Ball of Confusion
What an intrusion
A rally, a riot, a deadly plot
Attacking mob of kilowatts
Category Archives: General
Journalism
Four years ago President Donald J. Trump of the United States of America began the studied and constant touting of an accusation of “fake news” from the mainstream media. Initially his incrimination was dismissed as the sour grapes of a disgruntled politician – who uncommonly for someone his age had a grip upon social media, Twitter in particular. The charge has since transmuted to a mantra of the very radical element he appeared to fumigate against in others. Trump’s Twitter account has since been removed indefinitely.
“The fault I find with our journalism is that it forces us to take an interest in some fresh triviality or other every day, whereas only three or four books in a lifetime give us anything that is of real importance. In that way we should arrive at the right proportion between information and publicity. Never did I find in that coarse bottle anything but ill-humour, boorishness, and folly.”
Excerpt From
Proust, Marcel “Swann’s Way”
Getting to know you
But then, even in the most insignificant details of our daily life, none of us can be said to constitute a material whole, which is identical for everyone, and need only be turned up like a page in an account-book or the record of a will; our social personality is created by the thoughts of other people. Even the simple act which we describe as “seeing some one we know” is, to some extent, an intellectual process. We pack the physical outline of the creature we see with all the ideas we have already formed about him, and in the complete picture of him which we compose in our minds those ideas have certainly the principal place. In the end they come to fill out so completely the curve of his cheeks, to follow so exactly the line of his nose, they blend so harmoniously in the sound of his voice that these seem to be no more than a transparent envelope, so that each time we see the face or hear the voice it is our own ideas of him which we recognise and to which we listen.
Excerpt From
Proust, Marcel “Swann’s Way”
An ideal day
The diaphanous air was crystal clear this morning when I launched my constitutional bicycle ride. Today marks the end of the first week of the New Year – and the end of a raucous political week in the United States of America. No doubt many people are worn to a frazzle by COVID isolation, Trump’s buffoonery and the prospect of more winter. My bicycle ride by comparison was ideal.
Who are the Trump supporters?
Hawley harshly criticized the decision, saying it “represents the end of the conservative legal movement.“
What more than anything gobsmacks me after yesterday’s storming of the Capitol building by Trump supporters is that it was based upon both factual and legal lies; viz., there was no voter suppression in the presidential election and there is no right of the vice-president to change the outcome. The interlopers had only moments earlier been prompted to do their dirty work by President Donald J. Trump who repeated both lies. The President’s henchmen Senators Ted Cruz and Josh Hawley – both lawyers – reiterated their own version of identical lies in the Senate. Nor did they change their tune even after the mob was forced out of the Senate and the Senators reconvened.
“irregardless of…” – Senator Josh Hawley
“Hawley was the first GOP senator to say he would back the attempts by Donald Trump to overthrow Joe Biden’s victory, after the president’s claims that the election was marred by fraud were rejected by numerous courts.“
Senator Josh Hawley has lately been very much in the news. And not in a good way. His speedy climb up the ladder of popular attention is reminiscent of Adolf Hitler; namely, a disaffected orator from nowhere with world ambition. Already students at his former law school are championing his removal from office for having incited criminal activity.
“A native of small town Lexington, Missouri in rural Lafayette County, Senator Hawley graduated from Rockhurst High School in Kansas City.“
My interest in this peculiar nut case is that he has blatantly sought to follow upon and echo the cocktail of evil propounded by President Donald J. Trump. Both are undisturbed in their overwhelming conviction to themselves at the cost of others. Both are mistakenly prompted by an erstwhile fortuity which for Trump at least has proven to be unsustainable. I predict the same evolution for Senator Hawley.
General Donald J. Trump
“Protesters loyal to President Trump stormed the Capitol on Wednesday, halting Congress’s counting of the electoral votes to confirm President-elect Joseph R. Biden Jr.’s victory as the police evacuated lawmakers from the building.“
My guess at this moment is that Vice-President Mike Pence is not spouting his usual selective Christian demagoguery. The Capitol building of the United States of America – whence he has been precipitously spirited for his own protection – is under siege. I will however assist Mr. Pence in this trying moment by directing him to the apt percept, “Be not deceived; God is not mocked: for whatsoever a man soweth, that shall he also reap“, Epistle to the Galatians, 6:7, King James Version of the Bible.
Winter bicycle ride
Though I am not athletic, I have always taken pleasure in fresh air and moderate stimulation. Bicycling is my preferred exercise. In addition to being a long-standing habit cycling is no doubt an expiation of perpetual psychological accountability. Yesterday however we went for a very short walk instead in Insmill Park in Kanata. As we begin to bury ourselves deeper in snow I reasoned that walking was an appropriate alternative though I have always hated walking. As anticipated the exertion was painful for me because of my deteriorating spinal discs. So this morning I proposed to renew my preference for cycling.
Senescence
Senescence is the process of deterioration with age. While it remains a perpetual medical and scientific curiosity, the loss of power and growth is less about inquisitiveness to those of us having to endure its reality.
Aging is characterized by the declining ability to respond to stress, increased homeostatic imbalance, and increased risk of aging-associated diseases including cancer and heart disease. Aging has been defined as “a progressive deterioration of physiological function, an intrinsic age-related process of loss of viability and increase in vulnerability.”
Different speeds with which mortality increases with age correspond to different maximum life span among species. For example, a mouse is elderly at 3 years, a human is elderly at 80 years, and ginkgo trees show little effect of age even at 667 years.
Taking stock
The estimate of meaning is for me a plodding process. Things don’t necessarily “jump out” at me. More often than not I’m bound to return to an overall view of a matter before certain of its details unfreeze sufficiently to form part of the drinkable mix. As a lawyer the professional preoccupation was tolerable on several counts. For one thing it meant that I at least acknowledged the possibility of initial oversight. Additionally it afforded a chance to reconsider the material and possibly enlarge upon its ingredient significance. Finally the process of taking stock is determination of cutoff points, discarding what is perhaps useless or out-dated. Taking stock is laborious and regularly leads to downtime of other projects. For me the interruption constitutes an imperative to the overall enjoyment of life without which I feel I am anchored and immobile. The element of obsession is more intrusive to those who in my opinion unjustifiably diminish the value of the process.
Stock-taking or “inventory checking” or “wall-to-wall” is the physical verification of the quantities and condition of items held in an inventory or warehouse. This may be done to provide an audit of existing stock. It is also the source of stock discrepancy information.