Media overload and inundation having hit me bigtime - doubtless like innumerable others - of late...
excuse me if today I simply default to getting a few rungs on the board as it were...
Of the 86 (Wikipedia-cited) elections globally throughout this year, including many and various local ones...
*the Aussie one coming up very soon interests me as always, and appears a Labour rout...for no other reason evidently than the Australian public have once again tired/soured of the current major party occupants of Kirrabaldi (I believe is the Prime Minister's residence) - despite the abject, awful, appalling record of both sides of the political divide there...
Personally give me the likes of (former federal Labour leader, now One Nation federal senator) Mark Latham any day...a reflective, free-thinking politician of which/whose breed there are remarkably few these days...not least in Oz...-but more on Aussie politics another time altogether...
*the United Kingdom could of course go to the polls at any time...and Labour with Jeremy Corbyn is evidently by no means a dead cinch to win...a pity, in my view - at one time - as I foolishly supposed he was of a different breed of politician who actually stood for something, that rarest of electoral assets, honesty and integrity...and could and would have risen - post PM May's hastily-called and ill-conceived snap election awhile ago, having done far better than expectations and thus quelled all murmurs of discontent in the ranks for the (then) forseeable - to a rare position of statesmanship...
*India, the world's largest democracy, is due to undergo their five-yearly month-long saga in May...and now the long-established and recently-resurgent Congress Party of Nehru/Gandhi fame appears as if its re-nascent star is once again regrettably descending/declining...for in a day and age of sectarian conflict and tensions worldwide, especially in South Asia, they were always a safe bet...
However President Morsi's deft handling - alongside that of newbie Pakistani Prime Minister (and former, longtime cricket captain) Imran Khan - of the recent flash-in-the-pan, potential nuclear standoff and war between the two neighbours and ethnic 'bosom buddies'...has doubtless deservedly earned him genuine kudos throughout that populous nation and among that great people...
*Russia's (I believe parliamentary but not presidential) elections look set to - 'surprise, surprise' - reinstall, or should I not rather say, put in Putin once again...-and that despite the best efforts (to the contrary) of the likes of Pussy Riot, recently touring New Zealand and interviewed on RNZ National by Nine to Noon's Kathryn Ryan...and, oh, yes...the countless poisonings of outspoken political opponents over a long period of time...and other rather effective means of silencing the opposition...
*Israel's also appears a foregone conclusion...though if I were Benyamin Netanyahu - quite apart from the various and sundry corruption (bribery) scandals that've been swirling around him for some considerable time, I'd personally be a whole lot more concerned about the sort of (admittedly somewhat conditional) prophetic insight from Michael Drosnin's acclaimed The Bible Code and/or The Bible Code 2...
Info about which I understand his (doubtless 'late') dad - as he was already in his eighties/nineties, I believe, 15-20 years ago - warned him...for, like Syria's 'Asad' (then doubtless believed to be Bashir's own dad)...his name crops up much in last-days mathematically-precise hidden Bible coding...and some of the 'stuff' outlined is the sort that might keep one awake at night...
Which (foregoing) references are just my way of introducing the only real reason I intended posting this of late...no, not New Zealand's own local elections in October, nor the just-completed ones in the kingdom of Thailand (once Siam)...
...but rather those recently-held (local and presidential elections respectively) of Turkey and the Ukraine...
*To wit, celebrating celebrity success in Ukraine: *Triumph of the Airheads (like D J Trump, Justin Trudeau, even our own, and justly acclaimed Jacinda Ardern)? No, I unfairly insinuate...
except to say that most nations could do a whole lot worse than selecting a comedian as their head of state...at least over ye average run-of-the-mill politician...for from my own study of/reflection upon folk of that esteemed 'profession', their comic genius belies a deep-seated seriousness and even **sorrow over the innate waywardness of that ever ornery, perverse creature known as homo sapiens
*The title of a fascinating-sounding tome in my massive book collection I've regretfully still to read.
**Much as had That Man of Sorrows Himself as He strode this human stage for that briefest of lives ...33 years...the longest that our (human) race could bear with having Him here...
As for Turkey, for once I've far more respect for the Aussies, to wit present Prime Minister Scott Morrison, for at least having the balls...unlike our (this time unusually, and in the circumstances I suggest cringingly) diplomatic own Foreign Minister/Deputy PM Winston Peters...in not being backward about being forward to stick it to their President vis-a-vis his appallingly poor judgment in using footage of the recent kiwi tragedy in the (local) election campaign...
And yes, I'm well aware that a quite different tenor of comments from the ever-controversial Peters might well have caused 'undue' friction in the annual lead-up to the Gallipoli commemorations, but as the Good Book well declares, 'there's a time to be silent...and a time to speak...' - and no, it won't alway go down well, but that's not the point...at all...just as Jacinda Ardern - if she has any integrity at all (and I'm not saying she doesn't, as I've always esteemed her quite highly) - had one and only one course open to her recently in China...
...and that was to courageously confront President Hsi(sp?) and unsparingly denounce his Government's treatment of the Wega people in the nation's far southwest corner...
for their shameful treatment of the same...
...having only recently heard firsthand from a refugee from thereabouts at our local (non-alcoholic, please understand!) watering hole...
...confirming all the BBC reports thereabouts, and then some...
But briefly back to Turkey...
...as I initially subheaded my intended blog-comments: The Biter's Been Bitten: Er-do-gan loses his ***one-time grip on the Turks following fascist, even pseudo-Nazi-type tactics in campaign.
***But, sure, only on a very small scale...and demagogues such as he have ever found ways of 'righting' such electoral 'wrongs', as all good students of history well know...
Postscript (April 10th):
As results of the Israeli elections come dribbling in - what matter which of the two main hawkish contenders ultimately wins, following America's recognition of the Golan Heights as a legitimate part of Israel and their 'declaration' of Iran's 'revolutionary' military guard as persona non grata, an all-out (possibly even nuclear) war in the Middle East appears as on the cards as ever - and as India's own 900-million plus electors begin voting shortly -
I realised, hearing of yet another election - i.e. the Indonesian presidential one - yesterday aft, that isn't it interesting how little is ever heard in God's Own - or in Western jurisdictions generally, I gather - about the sort and extent/degree of persecution of Christians in majority Moslem nations...
...such as Indonesia...-hey, I'm not referring here to low-level abuse and the like, but to the bombing of churches and killing of Christians...though such ongoing 'low-level' mal- and mis-treatment is all too evident...upon even a cursory glance at and understanding of what actually goes down in such nations ...for instance the treatment of Christians (and Jews) as second-class citizens (with all that that entails) in workplaces, education, social rights etcetera...
So why a mention of the upcoming Indonesian election in this regards? Because, after listening to RNZ National's weekday World Watch programme yesterday and hearing about the '[fraught choice]' between incumbent Widodo and his authoritarian-sounding opponent, all I could think of was how a highly worthy and exceptionally popular (now former) Christian Governor (of one of the country's main islands) was sidelined, framed on false blasphemy charges, and thereby dismissed from his post and moreover thus put well and truly out of any reasonable contention for said Indonesian presidency...though credible reports gave him a fairly good chance of wresting it out of the hands of the present incumbent...
That, I respectfully suggest, was and still is the real story of this year's Indonesian elections...not that ye mainstream Western media could really care a fig...
excuse me if today I simply default to getting a few rungs on the board as it were...
Of the 86 (Wikipedia-cited) elections globally throughout this year, including many and various local ones...
*the Aussie one coming up very soon interests me as always, and appears a Labour rout...for no other reason evidently than the Australian public have once again tired/soured of the current major party occupants of Kirrabaldi (I believe is the Prime Minister's residence) - despite the abject, awful, appalling record of both sides of the political divide there...
Personally give me the likes of (former federal Labour leader, now One Nation federal senator) Mark Latham any day...a reflective, free-thinking politician of which/whose breed there are remarkably few these days...not least in Oz...-but more on Aussie politics another time altogether...
*the United Kingdom could of course go to the polls at any time...and Labour with Jeremy Corbyn is evidently by no means a dead cinch to win...a pity, in my view - at one time - as I foolishly supposed he was of a different breed of politician who actually stood for something, that rarest of electoral assets, honesty and integrity...and could and would have risen - post PM May's hastily-called and ill-conceived snap election awhile ago, having done far better than expectations and thus quelled all murmurs of discontent in the ranks for the (then) forseeable - to a rare position of statesmanship...
*India, the world's largest democracy, is due to undergo their five-yearly month-long saga in May...and now the long-established and recently-resurgent Congress Party of Nehru/Gandhi fame appears as if its re-nascent star is once again regrettably descending/declining...for in a day and age of sectarian conflict and tensions worldwide, especially in South Asia, they were always a safe bet...
However President Morsi's deft handling - alongside that of newbie Pakistani Prime Minister (and former, longtime cricket captain) Imran Khan - of the recent flash-in-the-pan, potential nuclear standoff and war between the two neighbours and ethnic 'bosom buddies'...has doubtless deservedly earned him genuine kudos throughout that populous nation and among that great people...
*Russia's (I believe parliamentary but not presidential) elections look set to - 'surprise, surprise' - reinstall, or should I not rather say, put in Putin once again...-and that despite the best efforts (to the contrary) of the likes of Pussy Riot, recently touring New Zealand and interviewed on RNZ National by Nine to Noon's Kathryn Ryan...and, oh, yes...the countless poisonings of outspoken political opponents over a long period of time...and other rather effective means of silencing the opposition...
*Israel's also appears a foregone conclusion...though if I were Benyamin Netanyahu - quite apart from the various and sundry corruption (bribery) scandals that've been swirling around him for some considerable time, I'd personally be a whole lot more concerned about the sort of (admittedly somewhat conditional) prophetic insight from Michael Drosnin's acclaimed The Bible Code and/or The Bible Code 2...
Info about which I understand his (doubtless 'late') dad - as he was already in his eighties/nineties, I believe, 15-20 years ago - warned him...for, like Syria's 'Asad' (then doubtless believed to be Bashir's own dad)...his name crops up much in last-days mathematically-precise hidden Bible coding...and some of the 'stuff' outlined is the sort that might keep one awake at night...
Which (foregoing) references are just my way of introducing the only real reason I intended posting this of late...no, not New Zealand's own local elections in October, nor the just-completed ones in the kingdom of Thailand (once Siam)...
...but rather those recently-held (local and presidential elections respectively) of Turkey and the Ukraine...
*To wit, celebrating celebrity success in Ukraine: *Triumph of the Airheads (like D J Trump, Justin Trudeau, even our own, and justly acclaimed Jacinda Ardern)? No, I unfairly insinuate...
except to say that most nations could do a whole lot worse than selecting a comedian as their head of state...at least over ye average run-of-the-mill politician...for from my own study of/reflection upon folk of that esteemed 'profession', their comic genius belies a deep-seated seriousness and even **sorrow over the innate waywardness of that ever ornery, perverse creature known as homo sapiens
*The title of a fascinating-sounding tome in my massive book collection I've regretfully still to read.
**Much as had That Man of Sorrows Himself as He strode this human stage for that briefest of lives ...33 years...the longest that our (human) race could bear with having Him here...
As for Turkey, for once I've far more respect for the Aussies, to wit present Prime Minister Scott Morrison, for at least having the balls...unlike our (this time unusually, and in the circumstances I suggest cringingly) diplomatic own Foreign Minister/Deputy PM Winston Peters...in not being backward about being forward to stick it to their President vis-a-vis his appallingly poor judgment in using footage of the recent kiwi tragedy in the (local) election campaign...
And yes, I'm well aware that a quite different tenor of comments from the ever-controversial Peters might well have caused 'undue' friction in the annual lead-up to the Gallipoli commemorations, but as the Good Book well declares, 'there's a time to be silent...and a time to speak...' - and no, it won't alway go down well, but that's not the point...at all...just as Jacinda Ardern - if she has any integrity at all (and I'm not saying she doesn't, as I've always esteemed her quite highly) - had one and only one course open to her recently in China...
...and that was to courageously confront President Hsi(sp?) and unsparingly denounce his Government's treatment of the Wega people in the nation's far southwest corner...
for their shameful treatment of the same...
...having only recently heard firsthand from a refugee from thereabouts at our local (non-alcoholic, please understand!) watering hole...
...confirming all the BBC reports thereabouts, and then some...
But briefly back to Turkey...
...as I initially subheaded my intended blog-comments: The Biter's Been Bitten: Er-do-gan loses his ***one-time grip on the Turks following fascist, even pseudo-Nazi-type tactics in campaign.
***But, sure, only on a very small scale...and demagogues such as he have ever found ways of 'righting' such electoral 'wrongs', as all good students of history well know...
Postscript (April 10th):
As results of the Israeli elections come dribbling in - what matter which of the two main hawkish contenders ultimately wins, following America's recognition of the Golan Heights as a legitimate part of Israel and their 'declaration' of Iran's 'revolutionary' military guard as persona non grata, an all-out (possibly even nuclear) war in the Middle East appears as on the cards as ever - and as India's own 900-million plus electors begin voting shortly -
I realised, hearing of yet another election - i.e. the Indonesian presidential one - yesterday aft, that isn't it interesting how little is ever heard in God's Own - or in Western jurisdictions generally, I gather - about the sort and extent/degree of persecution of Christians in majority Moslem nations...
...such as Indonesia...-hey, I'm not referring here to low-level abuse and the like, but to the bombing of churches and killing of Christians...though such ongoing 'low-level' mal- and mis-treatment is all too evident...upon even a cursory glance at and understanding of what actually goes down in such nations ...for instance the treatment of Christians (and Jews) as second-class citizens (with all that that entails) in workplaces, education, social rights etcetera...
So why a mention of the upcoming Indonesian election in this regards? Because, after listening to RNZ National's weekday World Watch programme yesterday and hearing about the '[fraught choice]' between incumbent Widodo and his authoritarian-sounding opponent, all I could think of was how a highly worthy and exceptionally popular (now former) Christian Governor (of one of the country's main islands) was sidelined, framed on false blasphemy charges, and thereby dismissed from his post and moreover thus put well and truly out of any reasonable contention for said Indonesian presidency...though credible reports gave him a fairly good chance of wresting it out of the hands of the present incumbent...
That, I respectfully suggest, was and still is the real story of this year's Indonesian elections...not that ye mainstream Western media could really care a fig...
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