We’ve had about a week of summer weather now, perfectly organised so that it has only rained at night! A person could get used to this. I’m sure some people would like it to be hotter but for me 20° -24° is fine. The washing dries nicely in the garden and it’s not too to go out for a stroll.
There’s a bit of me, however, that wonders if the so-called protesters in response to the Southport events, causing havoc around the UK, would be less inclined to go out and thrown bricks around if the weather were colder and wetter. The country seems to have gone a little crazy.
I have also been wondering why it is that if Reform UK has only 5 seats in Parliament, Farage is given so much attention, as if he were the leader of a major party. Of course, it may well be that his opinion is not actually sought as such, but he puts it out there on X anyway and it’s picked up and passed on. And at present everyone and their grandmother appears to want their opinion broadcast to the world.
At least we don’t have religious organisations telling us which way to think and vote … not yet anyway! According to this article, in the USA something called the Courage Tour, a travelling tent revival featuring a lineup of charismatic preachers and self-styled prophets promising healing, and delivering a political message (register to vote) is going around encouraging people to support and eventually vote for Donald Trump. People, they preach, must “vote biblically”, whatever that actually means. I wonder how they reconcile his various sinful faults with good Christian values. They must wear good, strong blinkers!
The Guardian has been running a series of articles about the experience of various Palestinians, from a range of professions, during the aggression going on in their country. Yesterday’s featured an archaeologist working for an organisation that protects heritage in areas of conflict that mentors, trains and employs graduates in archaeology from universities in Gaza. At least that’s what he did before he had to up-sticks and leave home more or less in the clothes he stood up in, taking precious little with him.
He tells us, “The last project we worked on was a Roman-era cemetery. We found, for the first time, coffins made of lead, decorated with vine leaves, from the first century AD. The size and number of the graves indicate that there was a Roman city to the south of the cemetery. This was a very important discovery. Right before the war we were preparing the site for 3D photographic mapping. The site is now destroyed.”
Everybody’s heritage is being obliterated - such are the consequences of war! And that’s on top of all the loss of life.
Then there is this:
“Alicia Kearns, the then Conservative chair of the House of Commons select committee on foreign affairs, and the current shadow foreign minister, pointed out in March that Britain’s government had received advice from its lawyers stating that Israel had violated international law in Gaza, but this advice had not been made public. This placed the Conservative government under great pressure because such advice would have required it to impose an immediate freeze on arms sales, which it was reluctant to do.”
Selective reporting!
I have read that the arms we sell to Israel is a very small percentage of the total arms they are importing but if we publicly stop selling them we will have made a statement.
Meanwhile reports tell us that “Palestinian journalists in Gaza have discarded their press jackets after an Israel drone struck the car of Al Jazeera correspondent Ismail al-Ghoul and cameraman Rami al-Rifi west of Gaza City, killing both of them, along with a Palestinian boy on his bicycle.
Al Jazeera Media Network condemned the killing as a “targeted assassination”. It vowed to “pursue all legal actions to prosecute the perpetrators of these crimes”.
The UN Human Rights office stated “journalists are civilians and thus protected from attack under international humanitarian law unless they are directly participating in hostilities… the intentional killing of journalists is a war crime.”
Ghoul and Rifi were both wearing press jackets and had identification signs on their car when Israel struck them. But that didn’t protect them. Nor did such identification stop Israel targeting the 155 other journalists it has killed since October 2023.”
Facebook regularly throws up “memories”, mostly sentimental photos and such. My German friend had this post from 2014 pop up today:
“Reading up about Gaza, Palestina and Israel as I simply can't take any more of this massacre of innocent people in the "Gaza strip" = the biggest "open-air prison camp" in the world. As a German, I'm not really supposed to utter any critique on Israel because of my ancestors' war crimes, but what is going on at the moment... is going on at the moment... and nobody has the right to kill innocent people, whether it's the Nazis or the Israelis! (Only, as a German, I'm not even supposed to say this - because of our historic crimes, committed umpteen years ago, we are expected to stay "loyal" = "uncritical" to Israel...) - But just as I would have supported the Jews in Hitler times, I'm pleading for a ceasefire in the Near-East now! No more killings of innocent civilians, children, women, men!”
That’s TEN years ago and the whole business has been going on longer than that. It seems that nothing changes!
Life goes on. Stay safe and well, everyone!
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