Saturday, 7 June 2025

Different categories of rain in a short space of time. Depressing reading about Gaza. Making art out of atrocities.

 I thought I had dodged the rain when I went out running earlier today. Indeed a friend whose path I crossed even commented that although it was dull the day was good enough. However, I stopped off at the co-op for a couple of things and when I emerged it had started to drizzle. By the time I arrived home the drizzle had turned into proper rain. By the time I had showered that “proper rain” had become what Granddaughter Number One usually refers to as “biblical”. Yet now, a few hours later, the rain has stopped again and the day is a good deal brighter than it was when I went out in the first place. So it goes. 


Some stuff about words: I  read something the other day about graffiti in Paris and came across the word “Bobo”; this means “bourgeois bohemians”. Then there are the nouns that have become verbs: nobody “refers” to things any longer but the “reference” them. Neither should you “display” interesting items any longer but they need to be “showcased”. This process has been going on forever, or what seems like forever. After all we have “chaired” meetings for as long as I can remember, so long that it would be difficult to find an alternate that was not very wordy. We have decided that this process should called the ”verbing of nouns”.


My skimming and scanning of newspapers seems to have been rather depressing this morning. Here’s a link to an article about a mother who was shot while waiting for the “humanitarian” aid distribution centre to open its gates - one of the Israeli and US-backed food distribution centres. Imagine walking for hours day after day to try to collect food for your starving family. Imagine returning empty handed. Imagine going one more time and being killed. Imagine your twelve year old son witnessing that. The UN and major charities had established networks for distributing aid in Gaza, networks built up over years but those are not allowed now. The US and Israeli system has food delivery in hubs guarded by private security contractors and the Israeli military. Humanitarians had warned that mixing guns and food would put civilians at risk but maybe that was part of the plan all along. 


Depressing reading, as I said, but some people are able to make beauty out of bad situations. Here’s a piece of art work by a Palestinian artist, Abdul Al Rahman Al Muzzian.  



And another by Palestinian artist Wadei Khaled



And here’s a bit of Michael Rosen irony for us:


“Keir Starmer was asked today

what he thought about 

the moment in the Bible 

when King Herod ordered that all the male

infants should be killed.

Sir Keir was forthright in his condemnation.

He said this cannot and will not be tolerated.

One interviewer asked him 

why then had he authorised the selling of swords

to King Herod which could  then have been used

to kill the babies,

to which Sir Keir replied

that was an outrageous accusation

and that he and his colleagues had strained every sinew

to restrain Herod 

and that the record stood for itself.

Then, when he was asked whether these deaths of innocent people 

could be called a 'massacre'

Sir Keir replied, 'It's not for me to say.

and that it's not helpful to call what's been going on

'The Massacre of the Innocents.'

And Sir Keir left to spend more time straining his sinews.”


And another:


“Good news on the BBC News: it seems as if the people now providing aid in Israel are Christian Zionists, the folk who want me to emigrate to Israel so that Jesus can come again and that I'll convert or be put to the sword. See! It's not all bad news at the moment.”


Life goes on. Stay safe and well, everyone!

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