Violent times.

I forgot to comment on an odd incident that I witnessed on Thursday. After my visit to the dentist, and my shopping trip to the market, I walked through the town centre towards the nearest stop for the bus towards Delph. Had there still been a stop in the town centre outside the bank, indeed, had buses still run through the very centre of town, I would probably have caught the early afternoon bus. As it was, I saw my bus (probably a few minutes ahead of schedule) make its way down a side street, turn onto the main street and sail past the stop which was a good hundred yards or more ahead of me. Very annoying! But I resigned myself to walking a bit further to wait for the next bus at the tram/bus interchange.

That was when I realised that something was going on just beyond the stop where I had not caught the bus. A small group of people were punching a man, who fell to the ground and curled himself up to try to avoid the kicks and punches that rained down on him. One of the aggressors was rather flabby and incongruously bare-chested, wearing some kind of loose shorts. Another was a skinny woman, dressed in some kind of uniform, such as you might see in a fast-food outlet. She was jumping around trying to stamp on the victim’s head so it’s just as well she looked as though she weighed no more than seven stone. The aggressors, three or four of them, kicked and thumped the curled up man and set off along the road, only to turn back for another go when he looked to be about to stand up. The flabby bare-chested man growled something along the lines of “Come near my daughter again and I WILL beat you up properly”. They disappeared into a doorway.,And that seemed to be that. 

I and various other passers-by sidled past the curled up man as he got to his feet and walked away. Further along the road someone asked me what had been going on. He said he was too far away to see and, besides, he didn’t have his glasses with him. He seemed disappointed that I could not really tell him anything. Goodness knows what that was all  about. Fights on the street at around one o’ clock in he afternoon are not usual. Maybe it’s another sign of the violent times we live in.

On the subject of the violent times we live in, here’s something a friend sent me: 

“The reality of the ceasefire...

"Hamas said only 8,500 trucks out of the 12,000 that should have arrived so far had entered the territory, most containing food and secondary goods including chips and chocolate instead of more urgent items.

In addition, only 10% of the 200,000 tents and 60,000 caravans needed to provide shelter had arrived, Hamas said, leaving hundreds of thousands in harsh winter weather.

Finally, heavy machinery needed to clear millions of tonnes of rubble and recover the thousands of bodies thought to be buried had not arrived."

(Guardian update 07:28)”

And here are some comments about Trumps proposals for Gaza, considered from a different angle, comments by Michael Rosen, of course:

“Given the claim that Gaza is part of we Jews' ancestral lands, then obviously we Jews have to have them and that includes Gaza. Then along comes Trump and says, he wants Gaza. Hang on, Trump, we've been saying they're ours, not yours. What a cheek! What's going on? All those years making sure that the Palestinians don't have our ancestral lands and then in a blink of an eye, a Christian says 

they're his. Arrrrrgggghhhhh!!! It's all going wrong.”

“Where is the outrage from supporters of Israel that Trump is threatening to get his goyisher hands (gentile hands) on our ancestral lands?”

“Has Netanyahu twigged that what Trump said about the US taking over Gaza was anti-Zionist? Zionism says that the ancestral lands belong to the Jews, not to the USA. Surely, Trump will be labelled antisemitic for this...

[irony alert]”

Meanwhile what I have heard referred to as the ’Gazification’ of the West Bank and Lebanon continues. No ceasefire there!

Life goes on. Stay safe and well, everyone!