So good on Sir Keir for doing the only right and proper thing, even if he has effectively been dragged kicking and screaming to his new position, and for a (B)remainer - unlike Jeremy Corbyn at heart - it would hardly have been an easy decision to arrive at... 

"If Liberty Means ANYTHING AT ALL, It Means the Right to Tell You What You Do Not Want to Hear": Thus Spake - No, Not Zarathustra (of 2001 A Space Odyssey Fame), But - That Most Incisive, Penetrating, Profound and Insightful - Yet 'Simple' & Clear of Writers - Eric Blair (i.e. George Orwell) Himself...

And who are we Citizenry of Contemporary Cancel Culture to dare to contradict him, I mean, really? 

Republican Lawmaker Liz Cheney May Be (Pretty Much) All Alone In Her 'Party' (Which Noam Chomsky Has Called the Most Dangerous Institution in the History of Humanity), But She is Right On - In Sentiment At Least - When She Declared (at the Congressional Inquiry the Other Day) That "Trump Will Go, But the Shame [of Those Republicans Who Supported Him in His Attempt to Stage an Insurrection January 6th 2021] Will Remain"

Not that they could give a toss, and sadly it seems they'll be back out in force in 2024, reinstating him into position for the final act in human history before the Almighty calls down the curtain on him permanently.

Yes, the One Above will indeed - one day very, very soon - have the last laugh...

at the last trump...the trump of God 

It's Awful To Be Intolerant OF ANYONE These Days... Oh, We Mean to Say, Unless You Happen to Call Yourself A Christian: In Which Case It's Pretty Much 'Game On'...Or How the Modern (Western) Media - In This Instance That of NZ Inc - Simply Can't Get Enough Dirt (Whether Real or Supposed) Upon Today's Christians, Especially the Institutional Church

Caveat/Disclaimer: 

None of my beef with the aforementioned (media partiality, bias and prejudice), however, pertains to the sexual abuse epidemic (*almost entirely within the precincts of the Church of Rome, incidentally - I'm sorry, that's the blatant truth of the matter) carefully and meticulously and generally bravely uncovered/exposed by the same...

So the New Zealand media has now well and truly taken it upon itself - not fearlessly in the best tradition of in-depth, investigative journalism, but much more in the style and modus operandi, the worst tradition of rabble-rousing populists and other such demagogues - to take the cudgels to the Christian Church and its adherents, to effectively declare 'open season' upon the churches of Aotearoa-New Zealand...

To Be Continued (following some shuteye)...Sorry it's taken so very long (two weeks exactly)...

As I say (making the point I did at the very outset), such 'journalism' is not just over the perfectly legitimate ongoing issue of clerical sexual and physical abuse (of 'minors' within the churches' own ranks) - as indeed the Government's special Commission into Abuse in State Care, long since expanded to include faith-based institutions, has been getting to grips with over recent years (modelled as it doubtless is upon the excellent exposing of such by Australia's own equivalent federal and state-run Police- and Government-instituted inquiries).

Yes, we'd 'all' been only too well aware of and familiar with the long-running scandal of such (sexual and physical) abuse within the (so often unhallowed) precincts of the Roman Catholic Church over recent decades, with only the odd mention from time to time of other Christian bodies (such as the **Sally Army in New Zealand over more recent times)...

...and alongside this long-running national and international story, over the last few years we've seen the saga of 'Gloriavale' for one and all to see - again, an entirely legitimate matter for journalistic investigation (if not the downright persecution that's latterly seemed to replace this more balanced coverage!)

And then, only a couple of weeks/months ago we saw the identification - followed by extensive naming and shaming - of the (pentecostal) Arise Church following some high-profile executive meetings over recent weeks. To 'top' this off, upon Sunday May 29th TV1's 6 p.m. bulletin we witnessed yet another (again, pentecostal/charismatic) church - in this instance the Celebration Church - 'fingered' and effectively outed as well...

As the following afternoon I tuned into RNZ National, was I at all surprised to hear the topic for a half-hour interview being pretty much the same - if with a somewhat different (non-kiwi) angle (and vis-a-vis a Christian ministry I've had a lot of time for over the years, that of Sydney's Hillsong Church and their nationally and internationally high-profile senior pastor Brian Houston)? Hardly; this was now becoming more or less 'par for the course', as the media here (as doubtless has increasingly been the case 'across the ditch' since it was revealed early on in 'Scomo's - the (now former) Australian Prime Minister Scott Morrison's - tenure that he considered Hillsong and Houston in particular had had a major impact upon his life (and spirituality).

This time evidently Pastor Houston had only just resigned - and so reference was made to the ongoing police investigation there which in turn had undoubtedly precipitated (if not specifically caused) Houston's departure...

To Be Continued (again!)

A Day Later...

And now for the latest instalment in the ganging-up upon churches in NZ Inc (in particular): this past week we've heard the hoo-ha caused in the LGBT community - the local contingent in Tauranga, anyhow - in regards to a school associated (I believe) with the Bethlehem Baptist Church - Bethlehem College? - being 'implicated'/'outed' (if you will) due to its inflexible position vis-a-vis LBGTs or suchlike...

But surely any organization whatsoever, whether secular or religious, has the inherent, inalienable right and prerogative to determine its own membership - entirely free of outside intervention or interference?

But apparently not, or no longer here in Aotearoa...

Add to that the clear and unambiguous pigeonholing and attempted - thankfully, wholly unsuccessful - taking down of National's latest leader Christopher Luxon...

...for nothing more (nor less) than his apparently sharing a commonplace, and moreover genuine heartfelt conviction (among evangelical Christians) over the utter sanctity (inviolability) of life (in the somewhat crass phraseology of some upon other matters, 'from the womb to the tomb'). That was due to his seeing such sanctity of life as including/embracing the life of the unborn child - interestingly, not in regards to how the selfsame principle applies in that other recently much vexed issue of euthanasia - but though serious and repeated, determined and persistent attempts were made to get him to label it as murder, these were all stillborn, failing as it were 'in utero' - but not for want of trying! 

Luxon simply failed to take the bait, well and fully realizing the hole they were trying to dig for him. Does that mean he was being disingenuous or not straight up? It all depends upon one's perspective upon the matter, and upon the questioners themselves. Personally I'd respectfully suggest that said media self-appointed inquisitionists were themselves the ones persisting in a species of disingenuity!

But be that as it may, these media zealots had already - and far more successfully - tried their wares upon Tauranga's now-retired M.P. Simon Bridges, someone whose conservative Christian views were long an anathema to the core of their very being. Just observe the frequently snide way in which one-time National Party leader Bridges was treated by many mainstream broadcasting ****'journalists' over the while he thus served, especially whenever it came to his well-known and much-derided 'outdated and outmoded' conservative Christian views upon (what were once known as purely) 'conscience issues' - such - to be sure, quite effective - pigeonholing being never so evident as upon the recently-enacted Gay Conversion Therapy legislation.

Yes, NZ Mainstream Broadcasting Media Inc has now long since entrenched itself rather firmly and definitively in the camp of supposedly enlightened and progressive kiwis - those with no readily classifiable moral compass, as in those subscribing to moral relativism and situation ethics in such matters.

However upon that ever vexed issue of abortion - the right to life versus a woman's choice (as it is ever presented in media shorthand) - the real culprit upon selfsame matter was former National M.P. and cabinet minister (and one-time church minister) Alfred Ngaro, whose own - apparently scandalous - reference to wholesale New Zealand abortion (since it was decriminalized back in 1977) as tantamount to a holocaust got him in no time flat into real doggy doo-doo.

It was a declaration which had to be walked back lickety-split due to the predictable if understandable outcry that such statements ever evoke from the Jewish community in general - and the sensibilities of self-righteous kiwi femi-nazis in particular. (Although I shouldn't say or suggest Ngaro had to do so - one ever remains a free agent to declare one's hand and real allegiances and arguably a better person would've stuck to their legitimate guns and even resigned over the principle if push came to shove.)

And so we've apparently now entered a day and age in which it's become fair game to give it to NZ churches one and all, in other words the media has declared open season upon the same...only they haven't the inherent honesty and decency and integrity to declare their (obvious) hand, thus making it seem that a perfect storm of trouble has long been brewing among these 'self-righteous' denizens of the land, which their brave journalism is only now at long last bringing to the fore and the rightful attention of every man, woman and child throughout the length and breadth of the land of the long white cloud...

To Be Continued (again!)

Well aware that said media know they can always claim - as they doubtless constantly and smugly reassure themselves - "We're only doing it in the best interests of vulnerable members of the community" - I for one am no longer (if ever I was) fooled by such patent disingenuousness, and was pleasantly surprised the other day to find a close relative - whose own views upon social/cultural/religious matters and questions are somewhat or majorly more liberal than those of Yours Truly - readily agreeing to the gist of what I am about to outline...

...a Pandora's Box of real and/or alleged wrongdoing by said churches, much of which is in fact highly debatable (as to whether it - even remotely - reaches the threshold of publicly-nameable and shameable 'transgressions')...

*Incidentally, although most people have been only too well aware of and familiar with the long-running pattern of such abuse in the RCC, there are very occasionally also reports of other major Christian churches: the Anglican Church in the UK from time to time, and of course any 'Christian' outfit that's generally considered a cult is fair game, but just the other day upon the 700 Club the headline bulletin outlined how the Baptist Conference of (the Southern states of) America was instituting an entire new process and procedure vis-a-vis its own exposing and dealing with and to instances of sexual abuse (in particular) within its extensive ranks.

Said relative also reminded me this evening, after I recalled the Canadian Government some little time ago seeming to lump all abuse under the (rather and all to) convenient rubric of state (school)-based abuse - my mentioning how that was quite convenient for Prime Minister Justin Trudeau to do as a card-carrying Catholic - that in Ireland at least (and I believe also possibly Canada) there were RCC 'institutions' of sorts which had indeed been 'outed' over recent months and years for the mass burials of children in their care; children 'bequeathed' to them evidently by unwed mothers and the like. (Though upon more considered reflection I pointed out that that didn't in and of itself necessitate any underlying scandal as such, only that said institutions had the care of these minors and so had various (burial) duties to occasionally attend to etcetera. Not that what happened was a-okay, but the substance of the issue had somewhat different grounds.

To make things even more complicated apparently such Catholic schools and the like were also often funded by state monies, so that any responsibility - including in Canada to indigenous kids who were in said institutions (as in state schools etc in Australia in decades past, i.e. the so-called 'Lost Generation' who were adopted out to families and thereby lost contact permanently with their biological parents) - could at times by sheeted home to the state and thus any (significant) church involvement could rather conveniently be ignored...

**This (far and away) ***most popular of churches amongst the general kiwi public is of course better known as the Salvation Army, but the shorthand I use is an indication of just how well-respected and endearingly regarded the church long since has been here (doubtless for their plethora of well-publicized 'good works' in so many contexts).

***For your interest I'm not and never have been a member of said church, so my remarks here can hardly be deemed the result of native bias, prejudice and/or partisan promotion. I'm simply stating well-known and accepted fact.

****Do I actually believe such reportage is worthy of the term 'journalism'? Hardly, unless one assumes that real journalism doesn't require (even a modicum of) those time-honoured and long-cherished values of balance, fair play and impartiality. But fool me, those were the very essentials of what I myself - a one-time reporter, Chief Reporter and later Editor of my own high school student newspaper back in the day - ever understood true journalism to be about; and interestingly they still remain at the head of the list of those attributes the Broadcasting Standards Authority still uses to decide upon complaints placed before them (including by Yours Truly a couple years ago).

Addendum/Postscript (June 22nd 2022):

If such ostensibly 'impartial and disinterested, unprejudiced and unbiased' media were true journalists - i.e. such in anything other than mere name - they would surely - just occasionally - present (at least some of) 'the other side of the story'...

And is there such or what!

For instance...

#The uncanny, 100% accuracy - cf that of well-known fortune-tellers and psychics and the like down the years - attested by (among others, secular) historians and archaeologists alike - of seemingly innumerable biblical predictions [prophecies], whether in the Older or Newer Testament/s. Such predictions/prophecies are (well, if necessarily, partially) documented/chronicled in such (admittedly Christian) literature as Hal Lindsay's acclaimed (New York Times) 'Bestseller of the Decade' The Late Great Planet Earth, Arthur Maxwell's - of Uncle Arthur's Best Stories fame - Today, Tomorrow and You (also known as Your Bible and You) - among numerous others...

#In addition battles and wars were won, and enemy armies repulsed/routed and thereby ultimately defeated and destroyed - just using WW11 as a classic case in point, how about such incredible 'incidents' as the Allies' unexpected victory in North Africa, which helped turn the war; the uncanny fog which descended across the British Channel for three days and nights thus providing needed time for the Brits to prepare themselves sufficiently for the Nazis' seaborne and airborne invasion; and topping all of these, the Nazis' unexpected and spectacular defeat in the then Soviet Union after massacring tens of millions of Russians when the nation entered its coldest winter in 200 years...? 

#The undeniable, incontrovertible fact that many major 'helping' institutions of the modern era - hospitals, hospices, orphanages etc - originated in the desire centuries back/millennia ago of medieval Christians to fulfil the biblical mandate of their Leader, Who, it is recorded, "went about doing good and healing all who were oppressed by the devil"...

#Most of all the great social reforms/movements - even well into the 20th century - were pioneered/initiated by fearless and tireless Christian individuals, both female and male...such 'things' as the U S Civil Rights Movement (Dr Martin Luther King Junior); the abolition of slavery (President Abraham Lincoln in the U S; William Wilberforce before him in (then) Great Britain); prison reform (the Quaker Elizabeth Fry); the demise of 'sweated [child] labour' (various preachers) etc etc etc... 

Need I go on?

And As For New Zealand's 'Punching Above Its Weight' On the World Stage Under the Globally-Acclaimed, Youthful and Charismatic Leadership of Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern...How Come No-One Has Bothered to Inform Folks Overseas That New Zealand Inc Is No Longer (Even Amongst) the Global Covid-Beater/s...Just Look at Our (Now Regularly) Horrendous Death Stats These Days...Yet (I'll Also Readily Concede) You'd Be Equally Hard-Pressed Finding Even One Major Media Outlet Commenting Critically Thereupon...

Yet As to That Rerun of An All Too Familiar Script, I.e. the On-Again, Off-Again 'Massacre of the Innocents' in the Good 'Ole U S of A, It's Deja Vu All Over Again the Umpteenth Time...PLEASE - PLEASE - PLEASE - At Long Last LEARN! No, Not From Aotearoa-New Zealand's (Unimpressive, & Anyhow, Incomparable), Record Thereabouts, But, Rather, As That Bastion of Left-Wing Political/Social/Cultural Commentary, the 'Democracy Now' Broadcast Out of New York City, Readily Concedes, From ENTIRELY ANOTHER Australasian Nation, (New Zealand's Next-Door Neighbour) the Land of Oz Itself...In the Aftermath of/Fallout from the 1996 Port Arthur Massacre in Tasmania...& By One of Australia's Longest-Serving & Most Respected, Yet Deeply Conservative Leaders No Less, John Howard...

But Hurrah to P M Ardern's (One-Time) Religious Fellow-Traveller, Former Republican Presidential Nominee Mitt Romney...From One (Former Mormon) Politician to Another Mormon Politician, As It Were...In, Once Again, Standing Out - Usually Almost Entirely Alone - From the (*Republican Party) Crowd...In Offering (At Least Some Tentative) Constructive Ideas/Suggestions Regarding How to - At Long Last (But Who's Realistically Maintaining Any Hope Any More?) - Deal To/With America's Ongoing, Seemingly Never-Ending Horrendous Incidence of Gun-Fuelled Mass Shootings...

*An organisation which renowned linguist/scholar/political commentator Noam Chomsky has labelled "the most dangerous institution in the history of humanity"... 

"Disinformation"? What Searing Shortsightedness/ Incredible Irony (to be Generous) - Stupefying Spin/ Disingenuous Dissembling (to be Way Less So)...

Whilst gun-toting criminals run amuck as gang-fuelled crime quite literally goes berserk in her home city of Auckland, Aotearoa-New Zealand's internationally-extolled leader struts the world stage championing our post-mosque massacre gun buyback 'success', when - if said legislative changes adopted post-March 15th 2019 say anything - they reinforce the very point then (numerically inconsequential) opponents made at the time...

I.e. in thus, effectively emptying out the guns in circulation amongst the law-abiding citizenry/community, the Government was thereby, ipso facto, leaving them in the hands of the criminal fraternity, who, one could rest assured, would indeed not hesitate even one moment employing whenever and however they saw fit...

And meanwhile Prime Minister Ardern preaches to the (global) converted about the dire dangers of this day of disinformation...

Talk about disingenuous disinformation! 

As For That Other Boris - No, Not THAT BORIS (Yeltsin) Who Inadvertently & With the Best of Intentions Helped Install His Nefarious & Wicked Successor - i.e. the Former Russian Diplomat in Geneva) Boris Bondarev - What A Brave & Rare Act of Civil Disobedience, One Sadly Likely to Evoke the Deadliest Response Possible...

But As For (the Lovable Rogue Who Is) Boris Johnson (To Those Who Have Responsibility in These Matters, I.e. Johnson's Parliamentary Colleagues in the British Conservative Party): Be Done With Him Once & For All...Seeing As Eyewitnesses Present Have Verified That the (Covid-19-Defying) Downing Street Parties (One & All) Were Routine (Affairs): Hey, What Remains to Be Understood? - Seems Pretty Much a Slam Dunk to Me (& Surely to Any Other Disinterested Observer)

I find I cannot get past comments of Newstalk ZB's bi-weekly correspondent Rob Little to Mike Hosking the other day...

"Boris Johnson's, in UKspeak/speech, "I take responsibility" "(i.e. for whatever occurred under the now notorious 'Partygate' affair), "means, in New Zealandspeak/speech, I take no responsibility whatsoever!"

Incidentally, "[Labour leader] Keir Starmer didn't even do anything (in the ballpark of what Johnson did). But he made the mistake of calling on Johnson to resign [if he was found to have been in contravention of covid rules]...(and so had no alternative but to (hypothetically) offer his own resignation were he found to be in breach of the same).

Anyhow, surely the true 'smell test' - for PM Johnson, if for no-one else - is *WWCD, i.e. 'what would (Winston) Churchill do? And anyone having to take the time to even consider that question is unfamiliar with that larger-than-life persona, for honour and integrity were central to Churchill's very person, making such a question rather rhetorical and redundant... 

*A bespoke variation upon the classic WWJD, i.e. 'what would Jesus do?'

No, we're not considering mere trivialities of a casual drink or several here, it's a matter of principle and integrity, for people across the length and breadth of the United Kingdom were unable to attend the final moments of dying relatives under the strict (if **understandable) covid protocols instituted by Johnson's Government...  

No, hypocrisy under these rules and regulations - i.e. expecting the common plebs to 'do as we say, not as we do' - is without excuse, and worthy of the direst consequences politically; end of story.

Having said that, however, I would myself be willing to break such a law - and face the inevitable repercussions - were my Mum say to be in her dying days...

...but, just so there's no misunderstanding, like Martin Luther King I would be prepared to face the legal consequences, however unjust, of doing what I considered the right and proper, dutiful and loving thing upon such an occasion...for some laws are just so (i.e. unworthy of dutiful obedience); however one must ever and always be willing to suffer (however unjustly) for what one believes and knows deep down to be the right thing to do...

Labour's Eschewed Its Working-Class Roots (in New Zealand as in the U K) In Favour of the Socially 'Enlightened'/Progressive Middle-Class Professional Set: So You're Asking Why Such (WC) Voters Are Deserting Them In Droves in Both Jurisdictions (for the Conservative Party in Great Britain, and for (their ideological bedfellows) the National Party in New Zealand)?

For a good all round backgrounder on the situation - vis-a-vis the New Zealand context, that is - you could hardly do worse than consult the insightful musings, reflections and research of long-time left-wing political activist and commentator Chris Trotter, who once presented a public lecture here in Dunedin, NZ in which he graphically detailed and explained the mass exodus of party members from NZ Labour in the 1980s, once like its opposite number the NZ National Party a mass membership political party...

...and all essentially because a once socially conservative and economically leftist party embraced the very opposite: laissez-faire economics a la Reaganomics & Thatcherism and social liberalism/radicalism... 

Aged Care/Home Support Carers/Workers: Aussie Labo(u)r (Government-Elect) Embraces 'Em, Kiwi Labour (Government) Increasingly Alienates Them: So You're Seriously Asking Why the Selfsame Are Busily Exiting 'God's Own' En Masse?

Yes, I exaggerate, but I hope you get my point... 

Upon This My 666th Blogpost Herein, How Very Appropriate That It Coincided With the Speaker of the Parliament of Aotearoa-New Zealand's Apparent Assumption of Papal Powers...

As he himself disclosed to a no longer aghast House of Parliament today, in response to some pithy repartee from the ever quick on his feet, off the mark and on point Act leader David Seymour, that

- no, I just have to quote Speaker Mallard word-for-word -

"The member [i.e. David Seymour] knows my rights in here [Parliament's Chamber] are pretty much absolute."

Nuff Said. Yes, Mallard's assumption of papal prerogatives, privileges and powers is now well-nigh absolute!

Awaiting the Announcement - of a Decision Evidently Already Made - of the U S Supreme Court Upon the Last Half-Century's Culture Wars-Inciting Roe Vs Wade Legal Precedent Upon Abortion...

But how come mainstream media rarely inform us - here in God's Own, anyhow - that far from outlawing the practice, said long-awaited decision is simply to turn the ever-contentious matter over, (hopefully) once and for all time, to the jurisdiction of America's fifty-some individual states...

...for their own respective individual determinations thereupon...

But What Rank & All Too Typical Shamefaced, Shameless & Shameful, Thoroughly Reprehensible Hypocrisy of Labour's Deputy Leader Angela Raymer, Affecting Some Sort of (Typically Femi-Nazi) "Oh poor me!" Pose When She Herself Acted Shamefully and Shamelessly - In the Feminine Equivalent, So to Speak, of Mr Parish - But, Far More Worryingly & Seriously (& Light Years Removed From His Own Self-Inflicted 'Crime' Only Really Injuring Himself & His Own Soul) As An Agent Provocateur of Sorts to British Prime Minister Boris Johnson In Work Time In Those Selfsame (Un)Hallowed Chambers of Parliament...

Methinks Neil Parish, M.P. - Nabbed for the High Crime & Misdemeanour of, Wait for It - (No, Not Even) Surreptitiously (Apparently) Viewing Pornography During Work Time - Was/Is a Relative Innocent in the Overall Scheme of Things (British Politics & the Like), But Will Serve As An All too Convenient Fall Guy for Great Britain's Ruling Conservative Party, & Its Leader in Particular

Disclaimer: 

Pornography is and ever has been an utter scourge upon all and sundry in Western society, though admittedly I too was an innocent childhood (teenage) victim of the same, as myself and a sibling surreptitiously removed/replaced various (of our father's) intriguing copies of Playboy and Penthouse out of/back into their respective possies from time to time... 

For Once, the Better Person Won...& THAT Person Was a Jesuit!

In Other Words - & Despite Constant Outcries of the Me-Too Movement & the Like to the Contrary - the Man Ain't Always the One at Fault: Far From It!

Yes, Josephs still exist in this world of ours, and one day - perhaps very soon - their heavenly Hero will Himself vindicate them...

...for good. 

(Admittedly & Shame-Facedly) A Trivial Topic in the Overall Scheme of Things (Playing Out Globally At Present), If Not For Those Directly Involved, But I Just Can't Help Myself On This Occasion...Though Not/Never A Fan of His Rendition of My All-Time Favourite Movie, *Charlie (**Willy Wonka) and the Chocolate Factory, Johnny Depp's (Well-Publicized) Defence Overnight Against Charges of Domestic Abuse...DO HAPPEN TO BEAR THE RING OF TRUTH & AUTHENTICITY...Though Apparently Their Former Counsellor Reckoned They Engaged in Some Degree of (Agreed Upon!) Mutual Abuse...

 */** Respectively the book and film titles of this all-time classic...

Postscript:

I was seriously wrong/mistaken/mis-/ill-informed, they're both mad as hatters, real basket-cases, even worse than Yours Truly, and some of my acquaintance, were that possible...

Are My Conclusions Upon This Blogsite (& Nuff Said) A Contradiction-In-Terms...Well, YES (& No)...- I Find I Simply Cannot Help Heralding the Refreshing Sight/Prospect of a World Leader 'Wearing His Heart Upon His Sleeve', A Real NO-GO Area in This Day & Age of Deep-Seated Duplicity and Double-Dealing...

In That Vein I Find Myself - In This Day & Age of Playing it Safe & Never Letting Others Know What One Really Thinks & Feels (Afraid of Upsetting the Apple Cart & Ruffling Any Number of Highly Sensitive Feathers), Almost Awestruck By & Unable to Control My Involuntary Inner Reaction of 'Hear, hear!" Upon Hearing and Witnessing (Upon the Box) the Other Night, United States President Joseph Biden - FAR FROM RESILING AN IOTA From His 'Reckless & Precipitous' Remarks Concerning Vladimir Putin - Actually, Unbelievably Doubling Down Upon the Same...Suggesting Not Just That He Never Meant/Intended Them To Be Taken 'Literally' (by the Russians/Putin Etc) As Any Kind of (New and Worrisome, Regime Change-Oriented) Policy Tweak/Redirection, Those Remarks Merely Being His Own Personal & All-Too Human If Highly Visceral Reaction to/Take on the (In)Human Tragedy Unfolding Day-by-Day In (and Around) the Ukraine, But Moreover, and More Importantly, HAD NO INTENTION WHATSOEVER of Backing Down From Or Retracting/Walking Back Said Remarks...

And neither should he. For once he's effectively called Putin's bluff, well knowing that were the Russian President to use such as a pretext for a full-on nuclear war with NATO et al, he'd have already decided upon the same already...

Nevertheless, if it does serve to fuel Putin's ire (and doubtless Putin'll twist it for all it's worth), and it does, however indirectly, contribute to WW111, *we'll doubtless one and all retract such an apology and resile ourselves from he same, judging Mr Biden somewhat differently...

Perhaps America's second ever Roman Catholic president is taking a leaf out of his forbear's book, JFK coining that unforgettable "better dead than red" line, which thankfully - after a precipitate eleventh-hour standoff at both the Bay of Pigs & in the Cuban Missile Crisis...saw the Russians - under the cool and collected leadership of the relatively enlightened Nikita Khrushchev, back down... 

*If we're even around to do so, that is...

Or, rather, the Judgment Books of Heaven one day soon will, as a depopulated Earth itself gives way to the long-anticipated Second Coming of Jesus Christ, and, after a 1,000-year interim during which the saints themselves participate in a careful examination and perusal of selfsame books of record, they are opened to the (stunned) sight (and subsequent subdued silence) of one and all...

"Here I Stand - I Don't Care [Give a Fig-Leaf/a Rat's Razoo] What Hollywood [Et Al] Says": A Refreshingly Honest - If Ever So Politically Incorrect, In-Your-Face - Sentiment Florida's Republican Governor Ron de Santis Was Reported Having Expressed in Regards to the State's (and Nation's) Ever More Vocal & Frankly Intolerant and Militant LGBT 'Leadership' , & In Particular to the Federal (&/Or State) Mandating of LGBT Etcetera Propagandist Brainwashing of - Would You Believe It - Kids From Kindergarten Age & Upwards...Unbelievably, In That The Old (Sarcastic) Adage 'Only in California' No Longer Applies, 'Californication' Now Truly a Plague Across the Entire Length & Breadth of the DIS-United States of America...

Something/a matter, incidentally, upon which the Russian President is, oddly enough, 'right on'...

Oh for more people - women and men, boys 'n girls (whether 'teeny-boppers' or pre-adolescent) - with the grit, the gumption, the gall (& the gonads, if you will); the moral calibre, the depth of character, to do the same; to call a spade a spade, and to do so unapologetically and forthrightly, 'devil take the hindmost'...

But before you rather automatically and reflexively relegate my views to those of some prehistoric cave-dweller, and instantly and instantaneously 'discontinue' reading my blogposts and make me the sorry little subject of your upcoming round of 'cancel culturism', let me respectfully beg to differ (from that rather harsh and negative assessment/evaluation), and remind you that such bold and courageous stands and stances actually follow in the footsteps of and in the good old tradition of such moral giants as...

Martin Luther King: in our own day willing to go to gaol and beyond - and even die if necessary, as ironically he eventually did as a martyr in the righteous cause of civil rights for *all Americans - in defence of those timeless principles of truth and justice, of life, liberty and happiness for all people...

His namesake, 450-some years previous, Martin Luther: who nailed his 95 theses to the door of that fabled church in Wittenberg (Germany), ***declaring: "Here I stand, I cannot [in good conscience] do otherwise."

Or as a certain modest, self-effacing servant of that selfsame God once put things (in a classic quote it would be hard to better):

The greatest want of the world is the want of men -

men who will not be bought or sold;

men who in their inmost souls are true and honest;

men who do not fear to call sin by its right name;

men whose conscience is as true to duty as the needle to the pole;

men who will stand for the right though the heavens fall.

(P. 57, Education.)

(Though I've no doubt whatsoever that the writer, Ellen Gould White (nee: Harmon), would've included women in that statement were she to be alive today.)

*As a song my (almost 24-years deceased) beloved Grandma (Wilhelmina) - 'Billie' as she was affectionately known - once shared with me, 'Jesus Loves the Little Children', expresses things:

Jesus loves the little children, **all the children of the world...

red and yellow, black and white, **all are precious in His sight,

Jesus loves the little children of the world... 

**In 'quoting' said song of yesteryear I'm only too well aware that folk reading this may well turn upon me and, as folk in His day did with Jesus, (effectively) say: "Physician, heal thyself!" In other words, I'm declaring the 'all-importance' of love, whilst evidently denying the same to a large number of people...i.e. those affiliated with the LGBT community...

Not at all, not even on your nelly - if you happen to have one, which is doubtful...

Jesus Christ had and displayed - once for all time - His undying love for every single person who has ever lived, yes, even the likes of Adolf Hitler, Josef Stalin, Genghis Khan, Attila the Hun, Pol Pot, Mao-tse Tung, Saddam Hussein, Slobodan Milosevic, Vladimir Putin - just to name a few of the infamous 'characters' who've strode, larger than life, across the stage of human history...

upon a lonely cross (of Calvary) outside the city gate (of Jerusalem) on Golgotha's hill in Palestine...

But the love there demonstrated proves beyond a shadow of a doubt that it was sin which caused the death of God's dear Son, and that that sin is so deadly serious that it cost the very life of God to atone...

...so let's beware of considering and treating anything that God's own word deems sin/ful to be anything but...

No, in this life we may not always - or ever - understand all the whys and the wherefores - if anyone was ever a fly on the (night)wall listening to my 'conversations' with my Heavenly Father sometimes they'd realize I know of what I speak (although they'd find it odd that a Christian could carry on so, and might well even disbelieve that I was really one after all, but be that as it may)... 

***Admittedly it's quite possible, though such a sentiment well expressed Luther's feelings upon that fateful occasion, he actually spoke those words on another, such as when he faced the intimidations of cardinals and prelates and priests in a convocation of a church court...

Postscript:

And yes, though it's taken me a heckuva long time to 'come out' and 'out myself' (as it were) - but certainly not in the way that folk hearing such a disclaimer normally assume one means - I will here and now declare my conviction that (the now in/famous) kiwi-born 'Australian' Israel Falau...

did absolutely nothing wrong a couple years ago when he simply echoed the Holy Bible's declaration that there are various sins/sinful practices which - unrepented of - will usher one into eternal darkness

But more on that on another occasion, suffice to add (Jesus' own most searching words, ones among many He fearlessly uttered which are strangely neglected by those who only seem to hear and notice His gentle, meek and mild sayings in accents of softest love & doings of merciful lovingkindness )...  

...that which is highly esteemed among men is abomination in the sight of God...

I'm sorry, folks, yes, Jesus Himself did say such a thing, and as the 'ole sticker succinctly puts it:

God said it - I believe it - and that settles it.

El finito. End of story. Nuff said.

The Fellow's [Ukraine's U N Ambassador's] Theology May Well Be Questionable, But His Sentiment is Spot-On: Yes, God On High Can Forgive ANY & EVERY Sin, Even the Most Heinous & Reprehensible, & Folk Go Absolutely Nowhere Upon Death; They Stay Dead in the Ground, Awaiting the Resurrection (of the Good, to Eternal Life; & of the Evil, to Everlasting Death)...But Those Involved in The Sins Solomon Singles Out (Under Divine Inspiration) As An Abomination to God, Such As the Shedding of Innocent Blood - Unless Converted & Brought to Repentance - Do Indeed, Upon That Fateful DAY of the LORD, Go Straight to Hell (i.e. the Lake of Fire), Whereupon There'll Be No Second Chances...

 For it is appointed unto men once to die, [and then] the [J]udgment...

Putin Putting All the Pieces Into Play to Position Our World Into Its Final Chapters...But Thank God, I've Read the Last Page (& Several Earlier, Penultimate Ones)...And He Ain't Even Mentioned (Explicitly, Anyhow), He's Such a Cipher In the Ultimate Scheme of Things - If. Admittedly, A Rather Potent and Presumptive, Presumptuous & Precipitous - & Cruel, Callous, Criminal & (Self-)Condemned Specimen of Inhumanity...Who's Put In A 'Good' Showing Now To Be Placed Right Up There Next to Adolf & Co (I Kid You Not)...

And the fact that he's seriously considered and consulted the Chinese Government means this fellow is playing for keeps and will stop at absolutely nothing in his bid to achieve the unachievable and defend the indefensible...

For God's sake he must be stopped (though it won't be by earthly means or arms). No indeed.

Marina Ovsyannikova, Heroine For Our Times

To Be Continued...(or see 'I Realize You Might Not Happen to Agree, But This Is How I See It Anyhow')... 

Putin a War Criminal? For Real, & A Helluva Lot Worse: Hey, Even Adolf Hitler , Ferocious Fiend (in Human Skin) That He Was, Didn't Deliberately Target/Single Out Orphanages, Kindergartens & Old Women (& Men)...

*A murderous despot hunting down and poisoning political opponents...

*A petty tyrant thus quashing legitimate dissent at home and abroad...

*An imperialist abroad with no qualms about murdering innocent civilians posing him no threat whatsoever...

In fact, as Newstalk ZB's London correspondent Rob/Rod Little summed him up so succinctly yesterday morning: "Many think Putin's insane - mad...he's not mad/insane, he's evil."

And believe me or don't, people, there's one heckuva qualitative difference!

Disclaimer:

Though I'm not for a moment even pretending that Hitler & Co did not systemically hunt down, capture, 'ship off' and ultimately dispose of all manner of folk, without any regard to age/vulnerability/innocence...

...only that he and his own did not systematically identify, target and then blow to smithereens such folk...

Perhaps (you could well argue) a technical point of quibble-some value, but one that strikes me anyhow.

Heartfelt-ly Honouring Russian Heroines and Heroes One & All: All Those Courageous Russian War Dissenters Coming Out of the Proverbial Woodwork Throughout the Length & Breadth of the Land - Yes, Apparently Even Including Siberia - To Register Their Heartbreak and Disgust at the Loathsome Deeds of Their Dastardly 'Leader'...Boldly Going Where So Few of Their Compatriots Have Ever Gone Before Or Are Now Prepared to Go: to Face the Full-Fledged Throttle of Putin's Police State Henchmen

Yeah, *"Don't [Let's Not] Mention [That There's] The War [Going On - in the Ukraine]"...Unless, That Is, You're Up For/To 15 Years Behind Bars in Sub-Arctic Siberia

*With due acknowledgement to Basil Fawlty (John Cleese) for that unforgettable refrain in his unforgettable TV sitcom...

Freedom May At Times Mean One Has Nothing Left to Lose...But One Thing's For Certain: Championing True Liberty Will Always Cost Us Something, As President Joe Biden Convincingly Declared to His Countrymen and Women This Very Day, As He Appealed for America-wide Support WHATEVER THE ECONOMIC PAIN While Acknowledging the Major (Energy) Sanctions His Administration Was About to Authorize/Institute; & As the Fleeing ............ Intoned (to His Beloved Kiri) As the War Machines of the Invading Martians Settled in the London Commons During the Ongoing Onslaughts in HG Wells' Seminal 'War of the Worlds', "There Are SOME THINGS Worth Living For...& SOME THINGS WORTH DYING FOR"

And so one cannot but admire the staunchness and stamina being shown - on display to the whole world - of Ukraine's gutsy statesman for our times, Volodymyr *Zelensky...

...nowhere seen as dramatically as he this very day 'virtually' addressed the UK House of Commons in a speech which channeled that never to be forgotten rallying speech of Winston Churchill to his people...

...declaring Ukrainians would fight the invading Russians in the fields and in the forests...

wherever the shameless invaders might approach them...

Winston Churchill would have joined the standing parliamentary ovation...

Would he what!

P.S. No, not Yelensky!

Yet Perversely/Ironically Enough, There's Really Only One Person (Other Than Putin Himself) With the Ability - Somehow Or Other - to Speak to the Mind of the Russian President and Get Him to Desist and Back Down (From His Military Escapade & Nuclear Brinkmanship): Believe It or Not, Folks, It's Donald J Trump...Yes, I'm Being - Deadly - Serious!

Just as only he - as U S President - was able to do so then with both Putin & Kim Jong-En(sp?) of North Korea...

Yes, weird (if not wonderful) as it sounds, they're on the selfsame wavelength, so to speak...they speak the same (despotic), incoherent language, and can (intuitively) pick each others' brains (if they can find anything there)...

But more importantly by a long shot, he probably wouldn't seriously listen to pretty much anyone else...

Yet As We NOW All Know (If We Somehow Didn't Already/Previously) Putin Has Always Had An Extra Weapon In His Arsenal - A Special Trump Card (No Pun Intended) Up His Back Pocket, the Nuclear Option...God Help Us All!

Hurrah to Russian Doctors - & Military Leaders/Political Figures Et Al, and Russians Throughout the Land - Appealing (At Doubtless Great Personal Cost) to President Putin to End This Wretched Military Escapade...to Kazakhstan for Refusing Russia Military Equipment &/Or Airbases... & to Governments Here & There for Closing Off/Shutting Down Financial Safety Nets/Loopholes for Russian Oligarchs...But First & Foremost to the Ukrainian People As a Whole...for Rising Up As One (Wo)Man and Letting the World, the Russian Military & In Particular Vladimir Putin Know - In No Mealy-Mouthed Fashion & Uncertain Terms - That They Will Not Let Him Achieve His Grisly Object...& That Even If It Cost Each One of Them Their Earthly Lives...

For as Someone is reported to have once declared:

(S)he who saves her/his [earthly] life will [ultimately] lose it, and s/he who loses her/his [earthly] life will [ultimately] save it. 

This is [true] love, that one lay/s down his life for his friends.

Or as another person once said: truth forever on the scaffold, wrong forever on the throne...

Yet that scaffold holds/sways the future, and beyond the dim unknown, God standeth behind the shadows,[still] keeping watch over his own...

But Trump Simply Can't Help Himself, Though This Time He's Overplayed His Hand - & His True Nature is Openly On Display For One & All to See

Accordingly if any otherwise decent and sane Americans - erstwhile supporting Donald J Trump - wanted any remaining reason why he is completely unfit to ever resume presidential duties (as of late 2024/early 2025 in particular) then they need look no further than his latest series of Putin plaudits over recent days apparently...

What an utter obscenity and disgrace.

Yes, DJT's plumbed new depths of depravity - and for him that's saying something!

Hey, now at last may true evangelicals throughout the United States of America come out en masse and formally renounce their idolatrous and sacreligious alliance with this extremely unpleasant individual...

...before it's forever too late...before God decides your idolatrous identification with him prevents you from being fit and proper representatives of His 'down here below' and so identifies you with him that in ultimately dealing with and to Trump He has no alternative but to deal with you in like manner...

For if we refuse to separate ourselves from sin, then we become intrinsically identified with it and in ultimately dealing with it and destroying it God has no alternative but to destroy us alongside it!

Bravo to the Many/Numerous Gutsy Russians Coming to the Fore At This Dire Juncture to Let Putin Know They Ain't Fooled One Whit: Believe it or Not, There Remain True Russian Patriots Not Under Putin's Thumb, Though Forthwith They'll be Summarily Frogmarched Off to Prison If Not Siberia...

600 or 6,000-odd people across 62 Russian cities apparently...

Postscript:

For the inside story on the person who helped Putin become one of the most powerful people on the planet, you could do worse - in my own humble opinion - than view/read my four (or so) successive blogposts on my original nuff said blogsite, c/o

http://nuffsaid:consideryourself-frombothsidesnow.blogspot.co.nz/ (or .com/).

Seriously, folk, they're worth a read - if I do say so myself... 

Yes Indeed, Now Be Very Afraid, Taiwan...Mainland China Will Doubtless Utilize This Crisis As a Unique Opportunity, As an All Too Convenient Distraction for Achieving Its Own Nefarious Purposes in the Asia-Pacific Region...& Learn Ukraine's (and Indeed Hong Kong's) Lesson (Fast): In Your Moment of Ultimate Extremity, the West Will Not Come to Your Aid (Anytime Soon)

But what ought it to do...start WW111? 

Hifaluting Western Protestations Nothing More Nor Less than a Paper Tiger (with the Possible Exception of the Aussies): In a Turn of the Bitterest Irony. the Nation Earnestly Desiring NATO Membership and Encouraged by One & All Along That Selfsame Path for So Very Long...Will, In Its Moment of Direst Need, Receive NO HELP WHATSOEVER From That Very Organisation (and Its Major Component Parts)

'So 'don't put your trust in fancy promises'.

See 'the Cunning Cat & His Company' (in Aesop's Fables, Golden Press/Western publishing, 1965). 

Or as *Aesop again might characterize it, a friend in need is a friend in deed.

See 'The Travellers and the Bear' (ibid).

Also, actions speak louder than words.

Again, see 'The Lions and the Hares', ibid.

Volodymyr Versus Vladimir: What a Study in Contrasts!

The diminutive, modest and self-effacing, courageous would-be martyr, Volodymyr Zelensky, versus the cowardly, self-worshipping, wannabe 'real man' Vladimir Putin!

Vladimir Putin? You Can't Negotiate with a Thug and a Gangster and a Schoolyard Bully

 Or, 'A bad excuse is good enough for a bully'. 

See 'The Hungry Wolf and the Lamb', Aesop's Fables, 1965 edition).

Alternatively, 'Some people believe that might makes right'. 

Likewise, see 'The Lion's share', ibid.

The Leopard, Folks, Ain't About to Change His Spots Anytime Soon: Once a KGB Agent (Provocateur), Ever & Always a KGB Agent (Provocateur)

We can change everything except our nature.

See 'Venus and the Lovesick Cat' (Aesop's Fables, 1965 edition). 

Vladimir Putin? He Ain't a Clone, Folks - More's the Pity

Or, alternatively, a 'puppet'? Only of his own narcissistic, delusionary, messianic self-talk. 

The Book/Film 'Yoyo Rabbit'? Sorry (to Disillusion Y'all), Adolf Hitler Was No Laughing Matter: Not Now, Not Ever

'Othering' Others, In Particular Small & Unpopular Minorities, Has Ever Had a Rather Fraught & Tragic History...And So, Perhaps Y'All Had Better Take Your Covid Mandates & Go & Stick Them Somewhere Where the Sun Never Shines - For All Our Sakes Ultimately...

They came for the Jews and I said nothing because I wasn't a Jew...

Then they came for the mentally infirm and I said nothing because I wasn't mentally infirm...

Then they came for the sick and decrepit and I said nothing because I wasn't sick and decrepit...

Then they came for the Gypsies and I said nothing because I wasn't a Gypsy...

Then they came for the communists and socialists and I said nothing because I was neither a communist nor a socialist...

And finally they came for you and me but there wasn't anyone left to speak out and up for us...

Postscript:

Admittedly I'd concede a rather imprecise rendition of that famous, memorable sentiment (but best available recollection for the present).

Are Hungary and Poland -'Illiberal Democracies' That the European Union and Court of Justice Argue They Most Definitely Are (Notwithstanding) - Nevertheless Correct in Asserting These (EU Etcetera) Have Not Only Exceeded Their Just Mandate and Authority, But Their Recent (Re-)Actions Against These Two Sovereign Nations Represent a 'Cultural Creep' Towards a (Re-)United States of Europe? You Better Believe It!

Two Prominent Jesuits (Emmanuel Macron & Pope Frances): Leaders of a New, Reunited Europe? Hey, Even the BBC Itself Suggested Macron Fitted the Bill

I'm Hardly Seeking to Justify Putin Et Al - Leastways in Sync With The Chinese Dragon - But (I'm) Sorry to Say, (U S President) Joe (Biden) Is - Quite Simply - In, Out of His Depth, Over His Head...And Who Knows What Soon Befalls Our Troubled World, Let Alone the Much-Abused Nation-State of the Ukraine...

 To Be Continued...

Upon This Inglorious 77th Anniversary of the Liberation of Auschwitz/Holocaust (Generally), May I Post My Personal Tribute to Victims and Survivors and Those (Such as the Much-Resented Simon Weisenthal Institute) Doing Their Darnedest to Bring Justice To Such

And though it in no way diminishes the evil of said infamy, I personally believe, as someone who considers himself a careful Bible student over many decades, that one way the Lord on High will one day bring good out of that most diabolical chapter in (in)human history...

...is by using it to shine a spotlight upon that equally infamous and diabolical chapter in human history, the Cross of Calvary (whereby an Individual as opposed to an entire people group, suffered horrendously at the hands of a merciless and unmerciful bloodthirsty mob)...

in this way (and I fully appreciate the thought/insight may well not be original, though I did indeed come to/arrive at it on my lonesome (with the Holy Spirit's guidance I have little doubt):

When in years to come - if that's how long the prophecy has to run - the Jewish nation is beseiged around and about by, according to Scripture, pretty well every nation upon earth, and perhaps two-thirds of their populace is wiped off the face of the earth (if that fairly common interpretation of prophecy is indeed correct), they will recall the treatment meted out to One of their own in the faraway distant past...

...and then everything will quite literally 'click' for them...

No, I'm in no way, shape or form seeking to find yet another sort of justification or rationale or excuse for those aforementioned horrors and barbarities and evil - God, as the Newer (and indeed Older) Testament scriptures make very clear, is not - indeed cannot be, consistently with His holy and loving character - ever 'the Author of evil'...

And yet, as Romans 8:28 makes abundantly clear, 'penned' by a man who in earlier times was a most relentless, brutal and bloodthirsty foe of the new sect of 'the Way' as it was then termed, God has a way of taking the most horrible things and making something beautiful out of them...

And thus and so the wonderful prophecy of the penultimate book in the Old Testament will yet come to fruition:

And it shall come to pass in that day, that I will seek to destroy all the nations that come against Jerusalem.

And I will pour upon the house of David, and upon the inhabitants of Jerusalem, the spirit of grace and of supplications: and they shall look upon me whom they have pierced, and they shall mourn for him, as one mourneth for his only son, and shall be in bitterness for him, as one that is in bitterness for his firstborn.

In that day shall there be a great mourning in Jerusalem...

And the land shall mourn, every family apart...

It's - LONG PAST TIME - the U S of A Acknowledged Its Own Inglorious Role In Baiting the Russian Bear: Its Unashamed and Quite Simply Shameless and Shameful Post(Cold)-War Triumphalism - Indulging Self-Righteous Self-Exaltation and Smug Gloating Over the Ex-USSR Post-the Fall of the Berlin Wall and Implosion of the Soviet Union - Has Yielded Its Baleful Fruit of Long-Simmering Resentment On the Part of the Russian People and Leadership...And, I'm Sorry to Say, the Fault Has Not Been With the Latter...

Though it doesn't justify the Russians - aka Vladimir Putin - amassing troops upon Ukraine's border: far from it (indeed, their ongoing effective war of attrition against Ukrainians begun back in 2014, far as I can discern, hasn't ever actually ceased, though admittedly news reports from the Crimea and the Ukraine generally these days are extremely sketchy at the best of times - and as that deep and profound thinker Smeagol-Gollum well put things "These aren't decent times!")...

Nevertheless 'the West' (as in the United States of America) has long since wrong-footed the entire situation (by which I refer to its aforementioned post-Cold War triumphalism, in particular its unwarranted and prideful attitude and posture) and has thus in a large measure contributed to things deteriorating to their present-day state.

But expect a long-overdue apology on the part of the Yanks? - you better forget it!

Being ever and only in the right means, as one songster so (un)aptly put matters, never having to say you're sorry...

But only in the mind and heart of an arrogant believer in the Cold War era maxim that might ever makes right, and victory calls for a sense of smug self-satisfaction and gloating...

...rather than a much more appropriate sense of modest self-abasement and gratitude.

Having long since chosen the latter course, whatever the relative rights and wrongs of the military actions of the current Russian regime, America's trajectory is sadly ever onward, as secular observers have long since noted, from (long since becoming) the self-anointed global cop...and ultimately into an inglorious outworking of the Scriptural depiction of Revelation's false prophet speaking like a dragon and enforcing the sign, the mark, of the first sea-beast's authority...

And believe you me, the end-game will not be pretty, not one wee bit, I can readily assure you!

One Hum-Dinger Of A Brat: (One-Time) Cardinal Ratzsinger, Long-Serving Head of the Roman Catholic Church's (Modern-Day) 'Inquisition', Aka Pope Benedict XVI, Is Effectively Implicated As Coverer-Up-In-Chief Of the Vatican's Crimes Against Kids: Hey, How About, As My Brother Just Said, HIS BEING EXCOMMUNICATED? Yeah, Right (As Kiwi Billboards Might Express Matters)!

The Party Is Finally Over For Boris Johnson, And The Chickens And Roosters Are Busily Scrambling Over Each Other to Find A Place to Roost

The bottom line is, the optics, as they say, are simply awful/dreadful: in what can only look like a one-fingered salute to the British people in *their hour of trial and tribulation the national powers-that-be seem to be having a jolly old time, thank you very much, at the expense of the longsuffering masses.

It simply doesn't, to use another phrase much in vogue these days, pass the sniff test. That's all there really is to it folks - it's that simple.

And I 'say'(as in print) **that with a tinge of sadness in my voice (i.e. 'heart'); as someone who has found Boris Johnson a bit of a lovable rogue, an idiosyncratic character and comic if you will, but an endearing one at that.

Yes, for folk throughout the length and breadth of the land to be going through the hard yards, the 'hard yakka' as it were through the ongoing ***'gift that keeps on giving', as in covid, and then to turn on their TV sets/tune in to their radios/open their newspapers - yes, and/or 'google it'/'hear' via the internet in one way or another - and see numerous ****'juicy and salacious' tidbits day after day (as the story is drip-fed into their respective media) showing/revealing a smirking elite knowingly and shamelessly getting away with 'stuff' that the plebs and peasants - "let 'em eat dirt!" - could only dream of (in their state of ongoing restrictions) and in the full expectation moreover that their hijinks and frolics will never see the light of day (as in the public glare)...

...could not but strike any wholly impartial and unpartisan observer as an *****unprecedented degree of arrogance and hubris and overreach heretofore unheard of...

...'stuff' ultimately reaching to the very highest echelons and corridors of power, and necessitating one  - and one only - immediate response, one which is so clear and obvious that I'll simply leave you to work it out yourselves, to follow the trail wheresoever it happens to obviously lead...

And that arguably it really requires a mass resignation (of involved ministers and MPs) and/or a snap election to give the British people the chance to start afresh...and asap. (Though I fear for the Brexit, were that admittedly extremely remote and unlikely eventuality to transpire.)

Yes, Labour's (comparatively) new leader is definitely onto a winner (with the people of the United Kingdom) in relentlessly pursuing this (with a zeal befitting Sherlock Holmes in relentless pursuit of the latest clue however labyrinthine the particular tunnel he next entered and explored), and could hardly be faulted were he to press his newfound advantage home without any further ado to the nth degree and beyond...

What else can he realistically be expected to do?

Credulity can only be stretched so far, and it has arguably already been extended well beyond breaking point...  

*As they collectively endure one of the worst outcomes of any nation in the global coronavirus pandemic.

**That is, all the preceding (and all the rest of my opinion piece). 

***As one (if not various and sundry) wag/s has/have well expressed matters.

****Metaphorically speaking, that is!

*****One of such a serious nature that it makes those of ******'our own' David Clark look like minor misdemeanours in comparison...

******David Clark being the New Zealand Government Minister who hardly ingratiated himself with the kiwi public a year-and-a-half ago or so when he, as Health Minister during the global pandemic that is covid-19, went off mountain bike riding, visiting a local beach, and moving house while everyone else trembled in their boots almost setting a foot out their doors.

(A Rather, If Necessarily, Belated) 'Tribute' (Of Sorts) to America's 'EPIPHANY' - i.e. January 6th, 2020 - A Year On: "Good Night, America, How ARE You, Don't Ya Know Me, I'm [Update: I Once WAS] Your Native Son?"

A classic opportunity for behind-the-scenes bipartisan collaboration upon removing Donald J Trump 'el permanente' from the American political scene was then lost for good; and, like so many scholars and academics etcetera, I suspect the opportunity will never come again...

And thus and so that eerie painting that that wag (I mention around Election 2020; upon either this or my other, original blogsite) in the Philadelphia Constitutional Convention Hall was ruminating and reflecting upon (during my brief visit in August or so 1992) perhaps *verily represents the sun descending (off the landscape) - as opposed to rising - permanently on the once proud and great (and once global trend-setting) U S 'experiment in democracy'...

Afterthought: 

Curiously enough, my long-deceased American grandmother would've turned 120 on that day... 

...and perhaps equally eerily, her name, 'Elvera', itself meant the truth.

Acknowledgment:

FULL CREDIT to the (introduction to the) third and final stanza in Arlo Guthrie's inimitable classic 'City of New Orleans'...

TO BE CONTINUED...Sometime soon, don't know when...