I'm Placin' my money on newbie Democratic presidential wannabe, Mr (what'shisname) 'Beau-regard' - and that despite any personal reservations...

(Scribbled upon the eve of Saturday the 13th April)

Out of the starting blocks in something of an unprecedented canter, Saturday evening's Newshub News gave us a sneak preview the other night of the person to watch as the 2020 US Democratic Party presidential selection draws inexorably closer...

...and so once again proved why it's the TV channel to watch to be better, more deeply informed as to some of the more interesting tidbits of news emanating out of who knows where on especially (post-Sabbath) weekend nights...

What can I say, even recall at this stage - least of all the fellow's name, especially surname - except to say that in looks, in attitude, in open and forthright approach and manner...this particular dude has exactly what it takes to take on both the Democratic Party's 2020 nomination and Donald J Trump.
Yes, the Kennedy mystique has at long last been revived, rediscovered and reclaimed...and by a most unlikely individual and in a most unlikely place and corner of politicsville, USA to boot...

Charisma befitting that star of American Democratic Party politics, the shot-down-in-his-prime erstwhile presidential hopeful, Bobby (as in Senator Robert F) Kennedy, that in normal circumstances could not but propel this South Bend, Indiana mayor inexorably onwards and upwards and ultimately into America's and the world's most powerful position.

I kid you not. What we saw portrayed is someone quite comfortable and at home in his own skin - the United States' "first openly gay presidential candidate" who's well prepared to 'take it to' his evangelical 'compatriots' without ill-will or rancour, yet quietly and confidently assert his own conviction that God made him thus and so...and that He don't make no junk...

Although such a bountiful 'bouquet' from an old-fashioned conservative such as myself - who moreover has no time for the legalization of same-sex marriages (although even former kiwi Attorney-General Chris(topher) Finlayson - the then Key Government's only (openly) homosexual minister, apparently - himself, like many gay folk evidently, was quite opposed to that (2013?) law) - might come as a huge surprise to any regular reader of this (or my other) blogsite...

my basic thesis is and has ever been: give due credit where credit is due. Or as my davidedwinisms blogsite motto has it, 'bestowing bouquets and brickbats with fear of and favour toward none'.

Moreover having such a problematic, hard to pronounce let alone spell properly, sort of a name - an affliction Yours Truly has also long been saddled and handicapped with - is actually more of a blessing-in-disguise...counterintuitively giving him both the instant 'name recognition' that any serious presidential wannabe desperately desires and needs...plus - which is an awfully misunderestimated (as a former President might express it) asset in campaigning - providing instant joke status - what with his 'Mr Bean'-ish joker face to match (take a bow, Ukraine's new comedian-wannabe president!) - and thus and so the ready ability to crack through the usual 'break-through' difficulties such a newcomer to national (US) politics would inevitably face as he goes forward...

Whilst being an 'all-star' American ex-military man/hero certainly cannot hurt his chances in gun-toting and arguably war-mongering America...alongside the fact that, according to otherwise supportive 'Democracy Now', he's fairly pro-Israel; and so evidently not part and parcel of the
increasingly influential, and potentially worrisome/concerning Israel divestment movement...

Being an openly gay candidate from a heartland American evangelical state (*Indiana) and with the youth and 'kiddie' good looks some would die for...

I'm sad to say, in this day and age of 'tolerance' and 'breaking down of barriers', 'ageism' is still - indeed more than ever before, quite arguably - 'alive and kicking'...and so my own two favourites, Bernie Sanders and Joe Biden (with Biden as Sanders' Veep, or perhaps via-versa), appear likely to be collateral damage to that societal trend of all ages being equal, but some being well and truly more equal than others...

Yes, as I say, my money - as inconsiderable as it may well be! - is now well and truly upon this guy who has emerged from pretty much nowhere (apologies to all 'Hoosiers' reading this)...and has built up in no time a head of steam likely to propel him to the top of the Democratic Party pack of hopefuls...

...although they also do say that some 'stars' shine brilliantly at the outset, and make a whole lot of noise and pizzazz, and then like their astronomical namesake, the shooting star, just as quickly fade away again...

But for the present moment I'm rooting for this fellow with the small-town roots who's certainly got what it takes...in terms of the Camelot star power and appeal...and so I reckon's the person to watch...

...if I could only remember his name, both Christian and surname...

*Incidentally its near neighbour, Minnesota - my Mum's home state - recently saw, alongside Indiana,  the sad decease of two of the most 'salt of the earth', true-blue, real-deal Christians (or, more pertinently, 'Christ-followers') myself and my siblings here in God's Own ever had the privilege and honour to meet and visit with; cousins of my mother's, 'brethren' folk who Abe Lincoln himself would've been proud to have known.

Rueful Ruminations and Reflections upon a Cotton-Pickin' Christian Politician...and a (postscript) 'bon jovi' to Joe Biden...

But after checking up upon the 'bona fides' of the subject of a potential blogpost bouquet...and suffering severe disappointment...to wit federal Arkansas Senator Tom Cotton...I'm going awol for the forseeable...

...though I'll have some good things to say about him - in two/three highly specific areas only - in an upcoming blogpost (or this one, when I get back to it)...

...vis-a-vis his - onetime - views upon the internet; a resolution he helped advance/promote/support in staunch defence of China's persecuted 'Wega' people; the ever fraught and contentious issue of abortion; and the 'ad hominem' anti-Christian modus operandi of the mainstream (Western) media...

...though in light of a long-gestating opinion piece I'm hoping to have published sometime soon here in NZ I do believe that at times the credibility of  individual politicians - especially those laying claim to integrity they are palpably deficient in - is not akin to such ad hominem 'attacks' or for that matter character assassination...

...for at times the real, unvarnished presentation of the full doss upon folk is indeed imperative...

...as could also be said, in fact, vis-a-vis the aforementioned Senator Cotton's apparent acclaim for none other than *Henry Kissinger; for myself and fellow kiwis, perhaps the best-known then living 70s American politician (alongside Richard Milhaus Nixon, of course). For though he might well write well and interestingly, I'd personally ever and always want to attach a strong and unmistakable, uncategorical caveat to any sort of accolade bestowed in the direction of that particular 'gentleman'...

...for all sorts of almost innumerable reasons...

...though an intelligent, astute politician par excellence Kissinger most assuredly was, carrying the now well-worn 'art-form' of realpolitik to new heights (or rather depths), so much so that no less personage than the 'great' Machiavelli himself would undoubtedly have been duly proud of him...

Postscript - vis-a-vis budding presidential hopeful Joe Biden...

Only to say...the former Vice-President (over the weekend, New Zealand time) gave what can only be described as an admirable, spirited, comprehensive and deeply heartfelt, un-PR spin-saturated, authentic to bits 'mea culpa' the other day...not once claiming he'd never done wrong in regards to the obvious, nor that these alleged incidents hadn't occurred - in itself a wholly refreshing contrast from el usual media 'suspects'...

Though I might have more to say in the future, said incident brings back memories of former NZ PM Key's own 'ponytailgate'...

...except that said deep and meaningful apology by Mr Biden has unfortunately been somewhat - as in severely! -  since undermined, and in no uncertain terms to boot, by a flippant, throwaway, 'jokey', offhand remark - about his past behaviour (of being 'out there' in terms of the open affection he ever showed - and moreover couldn't help showing - as an essential part of his character) - he has since made at another pre-campaign meeting/rally or the like...

The old adage of 'adding insult to injury', of 'quitting while one's ahead', and of 'stop(ping) digging oneself a deeper hole', all spring readily to mind...

More's the pity, because though Bernie Sanders would be my personal choice - despite my inability, for (recently) previously blogposted reasons, to cast my vote for him myself (presuming I do vote, which, as a dual American citizen - and moreover, citizen of the world, a world ever dominated in so many important respects by the United States of America - I am certainly legally entitled to)...

'Joe Biden's the man' - no, not in some old-fashioned patriarchal sense whereby prospective female candidates are not even given the time of day to stand, much less ever stand a real chance of gaining their party's coveted nomination - in this sense only, and in particular: he's the **only adult in the room. (**Alongside (would-be 'Colonel'-in-Chief) Sanders, that is!)

Yes, and that despite his well-known and publicly acknowledged - including by Biden himself - flaws. foibles and even outright, full-scale failures...-it's the man's humanity that makes him so personable, endearing, and even lovable (as a politician, you understand!)

End of story...or as I might more usually sign off, 'nuff said'!

*HK's writing anyway, if not necessarily the person himself.

And the Latest (NZ) Census...as in that undertaken in 2018...???

Well, where does one - can one possibly, conceivably - even begin...to do proper justice (?)...

...to such an utter sham of a so-called 'census'...not even - remotely - approaching the level of quality sufficient to designate it as a mere sham of one, a 'clayton's census', i.e. a census one has when one isn't taking a proper census...

Hey, even the late great Israeli King David...three-some millennia ago now, without any of our modern, digital gadgetry let alone other sophisticated methods of data gathering and retrieval... managed a damn sight better...

...despite his one being ill-conceived and improperly motivated and prematurely abandoned due to evident divine disapproval...

However its abysmal and abject failure is hardly due alone to the present, relatively newbie Government now in power, the previous, flag-obsessed, Key Government most assuredly sharing a large proportion of the blame thereabouts (in its 'preparation' - not - for said event; all the more pitiful and blameworthy since it had previously had to shelve the planned 2011 census in the aftermath/backwash of the Christchurch/Canterbury earthquakes, so 'having insufficient time to plan' can hardly be given as any kind of reasonable excuse)...

...though Minister Shaw's attempts to duck and dive and squirm in and out of any sort of half-decent semblance even of due and appropriate accountability thereabouts is truly a wonder to behold...

...no doubt, rather than addressing that issue when asked in Parliament yesterday, he was actually hallucinating...believing himself rather to be auditioning for his unfulfilled lifelong dream of the starring role in John Cleese's inimitable 'Minister of Silly Walks'...

Yet I must 'declare my own interest' in this matter, having myself unsuccessfully applied - with earnest and intense, and, I'd add, a rather superb effort thereabouts - to get some sort of a job in the vote-counting for General Election 2017 (aside from that on the one main official 'day' of voting, the biblical Sabbath itself)...

Suffice to say that my credentials themselves - let alone my eloquent expression thereof - were not only quite salient, but the very qualification most needed in such a position, i.e. (compared to most partisan party supporters) political impartiality/neutrality on a major scale, but, moreover, a degree of honesty and integrity that they'd arguably rarely encounter...and, more's to the point, that I'd argue I made quite a coherent and cogent demonstration, yea, even proof, of, throughout my covering letter...

Kicking the Latest Permutation of Euthanasia-Sanctioning Legislation for Touch...

First - and foremost - good one, 'whoever it concerns' (as in, was involved in the decision), in the recommendation (I suppose from the Select Committee itself) to 'return' David Seymour's legalization of euthanasia bill to the House for its second reading...presumably today, being Wednesday here...

Only recommending it for terminal illnesses...thus avoiding the 'slippery slope' that's been only all to evident in overseas jurisdictions, especially certain Scandinavian 'Low Countries'(?) such as the Netherlands and Belgium...and, I believe, also various states in the U S now...such as 'my own' beloved Oregon...

...and subject to approval by a nationwide referendum...-yet another reason I intend to vote for NZ First next time round; at last, now wishing I had in two at least of the previous three general elections in NZ - specifically 2011, when they were trying to re-enter Parliament after a three-year hiatus (and previous 'conspiracy' to get them out - and keep 'em so - by then PM John Key & Co), and last time round, following which they not only went with the centre left, but Winston admirably acquitted himself when explaining the essential reasons thereof...

I can only say a hearty "Amen!" - though I don't approve of/agree with euthanasia at all - whilst fully 'getting' the nationwide (and even 'global' - as in 'first world' Western nations) increasing support  thereabouts of recent times, seeing it as a rare sort of 'moral issue' that, for all sorts of reasons, I've not only much 'understanding' for those who take the opposite position to myself, but see it as a matter in which such differing views seem eminently reasonable in many ways...

Perhaps 'one little reason' that NZ's 'non-partisan' mainstream TV stations both, yesterday evening, decided, inexplicably, though it was hardly a 'busy' news day, to relegate this then breaking news - which had been leading both major (leftwing and centre right) radio stations throughout the later afternoon...to almost halfway though the first segment (indeed pretty well the exact selfsame time on both, as I flicked back between them both)...

...and barely mentioning the protest outside Parliament yesterday...featuring a bunch of 'pale, stale males' (as you'd gather today, from RNZ National's citing of 'religious groups and the medical fraternity' as the major opponents of liberalization of the existent laws)? Not at all: it was staged by a group of earnest as Pasifika women...

So perhaps Mr Seymour won't have quite the easy run he might rightly have anticipated following the handy margin of victory (72 to 48 some, I believe) his bill achieved in its initial reading...

...this punter certainly hopes so, that's for sure!

Elections, Elections Everywhere...2019: The Year of the Election: A Few Brief Thoughts and Reflections

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...

Some Final - or, let's say Penultimate - Reflections Upon the Brexit, However It Ultimately Pans Out - or Doesn't

What's there really left to say, you rightly ask...and especially from someone (such as this writer) who's neither British/English - or, for that matter, even a descendant of the Brits (or Welsh, Scots, (Northern) Irish) - nor has ever lived in any part of the United Kingdom or has any realistic likelihood of ever doing so...? A fair enough question...and like any 'good' politician, I'll completely evade it - at least for now...

To Be Continued (i.e. the body of this blogpost)

Wednesday morning (as P.M May gives her speech, following unprecedented seven-hour caucus meeting with her colleagues over this vexed issue):

As I've written in two recent blogposts, any attempt to conflate the Brexit vote/*intention of the British public (sure, not by an overwhelming margin, but a *decisive 'verdict' nonetheless) into anything remotely equating the underlying sentiment delivering that referendum outcome with the awful, tragic events in God's Own on the afternoon of March 15th 2019...

is shameful, reprehensible, a slur and slander upon the good name and character of the British.

And this (March 24th, I believe) Newshub news bulletin did...in not so unveiled or oblique and indirect a fashion either...pretty much listing the British decision to Brexit as one of a number of 'equivalent' things happening across the globe, and especially Westerndom, that, ipso facto - supposedly, allegedly - made conditions 'favourable' for the horrific massacre that occurred here.

That's all I'd like to say in that regard, except to rhetorically ask, am I at all surprised they did so? No, hardly - given their track record (and that of certain mainstream New Zealand broadcasters generally, whether TV or radio)...and to also suggest that far greater considerations lay at the heart of the decision of/by many or even most - if not in fact the vast majority of British 'Leave' voters who delivered that referendum outcome...than merely **some primeval, blindly nationalistic, Anglophile or even white supremacist, urge to close the doors of the United Kingdom to all comers, especially those of a darker skin complexion or from a potentially problematic Middle Eastern background...

Indeed, such English notables/acting celebrities as John Rhys-Jones and John Cleese, no less, have - at least at times (I haven't heard about Cleese of late) - been outspoken in their support of leaving the European Union (as per Brexit)...and neither, may I point out, has done so in keeping with the stereotypical (purely racist, anti-immigrant, 'let's keep Britain for the British', 'dog whistle politics') caricature of Brexiters so often and tiresomely dragged out by Bremainers...

Yes, to those like Cleese (Basil Faulty in another life) and Rhys-Jones (Gimli in 'Lord of the Rings'), Great Britain has a proud, if uncelebrated, history and historical tradition in which the words sovereignty and self-determination actually mean something...other than being mere slogans repetitiously trotted out and tediously spouted ad nauseum, by politicians and their spin-meisters...

To return to my earlier point (vis-vis the UK's 'Brexit' being carelessly cited as an instance of white supremacy/Islamophobia), as I've already written elsewhere this is one particular 'bugbear' I've every intention of taking all the way to our Broadcasting Standards Authority...if and when, that is - as the legislation, I understand, requires - I fail, after first approaching the particular broadcaster concerned, to get a satisfactory response/answer to/resolution of my concerns...

And what about the increasingly vocal demand for a so-called peoples' vote? A proposal understandably being pushed and pushed and pushed by folk like (long-serving U K Prime Minister) Tony Blair - and doubtless his equally vocal predecessor, former P M (and Margaret Thatcher's successor) John Major - highly dissatisfied with, even arguably aggrieved by, the pro-Brexit result of the 2016 referendum...

'Scuse me? What was the June 23rd referendum if not a 'peoples' vote'? 

Or is it rather a(n all too typical) case of it being a truly democratic - as in 'peoples' - vote when it just so happens to go the way one wants it too...democracy being truly seen to be done only when one gets the result/outcome one was hoping to get... 'Scuse me again, but isn't that precisely the sort of gerrymandered outcome we Westerners have been giving the self-appointed elites bearing rule over vast swathes of the globe a bad press and hard time about for decade upon decade?

As for all those - predominantly Conservative Party - MPs who've been prepared, often at the cost of a lucrative cabinet position and/or even remaining a member of their parliamentary party (whether Brexit- or Bremain-leaning - as the case may well be), to 'cross the floor' (of Parliament) and vote against the express wishes of their own party leaders and/or 'whips'...

...good on them for thus maintaining the long-cherished and hallowed, Westminster tradition of personal independence from one's political/parliamentary party...whatever the cost...to maintain that rarest of intangible things these days, a personal conviction...

...thus showing that Great Britain's fine tradition of unfettered free-thinking is still well and truly alive and well at the very heart and soul of British democracy...unlike some of her former colonies, sad to say...

And what a letdown Labour's one-time unorthodox, renegade, 'contrarian' leader Jeremy Corbyn has proven throughout the whole, never-ending, long drawn-out political crisis... Admittedly inclined to support his particular brand of politics - minus the distinctly unsavoury, though, admittedly, arguable, *****anti-Semitic tinge it has taken over recent times - he has signally failed to take the sort of statesmanlike, Churchillian stand/stance that say *****Hilary Benn, son of the British Left's one and only, now deceased, best ever illustration of true national leadership material, *****Tony Benn, has been seen as taking...

He has played a most dishonourable role throughout the admittedly labyrinthine post-Brexit process, failing to hold to his own, initial, indeed longtime, anti-European Union instincts...giving in - bit by bit, a little here, a little there, on-again, off-again - to his party's youthful staunchly pro-Bremaining brigade...till he has come to the position of finally embracing a second referendum...which, of course, would ultimately achieve nothing, only a never-ending impasse...and by so doing evincing his own lack of understanding of what true, ground-level, grassroots, participatory democracy is all about...

Not unlike Theresa May and the great bulk of 'her' MPs, moreover, and as some professor on the daily New York-based broadcast, Democracy Now, said only yesterday (or the day before), JC and his party want to "keep all the advantages/benefits of the European Union/Common Market without any of the disadvantages", something a beloved, could-have-been stepdad, Richard Welch (cited in my Endnotes) so memorably impressed upon my teenage mind in that classic idiom of 'wanting one's cake and eating it too'...

In ending let me simply rehash the well-known catchcry of P M May in the following way...When Nine to Noon host Kathryn Ryan caught up with her regular economics correspondent Rod Oram yesterday, he told her (as a British-born kiwi) of his preference that the present situation in the U K ultimately lead to a "meltdown" and realignment of the Conservative Party...thus giving the thumbs-down to the brexiting plans of its current leadership...

Ryan concluded by reiterating May's frequent 'unanswerable' assertion vis-a-vis simply abandoning Brexit altogether: "That would not be keeping faith with [the majority of Britons] who voted for Brexit."

I couldn't have put it any better... It's called democracy, folks - last I heard, a time-honoured tradition of the British people/s...and far as things stand, a system of government, however deficient - as Winston Churchill so unforgettably put it on one occasion - not likely to be abandoned anytime soon.

*And to those - seemingly innumerable commentators (both here in Aotearoa-New Zealand, and moreover especially in 'the Old Country') - who've ever maintained, like all good, true democrats always do (i.e. vis-a-vis any electoral results, whether party political or referenda) they don't happen to find pleasing or agreeable, that the people simply didn't or couldn't understand the question put...

...hey, you tell me how difficult or complicated or potentially problematic - confusing, baffling, perplexing, convoluted, bamboozling or the like - this question is: should the United Kingdom remain a member of the European Union or leave the European Union?

Yep, that's it, folks...the whole shebang...i.e. 'the agreed referendum question' (according to Wikipedia's lengthy 'Brexit' entry), in other words that put to U K voters on June 23rd, 2016... Which might seem bleedin' obvious, as plain as ye proverbial mud - not!...and easy enough for anyone to ascertain, with a modicum of trouble or effort...

So why do I bother here, seemingly ad nauseum, to pedantically belabour the point? For this reason: you'd surely think anti-Brexit commentators and political pundits were/are living in an alternate universe - yes, in the very cybersphere of fake news that such tend to accuse everyone else of inhabiting - the way they now, post-referendum and with more than the usual share of sour grapes not to mention venom dripping out of their mouths, talk about that very referendum...as if the wording were somehow vague or confusing - hard for ye dumbskull masses to understand...

In God's Own, or what (pre-March 15th, 2019) once was, we've a little billboard rejoinder which responds beautifully and ever so succinctly to that 'learned supposition': yeah, right! Or, in language less suitable to polite or mixed company, b...s...!

Hey, again, you decide, but for me anyhow - and to quote pretty well word for word (with grammatical reconstruction whenever and wherever necessary) that great discerner of the human condition and things bleedingly obvious - CJ of 'The Rise and Fall and Rise of Reginald Perrin' fame: '[Most of us] didn't get where [we are] today by not knowing [good, basic, grammatical construction and wording] when [we] see it!!!' Nuff Said!

*For in politics 'a miss is (surely) as good as a mile' - just ask Al Gore - and 4 percentage points, equating (if I recall correctly, and my memory's not too bad, if I do say so myself) to well over a million votes separating the two sides of the referendum question, is surely not something to be sniffed at, much less able to be effectively challenged in order to secure a recount...

...and indeed, had it not been for another awful act of homegrown terror, immediately pre-referendum, (by another racially-motivated white supremacist, incidentally), the margin of victory, according to opinion polling, was giving every indication of being much more significant, say in the region of 55:45.

And sure, constitutional experts and their endless horde of after-the-fact (invariably emphatically anti-Brexit) acolytes have since bemoaned the absence of a 'clearcut' numerical 'mandate' for such a major constitutional change...but methinks, **all too predictably, the selfsame folk, back in the 70s and 80s, were not in the least demanding such - e g a 2:1 or 3:1 ratio in favour - when the United Kingdom entered what was then known as the European Communities - which, with the process of time, was transmogrified from one entity into another and eventually became known as the European Union...

Admittedly, as I discovered from Wikipedia's lengthy entry thereupon this evening, the decision of the British to enter the 'European Communities' (as the collective European arrangement was then known) was indeed by a substantial margin (of 2:1 in favour) so I'll freely concede that that does appear to blunt my argument in that respect at least...And yet...(as my very next sentence reminds us)

Everybody is oh so wise after the fact, aren't they, and anyhow, ***those were the rules of the game... as only too clearly understood by the British people themselves...when they voted in the referendum...

**Intriguingly, though I've little doubt you'll never hear this in any typically partisan reportage thereabouts, ***Wikipedia ('The Free Encyclopedia'), in its Brexit entry, under the major subheading of 'Voter Demographics and Trends', carries this interesting 'fact': 'Support for leaving was linked with "poor economic outcome of the individual or area level" and with "self-reported opposition to immigration, but not with exposure to immigration."

Huh? Surely that doesn't fit in with the narrative with which strident Bremain-supporters have since littered the political landscape? No indeed, but that surely shouldn't surprise anyone very much, eh...

***Itself 'accused' - or at least carrying the needed caveat or disclaimer - at the outset of its coverage therein, of being subject to some criticism from some sides of the debate (I'm assuming Brexiters and Brexit sympathizers) for presumably - again, reading between the lines - presenting biased coverage.

***But again oh so typically some folk have attempted and are still trying to revisit the matter after the fact...and hence New Zealand's own much-respected Professor of Constitutional Law, Bill Hodge - in interview, if I heard aright (and the voice sounded identical), yesterday aft with RNZ National's Jesse Mulligan - proposed as much...and echoed renewed calls for a ****'peoples' vote' in the U K now to effectively bring an end to the matter...

...except that that would itself only endlessly prolong it, opening up yet another can of worms...

****See (above) for my own assessment of this so-called Peoples' Vote (and no, as you can well gather, I don't take any prisoners!)

****For some, but by no means all, of those claiming he's been displaying such a proclivity are themselves doubtless guilty of just such tendencies themselves on other issues...and equally typically, the very people also so keen to brand Trump et al with that very slur are themselves often prominent in the ongoing battle, even war, to have the nation of Israel effectively labelled Public Enemy #1...

But of course taking an anti-Israeli stance on Israel's extremely problematic conduct vis-a-vis its 'homelands' on the West Bank and its ongoing skirmishes (and far worse) with folk, not only militants, in the Gaza Strip - in my view the issue of Jerusalem, and, for that matter, the Golan Heights, is another matter entirely (for another time and day - and blogpost!)...

...well, it's just like saying that every single occasion one particular nation has any beef with another it's tantamount to being anti-that particular nationality, race and/or ethnicity...and that's of course wholly absurd and even laughable...and why, incidentally, I believe the only way the never-ending Israeli-Palestinian conflict will ever be resolved is through America electing a Jew who is not - reflexively, automatically - ever and always pro-Israel...

...and last I heard, such a person is making yet another bid for America's and the world's 'top job'...

*****Not that I agree with Hilary Benn, M.P., but I freely concede he's trying to take/play a nonpartisan, constructive stand/role in proceedings, unlike so many seemingly...- and incidentally his father, Tony (about whom, shortly after his death at the ripe old age of 88, I did two blogposts awhile ago) himself is part of a grand tradition - ******in the British Labour Party, no less - of staunch opposition to the European Union; though his nominal (Christian name) modern-day counterpart, ex-P.M. Blair, has arguably long since sold out to the Europeans...even being well in the running at one stage for the EU's top job, evidently; leading some - biblically literate folk, that is - to posit (and not without fair justification) that he could well be the leader of a future United States of Europe...

******Indeed, only this very (3/4) afternoon, upon Wikipedia ('Brexit') I've discovered a whole lot more about *******just how Eurosceptic, nay, positively Europhobic, British Labour once was - and increasingly -from the early seventies into the early eighties...before at length, due to electoral disfavour, resiling from this one-time staunch as stance...-don't they say you (can) learn something (new) each and every day of your life!

*******And apparently not just among its high-profile left-wing or left-leaning parliamentarians such as Tony Benn, Michael Foot, Jeremy Corbyn or Bryan Gould...

EndNotes: -typically written ('yesterday' April 2nd) before the main body of this saga, but so be it...

So what sparks my interest in things British, such as its politics, and especially the whole Brexit 'conundrum'? Many and various things, truth be told, *'f'r instance'...

Let's just say I've ever been - as a political junkie since my earliest days (I mean early teens, anyhow) - a keen observer of both kiwi and, especially Western (Oz's, America's, Great Britain's) politics...and I've often thought it'd **have been nice to **have met someone nice and ultimately relocated there...

*Yes, I'm well aware that that's not proper English, but it's one of my many (latter-day) grammatical and spelling idiosyncrasies...

**'Have (been)' being the operative word/idea, as time's rapidly passed me by, and that's the only way I'd ever be able to live in any part of the U K - unlike a nephew of mine, who sojourned a little while (around 2008-2012, I believe) in Wales...which probably explains his older brothers' antipathy to the idea of the Brexit, seeing as they no longer would be able to seamlessly either move there - by dint of their family's Dutch connections - or even stay awhile/for very long, (once they grow out of their 20s anyhow)...

However, following her divorce from my Dad (or rather, vica-versa) in my pre-teens, my Mum could well have remarried (within a fairly short space) and the fellow in question hailed from WW11 London and the Blitz there...and had as good a cockney accent as you'd ever come by, I'd wager...

Of course, despite my American (and way back when, Danish and Swedish - and perhaps with a fair bit of German thrown in for good measure) pedigree, growing up ***not in the U S of A but in Aotearoa-New Zealand the non-indigenous kiwi heritage that was bequeathed to me by dint of my homeland meant things British/English played a major part in my childhood 'enculturation'...

...foremost among which were naturally enough the fantastic British comedy/'sitcoms'/sci-fi shows (and comicbooks) that plastered the walls of my childhood imagination...

***Which - growing up in America, that is - in the 1960s and 1970s, would've actually suited me, I reckon, to a t...

A Latter-Day Paul Putting his Felines Well and Truly Amongst the Political Birds of Prey

Ruminations on the eve of Friday the 29th of March, following the special public memorial service
held in Christchurch this morning to mark the tragedy which afflicted our nation two weeks earlier.

Good on ya, Paul [Professor P Spoonley] for having the the gumption, the moral fibre, honesty, integrity - and sheer courage, yes, and temerity! - to state what many (of the *liberal-leftwing class, anyway) have evidently long been thinking...vis-a-vis the Right Honourable Winston Peters, Deputy Prime Minister - or, more precisely, 'things' he has said in times gone by...

To wit, that Mr Peters' own, seemingly politically expedient and opportunistic, utterances in particular may well have majorly contributed to helping create the sort of political climate (over recent decades, especially from 1996 on) in which the sort of event occurred that has so powerfully, seismically even, affected our little nation - ushering this tranquil little kiwi *****Shire into the front and centre of the war long underway for the very heart of Planet, I mean *****Middle Earth...

Yes, that what took place in 'God's Own' a fortnight ago this afternoon - the tragic events that shook our little ('shaky') isles to the very core - were given their oxygen to breathe as it were by just such emotionally-laden language as was wont to proceed from the gentleman's mouth, especially during the periodic general election campaigns in which his political cunning was so masterfully employed...

Yes, it's verily a legitimate matter/subject of debate...and at this very time, moreover - however understandably distasteful to the likes of Peters (& Co) himself/themselves...

But...by the same token, I'm 'fraid to say, Professor Spoonley, you've doubtless well and truly set the cats among the pigeons this time...and will speedily get pushback thereabouts...from one quarter in particular...to wit, one particular 'gentleman' not especially well known for retiring unobtrusively from the scene (of conflict, whether actual or merely potential)..when his 'good name' and reputation have been brought into question/are actively under attack/assault...

No, as you - when later provided the perfect opportunity - hastened to qualify said comments, WP has not been (previously) guilty of any 'hate speech' as such - no indeed, as the various'Project' co-hosts  themselves readily attested...

...and doubtless the P.M. herself - reliant for the very survival of her Coalition Government upon keeping in the good graces of Mr Peters - will be exceedingly careful not to *******scare the horses and *******ruffle some very sensitive political feathers and sensibilities...

To Be Continued (after sufficient shuteye)...

*Of which 'class', incidentally, this particular punter no longer considers himself a member in good and regular standing...having long since jettisoned the politically correct baggage that so many of this 'class' have seemingly impenetrably and inextricably encased themselves in... -but I simultaneously consider myself objective enough to be able to stand outside the fray and see, **recognize and applaud due merit (or at least 'chutzpah') whenever I perceive it...

**Or as that great boss of British sitcom, 'the Rise and Fall and Rise of Reginald Perrin', fame was wont to repetitiously and tediously intone, "I didn't get where I am today by not knowing true dinkum ***/****spunk and chutzpah when I see it!"

***No, he never actually used all the words from 'true' to 'chutzpah'...

****The word I intend to rail against when I undertake a class action in the not too distant against those young lasses who periodically made my walk home from high school an on-again, off-again misery by using it, with a little 'y' attached to the end, in systematically objectifying Yours Truly without consent and thus destroying his emotional innocence at a time when my self-esteem was doubtless still formative and rather fragile...

*****Due credit to J R R Tolkien's creative genius for the universal applicability of these geographic terms he employed to situate his Third (and other) Age/s of the world he ******re-created in his mythology brought to global attention through The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings (as well as their long-subsequent Jackson (Walsh and Boyens) cinematic reinterpretations thereof)...

******As the chief purpose he had, according to the notes he made, was to recreate a mythology worthy of the British peoples and their classic history...

*******To rather shamelessly mix my metaphors...

Acquitting Themselves to Perfection: The Real Heroes - and Heroines - of New Zealand's 'Darkest Day'

You doubtless need not be told who these noble/gallant folk are...

-yes, the survivors and surviving family of those so ruthlessly gunned down two Fridays (16 days/half a month) ago...who've displayed a degree and depth of forgiveness - arguably not just sublime but well-nigh divine - almost unheard of amidst modern 'humanity's' seemingly endless litany of horror sufferers and survivors...

...as well as their various fellow Muslim 'spokespeople'/representatives, such as an eminent Imam who appeared on last Sunday's (22/3) Newshub Nation, who declared that it's extremism of all sorts, shapes and sizes, flavours and configurations, that's the real problem...not only the new ideological demon of the month, white supremacy and/or Islamophobia...

...and Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern, now justly globally acclaimed for her deft, adroit - but, far more importantly, duly sensitive and empathetic - 'handling' of the whole sordid ordeal, or, more aptly, the immediate (and short-term) aftermath thereof...

Though there are ever those determined to find a convenient scapegoat - *cf Professor Paul Spoonley on Friday last's 'The Project', vis-a-vis the role of politicians such as (present-day, and oftentimes) deputy Prime Minister Winston Peters, 'the Right Honourable' - in helping create an atmosphere conducive to/that allowed the Christchurch massacre to occur...

...whilst others, in the mainstream media, appear equally ever ready to conflate any and every semblance of contrariness and even sheer **'orneryness' in the body politic - however further afield (such as the U K ***'Brexit' or the phenomenon of President Donald Trump) - into similar instances or parallels of the virus that so demonstrably affected - infected - New Zealand's latest mass murderer.

What has been particularly heartening and even refreshing about the response of New Zealand's Muslim ****community-at-large has been their astonishing readiness, not to mention ability - seemingly to a man or woman - to apparently forgive such diabolical evil and evildoer from the heart ...quite irrespective, obviously, of his own (highly likely) unwillingness to ever seek such...

...simply because, as *****that great 20th-Century prophet of the United States of America was wont to say/express things...one can only ever really expel darkness, not with more darkness, but with light...and likewise, one cannot get rid of hate with more hate, but only with love...

...and as his own Supreme Master so beautifully taught and moreover wonderfully exemplified throughout His own tragically-shortened earthly sojourn...

*Who indeed put a good case thereabouts, but he's not only going out upon somewhat of a limb, knowing Mr Peters' penchant for withering counterattack and holding a grudge till kingdom come  Spoonley may well have bitten off far more than he can chew...

**As my Mum's late mother might well have deemed it...

***As 'the Bard' (i.e. William Shakespeare), no less, might well have mused: 'To B(r)e(xit) or Not to B(r)e(xit), That is the Question...'

****Evidently 50,000-strong, a little over 1% of the population.

*****Did you guess who I'm referring to? Yep, Dr Martin Luther King...

Mea Culpa...vis-a-vis my own (however inadvertent) role in (however unwittingly), if not exactly disseminating, not properly discerning and 'calling out' some 'stuff' and individuals and movements of recent times...

Naturally enough - see tail-end of previous blogpost - to be continued...

Sunday eve (March 31st):

To wit, that Queensland (federal) senator 'Anning', whose *true nature has well and truly come to the surface over recent weeks, i.e. since NZ's 'darkest day' of March 15th...

And all (if a rather belated) **kudos to his young 'egg-sailant', whose brave antics have surely earned him a place in the New Zealand hall of fame for time immemorial...

But as for my own 'credentials' upon the matter of white supremacy/nationalism and/or Islamophobia ...I personally strongly doubt whether there would be very many people who've not only befriended (and been befriended by) people of as many races, nationalities and ethnicities as myself...let alone gone out of their way as much to at times stand up for such individually when treated at all unfairly/in an unfriendly fashion (by other people/******outfits)...

*Yes, I cannot deny giving the fellow 'the benefit of the doubt', as I wrote at the time, and that simply because I've become increasingly unable to trust the mainstream (Western) media's 'ganging up upon' certain public menaces/the monthly 'Public Enemy #1 over recent weeks and months... especially vis-a-vis the ongoing - and ***seemingly never-ending - fallout from the Me Too Movement's public outing of various and sundry high-profile personas/personae...

**'Credit, fame, renown, prestige' (Gr[eek] kydos, glory), according to my ever trusty Chambers Concise Dictionary (1988/1989 edition).

***And in case yet another 'case in point' were needed, what is 'headlined' upon tonight's TV1 News but an accusation - of 'inappropriate [Oval Office] conduct' by/against (presumptive) Democratic Presidential Nominee, President Obama's ****Veep *****Joe Biden no less...

****Of course, American shorthand for Vice-President...

*****Which this punter, anyhow, finds especially *******galling...subject to further clarification, elaboration and (even half-pie) convincing 'evidence'...when set in stark relief against [said media's] determination at all costs to resist - to the death, seemingly - any and every instance of serious allegation against a certain former President, whose 'high crimes and misdemeanours' were such that he was ultimately one of only two sitting American presidents to be impeached...

 ******Specifically recalling just now a local bus driver who, one or two years back, treated an Indian guy and gal in a particularly cold and unfriendly way...to whom, when I got to the seat next theirs, I gave the great reassurance that that particular dude was unpleasant to one and all - including Yours Truly - so not to take it at all personally (or as expressing some kind of anti-Asian ill-will)...

*******Yes, I didn't come down on the last cloud, either, and am only too well aware that with the advent of (and backwash from) MeToo, a person's status before the law is evidently now 'guilty till proven innocent'...and yet am equally aware that out present-day, westernwide 'trial by media' is not faultless, and hence a number of even high-profilers (f'r'instance British singer-songwriter Sir Cliff Richards) have since been found not guilty, or at least not 'guilty beyond reasonable doubt'...

Conflating Great Britain's Brexit - or More Precisely, Brexiters...with Aotearoa-New Zealand's 'Darkest Day' ...is one Step way too far by Kiwi Broadcasters...and then some...

As I mentioned at the conclusion of 'yesterday's' blogpost (i.e. the second half or so of my last one), it's extremely bad form...slanderous even...to in any way, shape or form seek to somehow (or other) - even if only by clear as mud, blimin' obvious implication - link or connect or even associate the awful tragedy our nation experienced/sustained upon the now ever memorable afternoon of March 15th with the referendum result in the United Kingdom upon June 23rd, 2016...

Yes, to even make such an attempt is to cast a base and vile, equally *'unforgivable' slur upon each and every person who voted for the U K to leave the European Union...whether that ever in fact takes place now or not...a likelihood now very much, as they say, **'in the lap of the gods'...

*Though no sin is ultimately unpardonable in a precise, absolute sense of the term...except that of the sin against the Holy Spirit, as Jesus so meticulously pointed out...

**Or rather, in the lap of the One True God...

To Be Continued (after sufficient shuteye)...
-3 days on-

There's probably not all that much really to add to this particular blogpost, actually, except to say that this is one particular 'bugbear' I intend taking all the way to the BSA (the New Zealand Broadcasting Standards Authority) - some things are really that important (in the overall scheme of things)...

...but, as per usual - especially over the last few weeks and months, anyway - 'other things' have once again intervened/thrown ye proverbial fly in the ointment/spoke in the wheel...and so, since - somehow or other, sooner rather than later - inadvertently being effectively knocked off the bloggersphere by Blogger.com is not exactly a prospect I particularly relish...

...I'm afraid to say that attending to some rather basic 'housekeeping' (blog-safekeeping) appears the preeminent order of the day...so, without further ado, pardon me if I do just that, i.e. momentarily skedaddle...to put out any potential fires before they inadvertently engulf and consume the best laid plans of this particular individual (and the rodents presently seeking to find a home in our ceiling as autumn finally arrives and temps start dropping of an evening especially)...

"This is not who we are"...This is/was (in fact) us: The Understandable Schizophrenia following our Unheard of Tragedy

Ruminations on the eve of March 21st, 2019

So which is it? Is our now internationally-acclaimed Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern absolutely spot-on - in saying the former...or are the nay-sayers correct? How about this self-contradictory conclusion: neither...or rather, both. And at the very same time...

Technically, the guy was an Aussie...who, moreover, came over here with the express purpose of 'proving' that this kind of massacre/atrocity/tragedy could actually happen anywhere...
(Or at least once he'd arrived here he gestated/germinated just such a fiendish objective.)

So - strictly-speaking - he really, actually, isn't 'one of us', all the more ironic because that of course was why he targeted the Muslim folk he did; in his own mind, 'they' were not truly 'us'. Although it could equally well be the case that, egged on by endless *talkback radio discussion and the like, he simply didn't trust Muslims; supposing that, even if they'd happened to have been living in New Zealand for a long time, generations even, they were potential jihadists: Sissii Internationale sympathisers, even terrorists, in his own (very twisted) mind...

All fair enough suspicions, seeing as - surprise, surprise - we can't actually read his mind...nor would very many of us even care to, truth be told...-subterranean, cavernous sewers and cesspits never really being particularly inviting places to visit, even on a nice day...

*But so as no-one gets the wrong idea here, it's exceedingly rare, virtually never that I at least - and as an avid consumer of NZ's major talkback radio station, Newstalk ZB (in addition to 'Government Radio' or 'Radio Stalingrad', as some of its noteworthy detractors have ever referred to RNZ National), I happen to know whereof I speak - have ever heard what is in standard lingo referred to as (either) 'xenophobia' or 'hate speech'...though one (wo)man's hate speech or xenophobia ain't necessarily the next person's...

Indeed, whenever I've heard someone (usually a fellow) evidently about to launch out upon such a diatribe of dangerous 'drivel', the particular host invariably pushes the 'cutoff' button...something incidentally that usually doesn't happen whenever folk (including some hosts) on RNZ spout their typical anti-Christian, as in (arguably) blasphemous, 'Christ this or that or the other' abusive speech...but of course anti-Christian language doesn't apparently amount to such intolerable 'stuff'.

But having said that, my conscience reminded me, a little while post-our **9/11, that a number of months back I'd meant to - and indeed I might well have, but I don't believe I actually got round to it - 'inform' a particular talkback host that he ought to take note that certain statements either he or certain guests had made (around that time) ***could possibly be taken - by unstable 'minds', that is - and used for malicious purposes...but naturally nothing - remotely - of the magnitude, let alone kind, of what occurred in Christchurch upon March 15th was upon my mind when I planned doing such...

**As someone has stated, including on a (hitchhike) ride the other day when said driver mentioned how someone had calculated that if the kiwi tragedy had occurred in the U S of A the equivalent death toll would've been 3,200 or so (I believe, based upon my now calculating that 50 people out of a population of 4.75 million or so NZers is around about 1 in every 100,000 people...and so we come to America's own 9/11 itself, whereupon 3,000-some folk died. So if anything - and of course only in sheer numerical terms - NZ's 50 murdered equates to 3,500 or so in the United States)...

***Indeed, though the ****BBC item gave every appearance the other day of tying any and every instance, presumably, of low-level racist talk as indicative of the potential for NZ's recent massacre - obviously problematic in the extreme as such a thing, thereby implicating large proportions of populations in nations all around the world and moreover from time immemorial, as potential mass murderers, is obviously not only far-fetched but really rather slanderous/libellous and over-the-top to the nth degree - was soon enough countered by this particular former kiwi (now residing in Texas) herself...when she included this all so important caveat: that the individual concerned had first been radicalized...

****But in the (necessary) defence of the particular BBC journalist concerned, he was only making reference to how NZers themselves, or rather their media - had discussed the atrocity...i.e. in terms of such even low-level racism being suggestive of the possibility of such awful events. But insofar as kiwi media have themselves been only too eager to fall over themselves in thus conflating any and every such incidence of 'Islamophobia' into a potential massacre scenario, I'll have more to say both here and elsewhere in the not too distant...including a complaint I intend lodging with our Broadcasting Standards Authority following the (ongoing) implied association of not only the Trump victory and administration with such 'white supremacy', but - as often as not - the United Kingdom's Brexit...and that, to this fair-minded individual, is quite simply a step way too far...and then some...

Rising to the Most Difficult Occasion Imaginable: Profuse Plaudits to those most unlikely of worthy recipients: our (New Zealand) Members of Parliament - especially our Christchurch-based ones

Listening in to parliamentary broadcasts (radio and TV) does have its benefits...chiefly upon those reasonably rare occasions when a disaster (whether manmade or natural) occurs...

And so I dedicate this blogpost to a plethora of (individually) unlikely recipients...who have indeed risen to the occasion in this most unpleasant of times...

But first, let me suggest that the folk who've shown the most sterling quality throughout this entire sorry saga...which seems to be universally agreed upon, in fact...are

the members of the New Zealand Muslim community, or more precisely, those in Christchurch who either lost relatives or were injured or miraculously survived the ordeal but witnessed others not as blessed...for the degree of forgiveness, mercy and love shown has been exemplary, worthy indeed of the very best traditions of my own, i.e. the Christian religion...whose adherents, not excluding myself at times I must concede, have fallen far short of the superlative example set by our Model and Mentor....

Followed by the nation's 'first responders', i.e. our police, hospital and ambulance staff...who have  conducted themselves admirably - with flying colours - going way beyond the ordinary call of duty...

And among those may I single out Police Commissioner Mike Bush himself...someone who has shown his own quality at this most difficult of times...fronting press conferences on an ongoing fashion in a totally undefensive way, explicating in great detail each and every possible nuance of concern or detail and doing so invariably with great panache, grace and the utmost sensitivity...

Among parliamentarians during yesterday's 'Motion of Condolence', following the previous afternoon's equally solemn and sobering initial parliamentary mention and discussion thereof - which included the reflections and heartfelt feelings of the leaders of all our elected representatives - I at least was especially touched and moved by a number of National Party MPs, and more specifically ones hailing from that most tragic of New Zealand cities, Christchurch (my birthplace).

And that makes perfect sense, as Christchurch- (and Canterbury-) based members of Parliament obviously have a lot more experience than most other MPs in living and surviving through what would now have to be deemed our nation's two worst 'disasters' (at least in terms of numbers of people killed, injured and otherwise affected) - this recent atrocity and of course the earthquakes (both initial and unrelenting, successive aftershocks) that began/reached crescendo proportions on September 4th, 2010 and February 22nd, 2011...(along with the Kaikoura Earthquake a few years on).

And so naturally these folk have some on-the-ground understanding for what their fellow Christchurchers (and Cantabrians) have been going through - many themselves going through similar stuff (though oftentimes keeping fairly mum thereabouts, rather than selfishly draw peoples' attention
to their own very real sufferings). And so it's hardly totally unexpected that the likes of (former Earthquake Recovery Minister) Gerry Brownlie, (former Speaker) David Carter, the longserving Ruth Dyson, or the (relative newbie M.P.) Matt Doucie, among others, might have something more than worthwhile to say when Parliament set aside two hours yesterday (for 24 speakers) to address a 'motion of condolence' thereabouts...

I suppose I could quote various lines of special note - if I'd managed to jot them down (but in this instance, and despite viewing said debate twice yesterday, I was too gripped by the various speeches to (properly) do so)...but hey, you yourselves can (try to) access the on-line parliamentary Hansard, which I believe is ever available, hopefully at no cost, to any comers...

...but nevertheless, may I simply shower profuse praise upon these four speakers in particular, and Judith Collins - as well as David Seymour, but for different reasons (to be cited on another occasion) - and say that their emotions came over as raw and thoroughly genuine (though initially with one person I was a bit suspect till I saw her on TV later on)...right from the (very bottom/s of) their hearts...with no needless airs and graces (except admittedly Ms Collins to begin with)...

...revealing their unforgettable interactions with individual Muslims in particular in the immediate aftermath of the massacre and/or their utter amazement at the level and depth of forgiveness shown by those deeply affected by those tragic events...

Yes, as Samwise Gamgee might have put it, you (all) showed your quality, Messrs and Madames...

Granted, We're only just emerging from New Zealand's '9/11', But speaking of - and to - political double-standards, it's hard to go past these (all too flagrant) examples/illustrations thereof...

...of one M.P. who (not that long ago) told a male colleague - and one, moreover, who'd been undergoing major mental health issues for some considerable time - he ought to go kill himself...

...of another - anecdotally, and quite credibly - considered to have been majorly bullying staff...

...and of a third, now shown to have not acted, when given an altogether opportune time to do so less than two years back, to ban semi-automatic weapons from the length and breadth of - what was then still - 'God's Own' nation...

And what, prithee, happens to connect all these individuals - the first an up-and-coming backbencher, the second a former minister of the Crown, the third a former (and present) deputy leader of one of New Zealand's two main political parties? They share this common trait: they're all female National Party M.P.s...

...only apparently not subject to the kinds of stringent standards ever applied - without a qualm or moment's hesitation, much less a blush or batting of the eye - to their male counterparts...

...and that's before/not even giving due time and attention to the Green Party's ever outspoken 'human rights' spokesperson who just so happens to have been a high-profile lawyer in both Serbia and Rwanda back in the 1990s evidently... And doing precisely what, you quite rightly ask? Why, only defending the indefensible, to wit various and sundry instigators of the ethnic cleansing then taking place in those parts...or, to use common vernacular...a practising, on-the-ground, representative of and for people who had been promoting the genocide then taking place in each respective jurisdiction....

So for the likes of Greens' co-leader Marama Davidson, in her rant and rave (as opposed to gracious, considered and measured speech) in our Parliament today in the aftermath of the dreadful events that occurred here in NZ last Friday...to use it as an excuse for having a serve at colonialism and those who attack people of different religions...without - oh so predictably - ever mentioning the subtle but strong anti-Christian thread now running rampant not only throughout the Middle East (where it's far more explicit and more akin to the sort of anti-semitism once witnessed in the Third Reich and its sister (European) Axis nations), but even showing up more and more prominently throughout Western lands, promoted unapologetically by its mainstream media...while carefully singling out each and every other creed she could think of...when, on a global level, it is hardly arguable whether those of a Christian faith aren't being treated every bit as appallingly as those of the various other faiths she referred to...

...and to then lecture us all about dealing with our own biases and prejudices to rid our world of the awful scourge of so-called 'hate speech' which she and others generally employ for any and every viewpoint that so happens to be at all uncomfortable for her and co...

is just a little bit rich, and then some...

...just for starters, you understand... 

Postscript - upon further reflection...

Having just re-listened to Ms Davidson's parliamentary speech this afternoon (on the relevant TV channel), I must admit the need to temper my comments somewhat majorly...insofar as her speech was - on the whole, by-and-large - actually quite a measured, considered and even gracious one after all...albeit with the selfsame major caveats afore-mentioned...chiefly the double-standards ever applied without a moment's hesitation even to those of a major world religion...though the actual numbers of adherents thereof really oughtn't to make a dime of difference, it's the principle of the matter that does indeed matter - and greatly - to thinking men and women everywhere...

You see, said mainstream media itself this very eve has lost no time at all in getting stuck in boots and high heels and all in slamming the National Party (under its present leader in particular) for allowing the party's (then, but now evidently rescinded) opposition to a major United Nations treaty on immigration NZ had (not quite yet) signed up to...to remain upon the party's website...

...as if each and every viewpoint which could possibly be construed as anti-Muslim (even if only by implication - as if any and every potential immigrant here is of that particular religious persuasion) has now become, ipso facto, like ye proverbial persona non grata...

...which is why I simply have to say that a morning radio talk host, to wit the infamous Mike Hosking himself, is 'right on the money' in this regard...when he stated, in an incisively argued and articulate editorial this morning, that we'll need - *going forward - to be exceedingly careful that we don't use the tragic events of last Friday to shut down legitimate debate and criticism of say party policies upon that (**ever-contentious) matter of immigration...

But sadly, unfortunately, tragically even, I do detect folk going exactly to that particular place already...

*Yes, I hate - detest - that newspeak as well, probably even more than you do, to be honest...

**My phraseology just there, not Mike's.

Post-Postscript:

As far as Facebook's thus far limp-wristed attempts to suggest it was just altogether way too difficult by half to deal with all the inherent issues involved in preventing the ghastly live on-line screening of last Friday's massacre - or rather, to run for cover and not even seek to explicate the inexplicable, or excuse the patently inexcusable...

...as Newstalk ZB host Chris Lynch (and many others) have thus far stated, that's just a little too much to credit...seeing as apparently whenever one seeks to download (or upload - whatever) music one is instantly prevented doing so...without further ado...

...and/or as regular RNZ National panellist Bernard Hickey/Hickie said today, if it's possible to create AI (i.e. artificial intelligence)...then - by logical implication - this should be as well...

...just as (on an altogether mundane level) I'm always intrigued/baffled/dumbfounded/p...ed off, quite frankly...and altogether incredulous moreover,  that in a day and age of the most sophisticated technology imaginable it still takes five-some days to clear ye ole-fashioned cheque...

And in a similar vein, I found myself agreeing wholeheartedly today with someone I've had my issues with in times past. Yet in this case - and admittedly I've ever found the 'honourable gentleman' an honest parliamentary broker (which is reasonably high praise from me, anyhow) whatever my disagreements on a sheer policy level - Gerry Brownlie's own criticism thereabouts on Larry Williams' Drive (Show) late this afternoon (not only vis-a-vis, as per Mr Hickie/Hickey, the non-show of Facebook executive Mark Zuckerberg a full four days already post the Christchurch massacre, but moreover) vis-a-vis the utter failure of New Zealand's intelligence agencies - after substantial contributions at the end of the last Government's tenure - and with all the means at their disposal, and this dude's apparent high-profile movements (around the world to highly suspect places and moreover upon the internet over preceding months) to even notice him evidently...

...were right on...and yes, nothing less, as he carefully and ably articulated, than a full 'royal commission of inquiry' thereabouts will now suffice to get to the bottom of the intelligence agencies' complete and utter failure to get onto this fellow before he wrought his irrevocable damage...

Post-Post-Postscript:

As to Simon Bridges' (parliamentary contribution today) - and someone on RNZ National's Panel discussion yesterday aft - paraphrasing the late great Dr Martin Luther King...it'd be difficult and I'd be hard pressed to go better than myself re-quoting their comments thereabouts...to wit:

the only way to expel darkness is not with more darkness, but to let in light...

the only way to expel hate is not with more hate, but through love...

After all (is said and done), it was the Master's method...and as such it can't fail...ever...

As might be expected, every last (wo)man and her/his pet canine is getting in on the act...

Yes, I'm *not at all surprised - who would or could be? - and it *doesn't upset me (far from it)...

...but, following New Zealand's "own 9/11", as someone (perfectly understandably) a few minutes ago so aptly described/depicted it...

...and with major connections to my own beloved hometown of Dunedin, NZ, no less...

may I simply say/express the following thoughts...as succinctly (and clearly/understandably) as I know how...

Good on our local Quakers/'Religious Society of Friends' (as the Christian sect in which I was - intermittently and rather sporadically, but let's add 'seminally' - raised/brought up, is officially/formally known)...for - alongside the local Police...who've moreover been earning special plaudits, even brownie points if you will, from one and all for the expeditious, effective and comprehensive manner in which they've dealt with and to what has been generally viewed as our biggest crisis ever - at the very least one of if not our darkest day/s ever...

...in (wo)manning the local Dunedin mosque...to protect 'parishioners' there yesterday seeking to come together to process Friday's 'event', i.e. wholescale massacre of their (one-time, now - for possibly the majority) Christchurch-based fellow worshippers...against any interlopers...and from the woman who regularly drives my Mum to and from the local (Quaker) 'Meeting House', herself involved off and on in this cordon/vigil, evidently a number of honking, or rather passing vehicles with folk shouting out, drove by...hardly an edifying prospect in the circumstances...

However, for the likes of...

#Turkey's President Erdogan to weigh in on the matter is somewhat obscene...as is

#the twitter, evidently, of one of my all-time favourite singer-songwriters...i.e. Yusuf Islam, better known as Cat Stevens...who apparently - and he's never denied doing so or resiled from the 'remark' - suggested that the well-known and ghastly (Islamic) fatwa against the British writer Salman Rushdie
...is perfectly valid...i.e. any self-respecting Muslim is quite in his or her 'rights'....to 'take him out'!

#And on that score, some of the British protesters marching over the weekend (thereabouts), I'd strongly suspect, are doubtless conspicuously and oh so conveniently silent as a woodmouse whenever it comes to expressing equally vehement sentiments vis-a-vis the bombings and cold-blooded **(group) murders of Christians (and Jews in France in particular) over recent years...mere mention (let alone significant discussion) thereof is seldom made, much less given the due attention and equal footing/condemnation these so obviously deserve/warrant...

...but (my reasonably regular sub-theme these days of) addressing media double-standards is for another day...

On the other hand, full plaudits to former Australian deputy Premier, ***Tim Fischer...for, back in 1997 or 1998, a ****short while following the Tasmanian 'Port Arthur massacre', I believe Aussie's worst ever, alongside then Prime Minister John Howard, moreover, greatly tightening their gun laws...with the incredible result that *****no such mass killings have transpired there since.

*In case of any confusion/misunderstanding, however - admittedly quite possible (upon re-reading my introduction above) - Friday's massacre/cold-blooded murder of 50 Muslims, with, thus far, 50 other fellow-believers injured, while at Friday prayers in two Christchurch mosques - was not only a literal bolt from the blue in what I and many others oftentimes have referred to as "God's Own" [nation] - if, sadly, no longer - but a 'thing' that has upset, even traumatized, kiwis in the extreme...

*For those still dissatisfied with that explanation, my lack of surprise and upset is re people veritably emerging out of the figurative woodwork to put their own oar or two cents' worth in thereabouts...

But being 'not upset', as in not distressed thereabouts, is an altogether different matter than being able to abide fools lightly or gladly...or, as the infamous CJ might have put it in that inimitable British sitcom of yesteryear, 'The Rise and Fall and Rise of Reginald Perrin'..."I didn't get where I am today by not knowing utter balderdash and uninformed BS when I hear it"...especially from those least - or should that be most? - qualified to give it...no indeed (thus see the various ignoramuses referred to herein.)

**By which I refer to events in Egypt and Indonesia especially, but many and various other jurisdictions could well be included...such as (northern) India and Pakistan - yes, the sheer gall of street protesting Pakistanis lecturing us kiwis about human rights and the like is somewhat rich (to greatly understate matters)...

***Full credit to RNZ National (Radio) here in New Zealand for interviewing him thereabouts (both briefly this very morning, and much more comprehensively a few years back - following yet another American shooting).

****Indeed Yours Truly happened around the selfsame time to move temporarily to Kingston/ Huonville, Tasmania...and later Pelverata, Hobart and Geeveston (while I sojourned just 13 months there all up) - curiously enough, on my previous Australian sojourn (for a year-and-a-half in Brisbane in 1990/1991), while away from home (Dunedin, God's Own)...David Gray down the bay at Aramoana likewise 'let 'er all rip' (with equally devastating consequences)...

*****Though please don't quote me on the technicalities of that claim, for I'd tend to agree with you if, in your own considered view, you seriously queried as to what actually constituted a mass killing (thus implying that even two folk thus murdered in cold blood was such), or even that there's no real qualitative - if not quantitative - difference between one person thus butchered...and a score.

Postscript [Personal Explanation]:

My own apologies are also warranted...and there's no time like the present, as they say - vis-a-vis naively being willing/prepared to give that Aussie 'nut-case' Senator Anning 'the benefit of the doubt' awhile ago...in a moment of fair gullibility on my part...though even so, I did qualify said commendation, or rather hesitant support, significantly at the time...

Suffice for now to say that his immediate response post-Friday was unbefitting - even for a politician (which is surely saying something...though, as I indicate above, a ******few true gems do emerge from that cesspit occasionally). And while I haven't an *******issue/real problem with a (physically) cornered politico responding in kind i.e. defending himself...Anning surely went to the nth degree, and then some, in trying to crack ye ole acorn with a sledgehammer...and really taking to that young 'un who had the gall - nous and aplomb rather! - to crack a couple well-aimed eggs over his head...

And good on that 'kid' for utilizing such a tactic in the best traditions of democratic protest...

 ******By which (whom) I refer to Tim Fischer in particular...

*******Such as Aotearoa-New Zealand's dear old Sir Robert ('Piggy') Muldoon in decades gone by.

Friday March 15th, 2019: The Afternoon (Day) Aotearoa-New Zealand - Unwittingly - Lost Its Innocence...Rest In Peace, 'God's Own'

Back...Back...Back...-No 'Stopping' Allowed-...to the Brits' Interminable Brexit: A Few Penultimate Ruminations Thereabouts

My personal - and that doubtless of many U K 'brexiteers' - hope and ideal? A clean break from Europe...no ifs, buts or maybes considered. Fulfil the sacredly-entrusted mandate bequeathed by the people of the United Kingdom...and get on with it - like yesterday, i.e. two years, eight-and-two-thirds months ago now... Nuff said!

For the British to unilaterally leave the European Union without any deal whatsoever...which, with the ever-prescient benefit of hindsight, some (such as Yours Truly - and the 'hard Brexiteers') had not only fervently wished and even hoped against hope they'd do, but moreover believed they ought to have done...at the very outset...i.e. immediately post-referendum 2016...

I.e. as - quite arguably - the British/United Kingdom public, 'declared' (as per the June 23rd referendum result they delivered their politicians)...thus leaving the EU with absolutely no strings attached...

*But she don't look like happening anytime soon...least of all today, more's the pity...- and thus and so, as Prime Minister Teresa May (and others) have well said, **''without [TM's) deal there may well [ultimately] be no deal and no Brexit whatsoever"... -but more upon that (sorry, sad and supremely sordid) state of affairs shortly...

Nevertheless, as I blogged on December 13th last...precisely three months ago (and may well also have done two months ago as well - sorry, I've simply lost count (of the sheer number much less timing of all such posts), but that seems a reasonable enough likelihood)...one cannot but admire Ms May for her dogged determination, come what may - be that hell, high water or ye proverbial tsunami even - to see this through to (what increasingly appears) the bitter end...to secure some/a/any sort of deal...with the ever-irascible, eminently unreasonable and downright intransigent leaders of the European Union - in particular Messrs Juncker and Tusk (and their assorted 'negotiating' team) ...

Yes, P. M. May has been making an ****all-out, Herculean effort - of Olympian proportions - a marathon endurance feat even, up to the very last week, day, hour, minute and even moment, quite literally down to the very wire - to get it over the line... Returning "croaky" from more last-minute EU negotiations - as fellow Conservative M.P. Nigel Evans puts it - and thereby showing she's at wit's and strength's end (even her husband is evidently in the parliamentary gallery at Westminster this very day) she's 'determined to *****get the - some - deal over the line, damn it!

As British (TV/radio?) "producer" Stuart/Stewart Hughes has just now (9.10ff NZ-time) shared with Newstalk ZB talkback host Kerre-Woodham-McIvor, Prime Minister May had [hoped - and (being a ******vicar's daughter) doubtless prayed!] "it'd reach the crunch point where people would have become so heartily sick and tired (of the whole shemozzle) that they'd simply agree to her deal." But [alas], that hasn't happened." And a later emailer"It'll never happen because it (i.e. the Brexit agreed upon at the referendum) will never happen because it'll never be allowed to happen...

For a brief (minorly diversionary) interlude upon selfsame subject - though right up to the minute, in terms of being immediately following the renewed voting down of Teresa May's 'new deal' by the British Parliament - the U K's High Commissioner to New Zealand, Laura Clark, talking with RNZ National's Suzie Ferguson, admitted "It looks *******messy, but it's a very big sovereignty and constitutional issue that the British are dealing with here."

Personally I - and I can well imagine a sizable and not inconsiderable proportion of leave voters - would have hoped that Boris Johnson, among others, would have risen to the occasion, seeing the all-too-graphic and evident writing on the wall for the utter demise of Brexit come very much more pushing and shoving, delay and delay and delay, negotiation and renegotiation seemingly ad nauseum - of the whole stinking, sordid mass and mess - and become the statesman the one-time justly named Great Britain ever seems to see rise to the surface when the occasion demands...

And accept Teresa May's admittedly extremely flawed deal...rather than hold out indefinitely, in a Custer's Last Stand sort of stance, for a 'hard', no strings attached Brexit...realizing that the ideal is ever the enemy of the real[istic]...the opposite side of the coin to the equally valid idea that the good is oftentimes the enemy of the best...  And thus and so, ever holding out - doggedly and determinedly - for dear life and for all-or-nothing, come no matter what...so that ultimately the very thing you so desired never ever even happens at all...

So what do the (other, continental) Europeans make of the whole sorry saga? According to reporters checking in with the BBC World Radio's OS Show this morning (NZ time), they're as equally ********confused by this unedifying and unprecedented spectacle (my paraphrase, even original wording)..."The technical aspects now also of interest?" asked an incredulous Nuala McGovern of the reporter there. "Indeed - yes! That's the level of interest with which Italians are following it."

'In her own words,' as a concurrent news bulletin declares, "My Government/Parliament is committed to delivering the referendum result the British people voted for...and I believe the deal I've achieved with the European Union is the best way of securing that." But this having now again been soundly rejected (by U K parliamentarians), "What's indeed the point," intoned Richard Quest with Mike Hosking around 7.10 a.m., "then of going back to the EU...and asking in reference to that [i.e. yet another additional extension, were it even approved by the UK Parliament tomorrow]? What indeed?!

Perhaps the final words should go to a tackback host whom I seldom listen in to, the aforementioned Kerre Woodham-McIvor, who, summing up the entire sorry scenario, commentated (around 10.08 a.m.), that there's "no consensus [whatsoever] between the main (U K political) parties...everybody's apparently fighting (for) their own corner...(&) there's no real way of knowing what's happening next." "Cometh the hour, cometh the (wo)man?" Apparently not, there's no-one even in sight...

But moving on from that relevant summary of the complete drama, perhaps the very last words ought to be given to a former British statesman, who - unlike his, in many respects, indomitable female carbon copy, Margaret Thatcher, approximately a half-century later - was inclined to support the 'European Project' after WW11 came to its rather ghastly, blood-soaked conclusion...yet ever opposed, incidentally, and quite significantly, the European-uniting and global designs of that aptly-designated master of Machiavellianism, or *********'Third World Antichrist', German Chancellor/ Fuhrer Adolf Hitler himself...

*And as of 6.45ish NZ-time apparently, according to Nigel Evans, himself a (now dissenting) member of the hard brexiteers' 'European Research Project', both they and the Northern Irish D(emocratic) U(nion) P(arty) have just announced against the deal...thus ensuring/guaranteeing its failure in just over an hour's time...as has, of course, now transpired...  Yes, as Mr Evans well recognizes - and his fellow Brexiteers seem to have completely forgotten - the much-coveted Brexit may now not only not occur, as - successively - one after another of P M May's parliamentary proposals are roundly voted down (today and tomorrow)...her deal, leaving without a deal, any more extension...

...and even, horror of horrors (to those who cherish participatory democracy - however much it goes against one's personal wishes/preferences; hey, it's called 'democracy, folks! - another election and/or referendum is henceforth likely to be triggered...but hey, why should that one be binding (cf to the present one)? Oh, I understand...because it'll deliver the result that suits your particular views!

Some, and I'm among them, would call that a matter of anti-democratic tendencies reigning supreme  
- not only leaving a vast swathe of Britons ultimately unhappy...who actually do believe in real-deal participatory democracy, that is... Which, as that great statesman of Great Britain's yesteryear just referred to well said...as a system of government is really awful...except for all the others. Indeed!

**Indeed, as ***Rod Little - talking with Newstalk ZB's Mike Hosking just now (8.30ish, 13/3) has just declared, today's (just announced) vote (rejecting May's deal) has "effectively seen the (entire) end of Brexit altogether"...tonight's "the last nail in the coffin"...and so the U K is "now moving closer and closer to a second referendum...in which the question(s) asked will be gerrymandered" (i.e. towards a 'no brexit' result)... And as a later emailer expressed things on the Kerre McIvor show, "It (i.e. the Brexit agreed upon at the referendum)'ll never happen because it'll never be allowed to happen...the British [elites] will ensure it won't...and will [so word things] - i.e. in the oft-proposed '2nd referendum' - that it won't...

***As Mr Little so well puts it - on such matters as not only the Brexit but LGBT issues - it's not necessarily a sure/done thing (my own paraphrase) that a second referendum - properly worded (i.e. vis-a-vis leaving without any deal whatsoever etc) - would necessarily lose...but on this/these issue/s "the U K Parliament/elites has/have shown it/they is/are well out of [sync] with the British public." And as Mr Little was subsequently quoted on ZB's 10 a.m. bulletin as saying, "There's a very real possibility that it'll never even happen now...(essentially) because the British Parliament and even Government never wanted it anyway."

****Indeed, as an emailer/texter to the Mike Hosking programme just (8.30 a.m.ff NZtime) Ms May has effectively gone to the nth degree and beyond (to secure and ensure some sort of deal)...

*****To - unwittingly - paraphrase this one-time high school student newspaper editor's own predicament, or rather an oh-so-apt assessment thereof via a funny as (and wonderfully-caricatured) cartoon thereabouts...vis-a-vis Yours Truly's own (near Herculean and Olympian) 'efforts to get this paper out, damn it!' (In Mercury #102(?), my final issue, I believe.)

******As, according to that ever-popular nightly British TV quiz show, 'the Chase', evidently were likewise one or two previous U K prime ministers, I believe both Margaret Thatcher and Gordon Brown.

*******However eminently reasonable-sounding she was in her tone, that'd surely have to go down for the most understated, euphemistic assessment of the ongoing, seemingly never-ending constitutional crisis/fiasco which is Brexit that would even be imaginable!

********Or methinks perplexed, baffled, bamboozled, bedazzled...would likely be more apt...especially re all the ins and outs and outs and ins of the so-called Irish 'backstop'...and apparently I'm by no means alone in that...  Plus completely, frustratingly round-the-bendable...

*********As graphically depicted - with extraordinary clarity and utterly convincing prophetic insight even - in a brilliant box-set (or two) entitled: 'The Nostradamus Effect' and 'Nostradamus:2012', I happened to stumble upon back in, you guessed it, that year the world was predicted to end...(i.e.on December 21) 2012...though, curiously enough - however much asserted by critics (of 'prophecies' and the like contained therein) - not actually - necessarily - asserted therein. 

Postscript (vis-a-vis brief remarks of European Union leaders thereabouts - as reported by Cindy (?Kew) on today's midday 'World Watch' on RNZ National... "There'll be no further concessions by the EU"? Really? That's a piece of straight out fake news if I ever hear it; they've only ever given diddly squat...from the very get-go...

FANONOMEN: A Bit of Light Relief (as a needed break from el usual gloom & doom): i.e. For A Nephew Of No Mean Notoriety...on the birth of a wee bitty baby boy

I simply cannot get beyond/do better than my good ole childhood favourite, to wit The Sneetches AND OTHER STORIES...

...and in particular story #3 (of 4)...i.e. 'Too Many Daves'

As only *Dr Suess could put it - admittedly, without his equally inimitable illustrations:

Did I ever tell you that Mrs. McCave
Had twenty-three sons and she named them all Dave?

Well, she did. And that wasn't a smart thing to do.
You see, when she wants one and calls out, "Yoo-Hoo!
Come into the house, Dave!" she doesn't get one.
All twenty-three Daves of hers come on the run!"

This makes things quite difficult at the McCaves'
As you can imagine, with so many Daves.
And often she wishes that, when they were born,
She had named one of them Bodkin Van Horn
And one of them Hoos-Foos. And one of them Snimm.
And one of them Hot-Shot. And one Sunny Jim.
And one of them Shadrack. And one of them Blinkey.
And one of them Stuffy. And one of them Stinkey.
Another one Putt-Putt. Another one Moon Face.
Another one Marvin O'Gravel Balloon Face.
And one of them Ziggy. And one Soggy Muff.
One Buffalo Bill. And one Biffalo Buff.
And one of them Sneepy. And one Weepy Weed.
And one Paris Garters. And one Harris Tweed.
And one of them Sir Michael Carmichael Zutt.
And one of them Oliver Bolivar Butt
And one of them Zanzibar Buck-Buck McFate...
But she didn't do it. And now it's too late.

(Italics, capitalizations and highlighted letters all Dr Suess'.)

*Theodore Geissel in real life, who died not all that long back (in his native France) at a good old age (into his 100s).

Necessary Disclaimer/Postscript:

In our oh-so-uptight era when folk are only too willing to, as (many believe) the Good Book prophesies (oh so aptly) of our last days generation, **watch for iniquity...[and]...make a man an offender for a word, I here and now apologize to anyone not so blessed...that is, by being christened Dave...or (as I at least prefer), David...

...Hey, folks, we can't all be so lucky/blessed out of our socks, can we!

**Isaiah 29:20-21.

P.P.S. As of last Friday March the 8th I understand said 'wee bitty baby boy' has at last been named... Ihaka Harry...which, transliterated, is, I understand, 'Isaac Harry'...

...after no-one/no persons in particular evidently...