Sunday, February 24, 2019
May the Good Lord Bless You Muchly, Daryl (Davis): A True Peacemaker In Our Troubled Times...who someone by the name of Martin Luther King would be proud of...
Jesus Himself said it all, and succinctly:
*Blessed [Truly Happy] are the peacemakers, for they shall be called sons [children] of God.
And so I dedicate this (for now, necessarily brief as) blogpost to a black American rhythm and blues musician named Daryl Davis, of whom I only just heard awhile ago - all of two hours, in fact...
...who apparently has been working one-on-one with individual Ku Klux Klan members over recent years (and even decades?)...with eminent success evidently...
...reportedly based upon an honest dialogue and showing due (if completely undeserved!) respect for them on that (individual) basis...and thus far seeing 200 former Klansmen leave the organization....
Please all of you Black Lives Matter folk - justifiably angry, even incensed and all the rest, over the needless, senseless - and moreover malicious and murderous - killings of your black compatriots throughout the length and breadth of America...and moreover the systemic and systemically-sanctioned slaughter - in cold-blooded savagery - of the same, by the so-called, supposed 'enforcers of law and order' in the land...
Yes, you've more than sufficient reason and 'excuse' to feel absolutely 'ropable' thereabouts, no-one can conceivably deny...
But please don't criticize and even condemn - if only by faint praise and thinly-veiled criticism - the efforts of one genuinely heroic individual...who being black himself is ever clearly taking his very own life in his hands...
...for the rescuing of even one Klansman is a mini-miracle and a testament to supernatural assistance - whether (explicitly) recognised and acknowledged by Davis himself, I've frankly no idea and don't even really care...
For as Daryl Davis himself says, there aren't lots of different races, there's really only one race on Earth, the human race...
...and as the ole song goes, 'it only takes a spark to get a fire going, and then all those around can warm up in its glowing...'
Sure, legislation - and all the rest - as Martin Luther King himself realized and oftentimes affirmed, is necessary in the civil rights movement...however long it ultimately lasts...
...but hey, let's each light a candle rather than simply curse the darkness...
for in the long run - as is obviously the case with Mr Davis already - it'll achieve a whole lot more.
*Blessed [Truly Happy] are the peacemakers, for they shall be called sons [children] of God.
And so I dedicate this (for now, necessarily brief as) blogpost to a black American rhythm and blues musician named Daryl Davis, of whom I only just heard awhile ago - all of two hours, in fact...
...who apparently has been working one-on-one with individual Ku Klux Klan members over recent years (and even decades?)...with eminent success evidently...
...reportedly based upon an honest dialogue and showing due (if completely undeserved!) respect for them on that (individual) basis...and thus far seeing 200 former Klansmen leave the organization....
Please all of you Black Lives Matter folk - justifiably angry, even incensed and all the rest, over the needless, senseless - and moreover malicious and murderous - killings of your black compatriots throughout the length and breadth of America...and moreover the systemic and systemically-sanctioned slaughter - in cold-blooded savagery - of the same, by the so-called, supposed 'enforcers of law and order' in the land...
Yes, you've more than sufficient reason and 'excuse' to feel absolutely 'ropable' thereabouts, no-one can conceivably deny...
But please don't criticize and even condemn - if only by faint praise and thinly-veiled criticism - the efforts of one genuinely heroic individual...who being black himself is ever clearly taking his very own life in his hands...
...for the rescuing of even one Klansman is a mini-miracle and a testament to supernatural assistance - whether (explicitly) recognised and acknowledged by Davis himself, I've frankly no idea and don't even really care...
For as Daryl Davis himself says, there aren't lots of different races, there's really only one race on Earth, the human race...
...and as the ole song goes, 'it only takes a spark to get a fire going, and then all those around can warm up in its glowing...'
Sure, legislation - and all the rest - as Martin Luther King himself realized and oftentimes affirmed, is necessary in the civil rights movement...however long it ultimately lasts...
...but hey, let's each light a candle rather than simply curse the darkness...
for in the long run - as is obviously the case with Mr Davis already - it'll achieve a whole lot more.
Friday, February 22, 2019
Three Momentous 'Anniversaries' (or 'near-ones') Impacting Over-Muchly Upon Our Increasingly Fraught Day and Age
Again, these'll seem entirely unrelated...but may I respectfully suggest that
*Tomorrow's 46th anniversary of 'Roe Vs Wade' commemorates arguably the defining issue of the Western 'Culture Wars', and thus and so I understand that American Christians (in particular) intend to mark tomorrow by a day of prayer and fasting...
*The 40th anniversary of the Iranian Revolution likewise signposts the beginning of the Islamic Renaissance in our era...with all that that momentous development has had on the world ever since... and that does not even include the increasing and increasingly worrisome possibility, nay probability, of an all-out (at least regional) - yes, nuclear - war (between Israel and Iran) in the Middle East...
And as the 9 p.m. RNZ National News Bulletin has now once again confirmed,
*the similarly periodically waxing and waning and waxing and waning and waxing tensions between those two southern Asian nuclear powers, India and Pakistan, have ratcheted up yet again...after being effectively quelled (to a large extent) over recent days...following a renewed flare-up in the immediate aftermath of the bombing/blowing up of 40 or so Indian military folk in the border region of Kashmir just a few weeks back...
And so, folks, I suggest a day of prayer and fasting would not go amiss for any of us in the forseeable...
*Tomorrow's 46th anniversary of 'Roe Vs Wade' commemorates arguably the defining issue of the Western 'Culture Wars', and thus and so I understand that American Christians (in particular) intend to mark tomorrow by a day of prayer and fasting...
*The 40th anniversary of the Iranian Revolution likewise signposts the beginning of the Islamic Renaissance in our era...with all that that momentous development has had on the world ever since... and that does not even include the increasing and increasingly worrisome possibility, nay probability, of an all-out (at least regional) - yes, nuclear - war (between Israel and Iran) in the Middle East...
And as the 9 p.m. RNZ National News Bulletin has now once again confirmed,
*the similarly periodically waxing and waning and waxing and waning and waxing tensions between those two southern Asian nuclear powers, India and Pakistan, have ratcheted up yet again...after being effectively quelled (to a large extent) over recent days...following a renewed flare-up in the immediate aftermath of the bombing/blowing up of 40 or so Indian military folk in the border region of Kashmir just a few weeks back...
And so, folks, I suggest a day of prayer and fasting would not go amiss for any of us in the forseeable...
Fait Accompli: The Complete Coup of the Post-Modernist Double-Standard
From all accounts it would appear that inconsistency, even bare-faced contradiction is undeniably the hallmark of our post-modernist age... Yes, indeed. But guess what, folks? -"...what is highly esteemed among [humankind] is an abomination in the sight of God." Yes, 'times may change', as they say, but the great Creator God doesn't...His unchanging character being the very essence of the integrity of His being...
Applying the foregoing to the political whims and fancies, fads and fashions of modern Western political life, this blogpost will be a tying together of such a disparate 'duo' as the New Zealand National Party's backbench Invercargill M.P. Sarah Dowie on the one hand, and Scotland's former longserving First Minister Alex Salmond on the other...and (as of yesterday) throwing in National's North Shore M.P. Maggie Barry for good measure...
Which might well seem as sensible a proposition as throwing various refrigerated odds 'n sods into a pan, applying some heat and expecting a culinary miracle to eventually transpire...-like seriously, folks... Something akin/similar to the Israelite patriarch Moses' brother Aaron's ingenious attempt to explicate his fateful compromise and deflect responsibility, and so extricate himself from the resultant blame - and much worse - by claiming the people broke off their ornamental gold, handed it to him, then "I cast it into the fire, and this [golden] calf came out"!
As we'd say in kiwi-ville: "Yeah, right (Aaron)!" In other words a highly unlikely thing - any way you choose to put it. But to return to our topic, and presenting last things first...
Espying Maggie Barry yesterday aft upon parliamentary TV, for some reason I all of a sudden recalled the public revelation November last - whilst engaged in a regular housesitting job - of her psychological bullying of parliamentary staffers working in her office...and lo and behold, probably not an hour on, while listening to the 4 p.m. news bulletin on Newstalk ZB that very saga was - for the first time in almost three months - 'recalled', in respect of some investigation by parliamentary auditors or the like...
Which I mention, in this blogpost's context, as to me anyway it well illustrates - as I reflected upon recalling it yesterday, for the first time since then - how women who do bad stuff (in NZ, anyway) seem to get away scot-free...invariably get slapped over the wrist with ye proverbial wet bus ticket... and then the entire matter is relegated to the dust-bins of forgetfulness...
To Be Continued...due to unforeseen - and frankly quite unforeseeable! - interruption, as per usual.
(Very sorry, folks...but it looks as though I'm gonna finally have to move...if I'm ever to get proper time for this (and my other) blogsite...it's getting that problematic...I kid ya's not...
Applying the foregoing to the political whims and fancies, fads and fashions of modern Western political life, this blogpost will be a tying together of such a disparate 'duo' as the New Zealand National Party's backbench Invercargill M.P. Sarah Dowie on the one hand, and Scotland's former longserving First Minister Alex Salmond on the other...and (as of yesterday) throwing in National's North Shore M.P. Maggie Barry for good measure...
Which might well seem as sensible a proposition as throwing various refrigerated odds 'n sods into a pan, applying some heat and expecting a culinary miracle to eventually transpire...-like seriously, folks... Something akin/similar to the Israelite patriarch Moses' brother Aaron's ingenious attempt to explicate his fateful compromise and deflect responsibility, and so extricate himself from the resultant blame - and much worse - by claiming the people broke off their ornamental gold, handed it to him, then "I cast it into the fire, and this [golden] calf came out"!
As we'd say in kiwi-ville: "Yeah, right (Aaron)!" In other words a highly unlikely thing - any way you choose to put it. But to return to our topic, and presenting last things first...
Espying Maggie Barry yesterday aft upon parliamentary TV, for some reason I all of a sudden recalled the public revelation November last - whilst engaged in a regular housesitting job - of her psychological bullying of parliamentary staffers working in her office...and lo and behold, probably not an hour on, while listening to the 4 p.m. news bulletin on Newstalk ZB that very saga was - for the first time in almost three months - 'recalled', in respect of some investigation by parliamentary auditors or the like...
Which I mention, in this blogpost's context, as to me anyway it well illustrates - as I reflected upon recalling it yesterday, for the first time since then - how women who do bad stuff (in NZ, anyway) seem to get away scot-free...invariably get slapped over the wrist with ye proverbial wet bus ticket... and then the entire matter is relegated to the dust-bins of forgetfulness...
To Be Continued...due to unforeseen - and frankly quite unforeseeable! - interruption, as per usual.
(Very sorry, folks...but it looks as though I'm gonna finally have to move...if I'm ever to get proper time for this (and my other) blogsite...it's getting that problematic...I kid ya's not...
Wednesday, February 20, 2019
Bernie Sanders, (back) cometh the moment, (back) cometh the man: Who Else is so eminently qualified to fill the World's Most Important Political Position?
Except perhaps President Obama's Veep, Joe Biden...who is still (expected, anyhow) to announce (his candidacy for United States President)...or perhaps he could serve as (Sanders') VP once again...
It's somewhat odd to return on this my 303th blogpost (on davidedwinisms) to the Sanders name...also cited in one of my very earliest (back in mid-2012) vis-a-vis that man *with the golden recipe, Colonel Sanders himself...
...and these days we even have the spectre of Sarah Huckabee Sanders as President Trump's ever-versatile Press Secretary (I believe is the formal/official title she holds)...
But apparently Bernie Sanders has declared in this his 77th year of life, so I felt this a fitting time.
Nevertheless, despite this unequivocal as endorsement, and despite retaining my dual (kiwi-U S) citizenship thus enabling me to **cast a vote in that ***most important of all elections, my staunch, biblical stance upon ****two ever-contentious issues - abortion and same-sex marriage - would ultimately prevent my conscientiously casting a vote in his direction...for as a *****commandment-upholding Christ-follower, that must ever take precedence over any personal political preference...something that I would respectfully suggest distinguishes me from ye average ******'cultural Christian' of today...
But as the one person - by dint of his Jewish heritage - able to help bring an end to that most intractable of all global conflicts, i.e. the Israeli-Palestinian conflict...he's the best choice by far: to help, as I say - under divine sovereignty alone, no doubt - to bring an ultimate end to this most insoluble of political dilemmas...
Approaching the subject as a Jew, yet from a non-pro-Israeli stance, perhaps he could succeed where all others have thus far failed...and surely that's at least worth a try...don't ya think - no, truly?
*Though not a meat-eater for well nigh a third of a century now, in my youth I simply loved the smell and taste thereof - however endlessly maligned by the hordes of food snobs out there - but even more, the childhood (early-to-mid seventies) TV ad thereabouts was - and still is - on a level all its own.
**However, even if Senator Sanders were selected as Democratic Nominee in 2020, an unfortunately rather diminishing likelihood from all accounts (for all number of reasons), my own 'state home' would be the last place I lived in the US (in the early-to-mid-nineties), i.e. my Mum's home state of Minnesota...and if Sanders proved unable to win there, he'd lose in the biggest landslide of all time.
***As they all are (alleged to be), admittedly.
****Though there are doubtless many, if not innumerable, others...such as euthanasia (just for starters).
*****Of the (true, biblical) Sabbath-keeping variety, that is - i.e. as per the fourth commandment of the Decalogue. Not just my own say-so, either, as theologians of all major Christian denominations are on record (over the decades, even centuries) as affirming as much...even the Roman Catholic Church, which ultimately *******claims authority for having made this change in the Ten Commandments
******See my 66th blogpost upon my other blogpost, http://nuffsaid:consideryourself-frombothsidesnow.blogspot.co.nz/ (or .com/).
*******Not that any merely earthly entity has such authority, you understand...which no doubt explains why the little horn power so vividly and graphically depicted and elaborated upon in the great beasts' prophecy of Daniel 7 asserts that this great religio-political power (only) 'thinks to change times and laws'...including incidentally the second as well...oh, and the tenth too...
Postscript: After completing this, a 'brainwave' idea came to me: that Bernie Sanders - jettisoning the previous 'burn' guff, though as a 'fellow bern-namer', I do see the value thereof - he should embrace this slogan for Campaign 2020: Embracing a 20/20 Vision of a Better World.
Though better still - than any of such political tinkering and fiddling at the edges - why doesn't he do/make a truly bipartisan thing/gesture and select, as his Vice-Presidential Nominee, a Republican of proven calibre and integrity...and political vision...such as Kentucky Senator Rand Paul...
...something that true political gentleman/potential statesman of yesteryear, Democratic Senator George McGovern, evidently considered also...in that instance choosing the (then) longtime maverick Washington (State) Senator (whose name I've temporarily forgotten!) as his own running mate...
It's somewhat odd to return on this my 303th blogpost (on davidedwinisms) to the Sanders name...also cited in one of my very earliest (back in mid-2012) vis-a-vis that man *with the golden recipe, Colonel Sanders himself...
...and these days we even have the spectre of Sarah Huckabee Sanders as President Trump's ever-versatile Press Secretary (I believe is the formal/official title she holds)...
But apparently Bernie Sanders has declared in this his 77th year of life, so I felt this a fitting time.
Nevertheless, despite this unequivocal as endorsement, and despite retaining my dual (kiwi-U S) citizenship thus enabling me to **cast a vote in that ***most important of all elections, my staunch, biblical stance upon ****two ever-contentious issues - abortion and same-sex marriage - would ultimately prevent my conscientiously casting a vote in his direction...for as a *****commandment-upholding Christ-follower, that must ever take precedence over any personal political preference...something that I would respectfully suggest distinguishes me from ye average ******'cultural Christian' of today...
But as the one person - by dint of his Jewish heritage - able to help bring an end to that most intractable of all global conflicts, i.e. the Israeli-Palestinian conflict...he's the best choice by far: to help, as I say - under divine sovereignty alone, no doubt - to bring an ultimate end to this most insoluble of political dilemmas...
Approaching the subject as a Jew, yet from a non-pro-Israeli stance, perhaps he could succeed where all others have thus far failed...and surely that's at least worth a try...don't ya think - no, truly?
*Though not a meat-eater for well nigh a third of a century now, in my youth I simply loved the smell and taste thereof - however endlessly maligned by the hordes of food snobs out there - but even more, the childhood (early-to-mid seventies) TV ad thereabouts was - and still is - on a level all its own.
**However, even if Senator Sanders were selected as Democratic Nominee in 2020, an unfortunately rather diminishing likelihood from all accounts (for all number of reasons), my own 'state home' would be the last place I lived in the US (in the early-to-mid-nineties), i.e. my Mum's home state of Minnesota...and if Sanders proved unable to win there, he'd lose in the biggest landslide of all time.
***As they all are (alleged to be), admittedly.
****Though there are doubtless many, if not innumerable, others...such as euthanasia (just for starters).
*****Of the (true, biblical) Sabbath-keeping variety, that is - i.e. as per the fourth commandment of the Decalogue. Not just my own say-so, either, as theologians of all major Christian denominations are on record (over the decades, even centuries) as affirming as much...even the Roman Catholic Church, which ultimately *******claims authority for having made this change in the Ten Commandments
******See my 66th blogpost upon my other blogpost, http://nuffsaid:consideryourself-frombothsidesnow.blogspot.co.nz/ (or .com/).
*******Not that any merely earthly entity has such authority, you understand...which no doubt explains why the little horn power so vividly and graphically depicted and elaborated upon in the great beasts' prophecy of Daniel 7 asserts that this great religio-political power (only) 'thinks to change times and laws'...including incidentally the second as well...oh, and the tenth too...
Postscript: After completing this, a 'brainwave' idea came to me: that Bernie Sanders - jettisoning the previous 'burn' guff, though as a 'fellow bern-namer', I do see the value thereof - he should embrace this slogan for Campaign 2020: Embracing a 20/20 Vision of a Better World.
Though better still - than any of such political tinkering and fiddling at the edges - why doesn't he do/make a truly bipartisan thing/gesture and select, as his Vice-Presidential Nominee, a Republican of proven calibre and integrity...and political vision...such as Kentucky Senator Rand Paul...
...something that true political gentleman/potential statesman of yesteryear, Democratic Senator George McGovern, evidently considered also...in that instance choosing the (then) longtime maverick Washington (State) Senator (whose name I've temporarily forgotten!) as his own running mate...
So What is a Self-Respecting Nation to do? Vis-a-vis the 'Peoples' Republic of China: Come Cringingly Under the Dragon's Beguiling, Hypnotic Spell...or Stand Free in Our God-Given Liberty? It's a No-Brainer, Folks
There's been a plethora of commentary and speculation of late upon New Zealand's increasingly 'fraught' relationship with China - the Peoples' Republic thereof, that is, as Taiwan, last I heard, still maintains itself as the 'Democratic Republic of China' (if I've got things right), or at least effectively so...however snubbed and otherwise ignored by other nations ever seeking to cozy up to the Smiling Oriental Dragon...
Without any further ado, let's cut to the chase: yes, economist Mike Riddell is spot-on vis-a-vis China ...especially as to the barely-veiled current attempts of a craven, cowardly and increasingly cringeworthy NZ National Party to cozy on up to 'em...in an unhealthy, codependent, sycophantic fashion to boot...a line (too feeble-minded to be credited as 'reasoning') that the so-called 'peoples' radio', RNZ National, has itself tended to take up and espouse/promote (up to recent days at least)...
Indeed, Canterbury University's own Anne-Marie Brady - herself secretly subjected to surreptitious search and seizure (in the sacred precincts of her own home) awhile ago - is a perfect test case of just how dangerous a thing it really is to *snuggle up to the Chinese Dragon...a proposition indeed that makes **Bilbo Baggins' unenviable quest into Smaug the Dragon of the Lonely Mountain's deep, dark hideaway almost look a veritable piece of cake by comparison...
Yes, it's all about genuinely cherishing and honouring our own well-founded values and longstanding traditions, and thus maintaining self-respect...and standing alongside all good folk everywhere for that rather old-fashioned but still valuable concept of ****'human rights' and freedom...
*No, she didn't so snuggle up to the PRC, but NZ already well and truly having done so under H Clark & Co back in 2008...and said process having been put into overdrive under the Key (and English) administrations...I'm merely making the (arguably self-evident) point that the closer one's relationship becomes with Beijing, the more fraught things are likely to get, and indeed have verily become...for the smaller ***'partner', in this case lil ole God's Own...
**As recounted so superbly in that masterpiece of classical epic literature, JRR Tolkien's The Hobbit.
***Of course truly a partner only in name.
****Something former U S President Jimmy Carter was so mercilessly parodied over...as the 'Otago Daily Times *****documented a few years back in what was a very revealing backgrounder to his presidency. Carter - quite justifiably in my view, anyhow - felt (immensely) proud - however much his Republican presidential opponent, the then former two-term Governor of California, Ronald Reagan (and American media generally) depicted/characterized him as effectively being the United States' 'Wimp-in-Chief' - that under his presidential tenure not one person lost ******'their' life.
*****In its well-reputed 'World Focus' Monday supplement, sadly now given ordinary, everyday status within the ODT's general pages.
******Yes, more precisely 'his/her', but 'their' seems to have now passed into everyday vocab. As to the far more substantive point, Carter was presumably including not only the fact that America's overseas-stationed defence/defensive (though more often these days, offence/offensive) forces were not involved then in the taking of any lives, military or civilian - clearly no American-related wars were being fought - but also that nobody was put to death on federal 'death row' under his tenure... - a feat surely worth noting and for which - however completely ignored by the 'informing' media -one can surely excuse him for having been justifiably more than a little proud...
Without any further ado, let's cut to the chase: yes, economist Mike Riddell is spot-on vis-a-vis China ...especially as to the barely-veiled current attempts of a craven, cowardly and increasingly cringeworthy NZ National Party to cozy on up to 'em...in an unhealthy, codependent, sycophantic fashion to boot...a line (too feeble-minded to be credited as 'reasoning') that the so-called 'peoples' radio', RNZ National, has itself tended to take up and espouse/promote (up to recent days at least)...
Indeed, Canterbury University's own Anne-Marie Brady - herself secretly subjected to surreptitious search and seizure (in the sacred precincts of her own home) awhile ago - is a perfect test case of just how dangerous a thing it really is to *snuggle up to the Chinese Dragon...a proposition indeed that makes **Bilbo Baggins' unenviable quest into Smaug the Dragon of the Lonely Mountain's deep, dark hideaway almost look a veritable piece of cake by comparison...
Yes, it's all about genuinely cherishing and honouring our own well-founded values and longstanding traditions, and thus maintaining self-respect...and standing alongside all good folk everywhere for that rather old-fashioned but still valuable concept of ****'human rights' and freedom...
*No, she didn't so snuggle up to the PRC, but NZ already well and truly having done so under H Clark & Co back in 2008...and said process having been put into overdrive under the Key (and English) administrations...I'm merely making the (arguably self-evident) point that the closer one's relationship becomes with Beijing, the more fraught things are likely to get, and indeed have verily become...for the smaller ***'partner', in this case lil ole God's Own...
**As recounted so superbly in that masterpiece of classical epic literature, JRR Tolkien's The Hobbit.
***Of course truly a partner only in name.
****Something former U S President Jimmy Carter was so mercilessly parodied over...as the 'Otago Daily Times *****documented a few years back in what was a very revealing backgrounder to his presidency. Carter - quite justifiably in my view, anyhow - felt (immensely) proud - however much his Republican presidential opponent, the then former two-term Governor of California, Ronald Reagan (and American media generally) depicted/characterized him as effectively being the United States' 'Wimp-in-Chief' - that under his presidential tenure not one person lost ******'their' life.
*****In its well-reputed 'World Focus' Monday supplement, sadly now given ordinary, everyday status within the ODT's general pages.
******Yes, more precisely 'his/her', but 'their' seems to have now passed into everyday vocab. As to the far more substantive point, Carter was presumably including not only the fact that America's overseas-stationed defence/defensive (though more often these days, offence/offensive) forces were not involved then in the taking of any lives, military or civilian - clearly no American-related wars were being fought - but also that nobody was put to death on federal 'death row' under his tenure... - a feat surely worth noting and for which - however completely ignored by the 'informing' media -one can surely excuse him for having been justifiably more than a little proud...
Monday, February 18, 2019
Sissii Internationale's Shamima Begum - and Shameless Hangers-On (including Oft-Lauded Former Three-Term NZ PM & UN's #3) - Simply Beggar/s Belief...
So what else is new...or even remotely surprising...in this left means right, up means down, backwards means forwards, and inside means outside, supposedly super-enlightened generation of ours? Pretty much nothing at all, evidently...
Yes, welcome back to the (soon) conclusion of the second decade of the 21st Century...a time in which the *inherent contradictions in the reality of the day could hardly be better enunciated than by that prescient translator and interpreter of the future, George Orwell, in his ever-relevant Nineteen Eighty-Four.
*Orwell [Eric Arthur Blair] wrote many memorable texts, including the equally-riveting Animal Farm. 1984 gives us the unforgettable equations of
War Is Peace...Freedom is Slavery...Ignorance is Strength
whereas Animal Farm brought us the inimitable
Two Legs Bad...Four Legs Good...
& All Animals are Equal, but some animals are more equal than others
among other self-contradictory 'truisms'...
But before I get well and truly waylaid and completely off the track, the point I'm trying - in however belaboured a fashion - to make, is simply this: the mere fact that anyone - in her or his right mind, that is - somehow or other really, truly believes that the likes of this Sissii recruit has some sort of an inherent, human right - in this case to return to the United Kingdom...despite evidencing no remorse whatsoever over the evil deeds of her fellow-travellers...is quite frankly unfathomable...
...were it not so very typical of the mindset of some these days...who, as the **Good Book has stated oh so aptly, 'put evil for good and good for evil', 'who call darkness light and light darkness'...
And how about expediting her return asap and putting her on trial for high treason...because, quite frankly, her gender, relative youth and parental status should have nothing whatsoever to do with it...
-she's patently guilty of high crimes and misdemeanours by complicity and association...and deserves the sort of 'mercy' that she and her associates were ever only so very willing to dispense to others...
Yes, the All-Merciful One - Yahweh, praise His great and glorious Name - is ever willing to forgive...the truly and genuinely repentant...yet as Israel's best ever king, David, eventually learnt (to his everlasting sorrow), sin always carries consequences and can not always be completely 'offset' in the here and now...though God ever retains the sovereign right and privilege of forgiveness...and can pardon the blackest, most heinous sins imaginable...
...yes, even those of Sissii Internationale and its ***motley crew of ragtag hangers-on...
...thank God (and God alone)...
**As indeed I blogposted about - and with such a title as well, I recall - in the not so distant past...
***But I don't describe them thus to in any way seek to downplay or excuse the deliberate, wilful 'malice of aforethought' engaged in by all those who've ever signed up with SI and/or relocated to help further their malicious designs...no way, Jose!
Footnote (following today's (February 19th) RNZ National Panel discussion):
Apparently some folk are allegedly "surprised at the [patent] lack of sympathy [for SB] among the British"...! Really? For this completely unrepentant individual who has not only steadfastly refused to condemn what her Sissii International associates got up to, but has even apparently claimed - and who can deny the validity of her assertion, having evidently been someone somewhat 'in the know' (despite an abundance of oh so convenient protestations to the contrary now it suits her self-serving purposes) - that "the Manchester bombing/s was/were retaliation for [British involvement in] Syria".
Yes, as the oft-cited (varsity professor and NZ military analyst) Al Gillespie himself then stated, such people as SB were, much like the hard core of SS troops who remained in Berlin right up to the bitter end (of WW11 and Adolf Hitler & Co), "[among] the hardest of the hardest". And so surely far less deserving of such sympathy and mercy than all others (involved), wouldn't any reasonable person agree?
And - when pointedly asked by the longtime and well-respected correspondent Quentin Somerville (both upon BBC World Radio's regular weekday/s OS programme this morning and a little later as replayed and/or relayed by RNZ National's Morning Report after 7.30 a.m. (NZ time) this morning) - "whether - as a poster child for [S/I] - you are/were sorry [re] the people killed by [S/I]?", SB matter-of-factly replied:
"Yeah, I am sorry for all the families in the UK who've lost people as a result of [S/I activities]...
[But] I think I did no wrong" - having apparently not been personally involved in the actual fighting/beheadings...
So SB was "unable to make her own decisions"? Sorry, she carefully planned and meticulously carried out her involvement with this death-cult, moving to the very centre of their global activities... marrying an [S/I] dude and thus becoming a child bride and then having kids to this fellow...
...and then having the temerity and gall to plead for mercy and understanding as if she didn't know what she was signing up for...
No, she was self-confessedly well able to make her own decisions and did just that...and is thus and so judged and condemned by her own words...
But much worse - in a way - are those who buy into her craven attempt to gain public sympathy now that, as I say, it suits her own self-serving purposes...and such folk are a perfect example and illustration of the complete double-standards such folk are ever willing to employ vis-a-vis respective male and female abusers and/or victims of stuff...
Yes, former kiwi P.M. and recent #3 (Aid and Development Head) at the UN, Helen Clark, is correct insofar as she cites international law which allows for such folk being repatriated (if that's the term) back to their country of origin (post-conflicts)...while expressing concern at SB's lack of remorse...but to this ****trooper such people have *****utterly forsaken any reasonable claim to earthly habitation or abode...- and should have to take the consequences of their malicious purposes and activities...
...though I do take on board Professor Gillespie's citing of "genuine concerns by Kurdish fighters" in the area for those fellow S/I folk in Syria who will now apparently be "scattered to [ye proverbial] winds"...for if any people group deserve our sympathies and practical (as well as prayerful) assistance at this time, it's Kurds in northern Syria and Iraq (and southern Turkey) and Iran.
After all, who else in the region has been consistently making such a valiant stand for the right?
****Ever in a non-military capacity, you understand...though I was pleasantly surprised, when standing as an independent for the NZ Parliament back in the 2008 General Election (which, incidentally, saw the ultimate demise of Ms Clark's political fortunes in God's Own), to receive 2 of the 100 or 200 special votes from military serving overseas...and that despite my ever staunch stand as a committed lifelong pacifist, though upon the campaign trail I did accept that, much as every last Swiss is trained (and duty-bound) to do, if NZ Inc was ever invaded we would have the sovereign right (and indeed responsibility) to defend our precious, treasured homeland from enemy invasion.
Perhaps such hardy military folk admired my frank honesty, but much more likely, sad to say, it was the very fortuitous placement of my particular surname at the very start of the queue - and the lack of any political party name next to it - that gave some the needed incentive to tick my box...
*****Which seeming severity should not however apply to her innocent wee child, who should be sent back home asap and brought up by grandparents (etc) (if they exist) in the United Kingdom...
Yes, welcome back to the (soon) conclusion of the second decade of the 21st Century...a time in which the *inherent contradictions in the reality of the day could hardly be better enunciated than by that prescient translator and interpreter of the future, George Orwell, in his ever-relevant Nineteen Eighty-Four.
*Orwell [Eric Arthur Blair] wrote many memorable texts, including the equally-riveting Animal Farm. 1984 gives us the unforgettable equations of
War Is Peace...Freedom is Slavery...Ignorance is Strength
whereas Animal Farm brought us the inimitable
Two Legs Bad...Four Legs Good...
& All Animals are Equal, but some animals are more equal than others
among other self-contradictory 'truisms'...
But before I get well and truly waylaid and completely off the track, the point I'm trying - in however belaboured a fashion - to make, is simply this: the mere fact that anyone - in her or his right mind, that is - somehow or other really, truly believes that the likes of this Sissii recruit has some sort of an inherent, human right - in this case to return to the United Kingdom...despite evidencing no remorse whatsoever over the evil deeds of her fellow-travellers...is quite frankly unfathomable...
...were it not so very typical of the mindset of some these days...who, as the **Good Book has stated oh so aptly, 'put evil for good and good for evil', 'who call darkness light and light darkness'...
And how about expediting her return asap and putting her on trial for high treason...because, quite frankly, her gender, relative youth and parental status should have nothing whatsoever to do with it...
-she's patently guilty of high crimes and misdemeanours by complicity and association...and deserves the sort of 'mercy' that she and her associates were ever only so very willing to dispense to others...
Yes, the All-Merciful One - Yahweh, praise His great and glorious Name - is ever willing to forgive...the truly and genuinely repentant...yet as Israel's best ever king, David, eventually learnt (to his everlasting sorrow), sin always carries consequences and can not always be completely 'offset' in the here and now...though God ever retains the sovereign right and privilege of forgiveness...and can pardon the blackest, most heinous sins imaginable...
...yes, even those of Sissii Internationale and its ***motley crew of ragtag hangers-on...
...thank God (and God alone)...
**As indeed I blogposted about - and with such a title as well, I recall - in the not so distant past...
***But I don't describe them thus to in any way seek to downplay or excuse the deliberate, wilful 'malice of aforethought' engaged in by all those who've ever signed up with SI and/or relocated to help further their malicious designs...no way, Jose!
Footnote (following today's (February 19th) RNZ National Panel discussion):
Apparently some folk are allegedly "surprised at the [patent] lack of sympathy [for SB] among the British"...! Really? For this completely unrepentant individual who has not only steadfastly refused to condemn what her Sissii International associates got up to, but has even apparently claimed - and who can deny the validity of her assertion, having evidently been someone somewhat 'in the know' (despite an abundance of oh so convenient protestations to the contrary now it suits her self-serving purposes) - that "the Manchester bombing/s was/were retaliation for [British involvement in] Syria".
Yes, as the oft-cited (varsity professor and NZ military analyst) Al Gillespie himself then stated, such people as SB were, much like the hard core of SS troops who remained in Berlin right up to the bitter end (of WW11 and Adolf Hitler & Co), "[among] the hardest of the hardest". And so surely far less deserving of such sympathy and mercy than all others (involved), wouldn't any reasonable person agree?
And - when pointedly asked by the longtime and well-respected correspondent Quentin Somerville (both upon BBC World Radio's regular weekday/s OS programme this morning and a little later as replayed and/or relayed by RNZ National's Morning Report after 7.30 a.m. (NZ time) this morning) - "whether - as a poster child for [S/I] - you are/were sorry [re] the people killed by [S/I]?", SB matter-of-factly replied:
"Yeah, I am sorry for all the families in the UK who've lost people as a result of [S/I activities]...
[But] I think I did no wrong" - having apparently not been personally involved in the actual fighting/beheadings...
So SB was "unable to make her own decisions"? Sorry, she carefully planned and meticulously carried out her involvement with this death-cult, moving to the very centre of their global activities... marrying an [S/I] dude and thus becoming a child bride and then having kids to this fellow...
...and then having the temerity and gall to plead for mercy and understanding as if she didn't know what she was signing up for...
No, she was self-confessedly well able to make her own decisions and did just that...and is thus and so judged and condemned by her own words...
But much worse - in a way - are those who buy into her craven attempt to gain public sympathy now that, as I say, it suits her own self-serving purposes...and such folk are a perfect example and illustration of the complete double-standards such folk are ever willing to employ vis-a-vis respective male and female abusers and/or victims of stuff...
Yes, former kiwi P.M. and recent #3 (Aid and Development Head) at the UN, Helen Clark, is correct insofar as she cites international law which allows for such folk being repatriated (if that's the term) back to their country of origin (post-conflicts)...while expressing concern at SB's lack of remorse...but to this ****trooper such people have *****utterly forsaken any reasonable claim to earthly habitation or abode...- and should have to take the consequences of their malicious purposes and activities...
...though I do take on board Professor Gillespie's citing of "genuine concerns by Kurdish fighters" in the area for those fellow S/I folk in Syria who will now apparently be "scattered to [ye proverbial] winds"...for if any people group deserve our sympathies and practical (as well as prayerful) assistance at this time, it's Kurds in northern Syria and Iraq (and southern Turkey) and Iran.
After all, who else in the region has been consistently making such a valiant stand for the right?
****Ever in a non-military capacity, you understand...though I was pleasantly surprised, when standing as an independent for the NZ Parliament back in the 2008 General Election (which, incidentally, saw the ultimate demise of Ms Clark's political fortunes in God's Own), to receive 2 of the 100 or 200 special votes from military serving overseas...and that despite my ever staunch stand as a committed lifelong pacifist, though upon the campaign trail I did accept that, much as every last Swiss is trained (and duty-bound) to do, if NZ Inc was ever invaded we would have the sovereign right (and indeed responsibility) to defend our precious, treasured homeland from enemy invasion.
Perhaps such hardy military folk admired my frank honesty, but much more likely, sad to say, it was the very fortuitous placement of my particular surname at the very start of the queue - and the lack of any political party name next to it - that gave some the needed incentive to tick my box...
*****Which seeming severity should not however apply to her innocent wee child, who should be sent back home asap and brought up by grandparents (etc) (if they exist) in the United Kingdom...
Sunday, February 10, 2019
"a strange god...he shall acknowledge and increase with glory" (Daniel 11:39) [Blogpost # 300]
An Unusual Introduction to Arguably One of my Most Important Blogposts Yet
For this, my (personally) epochal 300th blogpost upon my second(ary), originally subsidiary blogsite ...I've been, understandably enough, majorly conflicted...so many important and weighty matters not only weighing heavily upon my spirit, but literally predominating upon the airwaves...and in the blogosphere and throughout cyberspace...
So although my - eventually (and with extreme difficulty) - chosen topic today/tonight is not the only one I've considered...indeed, only as the day's progressed and morning's become afternoon and that in turn's given way to evening have I even come to consider this particular topic...nevertheless, of the rich menu upon offer (generally of recent times) it seems to me to be the most deserving, even demanding, of imminent attention and consideration...
So, for those, like myself, increasingly exercised of late about such diverse concerns as
*an outrightly, openly - make no bones about it, in your face, "this is business as normal" (in the Trumpian, post-truth era) - one-sided, highly partisan and even arguably ideological reportage of all matters Trump-related...c/o ye average, Western media outlet and 'journalist'...
*the peculiarly quick and bizarrely farfetched regressive 'development' of historical revisionism and outright expunction of objective, historically-documented realities, or, more precisely, the obsessive desire of so many these days to carefully airbrush things they don't happen to like or approve of...in order to make such palatable for their exquisitely, finely-nuanced grab-bag of personal sensibilities - all things needing proper vetting for the consumption of the **'up-and-coming' 'snowflake' generation...
*the absolute double-standards employed for alleged male vis-a-vis female offenders (in serious, especially sexually-related criminal investigations) - again, in ye 'enlightened West', it must be conceded...
*the control freak mentality of those seeking to engineer, define and/or predetermine the outcome of the long-contentious abortion debate (again, in Western nations), essentially by redefining the meaning/s of words and using them, not so much to enlighten and inform, but so as to bludgeon their usually quite conscientious opponents into some kind of mindless, cringing and fearful, however reluctant submission...
*the simple yet ever profound truisms epitomized and perfectly illustrated in and by my all-time favourite television film, Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory - the original version, that is...
...please bear with me if you so can, and wait just a little longer...I hope - and sincerely believe - you won't be disappointed, whether you happen to - ultimately - disagree with my assumptions, evaluations, interpretations, and conclusions or otherwise...
But this blogpost - as with a still being completed blogpost (significantly #66) upon my initial and originally major blogsite - will bear upon the just-below-the-radar but almost-constantly-observed and well-documented actions and pronouncements, times and travels of a certain well-known personage/media star/religious personality, even celebrity upon the global stage...
...and moreover the biblically significant, even rather earth-shattering - as in historically momentous - implications of his unconventional, unorthodox - even heterodox - approach to his own highly unique position/role in global affairs and upon the world scene...
My essential reason for choosing this particular subject being that - living as we unquestionably do in an era of great change and conflict, of portentous and problematic events, and of (the resultant and quite understandable) confusion and downright perplexity in all quarters...
...it's time to cut through some of the culturally-embellished and embroidered distractions and sideshows and non-issues - if only for a mo(ment) - and focus/zero in upon some matters which, however much they are (zealously) ignored and neglected and otherwise overlooked by selfsame media...
...impact regularly upon both our present, temporal lives and potentially our ultimate, eternal future...
**As regular viewers of my blogsites would well know, the unfair and malicious aspersion thus cast upon the humble and beautiful flake of snow is something that I personally find rather hard to stomach...(and thus and so, if you've a more suitable alternative, please let me know, I'm all ears!)
Part Two: Just What are we Dealing With Here?
I'm glad - yea, overjoyed - you asked. Where do - can - I start? Well, how about with this: what, prithee, means - or more precisely portends - the curious title I've selected for this my 300th blogpost upon http://davidedwinisms.blogspot.co.nz/(or .com/)?
Just this...to wit, the unusual decision of the leader of (what I believe/understand to be) the world's (numerically) largest religious group/body - i.e. the Roman Catholic Church's papal head, Pope Francis - to make an unprecedented visit to the Saudi Peninsula, and the United Arab Emirates in particular...
...whereupon he co-signed (alongside Sheik el-Tayeb) an equally unprecedented document - known as Nostra Aetate (I believe) - on behalf of his 1.2 billion parishioners...
a document which arguably effectively yields or surrenders the gauntlet in the ages-old religious feud/rivalry/tension between Catholicism (and Christendom-at-large for that matter) and Islam(ism).
And hence has not only astonished and appalled, incensed and outraged conservative Catholic traditionalists, but moreover (has) led only yesterday/the day before to the decision of a former prefect of the modern-day incarnation/manifestation/face and embodiment of the medieval RCC Inquisition - German cardinal Gerhard Mueller of the Congregation of the Doctrine of/for the Faith - to speak out - in a manifesto of complaint - the likes of which the Roman Catholic Church has possibly not seen since that fateful, historic moment a half-millennium previous upon which a lowly priest named Martin Luther nailed his 99 Theses to the door of his local, the Wittenberg Church.
So let's quickly backtrack here, in view of the fact that - in the estimation of many, no doubt - such religious controversies are invariably the result of nitpicking pedantry and splitting hairs over *essentially irrelevant doctrinal abstractions and trivia...though few there would be - at least over preceding centuries, post-Reformation - who would dare to so characterize the split in the One Church that then dominated the known world (and had done so for over a millennium prior).
*Which vividly reminds me of one of my varsity lecturers here in my home town of Dunedin, New Zealand - Political Scientist William (Bill) Harris (who specialized in Mideast Politics) - who (back in 2003, 2004 or thereabouts) seemed utterly flabbergasted, but more significantly completely bemused - as indeed was this punter under his esteemed tutelage hearing thereabouts!) that during the early centuries anno Domine the Christian Church was racked and torn with division and rancour vis-a-vis such a doctrinal 'irrelevance' - to the general populace - as the doctrine of the trinity...
Essentially fiddling while the city of Rome burned to the ground - undoubtedly the sort of charge that many would still level at the many factions of today's Christian Church...
To Be Continued...
For this, my (personally) epochal 300th blogpost upon my second(ary), originally subsidiary blogsite ...I've been, understandably enough, majorly conflicted...so many important and weighty matters not only weighing heavily upon my spirit, but literally predominating upon the airwaves...and in the blogosphere and throughout cyberspace...
So although my - eventually (and with extreme difficulty) - chosen topic today/tonight is not the only one I've considered...indeed, only as the day's progressed and morning's become afternoon and that in turn's given way to evening have I even come to consider this particular topic...nevertheless, of the rich menu upon offer (generally of recent times) it seems to me to be the most deserving, even demanding, of imminent attention and consideration...
So, for those, like myself, increasingly exercised of late about such diverse concerns as
*an outrightly, openly - make no bones about it, in your face, "this is business as normal" (in the Trumpian, post-truth era) - one-sided, highly partisan and even arguably ideological reportage of all matters Trump-related...c/o ye average, Western media outlet and 'journalist'...
*the peculiarly quick and bizarrely farfetched regressive 'development' of historical revisionism and outright expunction of objective, historically-documented realities, or, more precisely, the obsessive desire of so many these days to carefully airbrush things they don't happen to like or approve of...in order to make such palatable for their exquisitely, finely-nuanced grab-bag of personal sensibilities - all things needing proper vetting for the consumption of the **'up-and-coming' 'snowflake' generation...
*the absolute double-standards employed for alleged male vis-a-vis female offenders (in serious, especially sexually-related criminal investigations) - again, in ye 'enlightened West', it must be conceded...
*the control freak mentality of those seeking to engineer, define and/or predetermine the outcome of the long-contentious abortion debate (again, in Western nations), essentially by redefining the meaning/s of words and using them, not so much to enlighten and inform, but so as to bludgeon their usually quite conscientious opponents into some kind of mindless, cringing and fearful, however reluctant submission...
*the simple yet ever profound truisms epitomized and perfectly illustrated in and by my all-time favourite television film, Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory - the original version, that is...
...please bear with me if you so can, and wait just a little longer...I hope - and sincerely believe - you won't be disappointed, whether you happen to - ultimately - disagree with my assumptions, evaluations, interpretations, and conclusions or otherwise...
But this blogpost - as with a still being completed blogpost (significantly #66) upon my initial and originally major blogsite - will bear upon the just-below-the-radar but almost-constantly-observed and well-documented actions and pronouncements, times and travels of a certain well-known personage/media star/religious personality, even celebrity upon the global stage...
...and moreover the biblically significant, even rather earth-shattering - as in historically momentous - implications of his unconventional, unorthodox - even heterodox - approach to his own highly unique position/role in global affairs and upon the world scene...
My essential reason for choosing this particular subject being that - living as we unquestionably do in an era of great change and conflict, of portentous and problematic events, and of (the resultant and quite understandable) confusion and downright perplexity in all quarters...
...it's time to cut through some of the culturally-embellished and embroidered distractions and sideshows and non-issues - if only for a mo(ment) - and focus/zero in upon some matters which, however much they are (zealously) ignored and neglected and otherwise overlooked by selfsame media...
...impact regularly upon both our present, temporal lives and potentially our ultimate, eternal future...
**As regular viewers of my blogsites would well know, the unfair and malicious aspersion thus cast upon the humble and beautiful flake of snow is something that I personally find rather hard to stomach...(and thus and so, if you've a more suitable alternative, please let me know, I'm all ears!)
Part Two: Just What are we Dealing With Here?
I'm glad - yea, overjoyed - you asked. Where do - can - I start? Well, how about with this: what, prithee, means - or more precisely portends - the curious title I've selected for this my 300th blogpost upon http://davidedwinisms.blogspot.co.nz/(or .com/)?
Just this...to wit, the unusual decision of the leader of (what I believe/understand to be) the world's (numerically) largest religious group/body - i.e. the Roman Catholic Church's papal head, Pope Francis - to make an unprecedented visit to the Saudi Peninsula, and the United Arab Emirates in particular...
...whereupon he co-signed (alongside Sheik el-Tayeb) an equally unprecedented document - known as Nostra Aetate (I believe) - on behalf of his 1.2 billion parishioners...
a document which arguably effectively yields or surrenders the gauntlet in the ages-old religious feud/rivalry/tension between Catholicism (and Christendom-at-large for that matter) and Islam(ism).
And hence has not only astonished and appalled, incensed and outraged conservative Catholic traditionalists, but moreover (has) led only yesterday/the day before to the decision of a former prefect of the modern-day incarnation/manifestation/face and embodiment of the medieval RCC Inquisition - German cardinal Gerhard Mueller of the Congregation of the Doctrine of/for the Faith - to speak out - in a manifesto of complaint - the likes of which the Roman Catholic Church has possibly not seen since that fateful, historic moment a half-millennium previous upon which a lowly priest named Martin Luther nailed his 99 Theses to the door of his local, the Wittenberg Church.
So let's quickly backtrack here, in view of the fact that - in the estimation of many, no doubt - such religious controversies are invariably the result of nitpicking pedantry and splitting hairs over *essentially irrelevant doctrinal abstractions and trivia...though few there would be - at least over preceding centuries, post-Reformation - who would dare to so characterize the split in the One Church that then dominated the known world (and had done so for over a millennium prior).
*Which vividly reminds me of one of my varsity lecturers here in my home town of Dunedin, New Zealand - Political Scientist William (Bill) Harris (who specialized in Mideast Politics) - who (back in 2003, 2004 or thereabouts) seemed utterly flabbergasted, but more significantly completely bemused - as indeed was this punter under his esteemed tutelage hearing thereabouts!) that during the early centuries anno Domine the Christian Church was racked and torn with division and rancour vis-a-vis such a doctrinal 'irrelevance' - to the general populace - as the doctrine of the trinity...
Essentially fiddling while the city of Rome burned to the ground - undoubtedly the sort of charge that many would still level at the many factions of today's Christian Church...
To Be Continued...
Sunday, February 3, 2019
The Agony of Africa: A Continent in Continual Crisis
This blogpost was (in the main) prepared some thirteen days ago...
Though strident - including even street - protests seem to have become the norm of late, from New Zealand's halcyonic shores through to the post-revolutionary barricades/bulwarks/bastions of France - and we won't even 'go to' the U S of A, where protest for the mere, sheer sake of protest seems to have become the norm in the Trumpian era, whether directed at Trump, his past behaviour, megalomaniacal personality and/or policies per se or just expressing the pent up faux outrage that seems to be consuming so many of the younger generation there especially...
Better media, such as *the BBC in particular, has - aside from the ongoing brouhaha over Brexit - kept an observant eye upon Africa at large...where such protests have also spread of late (or perhaps just continued is a more apt descriptor)...
...to wit good ole Zimbabwe - and Sudan (alongside South Sudan). As with Tunisia - Libya - Egypt awhile ago - esp. in the much-vaunted Arab Spring - people are quite simply 'fed up'...to the rafters; they've - long since - had enough, (subconsciously even) realized/decided 'enough is enough'... . Much as the dude upon that classic 1970s' film 'Network' succinctly put it: "We're not gonna take it anymore!" No indeed.
And though **Zimbabweans are well used to chronic food shortages and rampant, off-the-wall inflation - quite aside from the ongoing political repression and 'low-level' persecution of regime opponents - as, for that matter, are their continental compatriots in such war-ravaged and drought-stricken lands as Sudan (and South Sudan)...
...the special 'security' measures adopted by authorities in these countries have gone from plain bad to damn awful of late...and need, asap, to be called out and condemned in not only no uncertain terms, but with way more than the usual (United Nations) ***sanctions often imposed; no, let these global do-gooders for once put some actual muscle and meaning behind their oh so high-falutin' language...
But lest I be regarded as myself adopting too flippant and light-hearted an approach here, of using weak-kneed and limp-wristed vocab in championing these much-oppressed and neglected peoples ...I'm frankly deeply ashamed by the conspicuous silence, apparent condoning, even arguable complicity shown by gutless nations like my own of late vis-a-vis the serious and sickening developments in these nations since the news broke of merciless security force-imposed beatings and torture, rapes and even murders of innocent civilians by such insecure, **** 'insane' regimes...
*Yes, let's credit them for keeping us duly and thoroughly informed of the fact that the humanitarian crises in Sudan, South Sudan and Zimbabwe have now been ratcheted up even further - pretty well to the nth degree and beyond...
**To be perfectly blunt, Zimbabwe 'under the croc(odile)' Managua is really just as opponents long predicted. His recent hall of mirrors and game of farce - dressed up as a genuine overseas "We're now open for business again!" invitation to a longtime-sceptical international community - is simply yet another act of hypocrisy played upon the global stage for all the world to see (and turn the other way, effectively giving he and his administration the green light to "Go ahead! - We're not paying proper attention, and couldn't frankly care less, anyway...do whatever you want...")...
...while underneath are - no, not 'The Everlasting Arms' of a merciful, Creator God (in this case), but the rotting carcass-filled whited sepulchres, carefully hidden from public view, of a thoroughly rotten regime...- one, as a caller to BBC's OS Conversations segment (22/1) stated, was actually starting to make (former, longtime President Robert) Mugabe's own administration look better by contrast.
The fella phoning in - adopting the pseudonym 'Jonathan' for security - mentioned that Zimbabweans were finding the security measures imposed under Managua "far worse" than those under Mugabe. The dear folk of Matabeleland slaughtered so unmercilessly three-and-a-half some decades ago under Managua's ruthless fist would hardly be all that surprised...the blessing of hindsight now revealing that Joshua Nkomo's own opposition movement would've doubtless been a much better and safer bet for the nation following their hard-won independence...
***Not that sanctions per se are necessarily lame and ineffectual - cf the likes of South Africa and Iraq - indeed they've often done substantial, including unintended and euphemistically-termed 'collateral', damage and injury to comparatively innocent populations...but they're hardly equivalent to military might (which I'd rarely recommend), and seeing that there is such a thing as United Nations peacekeepers, hey, let's get 'em to work for their keep, don't ya reckon?
****Insane as in utterly awful and outrageous, inexplicable and evil -not as in criminally un-liable.
Postscript: Additional Reflections, Ruminations and Re-balancings
Yet, surprisingly enough, not all is going to hell in ye proverbial handbasket in the great 'ole and venerable continent of Africa... .
While - to round out the picture before visiting some more positive places and perspectives, generally wholly bypassed by a trouble and crises-obsessed Western media - an inventory of African 'trouble spots' would hardly be complete without also including the likes of one-time Ebola-infested Sierra Leone, terrorist-stricken Somalia and, at times, even the - otherwise 'progressive and 'upwardly mobile' - Kenya and Nigeria, the (geographically quite sizeable) Islamist Bloc across the vast Saharan swathes of North Africa - incorporating such nations as Chad, Niger, Mali and Mauritania - and the trouble-plagued Central and Southern African (geographically and strategically, anyway) 'powerhouses' of the Democratic Republic of the Congo and South Africa...plus tiny little Burundi...
(18-some individual countries so far cited, though Tunisia, Mauritania and Kenya are debatable)...
all those places notwithstanding, why do we seldom if ever hear mention made of such success stories (of recent decades) as Ghana and Tanzania...and how about 'famine-infested' Ethiopia, and even the civil war-wracked scene of blood-curdling genocide, little ole (Central African-situated) Rwanda...just for starters, you understand...
And yes, you're not asking me, but I'll proffer a fairly well-informed opinion of an interested and (I'd maintain) quite fastidious observer - of both the African continent over my lifetime, and the mainstream Western media in particular...
...as to why such significant but ever-bypassed nation-states are invariably neglected and ignored...
Hey, it occurred to me long ago that the reason we Westerners hear so little about various nations worldwide -whether throughout Africa, South America and the Caribbean in particular...
...is that, "surprise, surprise", little if anything really bad, ghastly and just plain awful seems to be happening therein...
Yep, that's pretty well 'the long and the short of it', coz if it don't bleed, it just won't and don't lead... End of story! So sorry to burst your long-maintained bubble (of polyanna-erish naivete, folks).
Part Three (to come): Some further details (both negative and positive) upon some of these other 'bit players' on the African scene...at least for the benefit of our 'well-informed' Western populaces...
Though strident - including even street - protests seem to have become the norm of late, from New Zealand's halcyonic shores through to the post-revolutionary barricades/bulwarks/bastions of France - and we won't even 'go to' the U S of A, where protest for the mere, sheer sake of protest seems to have become the norm in the Trumpian era, whether directed at Trump, his past behaviour, megalomaniacal personality and/or policies per se or just expressing the pent up faux outrage that seems to be consuming so many of the younger generation there especially...
Better media, such as *the BBC in particular, has - aside from the ongoing brouhaha over Brexit - kept an observant eye upon Africa at large...where such protests have also spread of late (or perhaps just continued is a more apt descriptor)...
...to wit good ole Zimbabwe - and Sudan (alongside South Sudan). As with Tunisia - Libya - Egypt awhile ago - esp. in the much-vaunted Arab Spring - people are quite simply 'fed up'...to the rafters; they've - long since - had enough, (subconsciously even) realized/decided 'enough is enough'... . Much as the dude upon that classic 1970s' film 'Network' succinctly put it: "We're not gonna take it anymore!" No indeed.
And though **Zimbabweans are well used to chronic food shortages and rampant, off-the-wall inflation - quite aside from the ongoing political repression and 'low-level' persecution of regime opponents - as, for that matter, are their continental compatriots in such war-ravaged and drought-stricken lands as Sudan (and South Sudan)...
...the special 'security' measures adopted by authorities in these countries have gone from plain bad to damn awful of late...and need, asap, to be called out and condemned in not only no uncertain terms, but with way more than the usual (United Nations) ***sanctions often imposed; no, let these global do-gooders for once put some actual muscle and meaning behind their oh so high-falutin' language...
But lest I be regarded as myself adopting too flippant and light-hearted an approach here, of using weak-kneed and limp-wristed vocab in championing these much-oppressed and neglected peoples ...I'm frankly deeply ashamed by the conspicuous silence, apparent condoning, even arguable complicity shown by gutless nations like my own of late vis-a-vis the serious and sickening developments in these nations since the news broke of merciless security force-imposed beatings and torture, rapes and even murders of innocent civilians by such insecure, **** 'insane' regimes...
*Yes, let's credit them for keeping us duly and thoroughly informed of the fact that the humanitarian crises in Sudan, South Sudan and Zimbabwe have now been ratcheted up even further - pretty well to the nth degree and beyond...
**To be perfectly blunt, Zimbabwe 'under the croc(odile)' Managua is really just as opponents long predicted. His recent hall of mirrors and game of farce - dressed up as a genuine overseas "We're now open for business again!" invitation to a longtime-sceptical international community - is simply yet another act of hypocrisy played upon the global stage for all the world to see (and turn the other way, effectively giving he and his administration the green light to "Go ahead! - We're not paying proper attention, and couldn't frankly care less, anyway...do whatever you want...")...
...while underneath are - no, not 'The Everlasting Arms' of a merciful, Creator God (in this case), but the rotting carcass-filled whited sepulchres, carefully hidden from public view, of a thoroughly rotten regime...- one, as a caller to BBC's OS Conversations segment (22/1) stated, was actually starting to make (former, longtime President Robert) Mugabe's own administration look better by contrast.
The fella phoning in - adopting the pseudonym 'Jonathan' for security - mentioned that Zimbabweans were finding the security measures imposed under Managua "far worse" than those under Mugabe. The dear folk of Matabeleland slaughtered so unmercilessly three-and-a-half some decades ago under Managua's ruthless fist would hardly be all that surprised...the blessing of hindsight now revealing that Joshua Nkomo's own opposition movement would've doubtless been a much better and safer bet for the nation following their hard-won independence...
***Not that sanctions per se are necessarily lame and ineffectual - cf the likes of South Africa and Iraq - indeed they've often done substantial, including unintended and euphemistically-termed 'collateral', damage and injury to comparatively innocent populations...but they're hardly equivalent to military might (which I'd rarely recommend), and seeing that there is such a thing as United Nations peacekeepers, hey, let's get 'em to work for their keep, don't ya reckon?
****Insane as in utterly awful and outrageous, inexplicable and evil -not as in criminally un-liable.
Postscript: Additional Reflections, Ruminations and Re-balancings
Yet, surprisingly enough, not all is going to hell in ye proverbial handbasket in the great 'ole and venerable continent of Africa... .
While - to round out the picture before visiting some more positive places and perspectives, generally wholly bypassed by a trouble and crises-obsessed Western media - an inventory of African 'trouble spots' would hardly be complete without also including the likes of one-time Ebola-infested Sierra Leone, terrorist-stricken Somalia and, at times, even the - otherwise 'progressive and 'upwardly mobile' - Kenya and Nigeria, the (geographically quite sizeable) Islamist Bloc across the vast Saharan swathes of North Africa - incorporating such nations as Chad, Niger, Mali and Mauritania - and the trouble-plagued Central and Southern African (geographically and strategically, anyway) 'powerhouses' of the Democratic Republic of the Congo and South Africa...plus tiny little Burundi...
(18-some individual countries so far cited, though Tunisia, Mauritania and Kenya are debatable)...
all those places notwithstanding, why do we seldom if ever hear mention made of such success stories (of recent decades) as Ghana and Tanzania...and how about 'famine-infested' Ethiopia, and even the civil war-wracked scene of blood-curdling genocide, little ole (Central African-situated) Rwanda...just for starters, you understand...
And yes, you're not asking me, but I'll proffer a fairly well-informed opinion of an interested and (I'd maintain) quite fastidious observer - of both the African continent over my lifetime, and the mainstream Western media in particular...
...as to why such significant but ever-bypassed nation-states are invariably neglected and ignored...
Hey, it occurred to me long ago that the reason we Westerners hear so little about various nations worldwide -whether throughout Africa, South America and the Caribbean in particular...
...is that, "surprise, surprise", little if anything really bad, ghastly and just plain awful seems to be happening therein...
Yep, that's pretty well 'the long and the short of it', coz if it don't bleed, it just won't and don't lead... End of story! So sorry to burst your long-maintained bubble (of polyanna-erish naivete, folks).
Part Three (to come): Some further details (both negative and positive) upon some of these other 'bit players' on the African scene...at least for the benefit of our 'well-informed' Western populaces...
Thursday, January 31, 2019
A Real Clayton's Brexit - The Brexit You Get When You're Not Really Getting a Brexit: Botching a Brexit
Did you hear the 'joke'/little ditty (I made up earlier today)? Apparently Romania's a little bit peeved off with the British (Government/people) over Brexit...in terms of its expats, I gather, now having a more difficult time staying there (or suchlike)... Anyhow, the precise details aren't all that important, but you know my instant reaction (for those who could care)?
Of course Ro-man-i-a's critical of (the whole idea of) Brexit; they're Ru-main-iers, aren't they?
(Apologies to any Romanian reading this, my clumsy attempts at doing phonetic and syntactical justice to Romania - Rumania (as I believe it was once called) - have been well-intentioned, however poorly executed...
All joking aside, and it's certainly, if ever it was, long past a joking matter...
-To Be Continued asap (2-and-a-half some hours on)-
As anyone who's seriously perused my blogsites would well know, I've - from way back when - been a supporter of the concept of a Brexit, pretty well stemming - *not from any xenophobic fear and/or loathing of immigrant ethnicities as such - though ever (as in God's Own) well aware of the impact of unlimited, unfettered migration into any land from folk who, without meaning (in the vast majority of instances) any ill-will to the local populace, inevitably end up competing for scarce resources (employment - housing - etcetera)...
...one reason I've always supported the concept (off my own bat, though others have suggested the same down through the years) of land/houses being leased to folk moving here (and essentially buying up big)...just as in fact the Chinese themselves have ever done (far as I understand)...
But back to matters specifically 'Brexit'...
Because (1) like so many Brits I've a healthy sense of well-deserved scepticism about the ongoing intentions of the bureaucrats at the heart of 'the European Project'/experiment - no slight to anyone who happens to live in the vicinity (of the European Union headquarters itself), and indeed I'm overjoyed to see two folk from the great 'ole land of Belgium viewing my blog these days - perhaps two travellers I bumped into awhile ago at a local Hospice shop in Dunedin? - and (2) I simply don't trust supranational entities whose entire purpose in being seems not only to be self-perpetuating, but moreover to impose in top-down fashion a set of elitest ideas and laws upon the 'common plebs'...
No, you can't convince this particular punter that all is well and rosy - and deserving of implicit trust and confidence - in an outfit which the biblical prophet John of Book of Revelation fame two millennia ago probably described the machinations of...when he foresaw the effective resurrection of the Unholy Roman Empire in the very last moments of human history...as a United States of Europe speedily emerges upon the world scene to exert power and influence...
But more of and about that ultra-important subject another time - though viewers of my other, original, and now extremely lonely blogsite...i.e. http://nuffsaid:consideryourself-frombothsidesnow.co.nz/(or .com/)...will be only too aware that I've written a lot of stuff around this topic (some, indeed much of which I've still to get back to and give more guff upon)...
So I'm essentially writing this to record my genuine sorrow that - not the Irish Backstop (proposal), but - the likelihood of the United Kingdom now crashing out of the European Union altogether without a deal now appears well and truly off the table/consigned to history...
Yes, the vote in the House of Commons was evidently a non-binding one, but I'm sure it was portentous (for those so exercised as myself)...and meanwhile Claude Juncker(sp?) **appears to be - furtively - wringing his hands in glee, rejoicing that he now has Theresa May Et Al precisely where he's wanted 'em...i.e. dangling off his little finger...yet withal unwilling to budge a further inch...just like the duplicitous, ravenous spider Shelob (as he entrapped Frodo in his wicked web) in JRR Tolkien's classic (and Sir Peter Jackson's & Co's animated take upon) The Lord of the Rings...
Yes, that would've been the ideal (solution) in my considered view - to 'simply' crash out of the European Union without any deal at all...to stand upon their own two feet once more, thrown back upon their own resources and all the good 'ole ingenuity of the British Bulldog...
...and the deeply thorny issue of the Irish Backstop could've been dealt with later...and surely without any hard border having to be (re)imposed between Northern Ireland and Ireland itself...
What with Remainer Young 'Un (junior MPs) now apparently dogging Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn's heels, and P.M. May now having secured enough worried Tory support(ers) for her (Mark #2) renegotiated European deal with a major stipulation...the long open window of opportunity for really making a clean break from Europe now looks increasingly parlous, fraught and unlikely...
And so now, due to obfuscation, ongoing procrastination - and, more than anything else, undue self-doubt and a trapped-in-the-headlights hesitancy - all appears well and truly lost...and all that the good folk of the UK will be left with is a Clayton's Brexit...the Brexit one gets when one's not really getting a Brexit! As per the 'Dummies Guide to How to Basically Botch a Brexit Bigtime'...
*Upon this matter a little more will need to be said (ideally, in weeks to come), suffice - for now - to briefly traverse two aspects: that all (above) having been said, just like a well-known longtime far left political commentator in NZ, the inestimable Chris Trotter - who, incidentally, was instrumental alongside my own (long-deceased) Dad in the creation of the New Labour Party here (which eventually morphed into the Alliance and entered government at the outset of Helen Clark's three-term Labour Administration back in 1999) - I personally believe that Enoch Powell has been grossly misconstrued - which I simply mention as my shorthand for suggesting that not all arguments vis-a-vis the perennial bugbear of (im)migration these days are necessarily outright (or even subtly) racist...though some most assuredly are...and so that 'matter' isn't illegitimate per se in the debate.
The second is: those primarily 'exercised by' the sovereignty aspect of Brexit - though scarcely even touched upon by mainstream kiwi media - are in some pretty good company...or at least this dude considers John Cleese (aka Basil Fawlty) and the former veteran British politician Tony Benn...to be the sort of company I feel pretty comfortable being associated with (in any argument)...-if one wishes to approach the matter from a high-minded, principled basis/perspective, that is...whatever the feral outrage culture might wish to assert...
**Sure, he - and Donald Tusk - are well and truly 'over the UK', 'everyone' understands that...but what I find especially interesting/disturbing is that now they and the EU have essentially gotten their way - all (well-framed and effectively spun PR) appearances and pronouncements to the contrary - they're adamantly unprepared to move one further inch...come hell or high water...unless it's all a well-designed act (and subterfuge), and quite frankly, I wouldn't put it past any of 'em...no way, Jose!
Of course Ro-man-i-a's critical of (the whole idea of) Brexit; they're Ru-main-iers, aren't they?
(Apologies to any Romanian reading this, my clumsy attempts at doing phonetic and syntactical justice to Romania - Rumania (as I believe it was once called) - have been well-intentioned, however poorly executed...
All joking aside, and it's certainly, if ever it was, long past a joking matter...
-To Be Continued asap (2-and-a-half some hours on)-
As anyone who's seriously perused my blogsites would well know, I've - from way back when - been a supporter of the concept of a Brexit, pretty well stemming - *not from any xenophobic fear and/or loathing of immigrant ethnicities as such - though ever (as in God's Own) well aware of the impact of unlimited, unfettered migration into any land from folk who, without meaning (in the vast majority of instances) any ill-will to the local populace, inevitably end up competing for scarce resources (employment - housing - etcetera)...
...one reason I've always supported the concept (off my own bat, though others have suggested the same down through the years) of land/houses being leased to folk moving here (and essentially buying up big)...just as in fact the Chinese themselves have ever done (far as I understand)...
But back to matters specifically 'Brexit'...
Because (1) like so many Brits I've a healthy sense of well-deserved scepticism about the ongoing intentions of the bureaucrats at the heart of 'the European Project'/experiment - no slight to anyone who happens to live in the vicinity (of the European Union headquarters itself), and indeed I'm overjoyed to see two folk from the great 'ole land of Belgium viewing my blog these days - perhaps two travellers I bumped into awhile ago at a local Hospice shop in Dunedin? - and (2) I simply don't trust supranational entities whose entire purpose in being seems not only to be self-perpetuating, but moreover to impose in top-down fashion a set of elitest ideas and laws upon the 'common plebs'...
No, you can't convince this particular punter that all is well and rosy - and deserving of implicit trust and confidence - in an outfit which the biblical prophet John of Book of Revelation fame two millennia ago probably described the machinations of...when he foresaw the effective resurrection of the Unholy Roman Empire in the very last moments of human history...as a United States of Europe speedily emerges upon the world scene to exert power and influence...
But more of and about that ultra-important subject another time - though viewers of my other, original, and now extremely lonely blogsite...i.e. http://nuffsaid:consideryourself-frombothsidesnow.co.nz/(or .com/)...will be only too aware that I've written a lot of stuff around this topic (some, indeed much of which I've still to get back to and give more guff upon)...
So I'm essentially writing this to record my genuine sorrow that - not the Irish Backstop (proposal), but - the likelihood of the United Kingdom now crashing out of the European Union altogether without a deal now appears well and truly off the table/consigned to history...
Yes, the vote in the House of Commons was evidently a non-binding one, but I'm sure it was portentous (for those so exercised as myself)...and meanwhile Claude Juncker(sp?) **appears to be - furtively - wringing his hands in glee, rejoicing that he now has Theresa May Et Al precisely where he's wanted 'em...i.e. dangling off his little finger...yet withal unwilling to budge a further inch...just like the duplicitous, ravenous spider Shelob (as he entrapped Frodo in his wicked web) in JRR Tolkien's classic (and Sir Peter Jackson's & Co's animated take upon) The Lord of the Rings...
Yes, that would've been the ideal (solution) in my considered view - to 'simply' crash out of the European Union without any deal at all...to stand upon their own two feet once more, thrown back upon their own resources and all the good 'ole ingenuity of the British Bulldog...
...and the deeply thorny issue of the Irish Backstop could've been dealt with later...and surely without any hard border having to be (re)imposed between Northern Ireland and Ireland itself...
What with Remainer Young 'Un (junior MPs) now apparently dogging Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn's heels, and P.M. May now having secured enough worried Tory support(ers) for her (Mark #2) renegotiated European deal with a major stipulation...the long open window of opportunity for really making a clean break from Europe now looks increasingly parlous, fraught and unlikely...
And so now, due to obfuscation, ongoing procrastination - and, more than anything else, undue self-doubt and a trapped-in-the-headlights hesitancy - all appears well and truly lost...and all that the good folk of the UK will be left with is a Clayton's Brexit...the Brexit one gets when one's not really getting a Brexit! As per the 'Dummies Guide to How to Basically Botch a Brexit Bigtime'...
*Upon this matter a little more will need to be said (ideally, in weeks to come), suffice - for now - to briefly traverse two aspects: that all (above) having been said, just like a well-known longtime far left political commentator in NZ, the inestimable Chris Trotter - who, incidentally, was instrumental alongside my own (long-deceased) Dad in the creation of the New Labour Party here (which eventually morphed into the Alliance and entered government at the outset of Helen Clark's three-term Labour Administration back in 1999) - I personally believe that Enoch Powell has been grossly misconstrued - which I simply mention as my shorthand for suggesting that not all arguments vis-a-vis the perennial bugbear of (im)migration these days are necessarily outright (or even subtly) racist...though some most assuredly are...and so that 'matter' isn't illegitimate per se in the debate.
The second is: those primarily 'exercised by' the sovereignty aspect of Brexit - though scarcely even touched upon by mainstream kiwi media - are in some pretty good company...or at least this dude considers John Cleese (aka Basil Fawlty) and the former veteran British politician Tony Benn...to be the sort of company I feel pretty comfortable being associated with (in any argument)...-if one wishes to approach the matter from a high-minded, principled basis/perspective, that is...whatever the feral outrage culture might wish to assert...
**Sure, he - and Donald Tusk - are well and truly 'over the UK', 'everyone' understands that...but what I find especially interesting/disturbing is that now they and the EU have essentially gotten their way - all (well-framed and effectively spun PR) appearances and pronouncements to the contrary - they're adamantly unprepared to move one further inch...come hell or high water...unless it's all a well-designed act (and subterfuge), and quite frankly, I wouldn't put it past any of 'em...no way, Jose!
Wednesday, January 30, 2019
Britain's Brexit Bubbling Along Beautifully...Altogether Beyond Confusing/Baffling/Perplexing/Flummoxing...
Yes, *Hannah's right on: 'Brexit', or more correctly, the entire Brexit process/saga/rigmarole/ kerfuffle...is now well and truly into the nether reaches of "beyond confusing": yes, mystifying and confounding, baffling, perplexing and flummoxing...
To borrow a well-worn phrase a sister's wont to employ, that if one's not anxious [with all that's going down these days...here, there and everywhere], then you haven't been/aren't paying [sufficient] attention - how about this variation from the BBC's veteran Brexit commentator/interpreter, Rob Watson, upon its **weekday 'OS' programme: "If you're not now thoroughly confused by [all the seemingly interminable kerfuffle over] Brexit [or, moreover, the Conservative-led Government's renegotiations thereof], then you're simply not paying attention!" (Italics mine.)
For those seeking the reason for all the endless tooing and froing, the dithering and dallying, the **shillying and shallying that has transpired since Britons' fateful decision to exit the EU way back when...they need look no further than the abject failure of previous successive British governments and their respective leaderships to keep abreast of, let alone account for and deal with and to, a long-simmering discontent within the bowels of the body politic...
a discontent and resentment that has come to the surface from time to time in spits and spats...just as a volcano's latent tensions and pent-up energies and writhing, seething furies cannot be forever kept down and buried and hidden from sight...
For just as with a classic passive aggressive(s), until and unless long-repressed and suppressed and ever-boiling frictions and frustrations are dealt with - properly and out in the open - they will just continue to fester and fester and ultimately boil over and burst out upon the scene spilling their roiling contents over all and sundry in a seething mass of heat and fury...
The silent lesson (of/in all of this)? ***If you never get around to it, it'll never get dealt with. If you never deal with and to the 'elephant in the room' it'll keep causing trouble on and on and on ad nauseum... So in classic 'well-mannered' British - and to some extent kiwi - fashion - unlike our bold and brazen trans-tasman *****cousins/neighbours the Aussies (from the land of Oz), who prefer, 'as a whole' - somewhat like the Americans - to 'just tell it as it is', to let it all hang out...
The Brits, by contrast - in their classic, self-effacing and unassuming, 'let's not upset anyone', discreet manner - in thus not being sufficiently direct and above-board, preferring to not ruffle feathers and leave (everything) well enough alone...
...have ended up being dished up with a hearty serving of what they least desired: confusion and chaos...to the nth degree, and way beyond...
Again, the lesson being? That if you do everything to not rock the boat - stifling the simmering discontents within, everything will - inevitably - come back ultimately to bite you in the posterior...in the derriere, if you'll pardon my French...
...which just goes to vindicate the long-established truism: you don't solve any problem by forever ignoring it and pushing it down, down, down...for the law 'of things' presupposes that for each and every last cause there'll be an equal and opposite effect, for every action there'll be a reaction...
**Okay, 'shillying and shallying' isn't real kosher terminology, I readily accept...I just happen to like the way it sounds...it should've been 'shilly-shally(ing)'...
****Something a certain Conservative Party M.P. stated in so many words only hours ago (as U K parliamentarians debated yet again ahead of another vote on another set of significant amendments to the Theresa May's Government's newfangled 'agreement' with the European Union), referring to the degree of bile - or was that 'vile'? - that'd clearly built up over recent years post the Brexit referendum ...upon all sides of the issue...
*As one of the contributers to BBC Radio's OS 'Conversations' segment (29/1) from Leicester...
***Memories flood back of selfsame sister's purchase in her youth/presentation as a gift of a t-shirt emblazoned: 'a round tu-it.'
**/****Additional BBC 'OS' programmes (29/1;30/1 etc) over recent days and weeks especially.
*****Really no longer proper relatives (from the way they treat us these days), indeed, as ye ole saying goes, 'with friends [such as] these, [well] who [really] needs enemies?' Who indeed?!?!?
To borrow a well-worn phrase a sister's wont to employ, that if one's not anxious [with all that's going down these days...here, there and everywhere], then you haven't been/aren't paying [sufficient] attention - how about this variation from the BBC's veteran Brexit commentator/interpreter, Rob Watson, upon its **weekday 'OS' programme: "If you're not now thoroughly confused by [all the seemingly interminable kerfuffle over] Brexit [or, moreover, the Conservative-led Government's renegotiations thereof], then you're simply not paying attention!" (Italics mine.)
For those seeking the reason for all the endless tooing and froing, the dithering and dallying, the **shillying and shallying that has transpired since Britons' fateful decision to exit the EU way back when...they need look no further than the abject failure of previous successive British governments and their respective leaderships to keep abreast of, let alone account for and deal with and to, a long-simmering discontent within the bowels of the body politic...
a discontent and resentment that has come to the surface from time to time in spits and spats...just as a volcano's latent tensions and pent-up energies and writhing, seething furies cannot be forever kept down and buried and hidden from sight...
For just as with a classic passive aggressive(s), until and unless long-repressed and suppressed and ever-boiling frictions and frustrations are dealt with - properly and out in the open - they will just continue to fester and fester and ultimately boil over and burst out upon the scene spilling their roiling contents over all and sundry in a seething mass of heat and fury...
The silent lesson (of/in all of this)? ***If you never get around to it, it'll never get dealt with. If you never deal with and to the 'elephant in the room' it'll keep causing trouble on and on and on ad nauseum... So in classic 'well-mannered' British - and to some extent kiwi - fashion - unlike our bold and brazen trans-tasman *****cousins/neighbours the Aussies (from the land of Oz), who prefer, 'as a whole' - somewhat like the Americans - to 'just tell it as it is', to let it all hang out...
The Brits, by contrast - in their classic, self-effacing and unassuming, 'let's not upset anyone', discreet manner - in thus not being sufficiently direct and above-board, preferring to not ruffle feathers and leave (everything) well enough alone...
...have ended up being dished up with a hearty serving of what they least desired: confusion and chaos...to the nth degree, and way beyond...
Again, the lesson being? That if you do everything to not rock the boat - stifling the simmering discontents within, everything will - inevitably - come back ultimately to bite you in the posterior...in the derriere, if you'll pardon my French...
...which just goes to vindicate the long-established truism: you don't solve any problem by forever ignoring it and pushing it down, down, down...for the law 'of things' presupposes that for each and every last cause there'll be an equal and opposite effect, for every action there'll be a reaction...
**Okay, 'shillying and shallying' isn't real kosher terminology, I readily accept...I just happen to like the way it sounds...it should've been 'shilly-shally(ing)'...
****Something a certain Conservative Party M.P. stated in so many words only hours ago (as U K parliamentarians debated yet again ahead of another vote on another set of significant amendments to the Theresa May's Government's newfangled 'agreement' with the European Union), referring to the degree of bile - or was that 'vile'? - that'd clearly built up over recent years post the Brexit referendum ...upon all sides of the issue...
*As one of the contributers to BBC Radio's OS 'Conversations' segment (29/1) from Leicester...
***Memories flood back of selfsame sister's purchase in her youth/presentation as a gift of a t-shirt emblazoned: 'a round tu-it.'
**/****Additional BBC 'OS' programmes (29/1;30/1 etc) over recent days and weeks especially.
*****Really no longer proper relatives (from the way they treat us these days), indeed, as ye ole saying goes, 'with friends [such as] these, [well] who [really] needs enemies?' Who indeed?!?!?
Tuesday, January 29, 2019
Hurrah, hurrah! At long last an instance of the right and proper use of America's contentious 2nd Amendment
Please bear with me, as, quite aside from the oddness (regular readers may find) of my defending such a fraught part of the American Constitution, how I even 'get there' may seem just as peculiar...as in completely unexpected...in a post - of two halves - upon the ins and outs of well-publicized car incidents of late...: the second (a much less 'heavy', but serious nonetheless) take upon the antics of a certain royal prone to mischief - if not mayhem - upon the United Kingdom's roads, its 'avenues and alleyways' as the great 'ole song used to say; the first a readymade-for-TV item viewed upon both main NZ television news broadcasts last night, and annoyingly, inaccessible for 'googling' c/o either 'car incident USA' or 'car chase USA', but c'est la vie, such is life as they say...
So all I can say, to outline said TV 'item' (for those unaware thereof), is that the American videotaped 'carnapping' basically depicted a dude atop someone's car being driven - presumably, at reasonable speed - down some American highway/freeway...hanging on for dear life (to the (front) bonnet)...but eventually becoming known to nearby vehicles passing hither and yon...and at some point being 'con-fronted' from an adjacent auto's upstanding cum gun-toting occupant...and then at some further moment in time the scene being subsumed by the arrival of the cops and due apprehension of those involved...before any subsequent charges may well have been laid...
Alright, already! But, accepting that I was unable to take in all the item comprehended (in the quick-fire presentation on both our major evening TV bulletins) and - as previously mentioned - have been unable to access anything more thereabouts...let me simply say that my reason for even 'going there' was a small comment voiced at the very end (on TV1) by the longtime and well-respected, 'even-steven' main co-host/presenter Simon Dallow...who apparently 'just had to' get a word in edgewise - giving us a view of his own personal take upon proceedings...
Regular readers (of this, and my other blogsite) also being well acquainted with my own view of newscasters 'worming their way into' what ought to be - and historically ever was - 'objective journalism', let's park that for the present...and focus in upon my - and perhaps many others' - view
of what Mr Dallow had to say...if they'd also had the opportunity to view proceedings...
After informing us that the two men (the car occupant effectively 'carnapping' and grossly endangering his rooftop 'passenger', and that 'carnapped' fellow himself) were - due to the complex, convoluted elements involved in the sad and sorry tale - duly apprehended and taken in for questioning by the police, but - apparently incomprehensibly as Dallow's tones declared in no uncertain terms - 'the man with the gun' was not. "Only in America" he sighed in conclusion.
Now I'll speak up for that 'defenceless' dude...in pointed response to Mr Dallow's snide remark. The entire story evidenced better than I've heretofore seen the very reason the man involved should've subsequently been hailed as a hero down the very lengths and breadths of Mainsville, U. S. A. If ever there were a case study of the right and proper use of a handgun - i.e. to confront and save the threatened life (and limb) of an endangered fellow citizen, this was it... indeed what better instance could be given???
So far from being likewise apprehended, arrested and charged/convicted/sentenced/ imprisoned (and all the rest) for his involvement in this fraught scenario...said dude rather oughta've been feted from coast to coast...'[given] a medal as well as something to pin it on' (not to be too facetious)...
Part Two (tomorrow): - 'Tut-tut for a rather naughty fellow'
Much as it's little short of *............ to castigate or criticize a person for an act of unexampled, exemplary heroism and bravery - or to **[compliment] them [lightly] thereabouts - the Good Book deplores the act of 'striking a prince for his integrity or righteousness'...which seems intrinsically a crime against all that is right and proper...
...much less appear to effectively accuse them of 'high crimes and misdemeanours'...
...let me also - ever so respectfully - suggest that to lavish praise upon someone who's only been 'wise after the fact', who's been caught with his trousers down, so to speak, and is now full of regrets and remorse because, like the proverbial bear with its mitts in the cookie jar, he's been caught red-handed, 'in the very act', is equally absurd, inexplicable and inappropriate...not to mention really bad form (and far worse things besides, if I could only think of what these are!)
And so Prince Philip has been duly chastised for having the 'courage' - after 'being dragged pulling and screaming' by one and all - to, finally, after strident criticism by the accusatory party over a number of days, actually apologize to said woman. For some inadvertent trifle or other alleged indiscretion or impropriety or misconstrued word or turn of phrase?
No, not at all, but for causing her (and associated car passengers) some 'grievous bodily harm' (as they term things here in God's Own)...where said royal seemed to have been clearly, even incontrovertibly, the very one most (or even solely) at fault...
And not only has he, much like President Bill Clinton in his own heyday of diversion and distraction, and - when all else had well and truly failed - duck-shoving, splitting straws and even outright denial, been 'remorseful'/shown suitable 'remorse' long after the fact, when he virtually had no alternative (and otherwise would've been rightly regarded as a fuddy-duddy totally out of touch with all reality, let alone a bit of a bad, unsavoury character)...
...the media - and indeed the (one outspoken) victim herself - seems to have instantly accepted such apology and simply rolled over as if all's right with the world again...
Not to detract from this lady's welcome willingness to bury the hatchet, 'kiss and make up', and let bygones be bygones etcetera - which in this day and age of bitter invective and nastiness and 'going viral' over this, that and the next...often/usually quite inconsequential trivia and stupidity even...is surely a good and praiseworthy thing...
Guess what? Prince Philip's been readily back to his old tricks, evidently, not only driving without a seatbelt, but driving erratically and negligently and semi-dangerously...thankfully 'caught upon camera' for so doing...-ah, the benefits of modern technology! - and we've also been shown graphic footage of something similar that occurred literally decades ago...
Time for a regular checkup, an eye-test, prosecution for incontrovertibly failing to wear a seatbelt time and time again - and in the process not only causing injury but potentially endangering life and limb of all and sundry -...and moreover for signally failing to learn his lesson and buck up his ideas and decisively change his errant ways?
Not on yer nelly! Rather (the response has been): "Tut-tut, old chap...don't let us catch you again...or, next time, there'll be real consequences aplenty..."
Like a damned good scourging with ye proverbial thoroughly drenched and saturated bus ticket, one imagines...and then some!
*Sadly, the brain cells need recharging this early (NZ time) morn, but I'll do the best I can...
**Likewise, the famous 'ole saying is, as they say, right there 'on the [very] tip of my tongue'.
***Credit to Vanity Fair's website for all the ins and outs of this right royal saga of sorts...
So all I can say, to outline said TV 'item' (for those unaware thereof), is that the American videotaped 'carnapping' basically depicted a dude atop someone's car being driven - presumably, at reasonable speed - down some American highway/freeway...hanging on for dear life (to the (front) bonnet)...but eventually becoming known to nearby vehicles passing hither and yon...and at some point being 'con-fronted' from an adjacent auto's upstanding cum gun-toting occupant...and then at some further moment in time the scene being subsumed by the arrival of the cops and due apprehension of those involved...before any subsequent charges may well have been laid...
Alright, already! But, accepting that I was unable to take in all the item comprehended (in the quick-fire presentation on both our major evening TV bulletins) and - as previously mentioned - have been unable to access anything more thereabouts...let me simply say that my reason for even 'going there' was a small comment voiced at the very end (on TV1) by the longtime and well-respected, 'even-steven' main co-host/presenter Simon Dallow...who apparently 'just had to' get a word in edgewise - giving us a view of his own personal take upon proceedings...
Regular readers (of this, and my other blogsite) also being well acquainted with my own view of newscasters 'worming their way into' what ought to be - and historically ever was - 'objective journalism', let's park that for the present...and focus in upon my - and perhaps many others' - view
of what Mr Dallow had to say...if they'd also had the opportunity to view proceedings...
After informing us that the two men (the car occupant effectively 'carnapping' and grossly endangering his rooftop 'passenger', and that 'carnapped' fellow himself) were - due to the complex, convoluted elements involved in the sad and sorry tale - duly apprehended and taken in for questioning by the police, but - apparently incomprehensibly as Dallow's tones declared in no uncertain terms - 'the man with the gun' was not. "Only in America" he sighed in conclusion.
Now I'll speak up for that 'defenceless' dude...in pointed response to Mr Dallow's snide remark. The entire story evidenced better than I've heretofore seen the very reason the man involved should've subsequently been hailed as a hero down the very lengths and breadths of Mainsville, U. S. A. If ever there were a case study of the right and proper use of a handgun - i.e. to confront and save the threatened life (and limb) of an endangered fellow citizen, this was it... indeed what better instance could be given???
So far from being likewise apprehended, arrested and charged/convicted/sentenced/ imprisoned (and all the rest) for his involvement in this fraught scenario...said dude rather oughta've been feted from coast to coast...'[given] a medal as well as something to pin it on' (not to be too facetious)...
Part Two (tomorrow): - 'Tut-tut for a rather naughty fellow'
Much as it's little short of *............ to castigate or criticize a person for an act of unexampled, exemplary heroism and bravery - or to **[compliment] them [lightly] thereabouts - the Good Book deplores the act of 'striking a prince for his integrity or righteousness'...which seems intrinsically a crime against all that is right and proper...
...much less appear to effectively accuse them of 'high crimes and misdemeanours'...
...let me also - ever so respectfully - suggest that to lavish praise upon someone who's only been 'wise after the fact', who's been caught with his trousers down, so to speak, and is now full of regrets and remorse because, like the proverbial bear with its mitts in the cookie jar, he's been caught red-handed, 'in the very act', is equally absurd, inexplicable and inappropriate...not to mention really bad form (and far worse things besides, if I could only think of what these are!)
And so Prince Philip has been duly chastised for having the 'courage' - after 'being dragged pulling and screaming' by one and all - to, finally, after strident criticism by the accusatory party over a number of days, actually apologize to said woman. For some inadvertent trifle or other alleged indiscretion or impropriety or misconstrued word or turn of phrase?
No, not at all, but for causing her (and associated car passengers) some 'grievous bodily harm' (as they term things here in God's Own)...where said royal seemed to have been clearly, even incontrovertibly, the very one most (or even solely) at fault...
And not only has he, much like President Bill Clinton in his own heyday of diversion and distraction, and - when all else had well and truly failed - duck-shoving, splitting straws and even outright denial, been 'remorseful'/shown suitable 'remorse' long after the fact, when he virtually had no alternative (and otherwise would've been rightly regarded as a fuddy-duddy totally out of touch with all reality, let alone a bit of a bad, unsavoury character)...
...the media - and indeed the (one outspoken) victim herself - seems to have instantly accepted such apology and simply rolled over as if all's right with the world again...
Not to detract from this lady's welcome willingness to bury the hatchet, 'kiss and make up', and let bygones be bygones etcetera - which in this day and age of bitter invective and nastiness and 'going viral' over this, that and the next...often/usually quite inconsequential trivia and stupidity even...is surely a good and praiseworthy thing...
Guess what? Prince Philip's been readily back to his old tricks, evidently, not only driving without a seatbelt, but driving erratically and negligently and semi-dangerously...thankfully 'caught upon camera' for so doing...-ah, the benefits of modern technology! - and we've also been shown graphic footage of something similar that occurred literally decades ago...
Time for a regular checkup, an eye-test, prosecution for incontrovertibly failing to wear a seatbelt time and time again - and in the process not only causing injury but potentially endangering life and limb of all and sundry -...and moreover for signally failing to learn his lesson and buck up his ideas and decisively change his errant ways?
Not on yer nelly! Rather (the response has been): "Tut-tut, old chap...don't let us catch you again...or, next time, there'll be real consequences aplenty..."
Like a damned good scourging with ye proverbial thoroughly drenched and saturated bus ticket, one imagines...and then some!
*Sadly, the brain cells need recharging this early (NZ time) morn, but I'll do the best I can...
**Likewise, the famous 'ole saying is, as they say, right there 'on the [very] tip of my tongue'.
***Credit to Vanity Fair's website for all the ins and outs of this right royal saga of sorts...
Monday, January 28, 2019
Postscript - Betraying God's Own at the United Nations: Naivete to a Fault...Being Played as Suckers - Bigtime
With further - *conscious - reflection overnight (27th-28th January) let me simply say that the real problem with what recently went down at the United Nations **'Human Rights Council' c/o ***'our' New Zealand delegation (as detailed in my last blogpost) was that in so doing they ****played right into the anti-Judaeo-Christian/Western playbook...
...whose doctrinaire adherents effectively ****played us for suckers...and then some...
*An odd adjectival conjunction, for sure...but as a big believer in the value of intuition, it's not illogical...
**A far more extreme adjectival conjunction/contradiction-in-terms, don't ya think? Unless, that is, you're among those folk who somehow consider New Zealand's human rights record is even remotely on the same page as that of Iran...which doubtless may indeed be true of a certain Iranian-born member of our Parliament, loathe as she'd ever be to admit as much (in polite company, anyhow)...
***They're certainly not my representatives, that's for sure...
****Admittedly some would - with reasonably good reasoning, to give 'em due credit - suggest much darker forces at work here behind the scenes. And whether one is a subscriber to conspiracy theories in general, or holds to only one or two pet favourites, there does indeed appear to be ever mounting and increasingly convincing -yes, evidence (even)- that there are entities and individuals 'waiting in the wings' whilst hidden furtively in the shadows... *****people whose basic agenda and modus operandi are anything but kind, peace-loving and essentially decent...
...arguably even determined to ultimately wreak havoc with and upon our long-established and cherished liberties and values...
...but who are well prepared to engage secrecy and stealth when it better suits their nefarious plans and purposes...
And all kudos to the gifted, Christ-honouring Bible teacher (I believe Egyptian-born) Dr Michael Youssef...who on his ******regular Leading the Way Television program yesterday morning cited a *******concerning/worrying development...
...to wit, that evidently now in the once great biblically-traversed nation of Greece it is a crime to use the prophet Mohammed's name with - supposed - disrespect (in any way, shape or form)...
'Goodness gracious', how would ye average, run-of-the-mill kiwi (or, for that matter, Western) agnostic/atheist/secularist cope these days...especially in light of the common, everyday - and no, not exactly flattering or honouring! - use of 'God', 'Christ', 'Jesus' (and the countless permutations thereof) in barely-veiled swearing and cursing and general exclamations (of pain and shock etc)?
But yes, I need to investigate further, as many would instantly suggest that Dr Youssef is undoubtedly exaggerating and greatly overstating the case - even were this generally true - and that, anyhow, it's all a matter of showing due respect for minority views and especially harassed religious groups.
Excuse me??? I can readily think of some religious groupings actively persecuted on an ongoing basis throughout the Middle East/Islamic ********'crescent' of the globe - just for example - and though they're certainly not all Bible-believers, Christians - and Jews - are among those most *********fiercely ill-used, abused, and otherwise treated like the utterly second-class citizens (indeed, arguably even non-citizens) they are categorized on the legal books of many such jurisdictions as being.
So please don't preach to me/us about respecting other folks' views, values and spiritualities...
*****Not being one of those who subscribes to the reptilian race earth-invaders' conspiracy theory!
******I'm presuming, though not a watcher on/in that particular day/time slot, and have only caught the odd mention thereof (during my own regular Sunday morning channel-hopping of various religious programming)...
*******Of all the seemingly endless catalogue of such concerns/'worries' now swamping the global airwaves and television sets seemingly each and every day...
********Thinking of the '10/40' global window of need/opportunity for hearing/receiving the good news, and using the Muslim symbol of a crescent (in contrast to the Christian cross).
*********But don't take it from this deeply impassioned opinion piece that I am either unaware of or not equally, nay, even far more outraged by what went on/'down' in the name of my own faith through the dreary darkness and deep depravity of the well-named 'Dark Ages'...whether to (at times) Muslims - who, however, generally 'gave as good as they got', in terms of violence and war, that is - or moreover to both Jews (in some of the most despicable outrages ever to deface the human race, and ultimately, and arguably almost inevitably, leading up to the logical final outcome thereof, i.e. in Hitler's/the Nazis' 'final solution'...or, for that matter, in the hunting down and destruction of what is now conservatively estimated as up to 150 million Bible-believing men, women and children... especially throughout the nations of Europe (both the former Eastern Europe and Western Europe so-called)...
...whose doctrinaire adherents effectively ****played us for suckers...and then some...
*An odd adjectival conjunction, for sure...but as a big believer in the value of intuition, it's not illogical...
**A far more extreme adjectival conjunction/contradiction-in-terms, don't ya think? Unless, that is, you're among those folk who somehow consider New Zealand's human rights record is even remotely on the same page as that of Iran...which doubtless may indeed be true of a certain Iranian-born member of our Parliament, loathe as she'd ever be to admit as much (in polite company, anyhow)...
***They're certainly not my representatives, that's for sure...
****Admittedly some would - with reasonably good reasoning, to give 'em due credit - suggest much darker forces at work here behind the scenes. And whether one is a subscriber to conspiracy theories in general, or holds to only one or two pet favourites, there does indeed appear to be ever mounting and increasingly convincing -yes, evidence (even)- that there are entities and individuals 'waiting in the wings' whilst hidden furtively in the shadows... *****people whose basic agenda and modus operandi are anything but kind, peace-loving and essentially decent...
...arguably even determined to ultimately wreak havoc with and upon our long-established and cherished liberties and values...
...but who are well prepared to engage secrecy and stealth when it better suits their nefarious plans and purposes...
And all kudos to the gifted, Christ-honouring Bible teacher (I believe Egyptian-born) Dr Michael Youssef...who on his ******regular Leading the Way Television program yesterday morning cited a *******concerning/worrying development...
...to wit, that evidently now in the once great biblically-traversed nation of Greece it is a crime to use the prophet Mohammed's name with - supposed - disrespect (in any way, shape or form)...
'Goodness gracious', how would ye average, run-of-the-mill kiwi (or, for that matter, Western) agnostic/atheist/secularist cope these days...especially in light of the common, everyday - and no, not exactly flattering or honouring! - use of 'God', 'Christ', 'Jesus' (and the countless permutations thereof) in barely-veiled swearing and cursing and general exclamations (of pain and shock etc)?
But yes, I need to investigate further, as many would instantly suggest that Dr Youssef is undoubtedly exaggerating and greatly overstating the case - even were this generally true - and that, anyhow, it's all a matter of showing due respect for minority views and especially harassed religious groups.
Excuse me??? I can readily think of some religious groupings actively persecuted on an ongoing basis throughout the Middle East/Islamic ********'crescent' of the globe - just for example - and though they're certainly not all Bible-believers, Christians - and Jews - are among those most *********fiercely ill-used, abused, and otherwise treated like the utterly second-class citizens (indeed, arguably even non-citizens) they are categorized on the legal books of many such jurisdictions as being.
So please don't preach to me/us about respecting other folks' views, values and spiritualities...
*****Not being one of those who subscribes to the reptilian race earth-invaders' conspiracy theory!
******I'm presuming, though not a watcher on/in that particular day/time slot, and have only caught the odd mention thereof (during my own regular Sunday morning channel-hopping of various religious programming)...
*******Of all the seemingly endless catalogue of such concerns/'worries' now swamping the global airwaves and television sets seemingly each and every day...
********Thinking of the '10/40' global window of need/opportunity for hearing/receiving the good news, and using the Muslim symbol of a crescent (in contrast to the Christian cross).
*********But don't take it from this deeply impassioned opinion piece that I am either unaware of or not equally, nay, even far more outraged by what went on/'down' in the name of my own faith through the dreary darkness and deep depravity of the well-named 'Dark Ages'...whether to (at times) Muslims - who, however, generally 'gave as good as they got', in terms of violence and war, that is - or moreover to both Jews (in some of the most despicable outrages ever to deface the human race, and ultimately, and arguably almost inevitably, leading up to the logical final outcome thereof, i.e. in Hitler's/the Nazis' 'final solution'...or, for that matter, in the hunting down and destruction of what is now conservatively estimated as up to 150 million Bible-believing men, women and children... especially throughout the nations of Europe (both the former Eastern Europe and Western Europe so-called)...
Thursday, January 24, 2019
Andrew Little Goes A-Grovelling to the United Nations "on Behalf of NZ" Inc - Yeah, Right!: Sure, Legitimate Points about the Maori Incarceration Rate and NZ Domestic Violence (per se), But Even So: What A Shameful Episode in New Zealand International Affairs
*To Be Continued - after sufficient shuteye: the wind's been devastating, folks - ASAP...
*Essentially from 'extensive' notes hurriedly scribbled down during extended (three-and-a-half hour) wakefulness during a very troubled, windswept and windblown, wretched (last) night in Dunedin, NZ
**Sorry again, folks, but some things (on this very blogsite, as a matter of fact) have had to take precedence over this...and are somewhat more important in the overall scheme of things...-see my blogpost (on January 22nd, on the famed 'Doomsday Clock', and significant, lengthy additions thereto) and see if you don't agree...but if you don't, you know what to do...yes, 'Post a Comment' thereabouts...and don't just 'flutter' one as it were (without posting it) as some folk seem to be doing of late...
Finally Back to my Knitting (as of Sunday January 27th): Part One - The Sanitized Version!
(NB. Footnoting here is not all left till the end of the blogpost, as better suits its coherence.)
So what's gotten my 'knickers in a knot' about our Justice Minister turning up at the UN the other day...and spouting forth? Precisely that, as a matter of fact...for badmouthing your own nation - especially one with as proud a history as God's Own - is not only not a good look, it is even tantamount to treason...which once upon a time (and not all that long ago, in fact) carried the death sentence here...
So am I suggesting Mr Little be put to death as a result, in some latter-day reinstatement of what many - including Yours Truly - regard as a *barbaric punishment for crime?
*Though I'm certainly not dismissing the equally legitimate views of those who - I'm sure most people would at heart agree - believe that there are some folk who have actually, to all intents and purposes, justly forfeited their own right to enjoy life and liberty with all that that entails...
Which in a(n) - admittedly, as I'm quite wont, rather roundabout - way, actually gets to the heart of my umbrage. For - even giving Minister Little the benefit of the doubt - i.e. accepting he was not only well-intentioned but moreover that his two essential points have thorough legitimacy and credibility in and of themselves, which actually is **somewhat more problematic than might appear at face value - what is the big deal about prisoners voting anyway?
Even if that was not the burden of Little's address to the United Nations Human Rights Council - and let's just say, since it ain't always clear from TV coverage just who (in such a delegation) actually said precisely what - though more than likely the entire delegation essentially agrees in advance with the various points which are ultimately raised by the various members of any nation's official delegation; and TV showed another dude speaking re prisoners having some innate right to vote - I'd wager that ye average punter in the street (here in NZ) already are of the mind that vicious crims in particular already have plenty enough 'rights', thank you very much, and it's - as ever - the longsuffering victims who ever and always have their own effective lifetime death sentence handed down thereafter...and are the ones whose own (only too legitimate) 'rights' are rarely ever considered in such scenarios...
**For example, though such studies - for rather obvious reasons, I'd contend - are rarely cited or brought into the discussion, isn't it a little curious how, for example, some major research once conducted by the (local) University of Otago, no less, showed how more men - yes, folks, you heard me aright! - had been subject to domestic violence than vica-versa...so do with that 'tasty morsel' of info what you well will.. (And evidently it ain't the only such study revealing such a result - scary as many men apparently would find it to openly admit as much!)
To Be Continued (very shortly - *indeed!)
And this'll be my gut, visceral reaction...hurriedly scribbled down that other night...leaving 'no holds barred', and giving full vent to 'something' rarely considered these days - i.e. the equally legitimate emotions/feelings of that subset of the human species rarely given proportionate notice these days, commonly known as male...and reflecting what I believe is probably the (gut) reaction/view of the silent majority - male and female alike - of (what was once proudly known as) God's Own...
Part Two: What the Hell Is Going On/Is Minister Little Up To? (Continued within the very hour.)
It has oftentimes been noted - and I've certainly been in agreement, *significant philosophical perspectives notwithstanding - that Andrew Little is one of the more competent and effectual ministers in Jacinda Ardern's/**her Majesty's cabinet...and ever professional in both his demeanour and approach; perhaps not altogether unusual in light of his previous position (for a couple years) as Labour Party/Opposition leader (and thereby - under normal circumstances - Prime Ministerial Heir-Apparent, if his precipitous polling numbers hadn't precipitated his premature departure from that role and immediate replacement by the stellar, 'stardust'-saturated Ms Ardern).
That having necessarily been said, my view of Mr Little has now dropped inestimably - is veritably in freefall - a somewhat similar situation to that undergone by Little's immediate (Labour Party leader) predecessor, David Cunliffe, whose own feminazi-ish-seeming (collective) 'Apology on behalf of all males of the species' prior to Election 2014 pretty well spelled the beginning of the end of any and every one of his own larger-than-life leadership ambitions...
What the heck is the considered gentleman doing denigrating God's Own upon the world stage...when nations far and wide across the face of the globe are knowingly responsible for the systemic, systematic, state-sponsored and/or sanctioned raping and pillaging, torturing, incarceration and murdering of their own peoples...be they babies/toddlers/infants or the aged, ***women and men alike...as well as being unabashed serial condoners of such barbarities as ***genital mutilation and gang rape and mob-inspired violence and horrors upon girls, homosexuals, transexuals and other 'deviants', or anyone found supposedly misusing or 'blaspheming' the name of their 'god' ...
Don't you dare lecture kiwis as if we as a people engaged - in systemic, systematic fashion - in such outrageous denigration and degradation, decimation and destruction of the female of the species...or anything like it...
Where is your basic sense of perspective, much less essential honesty, let alone loyalty to and pride in your own nation - Aotearoa-New Zealand Inc...a country with such a long and well-earned, proud tradition in terms of its exemplary treatment of women, and then some... as to stand head and shoulders above the vast bulk of its fellow nations upon Earth?
Shame on Mr Little and his globe-trotting fellow-travellers...yes, how dare they even suggest that how women - let alone prisoners - are treated here even remotely compares to the terrifying treatment so many of the incarcerated undergo or that many women are routinely subjected to throughout, say, the (vast majority of) Muslim countries across the Middle East...
And would you believe, while 'our people' were there at said United Nations Human Rights Council - or doubtless shortly thereafter - and no doubt taking liberty and extreme licence from the fact that New Zealand's own representatives were there well and truly bagging their own people and nation -
Iran of all nations had the gall to criticize "New Zealand's lack of a national strategy to combat racism, xenophobia and 'religious hatred' "!!!
Yep, you heard me right, folks...but oodles of shame oozing with disgrace upon New Zealand's mainstream media (of all stripes, apparently) for failing to inform kiwis about this disgusting diatribe ...and from one of the world's chief offenders to boot...although evidently alongside this such countries as Egypt, Indonesia and Russia chimed in as well...reckoning that NZ "had room for improvement in its treatment of Maoris".
Yes, each of those nations - or, to be duly charitable, the first and third of these - know one heckuva, helluva lot about the rights of indigenous minorities - whether people groups (in Russia's case) or religious minorities (in Egypt's). Incidentally, following well-documented trumped-up charges against a very popular Christian Governor of a major Indonesian island/state, at one time tipped to succeed in becoming president of Indonesia itself, and in view of the sporadic bombing etc of churches over recent decades in some parts of the populous nation, that nation ought to be a little cautious as well in pointing the finger at NZ in such a context...
As for lil ole Ireland 'echo[ing] A. Little's concerns around the rights of women' and saying that it 'was concerned at the levels of domestic violence in NZ against women', may I respectfully suggest that those who're even now only just emerging from glasshouses themselves...oughtn't themselves to be hurling stones, however relatively gently...especially when selfsame nation by its own admission has treated women seeking abortions in an extreme manner and moreover when there are countless bodies of young children still being exhumed under said (religious) glasshouses...
Perhaps if and when the United Nations and its various apologists-in-chief/lackeys and cronies decide to get really serious about putting their own house/s in order and attending to their own knitting for once, we might be inclined in ye oft-maligned West(ern nations) to take their claims in good faith...and they could indeed legitimately raise their voices against those nations they perceive not to be honouring the spirit of the UN Charter...
...but certainly not till then...though somehow I doubt that'll be happening anytime soon... except in academic pie-in-the-sky dreamland, or in the cloistered recesses of university ivory towers...
But if Andrew Little and his ilk truly believe this sort of flagrantly overblown and exaggerated, anti-Western dogma and drivel, I respectfully suggest that the sooner his/their ministerial warrant/s are withdrawn/removed the better for all of us...and it won't come soon enough, no, not one single moment...-what a disgrace to the well-earned and deserved good global reputation of NZ Inc!
*Whether vis-a-vis the 'Three Strikes Law', imminent liberalization of abortion laws, or the Stalinist Electoral Integrity Law' (still being progressed through the House of Parliament)...(italics mine!)
**Referring to Queen Elizabeth the Second, that is, and not some oblique 'throw-off' at our P.M. .
Necessary Postscript/Caveat:
Having said all the foregoing, you'd doubtless imagine it'd be hard if not exceedingly difficult to trump the Honourable Andrew Little's performance the other day...and you'd be right. However, and sorry to have to burst your bubble, we have a contender...and right here in lil ole God's Own to boot.
As if Mr Little's 'performance' - as opposed to the valiant, heroic, ongoing efforts in *South Sudan of another much underrated former Labour Party leader here, the admirable David Shearer - wasn't bad enough (and didn't reflect poorly enough upon good ole NZ Inc) - guess who just had to stick her oar/own two cents worth in? Yes, none other than the Green Party's putative 'human rights spokesperson'...-but more on that another time, and believe you me, it'll make my remarks vis-a-vis Andrew Little look like I was merely engaging with kids' gloves, in pure child's play...and then some!
*I believe, as opposed to Sudan. I'm completely in agreement with the then Green Party co-leader Russel Norman who couldn't credit why Labour - effectively - dropped/dumped Shearer...especially when polls then had the Greens and Labour well and truly significantly trumping even John Key's popular as administration...
*Essentially from 'extensive' notes hurriedly scribbled down during extended (three-and-a-half hour) wakefulness during a very troubled, windswept and windblown, wretched (last) night in Dunedin, NZ
**Sorry again, folks, but some things (on this very blogsite, as a matter of fact) have had to take precedence over this...and are somewhat more important in the overall scheme of things...-see my blogpost (on January 22nd, on the famed 'Doomsday Clock', and significant, lengthy additions thereto) and see if you don't agree...but if you don't, you know what to do...yes, 'Post a Comment' thereabouts...and don't just 'flutter' one as it were (without posting it) as some folk seem to be doing of late...
Finally Back to my Knitting (as of Sunday January 27th): Part One - The Sanitized Version!
(NB. Footnoting here is not all left till the end of the blogpost, as better suits its coherence.)
So what's gotten my 'knickers in a knot' about our Justice Minister turning up at the UN the other day...and spouting forth? Precisely that, as a matter of fact...for badmouthing your own nation - especially one with as proud a history as God's Own - is not only not a good look, it is even tantamount to treason...which once upon a time (and not all that long ago, in fact) carried the death sentence here...
So am I suggesting Mr Little be put to death as a result, in some latter-day reinstatement of what many - including Yours Truly - regard as a *barbaric punishment for crime?
*Though I'm certainly not dismissing the equally legitimate views of those who - I'm sure most people would at heart agree - believe that there are some folk who have actually, to all intents and purposes, justly forfeited their own right to enjoy life and liberty with all that that entails...
Which in a(n) - admittedly, as I'm quite wont, rather roundabout - way, actually gets to the heart of my umbrage. For - even giving Minister Little the benefit of the doubt - i.e. accepting he was not only well-intentioned but moreover that his two essential points have thorough legitimacy and credibility in and of themselves, which actually is **somewhat more problematic than might appear at face value - what is the big deal about prisoners voting anyway?
Even if that was not the burden of Little's address to the United Nations Human Rights Council - and let's just say, since it ain't always clear from TV coverage just who (in such a delegation) actually said precisely what - though more than likely the entire delegation essentially agrees in advance with the various points which are ultimately raised by the various members of any nation's official delegation; and TV showed another dude speaking re prisoners having some innate right to vote - I'd wager that ye average punter in the street (here in NZ) already are of the mind that vicious crims in particular already have plenty enough 'rights', thank you very much, and it's - as ever - the longsuffering victims who ever and always have their own effective lifetime death sentence handed down thereafter...and are the ones whose own (only too legitimate) 'rights' are rarely ever considered in such scenarios...
**For example, though such studies - for rather obvious reasons, I'd contend - are rarely cited or brought into the discussion, isn't it a little curious how, for example, some major research once conducted by the (local) University of Otago, no less, showed how more men - yes, folks, you heard me aright! - had been subject to domestic violence than vica-versa...so do with that 'tasty morsel' of info what you well will.. (And evidently it ain't the only such study revealing such a result - scary as many men apparently would find it to openly admit as much!)
To Be Continued (very shortly - *indeed!)
And this'll be my gut, visceral reaction...hurriedly scribbled down that other night...leaving 'no holds barred', and giving full vent to 'something' rarely considered these days - i.e. the equally legitimate emotions/feelings of that subset of the human species rarely given proportionate notice these days, commonly known as male...and reflecting what I believe is probably the (gut) reaction/view of the silent majority - male and female alike - of (what was once proudly known as) God's Own...
Part Two: What the Hell Is Going On/Is Minister Little Up To? (Continued within the very hour.)
It has oftentimes been noted - and I've certainly been in agreement, *significant philosophical perspectives notwithstanding - that Andrew Little is one of the more competent and effectual ministers in Jacinda Ardern's/**her Majesty's cabinet...and ever professional in both his demeanour and approach; perhaps not altogether unusual in light of his previous position (for a couple years) as Labour Party/Opposition leader (and thereby - under normal circumstances - Prime Ministerial Heir-Apparent, if his precipitous polling numbers hadn't precipitated his premature departure from that role and immediate replacement by the stellar, 'stardust'-saturated Ms Ardern).
That having necessarily been said, my view of Mr Little has now dropped inestimably - is veritably in freefall - a somewhat similar situation to that undergone by Little's immediate (Labour Party leader) predecessor, David Cunliffe, whose own feminazi-ish-seeming (collective) 'Apology on behalf of all males of the species' prior to Election 2014 pretty well spelled the beginning of the end of any and every one of his own larger-than-life leadership ambitions...
What the heck is the considered gentleman doing denigrating God's Own upon the world stage...when nations far and wide across the face of the globe are knowingly responsible for the systemic, systematic, state-sponsored and/or sanctioned raping and pillaging, torturing, incarceration and murdering of their own peoples...be they babies/toddlers/infants or the aged, ***women and men alike...as well as being unabashed serial condoners of such barbarities as ***genital mutilation and gang rape and mob-inspired violence and horrors upon girls, homosexuals, transexuals and other 'deviants', or anyone found supposedly misusing or 'blaspheming' the name of their 'god' ...
Don't you dare lecture kiwis as if we as a people engaged - in systemic, systematic fashion - in such outrageous denigration and degradation, decimation and destruction of the female of the species...or anything like it...
Where is your basic sense of perspective, much less essential honesty, let alone loyalty to and pride in your own nation - Aotearoa-New Zealand Inc...a country with such a long and well-earned, proud tradition in terms of its exemplary treatment of women, and then some... as to stand head and shoulders above the vast bulk of its fellow nations upon Earth?
Shame on Mr Little and his globe-trotting fellow-travellers...yes, how dare they even suggest that how women - let alone prisoners - are treated here even remotely compares to the terrifying treatment so many of the incarcerated undergo or that many women are routinely subjected to throughout, say, the (vast majority of) Muslim countries across the Middle East...
And would you believe, while 'our people' were there at said United Nations Human Rights Council - or doubtless shortly thereafter - and no doubt taking liberty and extreme licence from the fact that New Zealand's own representatives were there well and truly bagging their own people and nation -
Iran of all nations had the gall to criticize "New Zealand's lack of a national strategy to combat racism, xenophobia and 'religious hatred' "!!!
Yep, you heard me right, folks...but oodles of shame oozing with disgrace upon New Zealand's mainstream media (of all stripes, apparently) for failing to inform kiwis about this disgusting diatribe ...and from one of the world's chief offenders to boot...although evidently alongside this such countries as Egypt, Indonesia and Russia chimed in as well...reckoning that NZ "had room for improvement in its treatment of Maoris".
Yes, each of those nations - or, to be duly charitable, the first and third of these - know one heckuva, helluva lot about the rights of indigenous minorities - whether people groups (in Russia's case) or religious minorities (in Egypt's). Incidentally, following well-documented trumped-up charges against a very popular Christian Governor of a major Indonesian island/state, at one time tipped to succeed in becoming president of Indonesia itself, and in view of the sporadic bombing etc of churches over recent decades in some parts of the populous nation, that nation ought to be a little cautious as well in pointing the finger at NZ in such a context...
As for lil ole Ireland 'echo[ing] A. Little's concerns around the rights of women' and saying that it 'was concerned at the levels of domestic violence in NZ against women', may I respectfully suggest that those who're even now only just emerging from glasshouses themselves...oughtn't themselves to be hurling stones, however relatively gently...especially when selfsame nation by its own admission has treated women seeking abortions in an extreme manner and moreover when there are countless bodies of young children still being exhumed under said (religious) glasshouses...
Perhaps if and when the United Nations and its various apologists-in-chief/lackeys and cronies decide to get really serious about putting their own house/s in order and attending to their own knitting for once, we might be inclined in ye oft-maligned West(ern nations) to take their claims in good faith...and they could indeed legitimately raise their voices against those nations they perceive not to be honouring the spirit of the UN Charter...
...but certainly not till then...though somehow I doubt that'll be happening anytime soon... except in academic pie-in-the-sky dreamland, or in the cloistered recesses of university ivory towers...
But if Andrew Little and his ilk truly believe this sort of flagrantly overblown and exaggerated, anti-Western dogma and drivel, I respectfully suggest that the sooner his/their ministerial warrant/s are withdrawn/removed the better for all of us...and it won't come soon enough, no, not one single moment...-what a disgrace to the well-earned and deserved good global reputation of NZ Inc!
*Whether vis-a-vis the 'Three Strikes Law', imminent liberalization of abortion laws, or the Stalinist Electoral Integrity Law' (still being progressed through the House of Parliament)...(italics mine!)
**Referring to Queen Elizabeth the Second, that is, and not some oblique 'throw-off' at our P.M. .
Necessary Postscript/Caveat:
Having said all the foregoing, you'd doubtless imagine it'd be hard if not exceedingly difficult to trump the Honourable Andrew Little's performance the other day...and you'd be right. However, and sorry to have to burst your bubble, we have a contender...and right here in lil ole God's Own to boot.
As if Mr Little's 'performance' - as opposed to the valiant, heroic, ongoing efforts in *South Sudan of another much underrated former Labour Party leader here, the admirable David Shearer - wasn't bad enough (and didn't reflect poorly enough upon good ole NZ Inc) - guess who just had to stick her oar/own two cents worth in? Yes, none other than the Green Party's putative 'human rights spokesperson'...-but more on that another time, and believe you me, it'll make my remarks vis-a-vis Andrew Little look like I was merely engaging with kids' gloves, in pure child's play...and then some!
*I believe, as opposed to Sudan. I'm completely in agreement with the then Green Party co-leader Russel Norman who couldn't credit why Labour - effectively - dropped/dumped Shearer...especially when polls then had the Greens and Labour well and truly significantly trumping even John Key's popular as administration...
Wednesday, January 23, 2019
May God Protect Kenya(ns)...and the Brits...for Vain/Futile/Empty/Worthless is the Help of Humankind
If ever there were needed an evidence of just why - secure - boundaries and borders are necessary, even vital...
well, we saw it again just last week, as the peaceful and peace-loving, gentle little nation of Kenya (once again) had its quietude shattered by a medley of monstrous *madmen hell-bent on inflicting maximum carnage upon these quiet, unsuspecting people...
Yes, it's no mistake, folks, the terrorists involved were all Somali-born nationals/invaders...which illustrates yet again precisely why border incursions - for such this effectively was (one more example of) - in and of themselves evidence the - absolutely critical - need for secure borders and boundaries. Whatever the indifferent, uncaring **international 'human rights' outfits who invariably weigh in uninvited upon such matters predictably moralize...
Yes, a Kenyan phone-in guest upon BBC's weekday O.S. programme, 'Ken' (January 16, NZ-time), no doubt well expressed the heartfelt sentiments of his countrymen and women, when he said how "folk there [i.e. in Kenya, in the building under direct attack the other day] [were] thinking 'this could never happen here', and asking themselves, "Should we go down...should we go up...should be run...should we hide?" And RNZ National's Morning Report later that morning put it succinctly: "Kenyans will [would have] be[en] shocked and stunned by this attack...but reminded of the [in]security of the[ir] [northern] border."
May Hocus Bedlam - or was it Les Kebabs? - meet the just desserts their ghastly evil merits...
As for the British, citizens of the United Kingdom - whose ongoing, seemingly never-ending Brexit plight has been heavily dominating the (especially BBC) airwaves since the start of 2019 - surely they have every right, even arguably the very obligation to secure their own borders/geographical boundaries as well...for who - of all those who routinely lecture one and all of us about the value and need for democracy in any and every nook and corner of the globe - and no, I'm not thinking here of the likes of 'George Dubya' - can really argue that they haven't already - long hence - made their own sovereign decision upon this longtime most contentious of matters abundantly clear as can be?
Yes, folks, it's called, it's all about genuinely respecting the expressed will of the British peoples...as an anti-Brexit Conservative Party M.P. from Bournemouth(e) - talking with veteran Brexit correspondent Rob Watson upon BBC's O.S. programme this selfsame morning - himself conceded...and prithee tell me what could possibly be more democratic than that?
Yes, even if it ultimately results in a 'no deal' crash-out of the European Union upon March 29th (I believe is the fateful date long cited). As far as many Britons would no doubt see it, it'd be a case of 'good riddance to bad rubbish'...and the start of a slow hard slog to a renewed truly 'Great' Britain...all the more deeply treasured and cherished for having been so very hard-won...
*So am I among those who so glibly and facilely dismiss such terrorists - as so many regularly do with those who facilitated and enacted and otherwise allowed if not personally condoned the gas chambers of the Holocaust - as merely 'mad', i.e. as somehow insane or possessing some sort of mental illness? Indeed I do not: however abused such a term may well at times be (including by former presidents of the U S A in particular) evil will always be evil. Inexplicable, yes indeed...just as an insightful ****author has well stated that no real reason can ever be given for the very existence of sin and evil in God's universe...for 'to explain its cause would be to effectively justify or rationalize its existence'...and that can never ever be done.
No, as Jesus Himself so well expressed matters, such 'are of [their] father, the devil, and the deeds of [their] father they do'...and like him (or 'it', as *****H Scott Peck would put it) they will one day very soon share his (its) selfsame fate...and folks, that won't be at all pretty...no, indeed!
**Yes, there are some of these well worthy of true and deep respect, but when they seek to devalue and belittle and otherwise dismiss peoples' legitimate concerns and 'demands' for safety and security in their own lands...whether they be the likes of ***Amnesty International (or not)...I'm sorry, they've then and there lost their claims to legitimacy as far as having the right to be taken seriously.
***Incidentally, whose pronouncements of recent times upon issues wholly outside their legitimate purview, such as abortion, make them ipso facto unworthy of receiving the respect they once did.
****Ellen Gould White, at one time the world's most prolific female author and the third most written person generally. In such (various) tomes as The Great Controversy Between Christ and Satan, Desire of Ages, and Patriarchs and Prophets. Among many others...
*****From his introductory comments in People of the Lie: The Hope for Healing Human Evil.
well, we saw it again just last week, as the peaceful and peace-loving, gentle little nation of Kenya (once again) had its quietude shattered by a medley of monstrous *madmen hell-bent on inflicting maximum carnage upon these quiet, unsuspecting people...
Yes, it's no mistake, folks, the terrorists involved were all Somali-born nationals/invaders...which illustrates yet again precisely why border incursions - for such this effectively was (one more example of) - in and of themselves evidence the - absolutely critical - need for secure borders and boundaries. Whatever the indifferent, uncaring **international 'human rights' outfits who invariably weigh in uninvited upon such matters predictably moralize...
Yes, a Kenyan phone-in guest upon BBC's weekday O.S. programme, 'Ken' (January 16, NZ-time), no doubt well expressed the heartfelt sentiments of his countrymen and women, when he said how "folk there [i.e. in Kenya, in the building under direct attack the other day] [were] thinking 'this could never happen here', and asking themselves, "Should we go down...should we go up...should be run...should we hide?" And RNZ National's Morning Report later that morning put it succinctly: "Kenyans will [would have] be[en] shocked and stunned by this attack...but reminded of the [in]security of the[ir] [northern] border."
May Hocus Bedlam - or was it Les Kebabs? - meet the just desserts their ghastly evil merits...
As for the British, citizens of the United Kingdom - whose ongoing, seemingly never-ending Brexit plight has been heavily dominating the (especially BBC) airwaves since the start of 2019 - surely they have every right, even arguably the very obligation to secure their own borders/geographical boundaries as well...for who - of all those who routinely lecture one and all of us about the value and need for democracy in any and every nook and corner of the globe - and no, I'm not thinking here of the likes of 'George Dubya' - can really argue that they haven't already - long hence - made their own sovereign decision upon this longtime most contentious of matters abundantly clear as can be?
Yes, folks, it's called, it's all about genuinely respecting the expressed will of the British peoples...as an anti-Brexit Conservative Party M.P. from Bournemouth(e) - talking with veteran Brexit correspondent Rob Watson upon BBC's O.S. programme this selfsame morning - himself conceded...and prithee tell me what could possibly be more democratic than that?
Yes, even if it ultimately results in a 'no deal' crash-out of the European Union upon March 29th (I believe is the fateful date long cited). As far as many Britons would no doubt see it, it'd be a case of 'good riddance to bad rubbish'...and the start of a slow hard slog to a renewed truly 'Great' Britain...all the more deeply treasured and cherished for having been so very hard-won...
*So am I among those who so glibly and facilely dismiss such terrorists - as so many regularly do with those who facilitated and enacted and otherwise allowed if not personally condoned the gas chambers of the Holocaust - as merely 'mad', i.e. as somehow insane or possessing some sort of mental illness? Indeed I do not: however abused such a term may well at times be (including by former presidents of the U S A in particular) evil will always be evil. Inexplicable, yes indeed...just as an insightful ****author has well stated that no real reason can ever be given for the very existence of sin and evil in God's universe...for 'to explain its cause would be to effectively justify or rationalize its existence'...and that can never ever be done.
No, as Jesus Himself so well expressed matters, such 'are of [their] father, the devil, and the deeds of [their] father they do'...and like him (or 'it', as *****H Scott Peck would put it) they will one day very soon share his (its) selfsame fate...and folks, that won't be at all pretty...no, indeed!
**Yes, there are some of these well worthy of true and deep respect, but when they seek to devalue and belittle and otherwise dismiss peoples' legitimate concerns and 'demands' for safety and security in their own lands...whether they be the likes of ***Amnesty International (or not)...I'm sorry, they've then and there lost their claims to legitimacy as far as having the right to be taken seriously.
***Incidentally, whose pronouncements of recent times upon issues wholly outside their legitimate purview, such as abortion, make them ipso facto unworthy of receiving the respect they once did.
****Ellen Gould White, at one time the world's most prolific female author and the third most written person generally. In such (various) tomes as The Great Controversy Between Christ and Satan, Desire of Ages, and Patriarchs and Prophets. Among many others...
*****From his introductory comments in People of the Lie: The Hope for Healing Human Evil.
Tuesday, January 22, 2019
Unwise, Rash Political Decisions and Military Moves Bring the Doomsday Clock Inexorably Closer to Midnight: May Israel Relent Before It's Forever too Late
As my Grandma might've said when presenting me - upon my 16th birthday - with my forever after beloved Concise Oxford Dictionary...so's I could henceforth 'get the last word in every argument'...
...they say that sometimes it pays to lose an argument and keep a friend, or - in this case - to lose a battle and ultimately win the war (by choosing one's battles wisely)...
Having had a little experience in the same, yet not remotely equating the present situation between Israel and Iran with such personal 'trivia', nevertheless...
with the ongoing Israeli airstrikes upon Iranian military targets in Syria (amidst its ongoing, multifaceted, multidimensional, multinational *'civil war')...
...let's just say - without being overly dramatic or sensational or wild-eyed or cynical or pessimistic - that an all-out - potentially nuclear - war in (at least) the Middle East is not just 'on the cards', it actually, really seems to be drawing inexorably closer and closer...
...as the famed Doomsday Clock moves ever nearer towards that fateful midnight hour...
May God save us from the shortsighted stupidity of men (**for men are almost invariably calling the shots)...for only the LORD Almighty can possibly do so...
*However inherently self-contradictory such a thing obviously is.
**Although the Israeli military (and Government itself) doubtless has ***any number of hawkish women in its ranks as well; whereas vis-a-vis Israel's patron-state, the United States of America, noted investigative journalist John Pilger argued (in the run-up to the 2016 American presidential election) that the world had more to fear from a hawkish Hillary Clinton presidency...endlessly 'upping the ante' against the likes of China, Russia, North Korea and Iran...than from a Trump presidency, however distasteful the latter may well be to the refined and cultured sensibilities of the 'average man [and woman] in the street'...
***And no, though Israel's celebrated leader Golda Meir, like her generational contemporaries Indira Gandhi and Margaret Thatcher, would hardly be classified or categorized as a dove, she was at heart a measured and sensible person who ****'had an understanding of the times, to know what ought to be done.'
****To paraphrase the great Older Testament prophet Daniel, in regards, admittedly, to 'the people of God' in truth...i.e. not those who may be considered such purely by dint of their happenstance birth, but because they truly, genuinely follow in the footsteps of their forefather of faith, 'father' Abraham.
****Said verse being 1 Chronicles 12:32 - any version, esp. The (Authorized) King James Bible.
(Quite unexpected) Epilog(ue) - a couple days on (Friday, January 25th NZ-time, in fact):
The truth is usually odder than fiction, as they say, and thus and so would'ya believe that I just heard (on RNZ National's regular weekdays' 'World Watch' programme) a reference to this selfsame doomsday clock...and - believe it or otherwise - in connection with none other than the now former Californian Governor Jerry Brown ('incidentally' subject of my previously posted blogpost no less!)
Apparently the */**Institute of Atomic Science has recently decided to keep said doomsday clock at the two minutes to midnight setting it has been on over the preceding year. Unsure at this stage if Mr Brown has since leaving office been appointed to this agency, but anyhow, in regards to this announcement and vis-a-vis the cognitive dissonance between humanity's natural desire to avoid said doomsday and present global policies, Brown himself suggested that 'regional conflicts' and 'climate change' in particular presented a 'rising incompatibility with the natural environment' and berated global leaders for effectively 'fiddling while Rome burns'.
Though, from regularly listening in to the Pacific edition of the New York City-based 'Democracy Now' weekdays radio show, I note that they and their various commentators frequently lambasted Governor Brown himself for his own ineffectualness over that selfsame 'global warming'/'climate change' dilemma...and that despite making all the usual 'proper' noises thereabouts over recent years...
*As reported by World Watch. **According to https://www.bbc.com (etc) Jerry Brown is currently ***serving as the executive chair of the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists, a (monitoring) organization established in 1947. Incidentally the famed Doomsday Clock has only been at selfsame setting once before, i.e. in 1953 when the USA and the (then) USSR tested 'highly destructive hydrogen bombs'.
***And why (is the recently retired Governor of America's largest state now acting in such an interesting (and theoretically influential) quasi-scientific role? Why indeed? Can I respectively suggest that it may perhaps have somewhat to do with his distinguished pedigree as a longtime member of the rather exclusive and (historically infamous) Jesuit Order...
...whose extremely small - 12,000-some - global membership has an influence way ****disproportionate to their relative numbers...
...yet whose selfsame membership - or arguably a goodly proportion thereof - have ever managed to worm or wheedle their way into various and sundry positions of great political influence all around the world...
And though our supposedly 'enlightened' but seemingly wilfully historically ignorant, superficial as, mainstream media-led modern-day Western society intuits/apprehends no problem or worries whatsoever about the centuries-old 'Society of Jesus', let me readily assure one and all that statesmen and stateswomen down through history (from Queen Elizabeth the First through to America's (generally considered) all-time greatest president, Abraham Lincoln) did not so regard this insidious Roman Catholic order...
...but - whether explicitly or implicitly - as pretty well the greatest single threat to human autonomy and religious liberty the world had ever seen...
And though some (including readers of this, I daresay) may well perceive no obvious or other threat to our hard-won liberties from this rather obscure and clandestine, numerically minute outfit - at least in any but some rather old-fashioned religious conflict sense/s - let me assure you that it has been suggested - and through centuries of the infamous Dark Ages it was deeply believed by adherents of pretty well all the reformed churches, including the eminent Quaker, founder of the Religious Society of Friends, George Fox (*****I've little doubt) - that this mysterious order has been implicated in the background of many events, surreptitiously 'stirring the pot' and fomenting trouble wherever its presence has been unsuspected or least suspected...pretty well like its infamous leader - no, not the 'meek and mild Jesus', as one might assume, but His cruel and implacable foe, the devil or Satan.
****And a couple other well-known Jesuits presently bestriding the world stage? Well, how about French President Emmanuel Macron for one, and Pope Francis for another...in case you're curious.
*****Incident to his well-established belief, yea conviction, like these other nonconformist (and sometimes later 'disestablished') Protestant Reforming churches, that the biblical antichrist was none other than that pointed out so cogently and specifically and clearly by the Revelator...and echoed so articulately and eloquently by all the leading reformers, from Martin Luther on down...
******For those still unconvinced, I could doubtless refer you to any number of historical sources, but if you're only interested in *******recently-written tomes, you couldn't do worse than traverse either Elizabeth the Last? [An Expose of the Hidden Power behind the Drive for Republicanism] (1997) by Bruce McMillan & Evan Sadler, or George and Eileen Anderson's (1988) Beyond Magic.
Even the noted tomes - In God's Name [An Investigation into the Murder of Pope John Paul 1] (1984) (by David Yallop of Beyond Reasonable Doubt fame, as well as of a noted biography of Pope John Paul 11) and ********Malachi Martin's (1990) The Keys of This Blood: The Struggle for World Dominion Between Pope John Paul 11, Mikhail Gorbachev, and the Capitalist West contain the briefest of, but nevertheless pointed allusions to/snippets of/glimpses into this order's sometimes more overt, but no less nefarious interactions with various 'players' on this temporal scene and activities in advancing their overall agenda...
However for all those interested in more classical works thereabouts, you couldn't go worse than peruse such books as Ellen G White's (1888) The Great Controversy Between Christ and Satan - which contains some of the most explicit and damning unveiling of this order and its inner machinations as has ever been given; or Christopher Hill's (1971) Antichrist in Seventeenth-Century England, which, though only containing a few rather brief and shadowy references, leaves the reader in no doubt whatsoever as to the unsavoury character of this dark group.
******By which I refer to anything written within the last few decades or so...
********And although I've yet to come across, let alone read it, one of Martin's many other books sounds like it'd have much to say in every way. Perhaps it even explains the reason, as with Pope John Paul 1, for his rather 'expeditious' demise... Its title? Simply The Jesuits...nuff said!
...they say that sometimes it pays to lose an argument and keep a friend, or - in this case - to lose a battle and ultimately win the war (by choosing one's battles wisely)...
Having had a little experience in the same, yet not remotely equating the present situation between Israel and Iran with such personal 'trivia', nevertheless...
with the ongoing Israeli airstrikes upon Iranian military targets in Syria (amidst its ongoing, multifaceted, multidimensional, multinational *'civil war')...
...let's just say - without being overly dramatic or sensational or wild-eyed or cynical or pessimistic - that an all-out - potentially nuclear - war in (at least) the Middle East is not just 'on the cards', it actually, really seems to be drawing inexorably closer and closer...
...as the famed Doomsday Clock moves ever nearer towards that fateful midnight hour...
May God save us from the shortsighted stupidity of men (**for men are almost invariably calling the shots)...for only the LORD Almighty can possibly do so...
*However inherently self-contradictory such a thing obviously is.
**Although the Israeli military (and Government itself) doubtless has ***any number of hawkish women in its ranks as well; whereas vis-a-vis Israel's patron-state, the United States of America, noted investigative journalist John Pilger argued (in the run-up to the 2016 American presidential election) that the world had more to fear from a hawkish Hillary Clinton presidency...endlessly 'upping the ante' against the likes of China, Russia, North Korea and Iran...than from a Trump presidency, however distasteful the latter may well be to the refined and cultured sensibilities of the 'average man [and woman] in the street'...
***And no, though Israel's celebrated leader Golda Meir, like her generational contemporaries Indira Gandhi and Margaret Thatcher, would hardly be classified or categorized as a dove, she was at heart a measured and sensible person who ****'had an understanding of the times, to know what ought to be done.'
****To paraphrase the great Older Testament prophet Daniel, in regards, admittedly, to 'the people of God' in truth...i.e. not those who may be considered such purely by dint of their happenstance birth, but because they truly, genuinely follow in the footsteps of their forefather of faith, 'father' Abraham.
****Said verse being 1 Chronicles 12:32 - any version, esp. The (Authorized) King James Bible.
(Quite unexpected) Epilog(ue) - a couple days on (Friday, January 25th NZ-time, in fact):
The truth is usually odder than fiction, as they say, and thus and so would'ya believe that I just heard (on RNZ National's regular weekdays' 'World Watch' programme) a reference to this selfsame doomsday clock...and - believe it or otherwise - in connection with none other than the now former Californian Governor Jerry Brown ('incidentally' subject of my previously posted blogpost no less!)
Apparently the */**Institute of Atomic Science has recently decided to keep said doomsday clock at the two minutes to midnight setting it has been on over the preceding year. Unsure at this stage if Mr Brown has since leaving office been appointed to this agency, but anyhow, in regards to this announcement and vis-a-vis the cognitive dissonance between humanity's natural desire to avoid said doomsday and present global policies, Brown himself suggested that 'regional conflicts' and 'climate change' in particular presented a 'rising incompatibility with the natural environment' and berated global leaders for effectively 'fiddling while Rome burns'.
Though, from regularly listening in to the Pacific edition of the New York City-based 'Democracy Now' weekdays radio show, I note that they and their various commentators frequently lambasted Governor Brown himself for his own ineffectualness over that selfsame 'global warming'/'climate change' dilemma...and that despite making all the usual 'proper' noises thereabouts over recent years...
*As reported by World Watch. **According to https://www.bbc.com (etc) Jerry Brown is currently ***serving as the executive chair of the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists, a (monitoring) organization established in 1947. Incidentally the famed Doomsday Clock has only been at selfsame setting once before, i.e. in 1953 when the USA and the (then) USSR tested 'highly destructive hydrogen bombs'.
***And why (is the recently retired Governor of America's largest state now acting in such an interesting (and theoretically influential) quasi-scientific role? Why indeed? Can I respectively suggest that it may perhaps have somewhat to do with his distinguished pedigree as a longtime member of the rather exclusive and (historically infamous) Jesuit Order...
...whose extremely small - 12,000-some - global membership has an influence way ****disproportionate to their relative numbers...
...yet whose selfsame membership - or arguably a goodly proportion thereof - have ever managed to worm or wheedle their way into various and sundry positions of great political influence all around the world...
And though our supposedly 'enlightened' but seemingly wilfully historically ignorant, superficial as, mainstream media-led modern-day Western society intuits/apprehends no problem or worries whatsoever about the centuries-old 'Society of Jesus', let me readily assure one and all that statesmen and stateswomen down through history (from Queen Elizabeth the First through to America's (generally considered) all-time greatest president, Abraham Lincoln) did not so regard this insidious Roman Catholic order...
...but - whether explicitly or implicitly - as pretty well the greatest single threat to human autonomy and religious liberty the world had ever seen...
And though some (including readers of this, I daresay) may well perceive no obvious or other threat to our hard-won liberties from this rather obscure and clandestine, numerically minute outfit - at least in any but some rather old-fashioned religious conflict sense/s - let me assure you that it has been suggested - and through centuries of the infamous Dark Ages it was deeply believed by adherents of pretty well all the reformed churches, including the eminent Quaker, founder of the Religious Society of Friends, George Fox (*****I've little doubt) - that this mysterious order has been implicated in the background of many events, surreptitiously 'stirring the pot' and fomenting trouble wherever its presence has been unsuspected or least suspected...pretty well like its infamous leader - no, not the 'meek and mild Jesus', as one might assume, but His cruel and implacable foe, the devil or Satan.
****And a couple other well-known Jesuits presently bestriding the world stage? Well, how about French President Emmanuel Macron for one, and Pope Francis for another...in case you're curious.
*****Incident to his well-established belief, yea conviction, like these other nonconformist (and sometimes later 'disestablished') Protestant Reforming churches, that the biblical antichrist was none other than that pointed out so cogently and specifically and clearly by the Revelator...and echoed so articulately and eloquently by all the leading reformers, from Martin Luther on down...
******For those still unconvinced, I could doubtless refer you to any number of historical sources, but if you're only interested in *******recently-written tomes, you couldn't do worse than traverse either Elizabeth the Last? [An Expose of the Hidden Power behind the Drive for Republicanism] (1997) by Bruce McMillan & Evan Sadler, or George and Eileen Anderson's (1988) Beyond Magic.
Even the noted tomes - In God's Name [An Investigation into the Murder of Pope John Paul 1] (1984) (by David Yallop of Beyond Reasonable Doubt fame, as well as of a noted biography of Pope John Paul 11) and ********Malachi Martin's (1990) The Keys of This Blood: The Struggle for World Dominion Between Pope John Paul 11, Mikhail Gorbachev, and the Capitalist West contain the briefest of, but nevertheless pointed allusions to/snippets of/glimpses into this order's sometimes more overt, but no less nefarious interactions with various 'players' on this temporal scene and activities in advancing their overall agenda...
However for all those interested in more classical works thereabouts, you couldn't go worse than peruse such books as Ellen G White's (1888) The Great Controversy Between Christ and Satan - which contains some of the most explicit and damning unveiling of this order and its inner machinations as has ever been given; or Christopher Hill's (1971) Antichrist in Seventeenth-Century England, which, though only containing a few rather brief and shadowy references, leaves the reader in no doubt whatsoever as to the unsavoury character of this dark group.
******By which I refer to anything written within the last few decades or so...
********And although I've yet to come across, let alone read it, one of Martin's many other books sounds like it'd have much to say in every way. Perhaps it even explains the reason, as with Pope John Paul 1, for his rather 'expeditious' demise... Its title? Simply The Jesuits...nuff said!
Friday, January 18, 2019
What A Legacy To Leave: Legalized Dope-Smoking by America's Longest-Serving - and Dopiest - Governor
Yes, just prior to leaving office, long-serving California Governor Jerry Brown - who has just completed a second long, eight-year, stint in that formidable role - got to see what was arguably his own pet project finally enacted into law. Though I notice the Wikipedia page thereabouts never once mentions him in its fairly un-extensive 'piece' thereabouts, it would hardly take a rocket scientist to surmise that Governor Brown would have been exceedingly pleased, even proud, to have finally left office with the legalization of recreational marijuana use, as it were, 'under his belt'...
Sure, Californian voters themselves voted in proposition 215 to approve the Legislature's 'Adult Use of Marijuana Act', and this was made law in early 2018 - quite apart from Brown himself - but anyone knowing his personal history thereabouts - from way back - would surely have to be a tad naive not to see his fingerprints writ large all over this particular referendum-approved legislation.
I mean, for crying out loud, the dude was busted attending a dope-smokin' party not all that long ago!
Sure, Californian voters themselves voted in proposition 215 to approve the Legislature's 'Adult Use of Marijuana Act', and this was made law in early 2018 - quite apart from Brown himself - but anyone knowing his personal history thereabouts - from way back - would surely have to be a tad naive not to see his fingerprints writ large all over this particular referendum-approved legislation.
I mean, for crying out loud, the dude was busted attending a dope-smokin' party not all that long ago!
American Healthcare the World's Greatest Healthcare? You Must be Joking, People!
So *the 700 Club's Pat Robertson reckons 'single payer' Government-subsidized healthcare (as commonly practiced throughout Western nations) is 'way behind' America's "best healthcare system in the world"? And that "people in such countries" - i.e. the entire remainder of the civilized world, pretty well - are lining up in queues and effectively dying while awaiting life-saving operations?
On what particular planet is Mr Robertson living? It certainly cannot be Planet Earth. Such a claim, apparently advanced to belittle the present efforts of New York City's progressive Mayor, De Blasio - not to mention the 2016 Wannabe Democratic Presidential nominee, independent federal senator from Vermont, Bernie Sanders - to progress just such a thing, is pure bunkum; sheer balderdash; and el typical blind, 'patriotic', American exclusivism at its most myopic and frankly delusional.
Nuff Said!
*As discussed on a recent (8/1?) episode upon Shine TV, in the nighttime news bulletin slot.
On what particular planet is Mr Robertson living? It certainly cannot be Planet Earth. Such a claim, apparently advanced to belittle the present efforts of New York City's progressive Mayor, De Blasio - not to mention the 2016 Wannabe Democratic Presidential nominee, independent federal senator from Vermont, Bernie Sanders - to progress just such a thing, is pure bunkum; sheer balderdash; and el typical blind, 'patriotic', American exclusivism at its most myopic and frankly delusional.
Nuff Said!
*As discussed on a recent (8/1?) episode upon Shine TV, in the nighttime news bulletin slot.
America's Greatest Ever President Knew What he was On About: Yes, 'Primitive [i.e. Grassroots] Capitalism' was a Fine Thing...Whereas 'Rubber Baron [i.e. Monopoly] Capitalism' is the Scourge of Modern-Day Western 'Civilization'
*Interestingly and curiously the feudal era 'rubber barons' share this 'distinction' of being opulent and cruel (in their trade practices) as their latter-day 'robber barons' captains of industry were in business!
*As per the relevant (time permitting, to be properly identified) Wikipedia page entries...
*As per the relevant (time permitting, to be properly identified) Wikipedia page entries...
Thursday, January 17, 2019
Oh So Zealously 'Making a Man An Offender For a Word'...While Blithely Ignoring the Elephants Stomping All Over the Room: A Personal Response to a Latter-Day Plague, even Pandemic, of Soul Shortsightedness
The Master put it oh so well, in my view...when He declared - as part of the new manifesto of His spiritual kingdom that - alongside Himself - had just then arrived (upon Planet Earth):
**"...with the same measure you use, it will be measured back to you..." (Matthew 7:2.)
And so it should come as no surprise to anyone when I simply state the blimin' obvious: that we live in a day and age when the zealous ***thought-police are busily straining for gnats while simultaneously swallowing camels...-and that the very intensity and zealotry of their efforts is in inverse proportion to their related blindness in detecting the clear and present behemoth bestriding this temporal turf...
And so this blogpost is my response to two items 'in the news'/covered off by media over recent weeks - one upon the BBC World News, the other upon a New Zealand broadcaster - and tied together because they serve as lightning rod examples of the curious double-standards of modern-day mainstream media, at least in the secular West...
My notes being all over the place and otherwise not easily accessible at present, I will continue this tomorrow, but suffice to say - for now - the former (BBC-reported item) involved an American meteorologist dismissed for allegedly using some racist or other unsuitable epithet on public media - despite the evidence evidently lacking when push came to shove...the other/latter the way in which even the most basic, fundamental Christian sensibilities are routinely devalued and trivialized by trendy media pundits who would react with abject horror and outrage were the same sort of terms used in regards to the Muslim religion in particular...
...the connection between the two - fully accepting and acknowledging that my rather convoluted way of expressing myself may at times confuse folks - being they both revolve around contentious words.
Yes, To Be Continued (Very Soon)...
January 22:
Heartfelt apologies for taking so long to get back to this...and unfortunately you will have to go on waiting a little longer still...for matters of the utmost importance need to be dealt with today asap...
January 25: Ditto (with knobs on)...cf my latest (thus far extremely truncated) one upon our Justice Minister's recent international foray into bad-mouthing our great nation of God's Own...
*Isaiah 29:21, The Holy Bible.
**Scripture taken from the New King James Version. (c) 1982 by Thomas Nelson, Inc. Used by permission. All rights reserved.
***To make even the likes of George Orwell's 1984 or Aldous Huxley's Brave New World look like primers for mere amateurs...
**"...with the same measure you use, it will be measured back to you..." (Matthew 7:2.)
And so it should come as no surprise to anyone when I simply state the blimin' obvious: that we live in a day and age when the zealous ***thought-police are busily straining for gnats while simultaneously swallowing camels...-and that the very intensity and zealotry of their efforts is in inverse proportion to their related blindness in detecting the clear and present behemoth bestriding this temporal turf...
And so this blogpost is my response to two items 'in the news'/covered off by media over recent weeks - one upon the BBC World News, the other upon a New Zealand broadcaster - and tied together because they serve as lightning rod examples of the curious double-standards of modern-day mainstream media, at least in the secular West...
My notes being all over the place and otherwise not easily accessible at present, I will continue this tomorrow, but suffice to say - for now - the former (BBC-reported item) involved an American meteorologist dismissed for allegedly using some racist or other unsuitable epithet on public media - despite the evidence evidently lacking when push came to shove...the other/latter the way in which even the most basic, fundamental Christian sensibilities are routinely devalued and trivialized by trendy media pundits who would react with abject horror and outrage were the same sort of terms used in regards to the Muslim religion in particular...
...the connection between the two - fully accepting and acknowledging that my rather convoluted way of expressing myself may at times confuse folks - being they both revolve around contentious words.
Yes, To Be Continued (Very Soon)...
January 22:
Heartfelt apologies for taking so long to get back to this...and unfortunately you will have to go on waiting a little longer still...for matters of the utmost importance need to be dealt with today asap...
January 25: Ditto (with knobs on)...cf my latest (thus far extremely truncated) one upon our Justice Minister's recent international foray into bad-mouthing our great nation of God's Own...
*Isaiah 29:21, The Holy Bible.
**Scripture taken from the New King James Version. (c) 1982 by Thomas Nelson, Inc. Used by permission. All rights reserved.
***To make even the likes of George Orwell's 1984 or Aldous Huxley's Brave New World look like primers for mere amateurs...
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