The Queen of England was not dead but a moment before the circus surrounding her was trumpeted into action. These are propitious moments! The funeral and the ascension of her son Charles are the so-called “pomp and ceremony” that is the latest entertainment act since Donald J. Trump to adorn the world stage. And like Trump its amusement factor is critical to its survival. The Vatican must be burning with envy!  No doubt the Pope – assuming he skirts (pardon the pun) the would-be king’s promotion of the Church of England and the inescapable derivative innuendo about the Papists – will somehow ensure that the event will profit the cash boxes of the Roman Catholic enterprise worldwide. Everyone adores a day at the circus, especially now as they have stopped retailing dancing bears trained on hotplates to jump for their lives. The British powers-that-be shall no doubt make a far more gripping arena for its audience by promoting an array of vintage automobiles, preposterous tiny hats, exposure to the sanctum sanctorum of cathedrals and castles and naturally lachrymose musical compositions.

Juggling is a physical skill, performed by a juggler, involving the manipulation of objects for recreation, entertainment, art or sport. The most recognizable form of juggling is toss juggling. Juggling can be the manipulationof one object or many objects at the same time, most often using one or two hands but also possible with feet. Jugglers often refer to the objects they juggle as props. The most common props are balls, clubs, or rings. Some jugglers use more dramatic objects such as knives, fire torches or chainsaws. The term juggling can also commonly refer to other prop-basedmanipulation skills, such as diabolo, plate spinning, devil sticks, poi, cigar boxes, contact juggling, hooping, yo-yo, and hat manipulation.

Who really has an idea at all about what the royal family owns outright or as mere custodians for the public? Who pays to cut the grass and repair the mortar?  Surely those state dinners – as frolicking as they may be – are extraordinarily lavish for the particular crowd of proven misfits they enrol. And, speaking of all of which, what is the last thing of any substance you recall having heard on the public air waves from the Queen of England?  As sweet a mother as she may have been – and frankly I am not convinced by what I have heard that she was – her legacy is to my mind more apt to be that of a puppet (albeit a muted one) of interested parties. Like other political puppets, the oligarchs run the show paramountly. And – as the world becomes smaller and smaller – the rich have succeeded to a disgusting level of elevation.

Clearly it is unlikely that a messiah will be newly born to humanity.  We can no longer await the arrival of some character of our fictional creation. The millennia of awaiting have yet to produce convincing appeal. The reality of it all predicts that instead we must slowly but surely devote ourselves to systems which in fact are not dependent upon the royal or religious superiority of another human being.  And lest the “babe in swaddling clothes laying in the manger” is somehow more persuasive as a source of incredulity, I remind you that there has yet to be any proof beyond the conjecture of magic that such tales have any substance.

For years I have attached myself to the likes of Thomas Paine and an multitude of similarly minded philosophers to excuse my own abhorrence of superstition and magic as applied to human affairs.  In the end, none of us is invested with inherent insightfulness into the beyond, neither by birth nor chance nor divine apparition. From what I have learned of knowledge and performance over 73 years, there ain’t no secret to it.  Certainly there continues to be those who gird their loins with the slabs of beef stolen by greed and cowardice, but it is a wasteful example destined for failure eventually.

And what’s with this jerk Putin who thinks he is somehow entitled – on behalf of himself or unspecified others or even a nation of people – to bomb the blazing lights out of innocent people and their children?  Why hasn’t the rest of the world made any clear attempt to stop the insanity? With this background I am afraid I am unable to eliminate from my mind the overwhelming devotion of power to itself.