Category Archives: Rage

Just Some Reflections On The Week Passed

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As usual over the past week there has been a great deal of news and depending where you live in this world, some events will appear more important than others, and the three I will write about might not understandably matter a jot to you, those closer, literally to your home being of far more importance. Just look upon this then as one person reflecting upon examples of Human reactions, motivations and of course follies. It’s another of those long ruminations though, and a bit convoluted. Bear with me here.

Brian Thompson CEO of United Healthcare
To be honest, chillingly honest maybe, I did not pay much attention to the initial headline, I was skipping quickly to another site, and this just registered as another killing in the USA, a commentary all of it own; the post could have stopped there couldn’t it? A reader could have drawn their own conclusions. Anyway on returning a couple days later the narrative became clearer. The CEO of a controversial but very large USA Healthcare Insurance and ‘provider’. It appears the company has a reputation for finding a way of rejecting or stalling claims.
What was not surprising but worrying nonetheless were the types of reactions. Very little obvious sympathy, much visceral grim humour in messages and one or two cartoons. A great deal of resentment had been building up and in one swift violent act a dam broke. The public reaction garnering its own media attention.
https://www.newyorker.com/news/the-lede/what-the-murder-of-the-unitedhealthcare-ceo-brian-thompson-means-to-america 
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/cm2eeeep0npo

The president to be Trump once boasting about his popularity said he could shoot a person on 5th Avenue and not loose votes. It seems the shooter of Brian Thompson proved that could actually be a case. Yes, and the shooter.
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/cly2zwqqr1ro

An Ivy League graduate from a prominent Maryland family. Those are the facts to date. And why we are not surprised by this link?

https://economictimes.indiatimes.com/news/international/global-trends/why-thousands-are-supporting-luigi-mangione-the-suspect-in-unitedhealthcare-ceos-murder-and-fundraising-for-him/articleshow/116155704.cms?from=mdr
Those on the Right and outraged by the killing of a CEO should not be horrified, after all Daniel Perry was crowdfunded.
And here is the stark lesson. Just looking at those two examples in point, the USA. Hate and Prejudice those dire siblings are walking hand in hand. Kill someone who represents a subject of Hate and there will be support, approval, and in some corners encouragement for more of the same. What those supporters seem to miss is that they are encouraging the normalisation of such actions. You don’t like someone prominent or supporters of a movement you detest? Fine just take a gun, or household DIY implement or put together your own IED, you might get caught by The Law, but you’ll have a support base out there. You will not be alone. Even become a hero, no matter how unsettled and skewed your perceptions are. You might die and get martyr status. It’s all cool. Apparently. 

This is something that some of the extreme politicians and those thrice removed from the reality of ordinary life entrepreneurs have missed too. For years now, maybe since Obama’s election, the Anger has been building, and blindness to Rationality growing. The first warning eruption was of course in 2016, then 2021 and now in 2024. Anger fed on frustration, anger fed on triumphalism, anger fed on fear, anger feeding itself. On and on. Trump was nearly a casualty, thankfully not, he does not deserve to be mourned like some hero to the cause. Of course he did not learn the lesson, he continues to make inflammatory statements, adding fuel to the fire and there was Vivek Ramaswamy demonstrating a complete lack of understand how a nation works. Thus in the light of Thompson’s death it has to be asked ‘Who’s Next? Right, Liberal or Activist or Someone briefly in the media highlight?’. A shocking comment I know. Yet in a polarised nation with ‘that many’ guns, is it not valid one to worry about, fear. I do not believe the death of Brian Thompson was any good to anyone. Just spare a thought for his family. This time of year will never be the same for them again. Consequences? There are always consequences.

Anger, pent up, building up. So much rage, it would stifle any Christmas Truce.
You’d have to witnessed it close up, or been reading the runes to truly grasp the potential. 

Syria
(How it links to the above)
Only those who have been following the immensely complicated situation could have given a suggestion that the fall of the Assad regime was close at hand. For most of us the fall of Aleppo was the biggest news and one that would have raised an eyebrow. Thus when I read the newsfeeds on Sunday morning 7.30am UK time it was a shock.  
Now here is the qualified guilty secret. My first reaction was delight at how ridiculous some sections of the UK Left would be held up to account in the light of their previous history of a stance to be against any Western criticism of Assad and that included the courageous White Helmets
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/White_Helmets_(Syrian_civil_war)

If you have been following my blogs you will know of my extreme dislike (putting in mildly) of those sections of the UK Left who come out immediately ‘The West’ (and Israel) does anything, but are or have been at best very muted about other outrages around the world. Even explaining how folk like Putin are justified. I will spare you any further of my outrage at this selective protesting, except to say it devalues any protests they do indulge it.

My problem on Sunday and Monday was containing that emotion. I knew somewhere it was wrong, because there were debates within the UK Left over that ‘selective’ approach in 2011-2015. It was necessary to keep on going over and over the number of militias, para-militaries and even small conventional armies which have growing up, and how just because one was claiming it had the bidding rights for government that was not the end of it. Damascus was not actually seized by the main runner, the Islamist HTS, taken advantage of their advances, the SNA (Syrian National Army) backed by Turkey, these days came up from its stronghold in the south and did a land-grab. Although both sides are now in a tentative slender alliance for the moment. It was necessary to remind myself that Libya and Iraq caste off brutal dictators, the former is still in a civil war and the latter still unsettled. No real cause to cheer.
And yet, and yet, for two days I was mentally mocking the most vocal of the history of the UK Left wing protests movements because I had deemed them to be at best simplistic and naïve and at worse prejudiced and willing saps for the more professionals. Talk about ‘Hate’ and losing perspective I had my own version of the debate on the killing of CEO Brian Thompson going on here. 
Thankfully there was the BBC World Service on hand to supply information from those who had worked on the various front lines, had been faced to face with the horrors and had risked their own lives…..Mind you that strategy had its own problems, because another bunch I have no time for are those who blindly criticise the BBC news outlets because it generally supplies the world news as it is and not how they would like it (It has it’s failings on UK national news, can be a bit tabloid at times), so I was muttering about them.

Summary- Thus Far
It is so easy isn’t it to fall into the reactive approach, to see the other side as blinkered, narrow minded, downright prejudiced and with no perception of Reality, particularly when in their own passions they act just as you expect (or is that…want?) them to. Well of course you are right to feel that way, just look at the way they carry on. 
There’s something wrong there, but there’s no satisfaction in admitting it, if they are opposition, then they deserve all you are saying about them, every single one of them.
I think? 
But I can say that because I am very broad minded in my condemnation, be they Right or Left. Or Cancel Culture, or Objecting to Cancel Culture. Or whatever.

Hate. Intolerance. Sneaky little blighters are they not?

There’s most certainly something wrong these days. Less tolerance. More polarisation. So easy to just hit the old keyboard, rattle away and press ‘send’ Just where is the dividing line between Honest Opposition or Justifiable Outrage and the simply urge to give way to the delicious thrill of ‘venting’ blind anger (Who me? Prejudiced? Most certainly not. It’s just that Some people….)

Oh yes there are those feeding off it all the time, growing rich and famous. Trouble is, they had better watch their back… Those who live by the sword, as it were

A Footnote, and a Warning To Some
We’ve all heard of trolls of course. Onerous, pathetic folk mostly. And yet in this frenetic social media world, high-profile world, some have figured out a way to make use of  Troll-anger by deliberately prodding them through triggering their intense dislike of anyone with a high and arguably self-congratulatory profile. Or if not Trolls, selecting the triggers which upset people. Check this, it’s called Rage-Baiting.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/c4gp555xy5ro

Yes, I know, worrying isn’t it? There is one thing these trigger-merchants might have overlooked. They have high profiles, they are well-known to internet users and they are upsetting a lot of folk. They might want to pause as we come around in a very wide circle and they might wish to consider the fate of Brian Thompson. And the social reaction.

Conclusion

By now we should be in the season of Cheer, Goodwill and smiling a lot at strangers….At leastways that was how we felt it should have been. And yet now we are facing the consistently ugly side of Humanity (as advertised on TV and The Internet) how do we put the blood red genie back in the bottle?

When You Can See From The Side You Hate

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Riots in the UK. The first of the volumes are being written, of course the political ones, then the social ones and the analytical ones. While there are the excruciatingly narrow-minded blatherings or one liners on social media.

And everyone seems to have forgotten that there are families in a town called Southport who are experiencing unimaginable grief, and there are children whose once young, joyous lives are now permanently engraved with the image of a knife-wielding man stabbing, slashing, stabbing; blood, blood, screams. Yes, let’s not dwell on that. Far better to scream, rage, hate, simmer or slump into a corner as the fog despair seeps in under doors, through cracks in on the air.  At some stage we might pay attention to the twisted motivation or cause of that attack.

Currently the riots are the thing. So maybe the people of Southport can grieve in some sort of privacy from a media swarm whose attentions are elsewhere.

So what about the mindset of those mobs? What were those motivations? What was racing through them? Can you comprehend even beginning to answer those questions? Does you disgust at the actions simply have you justifiably recoil?

WARNING: The expression of very strong views will follow. You may be upset, you may recoil. You may encounter triggers. You may even be upset with yourself for agreeing. It is not my intention to win over coverts. The intention is to take those chose to follow into a Mindset. A lesson? A warning? A sharing? There won’t be any answers here. Just illustrations. Sorry about that.  

The anger is a constant. I cannot abide the extremism birthed out of ignorance, prejudice, nor because someone read something on social media and straightways took it to heart. I care not the political affiliation, nor the cause. I despise in equal measure the bigot on the Right and the single subject protestor on the Left. Though for the latter it is an analytical contempt for choosing only one subject for one reason and not for embracing others in equal suffering.

When it comes to the Right and their violent physical bullying foul mothed degenerate hate. Well, all reason goes out of the window and my urge is to respond in equal measure. To pay like with like. Orders to the police ‘Arrest and contain with extreme prejudice’. Recall parliament. Announce a state of emergency could be declared. Warning to any newspaper on the Right or legal politicians that unless you support the authorities you are against them and we will shut you down. More arrests. Those arrested paced in currently empty military camps under military guard. Announcement to the public to report any hate speech or support of hate speech or anything sympathetic seen on social media to be reported to The authorities (text, Whats App, phone number, Gov.UK web site supplied). Aggressive social media response to the Right. Message to Elon Musk or anyone outside of the UK to keep out. If Russia or Iran were involved in mis-information set up units to reply in kind on their own doorsteps. Bring any UK right wing activists home by all means available. Let the world know whoever they are the UK govt is playing by the Big Boys and Girls rules.

It’s all very bizarre actually. Thinking like Putin or Lukashenko of Belarus when it comes to domestic policy on any disruption, agreeing with their methods when not their reasons. But then I have always been inclined to respond that way when nudged. Irrational, visceral, extreme response to any perceived threat to my way of life, to my set of ‘values’. Response and not consequences. As long as there is the chance to lash out at the foe. As long they can be seen being crushed under foot and so battered they can’t rise again…… There must be something wrong there somewhere. Talking and reasoning one way, preaching about seeking the middle, rational ground, while knowing that down, just below the surface simmers, crouching The Beast. Ready to spring on anyone of a very long list of potential ‘threats’ (to me anyway). But as I have argued, I am very broadminded when it comes to who or what qualifies as a threat, political, social or religious. If they are intolerant, bigoted, ignorant of the facts, a threat to the stability of the whole community; they go on the list. Never negotiate with diseases. That’s what I say. Say. Say.

Actually when it comes down to it. When you consider the folk of Southport’s own response, the Mosque where they came out to talk and give food to protestors

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/c84jjv7kp1wo

When thousands came out across the UK to stifle another round of Right-Wing protests:

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/live/cy8497l7dx8t

When the authorities are going about the business in a lawful, administrative way :

See above.

Well then, look at me. Poster-Boy for the emotional motivation of those Right-Wing thugs. Just the sort to react to the media and inflame the situation. The guy who every time he has put up a political post there has been a sometimes subtle, sometime not, sub-textual slap in the face for an extremist. For I am very extreme in my hate of extremists. Yes, beneath the emotional skin I am not so different. Beware folks, beware. The extremists come in all shapes and sizes, tones and means of argument. Hypocrisy?……Me?……Gosh. I can’t stand it! Nothing worse than folk who say one thing and think another….Err…whoops?

Yes…definitely Mea Culpa time. Or to be sardonically humorous about it, taking a leaf out of my Far Left wing inclinations and having a dose of ‘self-criticism’ (which was actually a communist regime’s process of getting scapegoats to take the blame for something to state had done wrong).

And there you are a look inside the sort of convoluted mindset that was going on in those riots. Nothing pretty, nothing reasonable, nothing noble, nothing justifiable, nothing constructive. Just a Nothing. That’s how I know. I visit there. Far too often.

And sorry to everyone for not replying much to your tireless posts, it takes a lot of effort to keep The Beast chained up and to heel. Once it was loose I’d never really know where it was going to lash out, or how.

But let’s end on a lighter note:

My daughter Meg who is a Matron Midwife in Barnet, within the general region of London offered to her Muslim staff the chance to go home early if they wanted to. To a woman they said they would stay.

‘Hi Meg. Mum was showing me your txt msgs
Manager to manager – Dad to daughter let me say how proud of you I am for offering your Muslim Staff the opportunity to leave work early. Now that is management. Well done.
Also if you feel it is correct to do so let those staff know from me they displayed true courage, true devotion and true care to this country. Each one of them is worth fifty of that rioting trash. Bless you. Bless them’ 

Maybe it makes up for a week spent internally raging.

Now a deep breath, and get back to writing, reading and reviewing fiction. I said a while back I was going to do a lot more of that. I should be, I really should be.

Bothered by Having to Think? We At Save-U-Tyme. Have The Answer!!!

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Are you confused by all these folk who say they are Experts or Commentators, with degrees and what they claim to be experience? Taking up all that time you could use watching Reality TV, Car Adverts, Film Action Trailers, Adult Entertainment?

anger-clipart-rage-2 Damn straight!

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Time Out From One Direction. Forge On In Another

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Foreword: Having spent a week thinking about this and two days writing, and re-writing (and probably still making grammatical errors) I am still uncertain as to the theme. It is either an announcement, a public apology for future shortcomings, or something of a rambling discourse on the motivations for writing up posts in the Blogverse (in the case of the latter there is a chance some readers who are also writers of fiction might say…’Oh yeah. Not just me then’).

Anyway…..

Several years ago when I started out on another launch of a writing career someone pointed me in the direction of Word Press as a way to get to know other writers and make my work known. That said, although there was a great deal of time, and keyboard tapping on the subject of writing, WP being a social site my attention was drawn to those bloggers whose interests were more social and above all political and before long, there I was also reading and engaging on the subject of politics. For a while there was a quite productive balance, switching and, using experiences and styles from one to the other. At times it was refreshing to do that.

After finishing up my trilogy

And having too much fun and not enough focus on marketing campaigns

Just for Marketing and Giggles – The Good Ol’ Hard Sell Approach.

Just for Marketing and Giggles II (The team conference)

It was good to have the political side to blogging while I threshed about trying to get a plot going for a second series.

But, ah me. One should always remember that Dynamics are prone to friction resulting in Wear & Tear.

Consider the following:

Brexit, MAGA, 2016 & 2020 US presidential Elections, the bungling of the UK Labour Party from 2015-2019, that year’s UK General Election, Boris Johnson as PM, That Vanity Project in the Whitehouse from 2016-2019, the slaughters around the world which gained no public interest, the Russian Invasion of Ukraine and inevitable Western Excuse Makers for The Kremlin, The Return of Cohesive Misogyny, The Proliferation of Racism, the Hypocrisy of the American Religious Right, Mass Killings, The Conspiracy Idiocy over Climate Change, its degenerate cousin claiming Covid was anything but a warning from Nature, The abuses of Social Media, Men displaying their Sexual Insecurities by ranting over a comedy film about a doll. And there were more. Then came the final tipping point with the sanctimonious outrage at Israel (while having been quite silent over the Rohingya genocide, the decades of abuses in Sudan, complete ignorance over the Sahel region (where’s that?) in Africa, and never mind about the Horn of Africa- and that was just a few the vast majority current paraderers seemed to not give a damn about- all the while playing into the hands of the extremist corrupt Israeli Government and its rent-a-thugs in some settler communities ).

I knew the tipping point was reached when writing up a series on the current round of Palestinian / Israeli conflict and coming to the essay on Palestine. The Palestinian case was quite easy to see and understand, the history had an inevitable tragic flow to it. My problem was,  writing about something which if seen on social numerous folk would point to in approval (apart from the few comments on Hamas) while those very people know nothing of the Big Picture or the nuances of the whole Histories and to those I would yell at saying ‘Read the other two essays will you!’ (Not quite the exact words, but let’s try and be all Age-Friendly here). Set against the back drop of thousands of deaths and countless tales of misery and anguish my reaction is rather ugly and not justifiable, and also sweepingly judgemental. But I have always had to write with the restraint of a leash on an attack dog.

While, finally thanks to taking part in a BlogBattle every month, the fantasy book narrative was starting to coalesce with the characters; a time every writer of fictions hopes will happen….soon, and I felt the need to put my efforts there. A place I had some control over (not total control- ask any writer about trying to rein in Characters)

Therefore, to restrain my vitriolic anger (you really don’t want to know what gets stopped by the internal censor) and concentrate upon creative fiction I am stepping back from a smidge from the political side of the Blogverse..

Now that does not mean I’ll be leaving all the good friends I have made through following politics or not caring about the good fights that they fight on various fronts. Now I will be there reading your posts, putting a ‘Like’ but in the comments there will probably be a short statement of support or maybe an emoji. So you should know this is nothing personal, nor apathy breaking out. It’s just a re-adjustment. I will be there, backing up you in thought, but the words will be slender.

Vitriol can be useful in very small doses but when you are drinking it like coffee, it’s time to stay away. And waking up at 5am with a tirade of a post going through your brain about hypocrisy or intolerance, or the slaughter of innocents is not conducive to good health.

I am better disposed to spend my creative time writing fictions

I wonder how long this resolve will last?

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Keep on keeping on all you bloggers I follow

Sailing Ship

Strive on with your own journeys

PS: The worse part of the writing of this being not knowing what inappropriate advert WP will include to mess up the narrative at some important juncture

 

American Gun Crime -When Stats No Longer Cover It

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Pity help us but here’s a lot of killing going on in the world, most of it to do with wars and inter-communal violence.  The USA however seems to be particularly afflicted with random civilian on civilian gun death. Anyone who reads this post will already be familiar with the statistics so let’s not dwell on those. Let’s consider the avoidable tragedy and random mass killings.

I was going to attempt a socio-analytical overview of an opinion as to why this is happening, but the images of more death innocents who were not protected by large numbers of their gun owning community as the NRA would have you believe should be the case just made that difficult. Instead something else, deeper took hold:

Playwright Alan Plater and folk singer Alex Glasgow collaborated on a play (well more like a review) titled ‘Close The Coal House Door’. With dialogue and songs it was a bitter reflection on the historical lot of the Coal Miner and those Communities. This was produced in the 1960s and in an era when coal mining in the UK has been industrially sanitised is dated. But not the following song which although sung wistfully is filled with anger at a situation that has gone on too long. 

Lyrics: (Because it’s sung in dialect) (I hope this links works for folk outside of the UK)

Close the coalhouse door, lad
There’s blood inside
Blood from broken hands and feet
Blood that’s dried of pitblack meat
Blood from hearts that know no beat
Close the coalhouse door, lad
There’s blood inside


Close the coalhouse door, lad
There’s bones inside
Mangled, splintered piles of bones
Buried ‘neath a mile of stones
Not a soul to hear the groans
Close the coalhouse door, lad
There’s bones inside


Close the coalhouse door, lad
There’s bairns* inside
Bairns that had no time to hide
Bairns who saw the blackness slide
Bairns beneath the mountainside**
Close the coalhouse door, lad
There’s bairns inside


Close the coalhouse door, lad
And stay outside
Geordie’s* **standing at the dole****
And Mrs Jackson like a fool
Complains about the price of coal
Close the coalhouse door, lad
There’s blood inside
There’s bones inside
There’s bairns inside
So stay outside

*Scots and N.E. English word for babies or young children

**These lines reference the Aberfan Disaster of 1966 when an avalanche of pit slurry engulfed a school and houses killing 116 children and 28 adults

*** Dialect used and generic name for inhabitants of parts of N.E England- a region with a history of coal mining  

**** General UK slang word for Social Security payments for the unemployed. and offices where it was paid.

This theme of almost helpless anger struck me as applicable to the current slaughter by American gun-crime. So I adapted it as follows:

Clean up that gun friend
There’s blood inside
Blood from innocents cut down
Blood coughed out in a dying sound
Blood that stains more than ground
Clean up that gun friend
There’s blood inside.


Attend to your trigger housings, folk
In case there’s rust inside
Rust from tears in anguish shed
By Families of the innocent dead
Tired of cheap excuses said
Attention to your trigger housings, folk
In case there’s rust inside


Careful with the breech, you
There’re ghosts inside
Ghosts of kids Life just begun
Sacrificed on the bloody altar of the gun
Kids lost to the warmth of the sun
Careful with the breech, you
There’re ghosts inside


So wary of your gun friend
There’re lies inside
While the killing, it persists
Politicians with snake oil conspiracists
Talk about phantom socialists
So wary of that gun friend
There’s blood inside
There’re tears inside
There’re ghosts inside
There’re lies inside

OK, I’ve said my piece. I let the song do the talking

Ethics? Be Warned. All of Us Will Be Tested.

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Folk who write will at some stage cite ‘The Muse’. According to Ancient Greek literature there were nine of them, each with an allotted art, science or as we would recognise it, genre. In this case, for my defence I will cite that Melpomene the Muse of Tragedy has been, for some time, nagging at me to get this done.

The final push was made by listening to an audio book version of Prompt and Utter Destruction by J. Samuel Walker an historian whose subject matter is the nuclear age. Originally published in 1997, and revised in 2004 this is a work that would be in its inception 30 years old. In this the author manages to accomplish the near impossible of balancing the pros and cons of the US use of atomic weapons on Japan in 1945, while at the same time sewing compelling doubt as to whether the reasons given at the time were wholly valid. He also argues that a proposed invasion of Japan was not ‘a given’ as was D-Day, nor that the projected loss of American lives were actually a set in stone documentation, and finally that the Japanese view within government towards a peace accord was in existence. At this stage I would confess to having used the opposites as concrete evidence why the nuclear bombs were used. The author in his balanced arguments, with no railing or emotive language, no blanket condemning of the USA as the usual source of most evils lead me to believe that all which I judged to be hard fact was not ‘necessarily so’ (as the song goes). That said, having listened and respected the writer’s research and questions I was still left with the feeling of the subject of the Atom Bomb attacks ‘They were still going to happen’ . By then the whole dynamic of American, Soviet and Japanese interactions had reached a critical stage in which amongst the milieu of Human Interactions, Reactions, Anticipations, Suspicions and Motivations made the dropping of the Atom Bombs an inevitability. 

That assertion will strike some folk as outrageous, some others will believe I am ducking an awkward question on account of being locked into a belief. Both reactions are quite acceptable and understandable. My response would be to read or listen to this book, then put yourself in the position of Truman, those around him, those involved in the Manhattan project and those out in the front lines. The qualifier being don’t just drop yourself in there are you are at this moment, imagine you have been in that war-time atmosphere for a long while, you have been living it, every day and night it has been with you, sets backs, costs, pressures, pains. 

And that’s where we stop. For all of this has been an introduction to a thornier topic. Not one where we ask hypothetical questions of historical events which have happened and cannot be erased. Using this measuring stick let us look into the Present and the Future, which is where we dwell and where we have a say in the shaping of, being that say small or even large.   

I am guessing from the politically inclined blogs I subscribe to and the vast majority of replies to those blog posts that most folk involved are of liberal and what you would call tolerant outlooks. They don’t think wars are inevitable, they have a great dislike of privately owned firearms, they believe in the general freedom of adults to associate with other adults in whatever mutually respectful relationships there are, they have no problems with folk of any race, they accept a person’s right to religion, belief system or absence of belief systems, just so long as those do not promote hate or intolerance, they feel the same way about politics. They do have very strong views about those who promote intolerance, lack compassion, and who assume they have a mandate to impose their will on others while being hypocritical about their own ‘rights’. In short the folk ‘around here’ are what I would call ‘The Nice Guys’. Angry, frustrated, incandescent even, but ‘Nice’, because you want all folks, every where just to live unfettered by pressures of hate, intolerance and injustice. Right?

Just suppose then

There is some prominent hatemonger or conspiracy snake oil merchant in town. One who is supporting the very heavy political hitters you loath, this person is one of the rising stars in that movement, and just by some chance, you happen upon the sight of a shooter, obviously intent on targeting that person you hate. So what do you do? You have five seconds. No real time to reflect on the pros and the cons. You do raise an alarm? Try to stop them. Or do you steal away back into the shadows let ‘What will be will be,’ or whatever phrase you think suits your frame of mind. After all you are not actually pulling the trigger, you don’t know the shooter. The target is such a loathsome, you think dangerous person, implicated in such hateful stuff as to be at least complicit in violence. And does not ‘The Good Book’ say ‘Those who live by the sword shall die by the sword’ (or something like that). Do you let the bomb fall?

Here’s another one…

By some chance you find yourself by a couple of degrees of separation in the company of folk whose general views you might share, but you are a bit leery of some of the language, maybe a bit too ‘rich’ for you. Some are talking about meeting violence with violence if necessary and so forth, hoping some figure on the Right gets shot. Someone might in a roundabout way even cite the IRA as an example of what might happen; in a way which suggests they would not mind. It wouldn’t take a security analyst to reckon some of these folk might step beyond just shouting off steam. Would you feel you should notify ‘someone’ or would you just back off, sever all links because you don’t want to get involved, that’s their outlook, not mine. Nothing to do with me. And stifle that mischievous ‘but good luck guys’ 

Turning to something more plausible…

Someone you think as offensive on the Right dies, maybe not in a dramatic way. Perhaps through an accident or ill-health. And  after all that time of witnessing their behaviour which offends you, in that instant you say or think – ‘Yeah. They had it coming. Boo-hoo. Like I cared’. There. That was easy wasn’t it? You didn’t do anything. You are not responsible. You are unsullied. You just spoke your mind, that’s all. Well, yes, you couldn’t help but feel just a little twitch of joy. But that was only natural. Because, after all- they had it coming. Well, yes, that’s fine. Isn’t it?. Let’s move on. And you wish to be spared the hysterical eulogies from their followers or the throw away commentaries from the pundits, etc, etc. 

Be honest dear reader. None of us are saints. None of us come close to ‘Pure of Heart’. We take our stance and we have our views. In the scheme of things we may, have not so much a moral high ground, but have the least worst options in one case which in this mess which is Humanity. We may be on the ‘good’ side, well in The Big Picture of The Welfare of Humanity. We may celebrate a cause. Currently you may be cheering on Ukraine’s stand against Russia. So ask yourself this very hard question. Do I accept the losses of tens of thousand of Russian soldiers as a necessity? You can grieve their deaths of course. You can wish they had not happened. But are you accepting them? And if not, then what do you say to Ukrainians, today?   

Some choices made are so obviously bad, so filled with a hateful or callous vibe they are repellent to most folk. Then there are the rest where the two, maybe three of four or more sides of the argument come into a jarring kaleidoscopic panorama, that if stared at for too long could tip you off of your allegorical feet. Reaction? What sort of Reaction? Constructive Reaction? When does that tip into Destructive Reaction? Then there is No Reaction? Just what does that mean? Apathy? Or quiet acquiescence, soft enough not to give you guilt by association, you hope. Or maybe paralysed by exasperation- that’s a common affliction, maybe the most understandable and acceptable for most folk, of course it may  not be the correct one; there is always the anguished  ‘But. What can I do?‘. Who can claim, tired from their ordinary days, they’ve not gone there? 

Once more this is not the place where I present you with a tidy Ethical Solution to fit all situations.  After all, this post is about Human Nature. Just when was that ever straight forward, neat, simple to package up in a snappy paragraph?

When faced with various levels and themes of Human Disputes, Transgressions and Conflicts, the individual rarely has the same measure of response based on one Ethical Stance, because in addition Emotions play a part and they will be a variable. Yours might be the correct one at the correct time, the unstable place where your previous views of Right and Wrong just do not seem to suit. Your choice. Your reaction. This is not History where you have the opportunity to sift the evidence of what had been and you have no responsibility in the participation. This is happening now, or will happen.

And here I conclude.

Sorry that I have no neat answers or a tidy ending. 

Oh, just one last thought hit me. 

Watch out for those Inevitabilities, they sneak up on you. 

One Christian’s Confession

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Left SideRight Side

Sometimes. For better or for Worse. For no specific reason, you just have to try and put down into words on something which will not let you rest. You know you may be risking censure, incredulity, dismissiveness, even mockery. You don’t care though. Whatever it is that drives you to write will not let you rest until the jumble of thoughts are put out there into some attempt at coherence. You don’t even expect to put A Case that will win any sort of approval. You just have to write.  Irrespective.

Back about…..several months ago I was going to write one of my ‘Why I Am A Christian’ posts. I was going to take the tack on the universe is filled with wonder and quote all sorts of stats, then tie those up with philosophical lite musings on existence, statements on tolerance and wrap it all up with a conclusion that this how I see it. There were drafts, re-writes and ‘what were you thinking bout when you wrote that!’ interludes (several). As Christmas approached determination beckoned to Get This Done.

And then Events intruded, or maybe challenged, or perhaps just came along in some kind of synchronicity with a Cosmic intention to drive out any complacency or even flippancy masking as ironic humour, because dear reader….that….was…not…going…to…work! Not now. As if it ever should in this world. Nothing like Christmas run-up to bring the arguments / challenges for and against all into sharp relief. I’ll explain.

Local (ie UK) news in December:

Channel Isle- Jersey 8 retired folk killed in an explosion at their small, sedate apartment block.

West Midlands – 4 small boys died when the ice on a frozen lake gave way

Manchester – Woman knocked down and killed when struck by a police car perusing a stolen vehicle.

Christmas Eve – One killed, three injured in a shooting at a pub in Wallesey (Near Liverpool)- A national news event in the UK.

At the night. One killed when their car struck by a vehicle pursued by police- London area. Two died when their car went into the sea at a harbour, near Swansea.

Those are the ones I can recall in the news. I may have missed others. That does not count the accidents, sudden deaths and serious illness diagnosis (I can count three in my personal circle). OK, maybe it is possible to be compassionate and fatalistic and philosophical in one’s own comfy bubble. But four young lads on ice? How does anyone justify that in the Cosmic Scheme? Dare you use The Folly That Are Humanity’s Errors excuse in that case??? And do not try and tell me that such heart-breaking events are all part of God’s Plan. I am simply not buying into such a Detached or at the other side Complacent view. Not for the sake of the children, their families, friends, neighbours, rescue service crews and so on. Or in those other cases.

I can circumnavigate the issues on Wars, Catastrophic Accidents, Damage to Humanity through Natural Events, even diseases. I can fill pages laying the blame at the door of Humanity itself for most things on the basis that this was a world gifted to us and we have the free-will and it is we who are screwing up. You call that Inflexible?. Dear reader I can, on an internally stormy day bring us all into the cycle of blame, citing politics, economics, social trends to name but a few no problem. Don’t blame God. Don’t say it proves there is no God. Don’t try and shift the blame. Don’t try and wriggle out with the ‘There Is No Free Will’ get out clause. I can chew them all up. And point the finger back at We The People.

But kids falling through ice, when playing? Folk mown down by speeding cars? Exploding residencies? How do those random, tragic, spirit breaking events fit in? My dear wife who was brought up in all sincerity with the notion of a Guardian Angel is now very scathing on the topic. As I said earlier The All Part of God’s Plan gets no room with me, and pity help anyone who tries to even suggest to me such events are judgements; if that were the case there should be a whole lot of folk spontaneously dropping down dead right now.

So, NO. NO I can’t explain, I can’t justify. Probably some might try and suggest, it’s all to do with degrees of scale. Dozens, Hundreds die and it’s just ‘news’. If it’s smaller numbers and children, it hurts. Some will analyse the various Human responses. That’s fair enough on the Human Secular Scale and folk will accept that. However if I try and quote, say Luke 12 6-7….

6 Are not five sparrows sold for two farthings, and not one of them is forgotten before God?

7 But even the very hairs of your head are all numbered. Fear not therefore: ye are of more value than many sparrows.

Then am I not risking getting a very hollow laugh in response? Indeed there are many theological and honest faith-based answers there. The trouble is, how do you use them when innocent folk die? How do you convince folk that your faith is based on something? And dare you say them to the grieving, in their raw unimaginable anguish?

At this stage in such a post it would be traditional for me either to. (A) Offer up a confession that my faith has evaporated and I can no longer belief (B) Slog on with some convoluted explanation which might relate to folk of faith but no one else (C) Go Cosmic. Link Life with the Rest of the Universe and degrees of scale and lose everyone irrespective of beliefs after the fourth sentence when the readers give out in one big collective….. UH?

OK. So none of the above will have a universal, ‘popular’ appeal. Thus I have to be starkly honest about this issue of God, Faith and Tragedy.

I…Do not…Know. I have no answer for you.
I have my Faith.
You know how that works? You have your ‘Something’, be that Theistic, Atheistic, Spiritual, Political, Social, Cosmological or a mix of all. You have your ‘Family’ be that by Blood, Societal or Friendship (wide labels). You have your…‘Something’. You know there are flaws, you know some of it / them drive you crazy, test your limits and yet you are still drawn back there…. Just because.
So that’s what I have.

Without sentiment though. I’m sure I could quote a biblical quote to cover that, but right now I’m not the one to use such, on ‘paper’. You have to be careful of the Written Word, it does not always convey meaning too well. No, I’m just one person with a set of beliefs I hold to, ones which don’t make me better than someone with another set. I hold to my beliefs.
I just question some of the teachings my fellow believers bring to the debates.

And I have no theistic answers why in the proverbial Scheme of Things little boys playing on one winter’s day drowned in an icy waters.

Maybe there are none.

That’s the problem with Faith. It’s not a comfort blanket.

It’s a…

Your turn. You fill in the blank as you see it.

Comes A Time… (The Social Media Computer Programmers Had It Coming). Musings on Shortcomings.

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When I Want Your Help….

 

I was going to address another topic then on my ‘page’ was this insipidly coloured phrase ‘What is the one thing you would change about yourself?’. Were it not for the unhappy experiences of one of my good friends ‘Scottie’ at Scottie’s Playtime  I would have been having a WTE (What The Earth- THE polite version- We must strive to keep an All Ages profile) interlude. But apparently, according to one of those hapless souls who work under the burden of being termed a ‘Happiness Engineer’, and I quote:

“The idea behind the feature was to help people with inspiration for writing blog posts”

To be brief, the day I need help from any WP programme to write my blogs is the day I know I have nothing left to say, and thus will shut down said blogs and watch Netflix, negotiate with the garden and plants on how they want things done, and playing board games (military and RPG).  

This is also an insult to the blogging community in general as someone in WP has assumed that there are hordes of well-meaning folk who want to have a blog but have not the wit to write anything and need to be guided into various topics. If ‘What is the one thing you would change about yourself?’. is an example this tactic is as much use as a paper tissue party hat in a rainstorm. Bloggers and readers of blogs know it is a competitive world out in the Planet Blog and you had better come up with something original or catching, and not the invitation to an existentialist musing which has already been written from all directions, serious, and comical. 

Or maybe on reflection I am being a bit too harsh, perhaps there is inspiration from these unwelcome, variable, inane comments. But maybe the folk at WP do not want to read the results.

Wait. I am not done yet 

If the previous incident was not incendiary enough to send most respectable writers and bloggers reaching for allegorical pitchforks and burning brands, then as we all know there is vast range of combustible cyber material on there. Consider this one which has made itself known to a vast number of users…

Something Went Wrong
If you have not yet encountered it, then steel yourself.

There you are trying to access something, or are half way through something when all goes down and you get this message. No indication as to what went wrong, no hint as to the user, other than to ‘try again’ you are left there devoid of assistance or direction, quite aware ‘something went wrong’ Once you have calmed down and spared your innocent machine from a ruinous demise, it is time to muse on the business. Here we are in the 21st century on the cusp of quantum mechanics and physics being any everyday tool in computer work, and yet when there is an error all that the progammers can come up with is ‘That Something Went Wrong’. They have created these systems, evolved them, and yet obviously do not have the control we expect. We are left to conclude that the age of incomprehensible computer speak with numbers obscure abbreviations and a proliferation of full stops when there is a problem has gone. In their rush to supply speed and a galactic number of apps, programmers have lost control, and we are left with…

‘Something Went Wrong’

I cringe, shudder and weep at the thought of this message being used to the more physical aspects of the world, somebody, somewhere looks at the damage, shrugs and says ‘Something Went Wrong’

I conclude this, rather satisfied that I did not resort to virulent sarcasm, and very, very bad words; let me not be tempted to push my luck.

For there is worse out there.

In the Name of Merciful Gods or Reason. Or What-Have-You.

I do not know if you have encountered this one. It may be a quirk of Microsoft Edge alone. However; there you are typing out a familiar address or clicking onto a favourite and suddenly up pops an insipidly coloured page with a message that start with ‘Hmmm….’, I have never absorbed the details beyond that because an incandescent red mist descends. I am faced with a failure in the communications network and am given a message with ‘Hmmm.’ suggesting the problem is nothing to do with anyone at Microsoft, it is something I have done wrong and they are treating me with the gentle distain of a visiting uncle looking over a child’s shoulder at their homework. (unless that is computer homework, it which the uncle had best stay out of it)

I would suggest that the person or persons who thought up this one have never had to deal face to face with an irate member of the public. I would venture to suggest further that if they did treat a member of the public like this and were assaulted, then in the subsequent legal proceedings that despite the best efforts of any Microsoft Legal team the judge and jury would look leniently upon the said member of the public, even to the extent of awarding them damages.

I would suggest for the long-term safety and well being of whoever these remote folk might be they should consider replacing ‘Hmmm.’ with ‘Sorry’ for I am sure Micrsoft lose a number of customers this way (this is a restrained comment).

Conclusion  

Anyone who works in a specialist field (and these days it would seem most of us), will be swift to approach criticism on our task with one variation or another on the lines of ‘Yes. But what the public don’t realise….’ .And I daresay computer folk have whole libraries of responses. However, and there always is an However. Computers invade all aspects of our lives in work, leisure, well-being and so forth. Thus saying.. ‘Yes but…

Guys, it does not cut it….

Do better.

Finally, for the next time I get one of these irritants from you I shall restrict my responses to a mature and seasonally gentrified Big Raspberry

A Mature and Reasoned Commentary

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For two days I was working on a carefully crafted post…. Then Word Press deleted the whole thing, without any recourse to getting it back.

Portrait Angry older man screaming on white background

I said. 

Then feeling a more eloquent and balanced statement was needed added:

sturm_drang3

This morning I am a measure calmer and able to sum up my outlook in a mature and philosophical frame of mind.

big-raspberry

Moral: When drafting a long post always use Word (or similar) then Copy & Paste onto WP