Here I was feeling really proud of myself, I realised today that I
have lost pretty much exactly 3.5stone this year (wow, take that baby
weight!), then I flicked over to the news and saw how mad things are
getting in the world. Celebrating losing some of the weight I have
gained after years of eating junk pales in comparison to the things
people are dealing with around the world.
This whole business with ISIS for a start - what exactly is going
on? A so called religious group using any excuse to abuse, rape,
torture and murder innocents.
They say they are religious fundamentalists who want to create
some sort of Islamic paradise and it's what God wants. If they really
believe that, why do they hide their faces in all of those disgusting
videos and photos they love putting online? Is it so they don't have
to look at their own faces and see what they are really doing?
News flash - genocide is nothing to do with religion, it's a
brutal, self serving, sadistic hedonism of the worst kind and no
Paradise will open it's doors to a person like that.
And to anyone thinking of travelling out to join them: Are
you really that naive? Do you really think it has anything to do with
any more than making money? It's not about principles, paradise or
the words of an ancient prophet - IT'S ABOUT GREED - Greed for land,
for power, for oil. Look at the places being attacked, they are
countries that have resources or are near to them but that are, for
many reasons, susceptible to attack. When the dust settles you can
bet your soul to any God that the leaders of that abhorrence will
forget their pious words and promises to live just exactly the sort
of lives they preach are evil - so many sins, so little time
Then we head north to the Crimea and the mess that is the former
Soviet Union.
How many people have died over the centuries fighting over the
Crimea? How many more will now die because those with the power have
not learned from history?
Are there really that many Ukrainians who really want to become
Russians? Why now, after all these years has it suddenly flared up? I
look at the news reports and see only people too young to have any
memory of what life in the Soviet Union was like, people living off
dreams and idealisms.
Of course there's also Russia's answer to action man feeding fire,
President Putin. He dreams of the glorious old days, of rebuilding
the empire with himself at the top of the pile but this time there is
no pretence of communistic equality. Greed and power, again, seducing
the younger generations with dreams of a history that never was and a
glorious future that will never be. Worse, the fever is spreading to
more of the old countries.
And in the midst of it all, Putin fluffs is feathers declaring his
self importance and invincibility (more dreams I'm sorry to say, Mr
Putin) while all I can think of is the Third Reich annexing the
Sudetenland and how for years all the other European countries did
was impose sanctions. Remember how that turned out?
On to another continent and Ebola has Africans so terrified they
abandon their relatives in the street, while massive cultural
misunderstanding has those infected fleeing the very hospitals trying
to help them.
For the rest of the world it's time to batten down the hatches and
wait for it to pass, except we can't. Step aside from the obvious
ethical dilemmas and there is the practicality. How do you stop the
spread of this terrible illness when global travel could have someone
spread their infection to every continent on the world before even
knowing that they are infected?
It's in all of our interests to both quarantine the effected
regions and do our very best to help them.
And then, closest to home and linked in so many ways to everything
else going on in the world, there is the ferry that was stormed in
Calais by immigrants desperate to get to the UK.
For anyone with any thoughts of coming here - we are not so far
from imploding ourselves. Yes, the benefits system is massively
abused but rest assured that is changing. Socialist politics is all
the rage, Scotland has an imminent vote on independence and the last
time I checked our streets were potted holed tarmac, not gold.
The French are shouting about how they are tired of acting as our
immigration officials, how people in Calais are tired of putting up
with the mess and danger of the illegal immigrants who risk life and
limb for a shot at the dream, but it is quite clear this mass influx
of people wanting to get out of France and in to Britain are
themselves not French, so where were the French immigration officials
when their borders were crossed?
I can't pretend to have the answers, I'm not that smart and I won't pretend to be, but their are certain things I can't ignore, so here is my humble plan for the future:
- I will lose more weight. This not as selfish as it at first seems, it allows me to do more to help others in the following ways -
- I will become an egg donor. It has been on my mind for some time, family is so important and it is a terrible shame for people to desperate want children and not to have them. So for those who can't adopt (for any of the frivolous reasons local authorities shamefully put in their way) I will give the gift of a chance.
- I will become a Reserve in the Armed Forces while I am still young enough to do it. It is risky but it is so worthwhile.
The selfishness of my imagined world of magic and monsters is not going to cut it today. There are too many monsters in the real world and too little magic. If nothing else is achieved today, I hope a tiny piece of magic filters back into the real world, a tiny miracle, no matter how mundane that makes our world better.
FraidyKat Runs - to be a better human being
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