It's good to at long last hear - and from the experts, no less - that daylight savings, so-called, is not necessarily - may indeed be far from - the unmitigated success story we've long been led to believe...
As TV3's 6 p.m. Newshub Nation the other night pointed out (and as it still does c/o its online edition https://www.NewshubOn-line.co.nz/home/lifestyle/2018/09/daylight-savings- etc) through reporter Alexandra Nelson's special report, daylight savings may in fact a whole lot to answer for (in various associated harmful side-effects)...- not that said item exactly framed it that way, but it effectively revealed as much.
Sleep Specialist Tony Fernando cited a whole bunch of 'functional issues' associated therewith, from increased risks of diabetes, blood pressure and heart problems especially amongst the less resilient, aging proportion of the population - 'when peoples' body clocks are not followed or are disrupted'. As therein mentioned (and otherwise oft-noted) the associated mood changes and impaired functionality also significantly affects judgment and reaction times...resulting in greatly increased incidents of accidents (a 30% increased risk, according to this report).
And who hasn't heard of NZ's appalling rate of workplace accidents (doubtless oftentimes from overworked and overstressed - and underpaid? - workers)?; which far exceeds that of other nations, incidentally, though that's doubtless just one part of the equation. But the slower reaction times and associated poorer judgment and decision-making long known as typical results of fatigue have many a time also been pointed out as part of the puzzle that's been New Zealand's long-term high number of road injuries and fatalities...resulting periodically - but not enough, in my humble opinion - in the occasional special official road traffic warnings thereabouts, though the incidence of associated road-signs has been heartening to see over recent years...
No, the human body is not a mere machine to be experimented with by all and sundry, though 'modern man' with his and her 'food' concoctions and other *chemicalized instruments has certainly done his/her darnedest! And that's not to mention the modern university, which, as I made my way through as a 'mature student' during the early-to-mid 2000s, I later reflected is certainly true to its darwinian philosophical underpinnings, effectively treating us, the students, as akin to either the beast or the 'bot (i.e. robot)...an animal or a machine, in other words. Rather than the glorious master-piece of an Omniscient, Omnipotent, All-Loving Creator.
Why they so conspicuously fail(ed) in their due 'duty of care' to the inmates therein (such as myself) as I/we wreaked merry hell upon my/our physical bodies by regularly burning the candle at both ends in order to get on top of the unreal workload they expected me/us to constantly manage and balance.
So none of this utter, sheer, unadulterated twaddle and balderdust this now online news item concludes with - i.e. that 'For most people, changing the clock (aka daylight savings) doesn't have any [real, tangible] effect...excepting a bit of adjustment over a day or two.' Many of us intuitively know this to be patently untrue - whatever our vocation/line of paid work (or otherwise).
Nevertheless, the admonition to overcome any issues via regularly going to bed thereafter on average 15 minutes earlier, and increasing this later if necessary, appears good, sound advice; long having been the standard procedure to sleep issues in general (till one establishes one's own best retiring and rising times for obtaining peak sleep - in both quantity and quality). Yes, fair enough - as far as it goes.
To sign off, as I said recently (in my September the 22nd blogpost thereabouts) - in a rare piece of commendation for that most monolithic and bureaucratic of modern institutions, the **European Union - even if it's a matter of sticking to daylight savings' times (as opposed to ordinary, original time), hey, choose one or t'other, but, at the very least, stop going back and forth between them, okay!
*Toxic Beauty is a book I'd like to get a-hold of again sometime, detailing the cocktail of potent poisons we either ingest or otherwise 'treat' ourselves to and with on a regular, daily basis in our ultra-'civilized' world; along with a recent 'NZ Listener' with its cover story 'Don't Touch the Toxins: Alarming new evidence about the chemicals & plastics we use at home'.
**Evidently Europe presently 'features' three different time zones, a U.K.-centric one, one affecting most of the rest (from the Scandinavian nations down) and an Eastern European one, but I'll need to investigate that further no doubt...
Sunday, September 30, 2018
We Just Can't Trust Ya, Winnie: Brief Reflections Upon the Recently-Enacted Waka-Jumping Legislation
As a piece of legislation that - *from every indication - Deputy Prime Minister Winston Peters was apparently prepared to quite literally 'die in a ditch over' - even were that ditch 'merely' a political one - the Waka-Jumping Act that came into law Friday says a heckuva lot about WP's innate character, and then some. It quite simply reveals the heart, and nature, of a petty despot...a control freak of the first degree/order/magnitude. Something which like ye proverbial puff of smoke reveals the instantaneous burning into smithereens of all the good work which the deputy P.M. and his loyal as MPs have previously put in. More's the pity.
Though their record thus far, evincing an influence far outweighing their sheer numbers in the House, has not been - has indeed been far from - perfect or faultless, not necessarily vis-a-vis the supposed scandal over the Wally Houmaha (sp?) affair and the like, but moreover re the shameful closing of the Roxburgh Stand Children's Village - or whatever it's called - and the simultaneous
apparent lack of advocacy over the closure of other important social services in Central Otago, such as the Lumsden Maternity Ward...we have every reason to expect - much - better from NZ First.
And how about the ongoing downsizing, downsizing, downsizing - and concurrent destruction and frankly pulling and tearing apart of NZ Post pretty well for good - all across our fair land? But don't get me started, I wouldn't know where I'd end up...except to say, that though the never-ending debacle that has been the shameful fate of NZ Post especially since former P.M. Jim Bolger and then former deputy P.M. Michael Cullen took the reins there, is hardly the fault of Winston Peters and NZ First, where the heck has been their advocacy over its slow but ever so sure demise in recent years?
But as I say, better not to get me started on that one... . Anyhow, back to topic: despite all the good stuff - including especially during his six-week spell in the Prime Ministership - Winnie and his colleagues have accomplished, and moreover **all my effusive commendation thereabouts over that time, 'the Right Honourable' Mr Peters seems to have reverted once more to his Muldoon-era authoritarian-style type persona over recent days and weeks... . And though the tragic fate of one-time TV weatherman Brendan Horan is now a mere footnote in history, nowhere gives a better indication of the totalitarian tendencies ever-present in the personality, or rather the character, of Mr Peters.
Yes, that shameful incident or rather Peters' guilty-even-after-being-proven-innocent verdict thereabouts, sadly says it all - all that really needs saying about Winston Peters' character and his essential motivation in making this appalling bit of legislation a *make-or-break coalition one...-and let's not even get into the even more shameful and shameless jettisoning of all fundamental Green Party principle in their falling into line and not even abstaining, much less voting with the 'nays', when the empowering (third reading) vote upon said bill took place last Friday midday.
*That this was evidently the case seems abundantly clear from even a cursory witnessing of the parliamentary debate thereabouts over recent weeks. Why else did Labour MPs act like they'd swallowed some dead vermin, the Greens almost to a person generally refuse to speak at all on the bill, the otherwise admirably-principled Justice Minister Andrew Little seem so half-hearted in his many speeches as the bill progressed through its many stages and readings, law lecturers and professors up and down the land speak and submit apparently to a person against said legislation, and even the highly principled and deeply-respected Attorney-General David Parker submit a negative evaluation of said measure way beforehand? Need I say more?!?!?
**Sorry, I simply can't remember the reason for this note...but will return once I remember!
Though their record thus far, evincing an influence far outweighing their sheer numbers in the House, has not been - has indeed been far from - perfect or faultless, not necessarily vis-a-vis the supposed scandal over the Wally Houmaha (sp?) affair and the like, but moreover re the shameful closing of the Roxburgh Stand Children's Village - or whatever it's called - and the simultaneous
apparent lack of advocacy over the closure of other important social services in Central Otago, such as the Lumsden Maternity Ward...we have every reason to expect - much - better from NZ First.
And how about the ongoing downsizing, downsizing, downsizing - and concurrent destruction and frankly pulling and tearing apart of NZ Post pretty well for good - all across our fair land? But don't get me started, I wouldn't know where I'd end up...except to say, that though the never-ending debacle that has been the shameful fate of NZ Post especially since former P.M. Jim Bolger and then former deputy P.M. Michael Cullen took the reins there, is hardly the fault of Winston Peters and NZ First, where the heck has been their advocacy over its slow but ever so sure demise in recent years?
But as I say, better not to get me started on that one... . Anyhow, back to topic: despite all the good stuff - including especially during his six-week spell in the Prime Ministership - Winnie and his colleagues have accomplished, and moreover **all my effusive commendation thereabouts over that time, 'the Right Honourable' Mr Peters seems to have reverted once more to his Muldoon-era authoritarian-style type persona over recent days and weeks... . And though the tragic fate of one-time TV weatherman Brendan Horan is now a mere footnote in history, nowhere gives a better indication of the totalitarian tendencies ever-present in the personality, or rather the character, of Mr Peters.
Yes, that shameful incident or rather Peters' guilty-even-after-being-proven-innocent verdict thereabouts, sadly says it all - all that really needs saying about Winston Peters' character and his essential motivation in making this appalling bit of legislation a *make-or-break coalition one...-and let's not even get into the even more shameful and shameless jettisoning of all fundamental Green Party principle in their falling into line and not even abstaining, much less voting with the 'nays', when the empowering (third reading) vote upon said bill took place last Friday midday.
*That this was evidently the case seems abundantly clear from even a cursory witnessing of the parliamentary debate thereabouts over recent weeks. Why else did Labour MPs act like they'd swallowed some dead vermin, the Greens almost to a person generally refuse to speak at all on the bill, the otherwise admirably-principled Justice Minister Andrew Little seem so half-hearted in his many speeches as the bill progressed through its many stages and readings, law lecturers and professors up and down the land speak and submit apparently to a person against said legislation, and even the highly principled and deeply-respected Attorney-General David Parker submit a negative evaluation of said measure way beforehand? Need I say more?!?!?
**Sorry, I simply can't remember the reason for this note...but will return once I remember!
Saturday, September 22, 2018
Credit Where Credit Is Due: Vis-a-vis Pope Francis on the one hand, and the European Union on the other
Though the little I tend to have to say - and (God willing) still will in days and weeks and months and years to come - vis-a-vis The European Union and the Papacy itself (as an institution - if not necessarily Pope Francis as a person), will rarely be all that flattering let alone endearing, full marks:
*To the EU for finally authorizing giving the flick to biorhythm-unfriendly daylight saving - or rather, going back-and-forth between regular (normal) time and dst...in future, from the end of 2019 evidently. Enough technological contrivance to mess with us and our bodies and bodily cycles already - okay! Yes, this'll not affect me or mine one little bit - but my sympathies are/empathy is with my fellows (and lasses) in that tension-fraught 'continent'...for this smallest of mercies, anyhow.
*To Pope Francis for having the guts and gumption and sheer gall - yes, I'm only too well aware I used this very (personally-selected) phrase just the other day/blogpost - to address the Mafia on their own turf. Whatever one happens to think of the Vatican (and the Roman Catholic Church for that matter) you can't convince me that that didn't take more than a modicum of pure, unadulterated guts.
*To the EU for finally authorizing giving the flick to biorhythm-unfriendly daylight saving - or rather, going back-and-forth between regular (normal) time and dst...in future, from the end of 2019 evidently. Enough technological contrivance to mess with us and our bodies and bodily cycles already - okay! Yes, this'll not affect me or mine one little bit - but my sympathies are/empathy is with my fellows (and lasses) in that tension-fraught 'continent'...for this smallest of mercies, anyhow.
*To Pope Francis for having the guts and gumption and sheer gall - yes, I'm only too well aware I used this very (personally-selected) phrase just the other day/blogpost - to address the Mafia on their own turf. Whatever one happens to think of the Vatican (and the Roman Catholic Church for that matter) you can't convince me that that didn't take more than a modicum of pure, unadulterated guts.
Friday, September 21, 2018
A Puerile Prank By Any Other Name is Every Bit as Awful as Home-Grown Terrorism: How Tragic that the Beloved Strawberry - that most majestic and delectable of summer fruits - has now joined the ranks of the Hijacked
Profuse apologies for my utter tardiness in getting down to writing this blogpost...
Placing needles within strawberries is surely about as low as anyone can go. Putting the veritable 'fear of God' into persons one and all, causing undue alarm and terror. And evidently - as has since been discovered following the apprehension of a confessing teenager thereabouts - it was not done, as had long been touted, as a result of a disgruntled former (strawberry-picking or the like) employee exacting his own pound of flesh upon the industry or individual employer who'd supposedly treated him poorly.
Thereby 'repaying' one and all of the innocent and ever longsuffering public-at-large for something that was none of their responsibility or doing. 'Spray and walk away' as we're inclined to refer to such behaviour in God's Own. Except the potential tragic results of the same were anything but able to be quickly or easily resiled from.
No, just a teenage lad up to no good, doing a prank or the like; out for a bit of a good time. Unreal! Welcome to our newfangled world of the witless and wacky, and moreover inadvertently wicked - for such this particular act of sabotage, of home-grown domestic terrorism surely is... .
For once my sympathies/empathy are fully with the Aussies...
Afterthought:
And no, I certainly don't classify my brother's and my frequent snowball-hurling at passing cars in the same category - though with hindsight I hardly can deny the potential awful dangers thereabouts. Whereas those people who - on a number (at least two or three, I believe) of occasions, evidently - have dropped large concrete piles or the like upon Auckland motorway drivers - and evidently, according to my Stepmum, in recent times 'succeeded' in killing someone - should, if apprehended, be tried (frankly hung, drawn and quartered), and no, not for manslaughter!
Placing needles within strawberries is surely about as low as anyone can go. Putting the veritable 'fear of God' into persons one and all, causing undue alarm and terror. And evidently - as has since been discovered following the apprehension of a confessing teenager thereabouts - it was not done, as had long been touted, as a result of a disgruntled former (strawberry-picking or the like) employee exacting his own pound of flesh upon the industry or individual employer who'd supposedly treated him poorly.
Thereby 'repaying' one and all of the innocent and ever longsuffering public-at-large for something that was none of their responsibility or doing. 'Spray and walk away' as we're inclined to refer to such behaviour in God's Own. Except the potential tragic results of the same were anything but able to be quickly or easily resiled from.
No, just a teenage lad up to no good, doing a prank or the like; out for a bit of a good time. Unreal! Welcome to our newfangled world of the witless and wacky, and moreover inadvertently wicked - for such this particular act of sabotage, of home-grown domestic terrorism surely is... .
For once my sympathies/empathy are fully with the Aussies...
Afterthought:
And no, I certainly don't classify my brother's and my frequent snowball-hurling at passing cars in the same category - though with hindsight I hardly can deny the potential awful dangers thereabouts. Whereas those people who - on a number (at least two or three, I believe) of occasions, evidently - have dropped large concrete piles or the like upon Auckland motorway drivers - and evidently, according to my Stepmum, in recent times 'succeeded' in killing someone - should, if apprehended, be tried (frankly hung, drawn and quartered), and no, not for manslaughter!
Wednesday, September 19, 2018
China, The 'Peoples' Republic' (so-called) thereof...Vis-a-vis the latterly resurrected Czardom of Russia: A Bouquet and a Brickbat for Each
Apologies are no doubt due for once again steering off - my self-appointed and intended, and moreover, duly notified - course...
Nevertheless I will do so, and insert some stuff about two of the global super-powers presently strutting the world stage...nations (i.e. Russia and China) led by individuals whose personality and character foibles and failings openly echo (and thus manage to accentuate) those found in their present American counterpart. But enough - on this occasion - of yet another reference to the 'Trump Phenomenon'...I intend (shortly) to deal with these two nations alone...
My topics (vis-a-vis China) will be familial assistance and Social Credit; vis-a-vis Russia - poisonings and commendable military de-escalation...
Tune in tomorrow!
As Promised...(Part One thereof, anyhow)
*Re China...A great big brickbat - and a small bouquet. The good news first - it's such a rarity/rare commodity these days...from a Western perspective, anyhow...vis-a-vis the land of the Dragon...
A hearty commendation for, a hands-off celebration of, a judge's enforcement, just the other day, of a law punishing grown-up kids who failed in their familial duty of providing succour to their ailing parents in their last years of life...-not only for actually having such a law on their books in the first place, but for having the sheer gall - the guts, the gumption & yes, the balls - to actually enforce 'em!
A principle flouted all the time these days in the increasingly 'ageist', compassionless, and self-serving, egocentric and me, myself and I-worshiping consumerist culture of the post-Christian West. Itself bringing to recollection the ever-timely and ageless admonition of the long-ridiculed and much-abused great Apostle Paul, who memorably advised his readers that
...if any widow has children or grandchildren, let them first learn to show piety at home and to repay their parents; for this is good and acceptable before God. [The Holy Bible, New King James Version: 1 Timothy 5:4: (c) 1982 by Thomas Nelson, Inc. Used by permission. All rights reserved.
But as for usurping the perfectly good, historically meaningful (and moreover, positive) term 'social credit' for its own nefarious purposes, for the Chinese Government to do so is an utter abomination. The term has long been - was for a long time - both in God's Own and in Canada's two most westernmost provinces, Alberta and British Columbia - synonymous with an unconventional and unorthodox but sound mixture of socialism and capitalism: economies/societies operating in the best of both worlds - adopting the best features of each system while avoiding the worst excesses of each. Witnessing such sheer innovations as worker shareholders in their own companies!
So for the Chinese Government - and, what's so much the worse, in the name of 24/7 surveillance of its citizenry from the veritable cradle to the grave - to misappropriate such a positive concept and practice in the interests of its self-serving, autocratic, authoritarian, totalitarian and tyrannical designs is an insult of the highest - or rather lowest - order possible. In moreover a regime presently overseen by a self-worshipping despot, such verbal misappropriation does a gross disservice to the English language, to the long-cherished idea that words actually mean something. As opposed to the presently in-vogue belief that they simply represent 'cultural capital', and thus can basically mean whatever one wishes them to.
And so - as indeed throughout the West these days with its historically revisionist, culturally relativistic, post-modern ethic where black means white and light means darkness and evil is good and good is apparently evil - this once-unique term and concept can be employed in the service of and made to fit the purposes of a diabolical regime and petty despot; whose use of said term, moreover, in its (and his) inexorable quest for ever and ever greater control and dominance over the lives of its (and his) citizenry makes Eric Blair's (that is, George Orwell's) classic 1984 look almost utopian - as opposed to dystopian - in its oh-so-prescient view of the future...
As Promised...(Part Two thereof)
Re Russia...Another Bouquet alongside a Brickbat
"Thank God", ff much pushing and shoving, arm-twisting and wrestling, manipulation and pressure: Russia has - however belatedly, dragging its feet (and all the rest) - finally relented in its impending onslaught against the last major rebel enclave/'holdout' of the town of Iglib in the bombed-to-smithereens Middle-Eastern one-time nation of Syria...-having been spared such ghastly fate, incredibly enough, through the efforts of a certain 'wretched Urr-da-wan' (as the name of Turkey's President-for-Life Erdogan phonetically transliterates)...
Though no real much less great credit can be given to Syria's own President al-Assad, nevertheless in so relenting yet another episode in the ongoing bloodbath that is Syria and its neighbours has been avoided...thus reprieving that sad and pitiable, piteous, pitiful and pathetic land one further bodyblow. And for that very real if relatively small mercy let us all be - however temporarily - thankful...
Nevertheless I will do so, and insert some stuff about two of the global super-powers presently strutting the world stage...nations (i.e. Russia and China) led by individuals whose personality and character foibles and failings openly echo (and thus manage to accentuate) those found in their present American counterpart. But enough - on this occasion - of yet another reference to the 'Trump Phenomenon'...I intend (shortly) to deal with these two nations alone...
My topics (vis-a-vis China) will be familial assistance and Social Credit; vis-a-vis Russia - poisonings and commendable military de-escalation...
Tune in tomorrow!
As Promised...(Part One thereof, anyhow)
*Re China...A great big brickbat - and a small bouquet. The good news first - it's such a rarity/rare commodity these days...from a Western perspective, anyhow...vis-a-vis the land of the Dragon...
A hearty commendation for, a hands-off celebration of, a judge's enforcement, just the other day, of a law punishing grown-up kids who failed in their familial duty of providing succour to their ailing parents in their last years of life...-not only for actually having such a law on their books in the first place, but for having the sheer gall - the guts, the gumption & yes, the balls - to actually enforce 'em!
A principle flouted all the time these days in the increasingly 'ageist', compassionless, and self-serving, egocentric and me, myself and I-worshiping consumerist culture of the post-Christian West. Itself bringing to recollection the ever-timely and ageless admonition of the long-ridiculed and much-abused great Apostle Paul, who memorably advised his readers that
...if any widow has children or grandchildren, let them first learn to show piety at home and to repay their parents; for this is good and acceptable before God. [The Holy Bible, New King James Version: 1 Timothy 5:4: (c) 1982 by Thomas Nelson, Inc. Used by permission. All rights reserved.
But as for usurping the perfectly good, historically meaningful (and moreover, positive) term 'social credit' for its own nefarious purposes, for the Chinese Government to do so is an utter abomination. The term has long been - was for a long time - both in God's Own and in Canada's two most westernmost provinces, Alberta and British Columbia - synonymous with an unconventional and unorthodox but sound mixture of socialism and capitalism: economies/societies operating in the best of both worlds - adopting the best features of each system while avoiding the worst excesses of each. Witnessing such sheer innovations as worker shareholders in their own companies!
So for the Chinese Government - and, what's so much the worse, in the name of 24/7 surveillance of its citizenry from the veritable cradle to the grave - to misappropriate such a positive concept and practice in the interests of its self-serving, autocratic, authoritarian, totalitarian and tyrannical designs is an insult of the highest - or rather lowest - order possible. In moreover a regime presently overseen by a self-worshipping despot, such verbal misappropriation does a gross disservice to the English language, to the long-cherished idea that words actually mean something. As opposed to the presently in-vogue belief that they simply represent 'cultural capital', and thus can basically mean whatever one wishes them to.
And so - as indeed throughout the West these days with its historically revisionist, culturally relativistic, post-modern ethic where black means white and light means darkness and evil is good and good is apparently evil - this once-unique term and concept can be employed in the service of and made to fit the purposes of a diabolical regime and petty despot; whose use of said term, moreover, in its (and his) inexorable quest for ever and ever greater control and dominance over the lives of its (and his) citizenry makes Eric Blair's (that is, George Orwell's) classic 1984 look almost utopian - as opposed to dystopian - in its oh-so-prescient view of the future...
As Promised...(Part Two thereof)
Re Russia...Another Bouquet alongside a Brickbat
"Thank God", ff much pushing and shoving, arm-twisting and wrestling, manipulation and pressure: Russia has - however belatedly, dragging its feet (and all the rest) - finally relented in its impending onslaught against the last major rebel enclave/'holdout' of the town of Iglib in the bombed-to-smithereens Middle-Eastern one-time nation of Syria...-having been spared such ghastly fate, incredibly enough, through the efforts of a certain 'wretched Urr-da-wan' (as the name of Turkey's President-for-Life Erdogan phonetically transliterates)...
Though no real much less great credit can be given to Syria's own President al-Assad, nevertheless in so relenting yet another episode in the ongoing bloodbath that is Syria and its neighbours has been avoided...thus reprieving that sad and pitiable, piteous, pitiful and pathetic land one further bodyblow. And for that very real if relatively small mercy let us all be - however temporarily - thankful...
Tuesday, September 18, 2018
Two Triads of 2 (Bouquets):1 Brickbat (each) - Five of Which Are Not As Per Usual: Plaudits for Bill English and Julie Bishop; even the Papacy and the European Union themselves; and Serving it to the Peoples' Republic of China, and the British Division's Unofficial Representative (not!) thereof
Confused? Well, this blogpost is just gonna be a veritable mishmash of bits 'n bobs...enabling me to catch up (on events worldwide) so's I can sooner than later move on to those issues consuming me.
Firstly, a belated commendation to recently-retired NZ National Party leader (and recently 'deposed' P.M.) Bill English - and his good wife Mary - for their forthright and unapologetic, down-to-the-veritable-guts-of-the-matter, personally delivered 'submission' to the Commission of Enquiry on the 'Death with Dignity' Bill/Parliamentary Select Committee recently. That the proposed legalization is logically the equivalent of sanctioning suicide for youngsters/the younger generation (the largest proportion of suicide attemptees/'performers') was an insightful and perceptive take upon the matter. Not that the do-or-die, died-in-the-wool proponents thereof could really give a toss, though, however worthwhile the particular argument presented/proffered...
From a former New Zealand Prime Minister to a former Deputy P.M. - and could-have-been P.M. - of Australia, the 'late, great' Julie Bishop. Though far from a supporter of her unique brand of kiwi-bashing and inter-Tasman political relations, vis-a-vis the recent, latest round of political shenanigans of the particular political beast known as the Aussie Prime Ministership, I'll simply say the following...
The Australian Liberal Party scored an own goal in its handling of the recent fiasco representing the latest instalment in the Game of Political Musical Chairs (and Chair(wo)manship) that is the revolving door of Aussie political power. It was surely a no-brainer, following all the recent carfuffle in Australia's Prime Ministership, to (democratically) install the *popular as Foreign Minister/Deputy P.M. Julie Bishop...seeing that the then Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull had obviously effectively lost his mandate - if only among his parliamentary colleagues, if not among the wider electorate.
But now - it need hardly be stated - they've well and truly signed their political death warrant. Yes, the death-knell is sounding - loud and long - and one can hardly blame 'Jubi' (to adopt that net-age approach to political nicknames evidently current in Aussie politics) for getting off of the sinking ship while she's ahead... 'Good riddance to bad rubbish' is the none-too-subtle message thus conveyed...from JB to her erstwhile Government colleagues...and who can possibly blame her?
*One - yes, unscientific as, anecdotal - street poll conducted the very afternoon that the coup d'etat installing Scott Morrison over Peter Dutton was carried out showed around four/five/six of the five/six/seven people sampled choosing only one of the three aforementioned contenders as their personal pick for the nation's top job. No guessing who that one political figure was, eh...
TO BE CONTINUED...
Firstly, a belated commendation to recently-retired NZ National Party leader (and recently 'deposed' P.M.) Bill English - and his good wife Mary - for their forthright and unapologetic, down-to-the-veritable-guts-of-the-matter, personally delivered 'submission' to the Commission of Enquiry on the 'Death with Dignity' Bill/Parliamentary Select Committee recently. That the proposed legalization is logically the equivalent of sanctioning suicide for youngsters/the younger generation (the largest proportion of suicide attemptees/'performers') was an insightful and perceptive take upon the matter. Not that the do-or-die, died-in-the-wool proponents thereof could really give a toss, though, however worthwhile the particular argument presented/proffered...
From a former New Zealand Prime Minister to a former Deputy P.M. - and could-have-been P.M. - of Australia, the 'late, great' Julie Bishop. Though far from a supporter of her unique brand of kiwi-bashing and inter-Tasman political relations, vis-a-vis the recent, latest round of political shenanigans of the particular political beast known as the Aussie Prime Ministership, I'll simply say the following...
The Australian Liberal Party scored an own goal in its handling of the recent fiasco representing the latest instalment in the Game of Political Musical Chairs (and Chair(wo)manship) that is the revolving door of Aussie political power. It was surely a no-brainer, following all the recent carfuffle in Australia's Prime Ministership, to (democratically) install the *popular as Foreign Minister/Deputy P.M. Julie Bishop...seeing that the then Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull had obviously effectively lost his mandate - if only among his parliamentary colleagues, if not among the wider electorate.
But now - it need hardly be stated - they've well and truly signed their political death warrant. Yes, the death-knell is sounding - loud and long - and one can hardly blame 'Jubi' (to adopt that net-age approach to political nicknames evidently current in Aussie politics) for getting off of the sinking ship while she's ahead... 'Good riddance to bad rubbish' is the none-too-subtle message thus conveyed...from JB to her erstwhile Government colleagues...and who can possibly blame her?
*One - yes, unscientific as, anecdotal - street poll conducted the very afternoon that the coup d'etat installing Scott Morrison over Peter Dutton was carried out showed around four/five/six of the five/six/seven people sampled choosing only one of the three aforementioned contenders as their personal pick for the nation's top job. No guessing who that one political figure was, eh...
TO BE CONTINUED...
Monday, September 17, 2018
Why Should the MeToo Movement have All the Good (I mean, awful) Music (I mean, stories to tell)?: Welcome to the MenToo Movement - However 'Positively' Ignored and Sidelined by Western Media
Finally a little bit of catch-up sees New Zealand mainstream media at least attempt to - however tentatively thus far - address this much- and long-overlooked 'other side of the [proverbial] coin'...or shady substance growing on the other side of this neglected rock amidst the stagnant waters of the epidemic which is the present-day uncovering of the rampant state- and (especially religious) institutionally-sanctioned sex abuse scandals of our times...
To wit, the Men Too Movement (as featured on TV1's Sunday show yesterday evening), and on Newshub Nation (or TV1) 6 p.m. News tonight. And not a moment too soon either. Yes indeed.
And though I'll have a heckuva - and a helluva - lot more to say in coming days vis-a-vis this topic in relation to the millennia-enduring organization commonly known as the Roman Catholic Church - and its papal leadership in the Vatican - let's just conclude this brief citation now by referring to the own goal kicked by a founding member of the MeToo Movement - Asia Argento...
Though I thus far know little more than the various scattered references to this over the last couple of weeks or so, this much - to me, anyhow - is clear as mud (about the 'case'): the media in general regard it with the level of indifference that popular (especially Western) culture consider it deserves: i.e. diddly squat. And why should that be? Hey, the dude - the allegation involved - happened to be male...so the underlying assumption obviously is - one of the following:
*He secretly enjoyed what was happening.
*He was a man, so he ought to be able to 'man up and handle it'.
*How could a fella even be coerced - like a woman - in such a way (to begin with)?
'The reality, indeed, is that - however secretly and privately - there are a number at least of people in the MeToo Movement who no doubt see it as 'payback time', for guys to experience what gals have themselves endured for so very long...and without hardly a murmur even of recognition (for most of human history even)...and then the woman involved was often treated as the guilty party and the man involved got off completely scot-free.
So, accepting the legitimacy and 'fair go' thus seen in the above scenario, one can hardly be surprised.
Nevertheless the apparent rampant hypocrisy of Ms Argento surely speaks for itself, and were today's media even remotely consistent, they would hardly simply pass over such an incident once over lightly (as it's termed). No, your h........ is showing, folks!
To wit, the Men Too Movement (as featured on TV1's Sunday show yesterday evening), and on Newshub Nation (or TV1) 6 p.m. News tonight. And not a moment too soon either. Yes indeed.
And though I'll have a heckuva - and a helluva - lot more to say in coming days vis-a-vis this topic in relation to the millennia-enduring organization commonly known as the Roman Catholic Church - and its papal leadership in the Vatican - let's just conclude this brief citation now by referring to the own goal kicked by a founding member of the MeToo Movement - Asia Argento...
Though I thus far know little more than the various scattered references to this over the last couple of weeks or so, this much - to me, anyhow - is clear as mud (about the 'case'): the media in general regard it with the level of indifference that popular (especially Western) culture consider it deserves: i.e. diddly squat. And why should that be? Hey, the dude - the allegation involved - happened to be male...so the underlying assumption obviously is - one of the following:
*He secretly enjoyed what was happening.
*He was a man, so he ought to be able to 'man up and handle it'.
*How could a fella even be coerced - like a woman - in such a way (to begin with)?
'The reality, indeed, is that - however secretly and privately - there are a number at least of people in the MeToo Movement who no doubt see it as 'payback time', for guys to experience what gals have themselves endured for so very long...and without hardly a murmur even of recognition (for most of human history even)...and then the woman involved was often treated as the guilty party and the man involved got off completely scot-free.
So, accepting the legitimacy and 'fair go' thus seen in the above scenario, one can hardly be surprised.
Nevertheless the apparent rampant hypocrisy of Ms Argento surely speaks for itself, and were today's media even remotely consistent, they would hardly simply pass over such an incident once over lightly (as it's termed). No, your h........ is showing, folks!
Sunday, September 16, 2018
A Brief 'Covering Off' of a few recent 'Happenings' - and their 'Initiators' - worthy of note [bouquets and brickbats]
Just for the mo...
*To commemorate the passing of Neil Simon (recently)...playwright behind 'The Odd Couple' - a brilliant 1970s' situation comedy featuring and pitting against each other the inimitable (slob) Oscar Madison and (neat freak) Felix Unger. One of the best, finely-nuanced and underrated comedies of the time.
**Ditto to the late Bill Daily...for simply having the sheer good sense to have been inextricably involved with the TV shows 'I Dream Of Jeannie' and 'the Bob Newhart Show'...the latter, like the above, a brilliant and finely-nuanced, greatly underrated 1970s' situation comedy; the former - simply 'coz I like the name (that of a close relative), and also the song by that title.
More to Come Very Soon...re certain political figures:
*Asia Argento (of the Me Too Movement)
*Julie Bishop (just retired Deputy P.M. of Australia)
*British Labour Party leader Jeremy Corbyn
*Former NZ P.M. Bill English (again)
*Pope Francis
Hold onto yer seats, folks, I believe you'll enjoy the ride...
*To commemorate the passing of Neil Simon (recently)...playwright behind 'The Odd Couple' - a brilliant 1970s' situation comedy featuring and pitting against each other the inimitable (slob) Oscar Madison and (neat freak) Felix Unger. One of the best, finely-nuanced and underrated comedies of the time.
**Ditto to the late Bill Daily...for simply having the sheer good sense to have been inextricably involved with the TV shows 'I Dream Of Jeannie' and 'the Bob Newhart Show'...the latter, like the above, a brilliant and finely-nuanced, greatly underrated 1970s' situation comedy; the former - simply 'coz I like the name (that of a close relative), and also the song by that title.
More to Come Very Soon...re certain political figures:
*Asia Argento (of the Me Too Movement)
*Julie Bishop (just retired Deputy P.M. of Australia)
*British Labour Party leader Jeremy Corbyn
*Former NZ P.M. Bill English (again)
*Pope Francis
Hold onto yer seats, folks, I believe you'll enjoy the ride...
Thursday, September 13, 2018
Yes, Bring On A Clayton's Attorney-General - Not!
Re: U.S. Attorney-General Jeff Sessions - and progressively-louder and more vehement calls/ demands - chiefly from Trump do-or-die partisans - for his sooner or later replacement.
Though it's with some sense of discomfort/unease I venture to say anything in defence of someone whose background was in the confederate-saturated and saluting, Civil Rights' Era-resistant American South - and who thus 'cut his [political] teeth' in staunchly backing the racist backlash to Martin Luther King et al's and the United States Government and society's radical strides towards desegregation and equal civil rights for blacks in the 1960s -
Those (including the so-called 'Christian Right') backing Sessions' removal from his constitutionally significant position in the U S Government - for, among numerous other 'transgressions' (including calling his Head Honcho a moron), 'recusing' himself from testifying in defence of (or, indeed, against - though this is rarely considered) his Boss in the ongoing electoral collusion deliberations - in favour of someone much more dutifully subservient to Donald Trump, know not what they are about, nor what they are thus, however inadvertently, giving subtle but very real encouragement to...
"Good God, he's not supposed to think for himself...he's (though we daren't say it) meant to be/act like an obedient lapdog to his presidential overlord" I.e. doing nothing whatsoever - in any capacity - to unsettle (much less derail) Trump's increasingly tenuous hold upon the levers of (American political) power. He's there to basically 'do as he's told' - no ifs, buts or maybes (even countenanced).
'Scuse me, folks. Last I heard, that's (i.e. real independence of attitude and approach) the very job description of an Attorney-General. Or am I missing something somewhere?
Somehow I doubt it. No, it's just el usual situation of 'what's good for the goose' is not - is never, in fact - 'good [enough] for the gander'. I.e. whether in New Zealand (and its Attorney-General) - presently (one-time neighbour) David Parker; formerly Chris(topher) Finlayson, I believe - or the U S of A (the only two places I've heard of such a 'political' figure - though doubtless Oz and other Western nations and Western-style democracies have such as well).
If they're (I mean he's or she's) agin' my opponent, it's a-okay...but "hands off" my political allies - that's a real 'no-go' area. Yes, political partisanship at its most basic and very worst.
Same principle for former F.B.I. Director James Comey, incidentally, who, in managing to 'stick it to' and thus - soundly and ever so effectively - brass off (in no uncertain terms) both then Democratic Party Presidential hopeful Hillary Clinton and now reigning 'Republican' President DJ Trump...
has actually - as *JRR Tolkien's Samwise Gamgee used to put it - proven his quality. Indeed!
*Or perhaps it was Peter Jackson et al's re-interpretation thereof, but whichever...
Though it's with some sense of discomfort/unease I venture to say anything in defence of someone whose background was in the confederate-saturated and saluting, Civil Rights' Era-resistant American South - and who thus 'cut his [political] teeth' in staunchly backing the racist backlash to Martin Luther King et al's and the United States Government and society's radical strides towards desegregation and equal civil rights for blacks in the 1960s -
Those (including the so-called 'Christian Right') backing Sessions' removal from his constitutionally significant position in the U S Government - for, among numerous other 'transgressions' (including calling his Head Honcho a moron), 'recusing' himself from testifying in defence of (or, indeed, against - though this is rarely considered) his Boss in the ongoing electoral collusion deliberations - in favour of someone much more dutifully subservient to Donald Trump, know not what they are about, nor what they are thus, however inadvertently, giving subtle but very real encouragement to...
"Good God, he's not supposed to think for himself...he's (though we daren't say it) meant to be/act like an obedient lapdog to his presidential overlord" I.e. doing nothing whatsoever - in any capacity - to unsettle (much less derail) Trump's increasingly tenuous hold upon the levers of (American political) power. He's there to basically 'do as he's told' - no ifs, buts or maybes (even countenanced).
'Scuse me, folks. Last I heard, that's (i.e. real independence of attitude and approach) the very job description of an Attorney-General. Or am I missing something somewhere?
Somehow I doubt it. No, it's just el usual situation of 'what's good for the goose' is not - is never, in fact - 'good [enough] for the gander'. I.e. whether in New Zealand (and its Attorney-General) - presently (one-time neighbour) David Parker; formerly Chris(topher) Finlayson, I believe - or the U S of A (the only two places I've heard of such a 'political' figure - though doubtless Oz and other Western nations and Western-style democracies have such as well).
If they're (I mean he's or she's) agin' my opponent, it's a-okay...but "hands off" my political allies - that's a real 'no-go' area. Yes, political partisanship at its most basic and very worst.
Same principle for former F.B.I. Director James Comey, incidentally, who, in managing to 'stick it to' and thus - soundly and ever so effectively - brass off (in no uncertain terms) both then Democratic Party Presidential hopeful Hillary Clinton and now reigning 'Republican' President DJ Trump...
has actually - as *JRR Tolkien's Samwise Gamgee used to put it - proven his quality. Indeed!
*Or perhaps it was Peter Jackson et al's re-interpretation thereof, but whichever...
C'mon, Mr [President] Trump - Tell Us Another One
Re: The American President's disaster 'response' in Puerto Rico...vis-a-vis his deep concern re the impending Hurricane Florence.
If a natural disaster in which F.E.M.A. (America's Federal Emergency Management Authority) so evidently dropped the ball as it did - 'ably' assisted (i.e. echoed) by a 'commander-in-chief' whose crowning contribution was personally chucking out stuff (was it bananas?) to crowding Puerto Ricans - was a success...I'd love to see what failure would look like!
As we're all now well aware, the number of fatalities have now been reckoned as over 3,000 - as opposed to the 60-odd long maintained...-and thus and so commentators on all sides of the political divide have accepted and have no dispute with (this latter figure).
A '"great, stupendous success story" (or words, and certainly sentiment, to that effect), Mr President?
Who d'ya really think you're kidding, I mean, really? Or do you take everyone else for sheer suckers?
Shades of George W's own (and FEMA's) 'disaster dealing' in New Orleans' Hurricane Katrina in 2005, or what?!?!?
P.S. All hats off to those media worldwide who're now giving priority coverage to the even more terrifying and fatality-ridden Typhoon presently afflicting western Pacific rim nations...which of course doesn't diminish one iota even the awful carnage now being wreaked upon America's mid-eastern seaboard by Hurricane Florence. But everything in relative perspective for a change.
If a natural disaster in which F.E.M.A. (America's Federal Emergency Management Authority) so evidently dropped the ball as it did - 'ably' assisted (i.e. echoed) by a 'commander-in-chief' whose crowning contribution was personally chucking out stuff (was it bananas?) to crowding Puerto Ricans - was a success...I'd love to see what failure would look like!
As we're all now well aware, the number of fatalities have now been reckoned as over 3,000 - as opposed to the 60-odd long maintained...-and thus and so commentators on all sides of the political divide have accepted and have no dispute with (this latter figure).
A '"great, stupendous success story" (or words, and certainly sentiment, to that effect), Mr President?
Who d'ya really think you're kidding, I mean, really? Or do you take everyone else for sheer suckers?
Shades of George W's own (and FEMA's) 'disaster dealing' in New Orleans' Hurricane Katrina in 2005, or what?!?!?
P.S. All hats off to those media worldwide who're now giving priority coverage to the even more terrifying and fatality-ridden Typhoon presently afflicting western Pacific rim nations...which of course doesn't diminish one iota even the awful carnage now being wreaked upon America's mid-eastern seaboard by Hurricane Florence. But everything in relative perspective for a change.
Wednesday, September 12, 2018
A Flawed But Fully Human Former Hero - My Tribute to John McCain
Though much written by way of obituary - including arguably (parts of) this belatedly posted (though scribbled immediately post-death) poem of sorts - must seem trite and/or otherwise contrived, I'll post it still...
*Here lies a man...
...who tried
Paratrooper? - airforce pilot:
-kidnapped - imprisoned -
tortured...
...for years
Finally freed:
a 'war hero'!
But McCain didn't stop there,
he continued...
on...and on...and on...
Eventually achieving political success.
Congressman - senator -
and for the state of Arizona, no less...
Finally, following in the esteemed footsteps
of his Arizonan senatorial predecessor,
the late, great Barry Goldwater...
...himself the Republican Presidential Nominee
in 2008...
Apparently he 'swore like a trooper'
(according to a tome upon the man
I espied awhile ago
among the 'best new books'
at my local public library)...
...but that doesn't necessarily
detract more than a couple of iota
from the essential quality of the man
Not a war hero?
-I'm sure Mr McCain
would've - indeed, has -
had the last laugh...
...on that particular score
...except that dying
of an inoperable brain tumour
is hardly a laughing matter...
An independent voice...
even against his own, beloved,
Republican Party...
...and especially
President Donald J Trump
A contrarian to the core...
to the bitter end...
of both his political career
and life (as it so transpired)
No man's debtor...
or mere people-pleaser
And a better person, perhaps,
than the man
who soundly defeated him
at the polls in 2008
No, not possessing
infallible judgment...
that's the papal prerogative
alone, isn't it?
-and that was evidenced,
nowhere more clearly,
than in that selfsame year...
...wherein he selected
Alaskan Governor,
Sarah Palin...
...as his presidential 'stand-in'...
a judgment, admittedly,
he himself lived to regret
So rest in peace...yes,
like Yours Truly,
he did get in the last word!
But One Above, Beyond,
Transcending
This Fragile
earthly Orb...
will soon enough
have the very last word...
...on each of our lives...
And all that really matters
then
will be that
we too were found faithful
to our calling
*Acknowledgment to Rod McKuen's memorable song 'There Goes A Man Who Tried' in his memorable record 'Alone'.
*Here lies a man...
...who tried
Paratrooper? - airforce pilot:
-kidnapped - imprisoned -
tortured...
...for years
Finally freed:
a 'war hero'!
But McCain didn't stop there,
he continued...
on...and on...and on...
Eventually achieving political success.
Congressman - senator -
and for the state of Arizona, no less...
Finally, following in the esteemed footsteps
of his Arizonan senatorial predecessor,
the late, great Barry Goldwater...
...himself the Republican Presidential Nominee
in 2008...
Apparently he 'swore like a trooper'
(according to a tome upon the man
I espied awhile ago
among the 'best new books'
at my local public library)...
...but that doesn't necessarily
detract more than a couple of iota
from the essential quality of the man
Not a war hero?
-I'm sure Mr McCain
would've - indeed, has -
had the last laugh...
...on that particular score
...except that dying
of an inoperable brain tumour
is hardly a laughing matter...
An independent voice...
even against his own, beloved,
Republican Party...
...and especially
President Donald J Trump
A contrarian to the core...
to the bitter end...
of both his political career
and life (as it so transpired)
No man's debtor...
or mere people-pleaser
And a better person, perhaps,
than the man
who soundly defeated him
at the polls in 2008
No, not possessing
infallible judgment...
that's the papal prerogative
alone, isn't it?
-and that was evidenced,
nowhere more clearly,
than in that selfsame year...
...wherein he selected
Alaskan Governor,
Sarah Palin...
...as his presidential 'stand-in'...
a judgment, admittedly,
he himself lived to regret
So rest in peace...yes,
like Yours Truly,
he did get in the last word!
But One Above, Beyond,
Transcending
This Fragile
earthly Orb...
will soon enough
have the very last word...
...on each of our lives...
And all that really matters
then
will be that
we too were found faithful
to our calling
*Acknowledgment to Rod McKuen's memorable song 'There Goes A Man Who Tried' in his memorable record 'Alone'.
Sunday, September 9, 2018
So Give the Dude (Big Fella) a Break - I mean, really!
It's best, 'they say', to get the awful/nasty stuff over first - the much-hallowed benefits of delayed gratification, or something along those lines - so I'm doing that/taking my own oft-self-tendered advice...
And so this'll be somewhat different from - including hopefully much shorter than - my usual offering - for any number of reasons. And not the actual tribute to the memory of John McCain, as originally intended; though in fact written well before, that'll come separately, and a little later...
But c'est la vie, and, perhaps even more pertinently, it'll combine a variety of intended blogposts into one [smorgasbord]. But I suppose such is the prerogative of the blogger. So without further ado...
Any regular reader of my blogs - especially this one, but no, actually, either of 'em - would hardly need reminding that I am far from the world's biggest admirer of the fella presently inhabiting the *White House in ye Awfully Disunited E-States of America... . That being said/on the record...
However rude and uncouth and downright ornery, perverse, cantankerous and downright narcissistic one might - quite legitimately - consider President Donald J Trump to be - yes, let's give the man his due (with knobs on and all the rest) - surely even he is entitled to this one thing: to be and act himself...vis-a-vis whoever he's happened to - be it ever so vociferously, rancorously and even vituperatively - disagree with in times past...for whatever reason...
Surely each one of us, including 'the Donald', is permitted that small privilege at least? And yes, I well realize, people are, even if ever so unconsciously, only too aware of the age-old maxim - which the media has now seized on with absolute glee and delight (and, let's be honest, supercilious schadenfreude, no less), that one ought not to speak ill of the dead.
Really? Surely there are innumerable exceptions to that rule...especially over our generation's lifetime, anyway... But has - did - DJT actually speak ill of John McCain, or did he rather simply choose not to speak at all about him (in the immediate aftermath of his death)? Surely the latter.
And so I will herein maintain in this respect and regard at least, the man has done 'nothin' wrong'!
One can hardly - how could one? - forget being expected (as a sibling never fails to remind me, in excusing the all-too-apparent failings of the up-and-coming generation (of ingrates, quite frankly)) for example, as a tender youth, to invariably hug folk - relatives, to be sure - whom one often found highly disagreeable (and certainly oftentimes relatively unlovable!)...whilst wishing one was somewhere else entirely (on the particular occasion in question)...
And despite being duly indoctrinated - even if implicitly, without a specific word to the effect actually being spoken as such - as one entered youth and early adulthood, as to the 'gaucheness' of speaking one's (true) mind - on all manner of occasions - wasn't it always as a veritable breath of fresh air whenever one would come/stumble upon/across an un-brainwashed/non-community-commandeered kid who would simply tell it as it is (I mean, was)...without any of the airbrushed, doctored up palava, ******fulsome flattery and frankly disingenuity...
In other words, much like Willy Wonka with his bunch (*******fivesome, or rather tensome) of Golden Ticket child winners and their recalcitrant, contrarian, difficult to please and placate - but admittedly also duly browbeaten - parents along for the ride...
Whether it was the chubby checker German boy who disappeared into the chocolate drink (i.e. river) and his irate, implacable mother (and father?), the bossy-boots, straight-speakin' Veruka and her overly dutiful factory manager dad, or the western Mum with her cowboy-lovin', shoot-from-the-(literal)-hip pipsqueak (son) who met his own untimely, karmic fate as he was 'beamed down' into his beloved space-age TV set...-perhaps I've missed one of 'em along the way?...they generally (i.e.parents and children alike) shared this highly undervalued & underrated character quality...
And so the no less open and forthright Willy Wonka himself was on perhaps his biggest roll of the entire film - excepting the bit before the end where he also upbraided Charlie and his uncle for themselves violating the strict, fine-print outlined, terms of the chocolate factory visit - when he, following the equally memorable and delightful (and, moreover, cutting to the very bone) song of the ompah-lompahs, understatedly echoed the decision of the scales which had just decided the fate of Veruka and her now-at-wit's-end dad: yes, they were both real bad eggs.
So is United States President Trump a real bad egg? I'm sure most of the world would doubtless add a big 'Amen!' to such a verdict...even in his relatively short time thus far in the Oval Office. But surely not for simply sharing his (hopefully honest) condolences with Senator McCain's surviving family while sparing us the disingenuous piffle of pretending he himself esteemed the man...
*What unplannable irony the other day, when hearing coverage of one of the seemingly innumerable and interminable Senate/Congressional hearings in Washington D.C. - whether about the proposed new member of the U.S. Supreme Court, Judge Brett **Kavanaugh, or the various ongoing committee meetings to establish whether there was collusion between the Trump campaign and the 2016 American Presidential outcome - that one particular (dissenting Democratic Senator, I believe) had that for his very surname - i.e. Whitehouse.
Though was there not once a staunch anti-pornography campaigner by the selfsame name? Or I am getting all confused between the likes of ***Davina someone-or-other and the ****one-time leftwing powerhouse of the British Labo[u]r Party, *****Mary Whitehouse? Whatever...
**The (u-less) surname also of a special friend of mine, Rachel, who, completely out of the blue, suddenly departed this earthly life back in March 2013...as well as that of a former Catholic priest who read a poem or suchlike at my beloved - very non-Catholic (just for the record) - beloved Grandma 'Billie''s cremation service 21-some years ago now...
****No, that's Barbara Castle, I believe... - and now, as either 'the big Ronnie' (the long-since deceased R Barker) or 'the little Ronnie' (the much more recently departed R Corbett) put it, ....would'ya credit it, that sentence was so long I've since forgotten...?
*****/***Actually, as I've just now discovered (like Justice Kavanaugh's properly spelt name), via ye good 'ole Wikipaedia pages thereabouts, and as succinctly as I can put it: Mary Whitehouse was a [conservative] English social activist; and Davina Whitehouse an English-born NZ actress. So my much-critiqued (by myself!) memory is not really all that bad after all...specifics notwithstanding!
******The real meaning of this oft-used and much-abused term. I.e. not 'very much of' or 'lavish as', as one frequently hears it employed as, but, as my trusty Chambers Concise Dictionary renders it: 'cloying or causing surfeit; nauseous; offensive; rank; disgustingly fawning'. As in obsequious to the nth degree, to put it in plain English.
*******Or rather foursome (eightsome) thereabouts, as Charlie and his uncle were glaring - or rather glorious - exceptions to that rule...in the wonderful first edition of that film, anyway...
And so this'll be somewhat different from - including hopefully much shorter than - my usual offering - for any number of reasons. And not the actual tribute to the memory of John McCain, as originally intended; though in fact written well before, that'll come separately, and a little later...
But c'est la vie, and, perhaps even more pertinently, it'll combine a variety of intended blogposts into one [smorgasbord]. But I suppose such is the prerogative of the blogger. So without further ado...
Any regular reader of my blogs - especially this one, but no, actually, either of 'em - would hardly need reminding that I am far from the world's biggest admirer of the fella presently inhabiting the *White House in ye Awfully Disunited E-States of America... . That being said/on the record...
However rude and uncouth and downright ornery, perverse, cantankerous and downright narcissistic one might - quite legitimately - consider President Donald J Trump to be - yes, let's give the man his due (with knobs on and all the rest) - surely even he is entitled to this one thing: to be and act himself...vis-a-vis whoever he's happened to - be it ever so vociferously, rancorously and even vituperatively - disagree with in times past...for whatever reason...
Surely each one of us, including 'the Donald', is permitted that small privilege at least? And yes, I well realize, people are, even if ever so unconsciously, only too aware of the age-old maxim - which the media has now seized on with absolute glee and delight (and, let's be honest, supercilious schadenfreude, no less), that one ought not to speak ill of the dead.
Really? Surely there are innumerable exceptions to that rule...especially over our generation's lifetime, anyway... But has - did - DJT actually speak ill of John McCain, or did he rather simply choose not to speak at all about him (in the immediate aftermath of his death)? Surely the latter.
And so I will herein maintain in this respect and regard at least, the man has done 'nothin' wrong'!
One can hardly - how could one? - forget being expected (as a sibling never fails to remind me, in excusing the all-too-apparent failings of the up-and-coming generation (of ingrates, quite frankly)) for example, as a tender youth, to invariably hug folk - relatives, to be sure - whom one often found highly disagreeable (and certainly oftentimes relatively unlovable!)...whilst wishing one was somewhere else entirely (on the particular occasion in question)...
And despite being duly indoctrinated - even if implicitly, without a specific word to the effect actually being spoken as such - as one entered youth and early adulthood, as to the 'gaucheness' of speaking one's (true) mind - on all manner of occasions - wasn't it always as a veritable breath of fresh air whenever one would come/stumble upon/across an un-brainwashed/non-community-commandeered kid who would simply tell it as it is (I mean, was)...without any of the airbrushed, doctored up palava, ******fulsome flattery and frankly disingenuity...
In other words, much like Willy Wonka with his bunch (*******fivesome, or rather tensome) of Golden Ticket child winners and their recalcitrant, contrarian, difficult to please and placate - but admittedly also duly browbeaten - parents along for the ride...
Whether it was the chubby checker German boy who disappeared into the chocolate drink (i.e. river) and his irate, implacable mother (and father?), the bossy-boots, straight-speakin' Veruka and her overly dutiful factory manager dad, or the western Mum with her cowboy-lovin', shoot-from-the-(literal)-hip pipsqueak (son) who met his own untimely, karmic fate as he was 'beamed down' into his beloved space-age TV set...-perhaps I've missed one of 'em along the way?...they generally (i.e.parents and children alike) shared this highly undervalued & underrated character quality...
And so the no less open and forthright Willy Wonka himself was on perhaps his biggest roll of the entire film - excepting the bit before the end where he also upbraided Charlie and his uncle for themselves violating the strict, fine-print outlined, terms of the chocolate factory visit - when he, following the equally memorable and delightful (and, moreover, cutting to the very bone) song of the ompah-lompahs, understatedly echoed the decision of the scales which had just decided the fate of Veruka and her now-at-wit's-end dad: yes, they were both real bad eggs.
So is United States President Trump a real bad egg? I'm sure most of the world would doubtless add a big 'Amen!' to such a verdict...even in his relatively short time thus far in the Oval Office. But surely not for simply sharing his (hopefully honest) condolences with Senator McCain's surviving family while sparing us the disingenuous piffle of pretending he himself esteemed the man...
*What unplannable irony the other day, when hearing coverage of one of the seemingly innumerable and interminable Senate/Congressional hearings in Washington D.C. - whether about the proposed new member of the U.S. Supreme Court, Judge Brett **Kavanaugh, or the various ongoing committee meetings to establish whether there was collusion between the Trump campaign and the 2016 American Presidential outcome - that one particular (dissenting Democratic Senator, I believe) had that for his very surname - i.e. Whitehouse.
Though was there not once a staunch anti-pornography campaigner by the selfsame name? Or I am getting all confused between the likes of ***Davina someone-or-other and the ****one-time leftwing powerhouse of the British Labo[u]r Party, *****Mary Whitehouse? Whatever...
**The (u-less) surname also of a special friend of mine, Rachel, who, completely out of the blue, suddenly departed this earthly life back in March 2013...as well as that of a former Catholic priest who read a poem or suchlike at my beloved - very non-Catholic (just for the record) - beloved Grandma 'Billie''s cremation service 21-some years ago now...
****No, that's Barbara Castle, I believe... - and now, as either 'the big Ronnie' (the long-since deceased R Barker) or 'the little Ronnie' (the much more recently departed R Corbett) put it, ....would'ya credit it, that sentence was so long I've since forgotten...?
*****/***Actually, as I've just now discovered (like Justice Kavanaugh's properly spelt name), via ye good 'ole Wikipaedia pages thereabouts, and as succinctly as I can put it: Mary Whitehouse was a [conservative] English social activist; and Davina Whitehouse an English-born NZ actress. So my much-critiqued (by myself!) memory is not really all that bad after all...specifics notwithstanding!
******The real meaning of this oft-used and much-abused term. I.e. not 'very much of' or 'lavish as', as one frequently hears it employed as, but, as my trusty Chambers Concise Dictionary renders it: 'cloying or causing surfeit; nauseous; offensive; rank; disgustingly fawning'. As in obsequious to the nth degree, to put it in plain English.
*******Or rather foursome (eightsome) thereabouts, as Charlie and his uncle were glaring - or rather glorious - exceptions to that rule...in the wonderful first edition of that film, anyway...
Sunday, September 2, 2018
So Much Constantly Going Down - Throughout this Net-Bridged World of ours - How can one possibly even begin to do it a Modicum of Justice?
Yes, I admit I'm defeated before I even begin, the task before me is a sheer impossibility...and moreover I'm so way behind time in dealing with so many of these 'matters of interest' that I'm baffled myself in getting to grips with, let alone onto 'paper' thereabouts... . Yet begin I must, and so...
...let me do so as best I can (in the short time available to me this Sunday eve)...
Hopefully more in-depth 'pieces' will come from my generously-gifted laptop keypad in days to come...but for now, let me 'say', as succinctly as I know how (ever a *sore trial for Yours Truly) that I intend dealing with and to the following 'topics' in the not too distant...
*The death overnight (or so) of the renowned British scholar/historian David Yallop.
*The recent historic and protest-plagued papal visit to the once Roman Catholic bastion of Ireland.
*Related 'controversy' that has dogged and bedevilled the Vatican and RCC over recent times.
*The death of John McCain and the non-reaction/response of a certain well-known world figure.
...and a myriad of other interesting bits 'n bobs I believe will interest many of my bloggership...
*And how appropriately, I just stumbled upon a new word that brilliantly epitomizes my lifelong predicament thereabouts: logorrrhoea - Excessive flow of words esp. in mental illness (according to my ever trusty, beloved Granny's-gifted, Concise Oxford Dictionary). A 'statement' vis-a-vis myself that is patently true in more ways than the proverbial, I must hasten to add...
...let me do so as best I can (in the short time available to me this Sunday eve)...
Hopefully more in-depth 'pieces' will come from my generously-gifted laptop keypad in days to come...but for now, let me 'say', as succinctly as I know how (ever a *sore trial for Yours Truly) that I intend dealing with and to the following 'topics' in the not too distant...
*The death overnight (or so) of the renowned British scholar/historian David Yallop.
*The recent historic and protest-plagued papal visit to the once Roman Catholic bastion of Ireland.
*Related 'controversy' that has dogged and bedevilled the Vatican and RCC over recent times.
*The death of John McCain and the non-reaction/response of a certain well-known world figure.
...and a myriad of other interesting bits 'n bobs I believe will interest many of my bloggership...
*And how appropriately, I just stumbled upon a new word that brilliantly epitomizes my lifelong predicament thereabouts: logorrrhoea - Excessive flow of words esp. in mental illness (according to my ever trusty, beloved Granny's-gifted, Concise Oxford Dictionary). A 'statement' vis-a-vis myself that is patently true in more ways than the proverbial, I must hasten to add...
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