The sun has shone all day and it’s been baking hot. I took a walk up my hill with everything dancing in the summer heat; five swifts were skimming the rooftops, a pair of goldfinches were flitting on a wall and allowed me to get really close and a hedge was a cacophony of gossiping hedge sparrows.
I love summer.
Along one stretch of a bit of the unmown verge there were beautiful orchid emerging! Along with the blue speedwell, pink cranesbill, white hedge-parsley and bright yellow buttercups they made a pretty picture.
Back home I’ve been playing some Gang of Four and writing captions for the photos for my Harper book. That took me all day. I did not even get to sit out in the garden with a G&T and read for a bit! It’s a hard life being a writer!!
The book is complete. The proofs have been read. The photos selected and written. It could go to the printers this week!!
I’m knackered!!
Meanwhile, out in Coronaland, our useless clown of a PM appears to go through life unscathed. It’s unbelievable really. You look back through all his jobs at a long litany of mistakes, laziness and incompetence – yet he is forgiven and it is all forgotten. What does it take? Do we have to have Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe dead before he admits he was wrong? Do we need the Indian variant killing another ten thousand before he apologises for allowing it in?
Sadly people seem to ignore the facts and vote with their glands. There is nothing rational about it.
Trump, Johnson, Orban, Erdogan and Modi have all been disasters – but try telling that to their gullible, irrational supporters!!
I think we’ve gone through a cosmic cloud of idiot gas.
So, because they allowed all those hundreds of thousands in from India we have a mad dash to get vaccinated. Over 21s can get vaccinated now and they are paving the way for the 12-17 year-olds.
The sooner we achieve herd immunity the better. In the meantime the older unvaccinated are at severe risk. The third wave is underway. The numbers of new cases soared to over 9000 yesterday. We just have to hope it doesn’t translate into hospital cases and deaths or we’re in real trouble.
Stupid Johnson!!
I see Dominic Cummings has released material with Johnson labelling Hancock as Hopeless Hancock. A bit of the pot calling the kettle black – though I quite like the alliteration.
Stay Safe!!!
“try telling that to their gullible, irrational supporters!!” even the ones who no longer have a position to support still have loud, gullible and irrational supporters
I find that extremely scary. Don’t you?
YES!
Education is the only remedy.
That is something that I wish were true. Education can easily fall on deaf ears. But I believe we should still try.
However in the instances you have referred to overall, education would have very little bearing. The people that create this situation prey on fear, malcontent and base emotions. You cannot educate that out of the entire population, individuality would be lost and we would end up in a society where everyone is educated to think, believe, and act as the others. The best we can do is be educated ourselves and stand up and be heard. Try to offset the Xenophobia, the anger, the baseness of our brothers/sisters and hope for the best.
Good education is about getting people to think and reason. I think that’s what we need.
The problem is that when theyse people learn to think and reason and they ultimately don’t agree with the others it is assumed the education did not work and more education is required. The truth is, if the purposes is to think and reason, these epople would still exst because that’s how the mind works
I don’t thin k it’s too hard to see through the lies he weaves. People need to recognise him for what he is. I put my faith in good education to create rational thought.
People. and I know many, who are edicated chose to believe his lies and recognise that he’s full of nonsense but chose to BELIEVE IN HIM as well as believe him.
Boggling isn’t it? Sometimes intelligence and rationality don’t go together.
The problem is one persons rationality is not necessarily the next’s persons. It’s the black box. The same stimulus is put in to the box, no one actually knows what happens in there, and the output can be completely different. “Infinite diversity in infinite combinations“.
I guess it’s due to many factors – culture, upbringing, various indoctrination. None of us are free of it.
True
But we can make ourselves more educated and more aware!!
Also true. But neither makes anyone agree. I fact, the more education one has the more big words they can use. The more big words, the more powerful the attacks from one side to the other. This education rarely brings people together in these situations, instead both sides dig in their heels and resort to school yard name calling, but instead of “butt-face” words that illicit fear are used to control and manipulate. “Socialist,” “Marxist,” “Commie,” “Fascist,” et al. Or they are used referentially and actual names are used, such as “Hitler,” “Lenin,” “Mao Zedong,” “Stalin,” “Mussolini,” et al.
These words are way more powerful for persuasion than any “butt-face” comment could ever be.
But at least educated people who are knowledgeable have an understanding of why they believe the things they do.
I cannot refute that logic.
Although I have met some extremely intelligent people with some exceedingly strange beliefs.
As have I. There are strange people no matter their education level.
There is no accounting for human minds.
nope. It’s always the unknown factor in everything. Which makes it all very interesting.
I agree. I love the unknown.
That’s one of the songs from the new Frozen isn’t it? Into the Unknown? I dunno I haven’t seen it yet but I thought I heard that somewhere
lol – no idea.
Oh. Pff. Now that’s gonna bug me.
I’m sure you can check it out!
Yes it is! Nephew for the win!
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=gIOyB9ZXn8s
I’m sorry. That was totally random and had nothing to do with anything that we were talking about.
i like random.
Me too!
Heard this on the way to Father’s Day picnic and thought it fit perfectly what with what you’re saying.
Eve of Destruction- Barry McGuire
Lol – I love that song!! Still so true.
Yes! I have always loved the song, but for me, the majority of it was like Phil Ochs’ Draft Dodger Rag; a great song but not accurate for my lifetime. Until, suddenly, it was too accurate
Phil is one of my favourites. I think I have everything he ever record plus all the bootlegs.
I know about Draft Dodger Rag because it was my father learned about it in college. While his roommate was blaring a recording of reverie every morning in the hallway at 6 am on repeat until the whole dorm had told him to stop (meant they were all awake), my father would play DDR all evening on repeat to make his roommate crazy.
Personally, my favorite song is the one with a great sound that makes it sound silly but is about all kinds of serious things like the murder of Kitty Ginovese (sp?), the Hussler Trial, race inequality, etc. I can hear the song in my head so I have to get to the chorus for the title. Outside a Small Circle of Friends. That’s the title.
That’s a great one too!!
I love Phil Ochs, but most people my age never heard of him, which is very sad.
It is very sad, particularly as his songs are so relevant to today. What would he have made of Trump??
I couldn’t even imagine the artistic way he would have said pretty mcuh the same i have, although I’m vulgar.
Actually, it’s woody guthrie who has the best line about it.
“Some will rob you with a six-gun,
And some with a fountain pen.”
he also wrote a song called “old man trump” as he rented from daddy trump who was a slum-l-rd and loathed him.
Yes it’s rather ironic that Guthrie had a run in with old man racist Trump and we’ve had to deal with the scum he produced.
My brain jumped to the true definition of scum and not the informal one. It works superbly.
Yes!!!