What to say about the current state of this rock we are careering around the sun on? Well, there is a simple answer:
The world is on fire.
In Turkey that is no exaggeration as airports closed due to the wildfires.
There is almost too much to say about the USA. Since I last wrote they have tried, once again, to ignite World War Three by escalating tensions with Iran.
Oh - I do hate to be pedantic, but the name of that country is not, and never has been Eye-Ran - it is not a country that was engineered by Apple. Tsk – say it properly, or not at all.
But it is not all doom and gloom, for once.
Embracing The Celestial
It was actually a piece of celestial news that has got me into a writing frame of mind (despite the early morning heat).
We continue to reach for the stars (quite literally) with the first images appearing from the Vera C Rubin Observatory in Chile. They are stunning.
Pink hued clouds of dust and gas swirl around like watercolour paints in a pool of water. The images show the majesty of stellar nurseries where stars and planets are born. If you are looking for the divine and the transcendental, look no further. It’s enough to remind me of Wilde’s famous quote:
“We are all in the gutter, but some of us are looking at the stars.”
Professor Manda Banerji and Dr Phil Wiseman, writing for The Conversation, say that these images " … will enable [us] to map the substructure and satellite galaxies of the Milky Way like never before."
That is amazing. Here we are boldly looking into the reaches of space to further our scientific research, while down on planet Earth we are being pulled back into the dark ages.
All of the scientific endeavour in the world will not change the fact that we are retreating into a world of half-baked religious philosophies that come from a time when we knew vanishingly little - about our place in the cosmos or our own bodies.
The Toddler-King
It is hard not to feel hopeless about the state of the USA - and it’s important to remember that the sheer gravitational pull of America has a substantial effect on the rest of the world.
In service to a powerful President whose capricious nature knows no bound, what will countries be prepared to do?
It reminds me of the panic when my son was a toddler, whose cry could have been weaponised as crowd control, doing what we could to ensure that there was nothing that could set them off.
A little like living with an unexploded bomb.
So, here comes the world, acting like doting parents to a troublesome child:
“What can we do for you Mr. President. DEI? Why yes, let’s all dump that into shredder, despite all evidence that says that DEI policies are not just good for employees but good for business too.”
Lest he begin his wailing, again.
Hang on – who is this defying the toddler-king?
Spain have told him they will not be increasing the percentage of their GDP on defence, because they’re not the ones who keep starting unwinnable wars. Good for them. Let the toddler flail about on the supermarket floor – they are only showing themselves up.
Alas, in the UK, we do not have such a strong leader – we have another incompetent, spineless, PM (in a long line). Sir Keir Starmer seems willing to do and say anything to appease the tangerine toddler, up to and including go against his own long-held principles as a lawyer. He previously supported people’s right to direct action but now is trying to proscribe a pro-Palestine group for just that.
When Will Enough Be Enough?
Bravo!
At what point do we decide that
imprisoning immigrants;
harassing anyone who happens to look like one;
threatening news outlets;
or threatening a man who is running for mayor of New York with deportation because they don’t like his politics,
is enough to cut ties?
We have already proven ourselves to be fine with the eradication of reproductive rights for women, the deportation to permanent detention without parole in El Salvador of ‘illegals’ because they have tattoos or the imposition of what increasingly looks like a fundamentalist Christian state.
There, I suppose, is the challenge for all of us across the world – we must use our voices and any platforms we have to continue to speak out. Silence is the best ally of the oppressor – so let’s continue to be progressive, call out injustice and keep looking to stars – even as our elected representatives continue to lie in the gutter.
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