Masters of War

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=g0ELgFGd2fs

Come you masters of war
You that build the big guns
You that build the death planes
You that build all the bombs

You that hide behind walls
You that hide behind desks
I just don't want you to know
I can see through your masks

You that never done nothin'
But build to destroy
You play with my world
Like it's your little toy

You put a gun in my hand
And you hide from my eyes
And you turn and run farther
When the fast bullets fly

Like Judas of old
You lie and deceive
A world war can be won
You want me to believe

But I see through your eyes
And I see through your brain
Like I see through the water
That runs down my drain

You fasten all the triggers
For the others to fire
Then you set back and watch
While the death count gets higher

Then you hide in your mansion
While the young people's blood
Flows out of their bodies
And is buried in the mud

You've thrown the worst fear
That can ever be hurled
Fear to bring children
Into the world

For threatening my baby
Unborn and unnamed
You ain't worth the blood
That runs in your veins

How much do I know
To talk out of turn?
You might say that I'm young
You might say I'm unlearned

But there's one thing I know
Though I'm younger than you
Even Jesus would never
Forgive what you do

Let me ask you one question
Is your money that good?
Will it buy you forgiveness
Do you think that it could?

I think you will find
When your death takes its toll
All the money you made
Will never buy back your soul

And I hope that you die
And your death'll come soon
I will follow your casket
In the pale afternoon

And I'll watch while you're lowered
Down to your deathbed
And I'll stand o'er your grave
'Til I'm sure that you're dead

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9Znn5a-88tY

I saw a newspaper picture from the political campaign
A woman was kissing a child, who was obviously in pain
She spills with compassion, as that young child's
Face in her hands she grips

Can you imagine all that greed and avarice
Coming down on that childs lips?
Well I hope I don't die too soon
I pray the lord my soul to save

Oh Ill be a good boy, Im trying so hard to behave
Because there's one thing I know, I'd like to live
Long enough to savour
That's when they finally put you in the ground
I'll stand on your grave and tramp the dirt down

When England was the whore of the world
Margeret was her madam
And the future looked as bright and as clear as
The black tarmacadam

Well I hope that she sleeps well at night, isn't
Haunted by every tiny detail
'cos when she held that lovely face in her hands
All she thought of was betrayal

And now the cynical ones say that it all ends the same in the long run
Try telling that to the desperate father who just squeezed the life from his only son
And how it's only voices in your head and dreams you never dreamt
Try telling him the subtle difference between justice and contempt

Try telling me she isn't angry with this pitiful discontent
When they flaunt it in your face as you line up for punishment
And then expect you to say thank you straighten up, look proud and pleased
Because you've only got the symptoms, you haven't got the whole disease

Just like a schoolboy, whose head's like a tin-can
Filled up with dreams then poured down the drain
Try telling that to the boys on both sides, being blown to bits or beaten and maimed
Who takes all the glory and none of the shame

Well I hope you live long now, I pray the lord your soul to keep
I think I'll be going before we fold our arms and start to weep
I never thought for a moment that human life could be so cheap
'cos when they finally put you in the ground

They'll stand there laughing and tramp the dirt down

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xtqy4DTHGqg

Chosen people

http://www.presstv.ir/detail.aspx?id=92403&sectionid=3510203

Odawara

Every sunset, or most - I look out across the bay to Izu and Fuji-san and the lights coming on in Odawara, so far far away but still so very close

Kite

Do you remember when we used to go up to Kiteflyers' Hill ?
Those summer nights so still
With all of the city beneath us
And all of our lives ahead
Before cruel and foolish words
Were cruelly and foolishly said

Sometimes I think of you and then I go up to Kiteflyers' Hill
Wrapped up against the winter chill
And somewhere in the city beneath me
You lie asleep in your bed
And I wonder if ever just briefly
Do I creep in your dreams now and then ?

Where are you now ?
My wild summer love
Where are you now ?
Do you think of me sometimes
And do you ever make that climb up to Kiteflyers' Hill ?
I pray one day you will
We won't say a word, we won't need them
Sometimes silence is best
We'll just stand in the still of the evening
And whisper farewell to loneliness

Where are you now ?
My wild summer love
Where are you now ?
Do you think of me sometimes ?
Have the years been kind ?
And do you think of me sometimes ?

Where are you now ?
My wild summer love
Where are you now ?
Do you think of me sometimes
And do you ever make that climb up to Kiteflyers Hill ?
Kiteflyer?

http://www.ted.com/index.php/talks/eddi_reader_sings_kiteflyer_s_hill.html

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Fm551hlvbUg&feature=related

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Mk8OsZESTxg&feature=related

Brief Encounter

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wWluCzzu4jk


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hubyFqSUaGA

Faves

Fave films off the top of my head

Jean de Florette/Manon des Sources
Dr. Zhivago
One flew over the Cuckoo's Nest
Woodstock
Gandhi
La Vie en Rose
Fanny and Alexander
A Streetcar named Desire
Sophie's Choice
12 Angry Men
Casablanca
The Deerhunter
Wuthering Heights
Amadeus
Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid
Who's afraid of Virginia Woolf?
To Kill a Mockingbird

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QejIcJxmWCM&feature=related

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=idA7ilynSl0&feature=related

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P479O3GrZGs

Sounds of silence

I see Simon and Garfunkel are playing here in July - wonder if they'll play this one, 40 years on.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eZGWQauQOAQ

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lO9Ild2cvdg

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TOhdSCYskHM

Immigration

This is what Japan needs - more immigrants

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=svR3iXKTJvc&feature=related

Dance

A few years ago now a great friend and I rushed across London, late for a farewell performance by a great Russian dancer, and his friends, at Covent Garden - we ran up the escalators to the gods, only to have the doors closed on us, and had to sit in the corridor watching this Russian great on the video screen for the first ten minutes. My friend wept.

We crept in and took our seats, and watched the rest of the performance - I think Sylvie Guillieme was part of it. At that time I had little or no interest in dance, and very little understanding or appreciation of the visual arts generally, or art even. But I did like music.

In the interval my friend asked me what I thought of the performance - my response was "I have to listen to more Stravinsky" - the accompanying music.

http://www.ted.com/index.php/talks/pilobolus_perform_symbiosis.html

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Je7y3XZxqQA

Sketch by Rodin

This is like watching a great artist painting a picture - he is improvising:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jzqMJWlKMsY

The blind men and the elephant

The Iranian president says that the Israeli Zionist regime's military occupation of Palestine smacks of racism, and the EU members stage a walk-out. What is less well-reported is the fact that those who remained, the majority, applauded and cheered him on.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/middle_east/8010702.stm

http://english.aljazeera.net/news/europe/2009/04/2009420132824573734.html

HP

http://environment.uk.msn.com/climate-change/gallery.aspx?cp-documentid=14950437&imageindex=1

http://www.chomsky.info/articles/20090124.htm

Boy to man?

The next Pavarotti?

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e8cXvomrtfw&NR=1

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DyHuNnIdp64&feature=related

Kissinger

"I don't see why we need to stand by and watch a country go communist due to the irresponsibility of its people. The issues are much too important for the Chilean voters to be left to decide for themselves."

Henry A. Kissinger: Barack Obama's 'Special Envoy'


http://www.worldnetdaily.com/index.php?pageId=85442

http://www.outsidethebeltway.com/archives/kissinger_on_obamas_foreign_policy_team/

"In 2002, President George W. Bush appointed Kissinger to chair a committee to investigate the terrorist attacks of September 11 attacks. Kissinger stepped down as chairman on December 13, 2002 rather than reveal his client list, when queried about potential conflicts of interest. "(Wiki)



"Soldiers are) dumb, stupid animals to be used as pawns for foreign policy."[61]

"Most foreign policies that history has marked highly, in whatever country, have been originated by leaders who were opposed by experts."[62]

"The illegal we do immediately. The unconstitutional takes a little longer."[63]




“February 6, 2009, the Daily Telegraph of the UK featured a story that 85-year old former Nixon and Ford Secretary of State Henry Kissinger served as then-President-elect Barack Obama's special envoy to Moscow in December to secretly discuss mutual nuclear arms reductions.

The choice of Kissinger to act as Obama's envoy shocked many in the progressive community who view Kissinger as a war criminal. Even President Ronald Reagan, suspicious of Kissinger's long-time ties to the Rockefellers, studiously kept Kissinger away from his administration. Kissinger withdrew his name from consideration as President George W. Bush's nominee to be chairman of the 9/11 Commission after widespread protests over his conflict-of-interests.

The Telegraph also revealed that Obama forged close ties to Kissinger during the presidential campaign and quotes Kissinger as saying Obama could bring about a "new world order" after the Bush administration. Kissinger seemed to be implying that Obama could repair the damage caused by the neocons who infiltrated the Bush administration, yet it is Kissinger who is the granddaddy of all neocons - an individual whose bloody fingerprints are found throughout the world through his overt and covert support for all sorts of nasty fascists and corrupt and murderous dictators. Kissinger's association with Obama during the presidential campaign is even more troubling considering that Kissinger publicly endorsed John McCain for president.

For Obama to choose as his envoy to Moscow an individual who has outstanding bench warrants for his arrest in Chile, Argentina, Uruguay, and France for his role in not only supporting, bit directing "Operation Condor," which saw thousands of leftists and progressives, incluidng U.S. citizens, "disappeared" by fascist regimes in South America during the 1970s is a slap in the face of every decent American who hoped that with the end of the Bush regime would come a change in U.S. relations with the rest of the world. Sadly, Obama, in choosing Kissinger to represent him, is not much better than Bush when it comes to shoving fascism in the face of the American people.

Kissinger's bloody past has involved the slaughter of millions in Cambodia, Vietnam, Laos, East Pakistan/Bangladesh, East Timor, Cyprus, South America, southern Africs, and elsewhere.”

http://www.fourwinds10.com/siterun_data/government/new_world_order/news.php?q=1234651493

Keynes

"Capitalism is the extraordinary belief that the nastiest of men for the nastiest of motives will somehow work for the benefit of all"

- John Maynard Keynes -

Ojala/insha'allah

If only - God willing

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u80ocuvZxmY&feature=rec-HM-fresh+div

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KE4HGlmtOcg&feature=related

In and out

Spent a great day in and out of the water - sunned sanded and salt sea sprayed, soaked in shimmering light.

When I was a kid I used to go down the hill to a sort of alternative disco kind of thing on a Tuesday night - they always used to end with this one, the first notes of which bring back the teenage angst, the longing, the regrets - why did I never walk across the floor and talk to her? The long blonde hair, the loose white dress. Great Auntie Tess - a year older - 16, to my mere 15 - but back then a year meant so much. So near but so far, etc.

Mind you, we got there in the end.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Xql99I1VSdI

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=owmrpWyTdxQ

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xtqy4DTHGqg

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KgZSnAkQc4c&feature=related

Glasses

Used to have the same problem

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oYZR5fBzem4
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G2bCEcMEdtg
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sE9AwR0awVQ

Rock

Very windy tonight - the house is rocking

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X9wD-vv1sRU&feature=related

Wakey wakey

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8_tf25lx_3o

http://radicalpantheist.blogspot.com/2009/01/obama-and-911.html

Guantanogram

http://www.salon.com/opinion/greenwald/2009/04/11/bagram/

http://tpmmuckraker.talkingpointsmemo.com/2009/04/expert_consensus_obama_aping_bush_on_state_secrets.php?ref=fp1

I give you a song

What the artists do for us

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N1s1_DpuvdE&feature=related

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z593IhlhR4s

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PYPSZiE0OAs

Food, friends, family

What a great day - great food, good friends, and family.

Lucky guy.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jbkysd9mQho&feature=related

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NVT-BokwmWY

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2AX2bcWtg1Q

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oc55U1S49Ws

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Mwo3ht8sxJo

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lyyFLYNbQpg&feature=related

Karaoke

Enforced karaoke last night

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VI94AsuvUUA

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j2JXy1Z9ovs

But it was more of a short walk on the wild side

Deeds

I have become aware of a few things over the last couple of years - one of which is this: that apparently (check the evidence) one in ten of us are sociopathic. Either that or psychopathic. Which apparently means that this one in ten is incapable of true empathy. That he/she sees human relationships in terms of profit and loss, taking advantage, and assumes that everyone else sees relationships in the same way. He/she will therefore take whatever he can, whatever he can get away with. Until the perceived loss outweighs the apparent gain. Hence career criminals.

Evidently, most of this one in ten carry on 'normal' lives. Because, in capitalist societies, 'doing well for yourself' is the norm - ie. doing better than, or exploiting your neighbour, as long as it makes a profit. Even killing them.

Trouble is when the sociopath gets huge power. And it seems to me that what we have now, perhaps it ever was, is some sociopaths with enormous unprecedented global power - the politicians are their puppets. Obama, for all his good words and smiley gestures, is a puppet. He has surrounded himself by his super-rich Wall Street backers - he has appointed the arch-angel of US imperialism as his special envoy, Henry Kissinger; the arch-angel of the so-called federal reserve, Greenspan, as another. He has not, as Michael Moore hoped, reversed all his pre-election promises: far from 'getting out of Iraq from Day 1' he has now committed US troops to whatever it is they think they are doing in Iraq for another 2 years, while surging even more stormtroopers into Afghanistan - 69,000 and counting. Why? Why? Is Afghanistan about to invade the US?

Count a man not by his words but by his deeds.

He is closing Guantamano, but increasing hidden 'rendition'. He wants to reduce nuclear weapons, which are a bit clumsy against guerrillas (freedom fighters?) - might be a bit of collateral damage, but increase weapons systems against 'insurgents' - ie. local people unhappy by being invaded and occupied by a 'superpower'.

In a bleak world, I take a little heart from Tony Benn:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jw0kQPE6adI

In other words, these sociopaths can operate at the lowest level - helping themselves to our belongings if they think we will not notice, or won't mind, or turn a blind eye - but on the highest, most powerful level, they invade countries. They bomb and destroy and kill - but they justify these actions, or try to, via the media that they control. The thing that I have relatively recently come to realise is the fact that they don't value any human life, other than their immediate families (?), and will arrange for random people they have never met to be killed in order to win the game. And for them it is a game. You and I might have a game of Monopoly or whatever, but these sociopaths are playing the game for real.

What can we do?

Beaches

Surprised myself today by going for a swim. I was walking along the beach, not 5 minutes from my door, somewhat overdressed, when it occurred to me that it was a glorious sunny day, extremely warm, and I was on a beautiful beach by the Pacific. So I spontaneously undressed and had a dip. Bit chilly at first but very worthwhile - will endeavour to make a habit of it from now on.








I was in Iceland the other day. A huge beautiful country, with a small but very friendly and creative population of semi-bankrupt ex-Vikings, and among other things we visited the local imported beach in Reykjavik (Smokey Bay). There is a small geothermally heated paddling pool, in which the locals sit drinking beer with woolly hats on, and every now and then they have a quick dip in the almost freezing bay (3 degrees). Must be good for you.
































http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=8756795263359807776


http://dictionary.reference.com/wordoftheday/archive/2009/04/07.html


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mU9_Q7PJuNQ&feature=related