On many matters our ‘quality’ media serve us passably well but this enables a greater lie. They must show themselves trustworthy even if it embarrasses high office. (Not only does long term capacity to manufacture consent depend on it. So … Read More »
The rubber tramp advertised at the end of my previous post has been put on hold pending brighter weather next week … Pastoral bliss on the Isle of Mull, June 2023 … freeing me up for more scribbling from the … Read More »
It’s at best ignorant and at worst dishonest to quote the “then” part of an if-then conditional as a standalone. I’m not one for defending war criminals but a textbook case is the oft repeated claim that President-elect Richard Nixon’s … Read More »
Two things everybody needs to know about Western democracy. One, it ain’t real. A lot of work goes in – not just through news media but an array of ideological apparatus from education to arts and entertainment, and from organised … Read More »
Here’s a tale in three short parts. On November 29, 2023 – fifty-two days into Israel’s Western backed genocide on Gaza – an article on the Human Rights Watch website posed this question: I’ve had my issues with HRW. Along … Read More »
Financial Times, February 3 2025 One thing Ireland learned before and after the 1998 Good Friday Agreement – as did occupied Europe after WW2 – is that not every freedom fighter trained to rob banks, forge documents, do blackmail, strong-arm … Read More »
“Biden did the murder. Trump’s just the guy who showed up to help dispose of the body.” * On January 19 I opened a post on the Gaza ceasefire with this: Why did Donald Trump post, on the X/Twitter platform … Read More »
It’s open season on Keir Starmer these days, and rightly so. If the man has a single redeeming feature it passed me by. He’s stupid, unprincipled, untruthful, arrogant in an odiously patrician way – yet oddly thin of skin – … Read More »
Female Mandarin I’d no chance with this next shot. A shutter speed of 1/500 seconds is way too slow for so tiny a bird flying so fast over so short a distance. As for my reflexes, they’re glacial. Still, I … Read More »
Image by Mr Fish Genocide and mass extermination are not the exclusive domain of fascist Germany. Adolf Hitler appeared exceptionally cruel only because he presided over “the humiliation of the white man.” But the Nazis simply applied colonialist procedures hitherto … Read More »