Editorial

Contents 25 January 2013

Bell Curve: Joselyn Duffy Morton

Escape: Claudia Ward

Anonymous poem

Cover photo: Roger Morton

25 January 2013

After procrastinating on doing a new posting for the blog, I finally got going, wrote an editorial and lost the lot – that’s never happened before. (Maybe it’s because I was whingeing on about what a depressing month January is.)

Obama did get re-elected. Thankfully, or that might have been a tilt too-far. As we all know, he can’t be re-elected again, so surely now - he can just go for it. His inaugural speech made promises in regard to climate change. Good, yet evidently billionaires (who maybe make their billions from products that might pollute the planet) throw money to misrepresent the scientific statistics, to sway the public that it is not caused by anything mankind is doing, or indeed that it is not happening at all. Meanwhile the issue of gun control is an emotive one. Of course, it is also a financial one - the world trade in arms is huge. ‘Thou shalt not kill’ might be part of the Christian doctrine, nevertheless killing still seems to be profitable. I am perfectly happy for guns to be banned, having never ever thought of owning one myself. While they are at it, I think drones should be banned. I think they epitomise evil. Scary horrible shit.

Here in France Monsieur Have-lots Gerard Depardieu sold his 50millƐ Paris flat, got a Russian passport and a little place in Belgium. He didn’t want to pay Francois Hollande’s 75% tax. It’s a tough world. The Homeless and Unemployed continue to increase. Do we teach our children to hate and despise them or feel sorry for them, even feel responsible for them? Moral issues that religions don’t seem to be fronting up to or fretting or fecking about.

Check out endecocide2020. Ecocide is the brainchild of UK International Human Rights lawyer Polly Higgins. Crimes against the planet constitute ecocide – which are criminal offences that CEOs could be jailed for. She presented this to the European Parliament this week. Sign the petition. It means large companies can’t just pay fines and it is all forgotten instead it means  that somebody could go to jail and therefore this might act as a serious deterrent. Can’t hurt – so sign. Think of all those yummy fish ruined by oil slicks and plastic crap.
http://eradicatingecocide.com/supporters/the-wider-team/

Good old Oxfam issued a report detailing (almost naming and shaming) the wide gap between the rich and poor. How’s this for wake-up-call information: The group says that the world's richest 1% have seen their income increase by 60 % in the last 20 years, with the latest world financial crisis only serving to hasten, rather than hinder, the process. The world's 100 richest people earned enough money last year to end world extreme poverty four times over. Last year, when we were all feeling the pinch, the $240 billion net income of the world's 100 richest billionaires would have ended poverty four times over.

“We focus on poverty, we work with the poorest people around the world. You don't normally hear us talking about wealth. But it's gotten so out of control between rich and poor that one of the obstacles to solving extreme poverty is now extreme wealth," Ben Phillips, a campaign director at Oxfam.

Talking of rich Apple factories in China are not innocent, it seems. Hundreds of thousands of Chinese workers for Apple’s electronics are subjected to exhausting work conditions and 30 workers often share a 3-bedroom flat. There are also intimidating punishments. It sounds worse than grim. It is time Apple stopped this appalling state of affairs or maybe re-name its company Serpent or Hell-hole.

Am desperately trying to think of a jolly January joke. Slim pickings which is why I rate Claudia Ward’s cartoons so highly – she always makes me smile, if not laugh out loud. So thank god for cartoonists, they are a clever breed. Keep warm, Joselyn Morton

Poetry

Bell Curve

The bulge of the mediocre masses in the middle,

the clever ones on the left

the non-achiever, disadvantaged  two-digit

figures on the right.

The bell curve curse of the fairy godmother

of the human gene pool

The beautiful curve of the bell that never rings

The ‘if’ of life. The whiff of

inevitability in this academic-driven

sterile image that imprisons populations in their

intelligence-rated slots from which

only a few ever slip out to

make their own bell-like sounds.

Joselyn Duffy Morton©

Escape - Claudia Ward Cartoon

Anonymous poem

When an old man died in the geriatric ward of a nursing home
in North Platte , Nebraska , it was believed that he had nothing left of any value.
Later, when the nurses were going through his meager possessions,
they found this poem. Its quality and content so impressed the
staff that copies were made and distributed to every
nurse in the hospital. One nurse took her copy to Missouri
The old man's sole bequest to posterity has since appeared in
the Christmas edition of the News Magazine of the St. Louis Association
for Mental Health. A slide presentation has also been
made based on his simple, but eloquent, poem.
And this little old man, with nothing left to give to the world,
is now the author of this 'anonymous' poem winging across the Internet..
Crabby Old Man
What do you see nurses? . . . .. . What do you see?
What are you thinking . . . . . When you're looking at me?
A crabby old man . . . . . Not very wise,
Uncertain of habit . . . . . With faraway eyes?

Who dribbles his food . . . . . And makes no reply.
When you say in a loud voice . . . . . 'I do wish you'd try!'
Who seems not to notice . . . . . The things that you do.
And forever is losing . . . . . A sock or shoe?

Who, resisting or not . . . . .. Lets you do as you will,
With bathing and feeding . . . . . The long day to fill?
Is that what you're thinking? . . . . . Is that what you see?
Then open your eyes, nurse . . . . . You're not looking at me.

I'll tell you who I am. . . . . . As I sit here so still,
As I do at your bidding, . . . . . As I eat at your will.
I'm a small child of Ten . .. . . . With a father and mother,
Brothers and sisters . . . . . Who love one another.

A young boy of Sixteen . . . . With wings on his feet..
Dreaming that soon now . . . . . A lover he'll meet.
A groom soon at Twenty . . . . . My heart gives a leap.
Remembering, the vows . . . . .. That I promised to keep.

At Twenty-Five, now . . . . . I have young of my own.
Who need me to guide . . . . . And a secure happy home.
A man of Thirty . . . . . My young now grown fast,
Bound to each other . . . . . With ties that should last.

At Forty, my young sons . . . . . Have grown and are gone,
But my woman's beside me . . . . . To see I don't mourn.
At Fifty, once more, babies play 'round my knee,
Again, we know children . . . .. . My loved one and me.

Dark days are upon me . . . . . My wife is now dead.
I look at the future . . . . . Shudder with dread.
For my young are all rearing . . . . . Young of their own.
And I think of the years . . . . . And the love that I've known.

I'm now an old man . . . . . And nature is cruel.
Tis jest to make old age . . . .. . Look like a fool.
The body, it crumbles . . . . . Grace and vigor, depart.
There is now a stone . .. . . Where I once had a heart.

But inside this old carcass . . . . . A young guy still dwells,
And now and again . . . . . My battered heart swells.
I remember the joys . . . . . I remember the pain.
And I'm loving and living . . . .. . Life over again.

I think of the years, all too few . . . . . Gone too fast.
And accept the stark fact . . . . That nothing can last.
So open your eyes, people . . . . . Open and see.
Not a crabby old man . . . Look closer . . . See ME!!
Posted on facebook by London-based artist Liza Hirst

Cover Caption

Snow on our steps
Photo: Roger Morton

Editorial

Contents 10 December 2012

Stephen O’R’s Sydney

Burma: Tonia Matthews

A Greek Beach: Joselyn Duffy Morton

Mitch’s India: Mitchell Morton

India: Vivienne Chandler

10 December 2012

This was a slow unsteady posting. Even today, I had barely got going when I had to stop and go outside to give directions to the charming young man driving the Semat lorry, as to where he should plonk the stuff he was delivering to us. I had thought Roger, Mitch and I would be forming a chain gang (me the weak link of course). No, none of that - his lorry had a big crane on it and once he had positioned himself to miss our car and table tennis table whoosh up in the air went the load and ever so gently it was then lowered to the ground to sit calmly beside the last of my fading chrysanthemums. Smart crane.

The sun has even come out, so we should be able to get it all undercover before any damaging rain arrives. Hope so because it cost 630 euros and it is stuff that won’t be seen -  it’s the new guts for the old attic in which we are going to install a bathroom. I predict we won’t be spending 630 euros on a long comfy bath – one in which one’s shoulders and knees can be under the hot water at one and the same time. Alas, by the time everything has been bought for the walls, the ceiling and the floor we will probably be mooching around to find a bath for a measly 77 euros, or some such paltry amount.

Actually I am trying to convince Roger to keep the old existing floorboards. He thinks they are manky, skanky, mingin even  – which they are. Consequently I have promised to scrub, scrub them and rub them with whatever it takes until they meet with his antiseptic approval. This is because I want the (non-existent, imaginary ‘floor’ money to go towards the non-existent imaginary ‘bath’ money.)

Last night we drove for 2 hours in a thick terrifying fog. Luckily there were few cars on the road. No one else daft enough to venture out.  I  think I’ll stay home  today to let my frayed, flapping nerve ends twang back into place.

I’m pleased to note that the press have finally picked up on the fracking and fucking with the earth that is going round the globe. ‘Bout bloody time. If you don’t know what I’m talking about, watch a documentary called Gasland. You will then be prepared to do anything you can to stop it, as I am.

Somebody we admired tremendously, New Zealander Marcia Russell has just died, after being diagnosed a few short months ago with lung cancer. Life! Why don’t we just call it ‘Death’ and be done with it?

Let’s hope David Cameron doesn’t get it into his head to start cutting cancer research funding. I don’t know where Obama is placed on medical research. I am hoping Francois Hollande won’t make cuts to the Health budget and I am proud of the way he stood up to billionaire steel magnate, Lakshmi Mittal who had previously promised to guarantee the long-term future of the steel workers.

There are around 100 French  industrial sites in which this firm employs around 20,000 people. Let’s face it – employment promises are important, as is Francois Hollande’s promise to reverse France’s fortunes. So, the big smoking gun threat of nationalisation has appeared. And those in support of  privatisation are furious.

State-owned or billionaire-owned; Pretty fucking simple isn’t it? Do people want profits ploughed into the community to fund roads, health care, education, libraries, theatres, sports stadiums bla,bla, bla or do they want them in the tax-avoidance bank accounts of blowsy billionaires who can grandly spend £300million on a daughter’s 3-week wedding.

So Francois Hollande, good luck in your contretemps with the richest man on the planet. It’s not a no-brainer, it’s a no-boner. Talking of boners. A cartoon this morning stated ‘Retour de la Momie’ (Return of the Livng Dead) The figure potrayed was clearly Berlusconi.

Already I’ve been to a few marchés de noel. The little villages around have got their stars and trees lit up. I’ve even been in the storage attic and found our Xmas box.

Whatever the origins of Xmas - it is a great excuse for parties and makes the cold winter nights go faster. But if I am being utterly honest, I find it astonishing (or an example of a world-wide marketing exercise that any international conglomerate would be proud of). What I find so astonishing (in a world rift with wars in the middle east) is that a 30 year old Middle Eastern man called Jesus, wearing nothing but a long cotton robe and leather sandals is the person worshipped, revered and followed by right-wing bigoted Americans, British, Germans and so on and so on. They might not give an Arab, a Jew or a Muslim the time of day and yet they worship someone like them who was alive just over 2,000 years ago. He clearly could not be white or European. It is pretty weird. These followers of Jesus Christ call themselves Christians and they can be powerful and influential.

Have they not thought it through? They know all the place-names – Bethlehem, Jerusalem, Nazareth, Damascus. Yet these Christians worshiping afar in Sheffield or Ohio or Frankfurt or Rome would most likely never think of setting foot in the Middle East. What a charade. Mind-bending manipulation.

Look at the facts: He didn’t speak English. His mother was not married – in fact, not only was there no husband, there was no conception, no bloke at all involved. No sperm, the Angel of the Lord organised this immaculate conception. Jesus’s Dad was God. Put that on the birth certificate why don’t you?

We swallowed it whole. It is a bit mind-teasing, don’t you find? (In a society obsessed by swearing on the bible to ‘tell the whole truth and nothing but the truth’ how did this fanciful, tale get believed?)

On a more pedestrian note, Elise Benjamin (ex-Lord High Mayor of Oxford) posted the anti-MP’s grocery allowance poster on fb. It does stick in your craw, doesn’t it?

I am going to try and do another posting before xmas, but as the silly season is already in full sway, I can not guarantee my chances, being so weak-willed, I could get side-tracked – so in the meantime bonne chance avec your lists, present-sourcing and family-preparations. Don’t stress, have fun.

Joselyn Morton