AvPD (according to my therapist), Antifa, Lefty Anarchist, radically Green, and still somehow a believer in the essential goodness of mankind. Baritone and tenor sax, #music, #reading and occasional #blog writing. GM8YUG. A lover of high latitudes, ice and snow. Gardener, woodworker and owned by two affectionate cats. Still trying to make sense of an increasingly senseless world.
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2026-07-29T14:59:04Z Event JSON
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Last Notes npub18atlvp9mfttz3vdlrva79lua3ackdf8hg3ckdv27rtg5twjyy44svesy47 Just Tom... π For me, this (which I have pinned to the board where I can be reminded) epitomises Mastodon: npub18atlvp9mfttz3vdlrva79lua3ackdf8hg3ckdv27rtg5twjyy44svesy47 Just Tom... π Several threads this morning from @npub1703β¦2l86 about the already inevitable global heating and the fact that the rate of increase in CO2 levels has no parallel in the history of the planet. My only hope is that the wealth driving this suicidal "investment" evaporates, bringing the whole unstable edifice crashing down, destroying the bubble and ruining those who put personal profit before the health of the Earth. They are a homicidal cult with their hallucinating lying machines. npub18atlvp9mfttz3vdlrva79lua3ackdf8hg3ckdv27rtg5twjyy44svesy47 Just Tom... π And so it begins - conflating Murrell's admission of guilt with the whole of the SNP - "You are all tarred with the same brush". There's not a shred of evidence that anyone but Murrell was involved and the investigations have been lengthy (an issue in itself) and thorough, exonerating Nicola Sturgeon who might have been, as Murrell's wife, better placed to know than anyone else. But let's use it to bring down the SNP and the independence cause as a whole. I see you! https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2026/may/26/snp-embezzling-voters-peter-murrell npub18atlvp9mfttz3vdlrva79lua3ackdf8hg3ckdv27rtg5twjyy44svesy47 Just Tom... π Indeed it is. I don't fully understand the shift to the right by the electorate. Some of it is plain disillusionment with the establishment parties (and who can blame them) and I think that some is down to a lack of critical thinking that means that the ridiculous claims of Reform and the far right are not critically evaluated by voters. Then there's the print media ownership and what I see as a bias in the BBC. It scares the living daylights out of me as an avowed lefties π’ npub18atlvp9mfttz3vdlrva79lua3ackdf8hg3ckdv27rtg5twjyy44svesy47 Just Tom... π With figures like that (in reality with ANY figures), any arguments in favour of FPTP are unsustainable. It really is time that this country grew up and took steps (I want them to be giant strides) towards being a proper representative democracy. A proper proportional voting system (and there are several to choose from) would be a good start. Oh yes - and abolition of the current HoL and replacement with (I believe) an elected upper house. Grim stuff about the figures for Reform though! npub18atlvp9mfttz3vdlrva79lua3ackdf8hg3ckdv27rtg5twjyy44svesy47 Just Tom... π Private medicine is a parasite when it comes to training as well - they (the organisations) pay nothing toward the training of the staff that they poach from the NHS. From the first day that I stepped on a ward I swore that I would have no part of it. npub18atlvp9mfttz3vdlrva79lua3ackdf8hg3ckdv27rtg5twjyy44svesy47 Just Tom... π Why is a call for extra expenditure in the nation's budget always to be achieved by "cutting an unaffordable welfare bill"? There are many (and I include myself in this) who could afford tax rises to those nearer Scandinavian levels. We could then properly afford to give support to those who need it. And as a "by the way" - perhaps we could cut the budget for nuclear-equipped submarines. To zero. 2/2 https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2026/apr/14/starmer-accused-of-corrosive-complacency-about-defence-by-ex-head-of-nato npub18atlvp9mfttz3vdlrva79lua3ackdf8hg3ckdv27rtg5twjyy44svesy47 Just Tom... π I see George Robertson, former NATO Secretary General, calling for cuts in welfare to fund military expansion and describing Starmer's "Corrosive complacency". Whilst I see that as a call for yet another imposition of austerity on the British public, an increase in general taxation described elsewhere as "one Cappuccino a day", I do think that "Corrosive complacency" fits Starmer well. I know many for whom one cappuccino would be an extravagance they could ill afford, never mind one a day. 1/2 npub18atlvp9mfttz3vdlrva79lua3ackdf8hg3ckdv27rtg5twjyy44svesy47 Just Tom... π So let me see if I have this right: npub18atlvp9mfttz3vdlrva79lua3ackdf8hg3ckdv27rtg5twjyy44svesy47 Just Tom... π Even more relevant today than when the words were written by Franklin D. Roosevelt for his second inaugural address. I can't imagine such sentiments from the mind of Donald Trump... npub18atlvp9mfttz3vdlrva79lua3ackdf8hg3ckdv27rtg5twjyy44svesy47 Just Tom... π Heinberg, and Meadows et al have been the mainstay of my life, together, perhaps with Joseph Tainter's "Collapse of Complex Societies where he develops the argument that diminishing returns with increased complexity eventually make the cost of maintaining that complexity too much and the society regresses to a simpler form. I believe we are approaching that point globally. npub18atlvp9mfttz3vdlrva79lua3ackdf8hg3ckdv27rtg5twjyy44svesy47 Just Tom... π I see Cameron lumping together Reform UK and the Greens as populist against whom the centre must marshal their forces. I, as a supporter of much needed radical Green politics, find that incredibly offensive, the more so because it comes from the unrepentant architect of Brexit. npub18atlvp9mfttz3vdlrva79lua3ackdf8hg3ckdv27rtg5twjyy44svesy47 Just Tom... π A few weeks ago Yuri, my little calico friend, developed a rapidly spreading black patch on her face, losing the hair in the process. The vet and I both thought it was an aggressive melanoma. Biopsy showed only a severe dermatitis and on steroids (fun and games, I keep finding the ones I thought she had swallowed spat out when I'm not looking) she looks much better. Tailing off the steroids now, so an end to the fights is in sight. Will her fur grow back? TBH I'm just glad it wasn't worse... npub18atlvp9mfttz3vdlrva79lua3ackdf8hg3ckdv27rtg5twjyy44svesy47 Just Tom... π Given Keir Starmer's record on U-turns, I suspect such a commitment would last only until the moment the polls close in May. npub18atlvp9mfttz3vdlrva79lua3ackdf8hg3ckdv27rtg5twjyy44svesy47 Just Tom... π Whenever the topic of GDP comes up, I'm reminded of Robert F. Kennedy's dismantling of GDP as a metric in 1968 with the summation of his speech: "it measures everything in short, except that which makes life worthwhile." increasingly economic activity appears to have a somewhat tenuous relationship with the well-being of society as a whole,many of whose members have seen incomes stagnate while rent seeking entities take an ever larger portion of that already stretched income. npub18atlvp9mfttz3vdlrva79lua3ackdf8hg3ckdv27rtg5twjyy44svesy47 Just Tom... π For further reading, (if people have the stomach for it), Jess Hill's book "See what you made me do" is a very sobering and sometimes uncomfortably graphic analysis of the shocking rates of violence against women and girls worldwide and the causes. npub18atlvp9mfttz3vdlrva79lua3ackdf8hg3ckdv27rtg5twjyy44svesy47 Just Tom... π Increasingly the man lives in a wee world of his own, completely out of touch with reality. The tragedy is that he still has the support of the Republican Party. npub18atlvp9mfttz3vdlrva79lua3ackdf8hg3ckdv27rtg5twjyy44svesy47 Just Tom... π I have long admired Michael Marmot and his work, together with that of Wilkinson and Pickett who all show starkly how much wealth inequality damages the health and wellbeing of a society. Yet government after government show that they, like Mandelson, are "intensely relaxed about people getting filthy rich" (even in the unlikely event that they pay their fair share of taxes). Huge wealth inequality is bad for everyone (even the wealthy). npub18atlvp9mfttz3vdlrva79lua3ackdf8hg3ckdv27rtg5twjyy44svesy47 Just Tom... π From "Today's Edition Newsletter" by Robert B. Hubbell. Photographer unknown. npub18atlvp9mfttz3vdlrva79lua3ackdf8hg3ckdv27rtg5twjyy44svesy47 Just Tom... π Can someone explain to me how an Iranian warship, in international waters off the coast of Sri Lanka constitutes a legitimate target in an undeclared and probably illegal "war"? I remember the outrage at the sinking of the General Belgrano... npub18atlvp9mfttz3vdlrva79lua3ackdf8hg3ckdv27rtg5twjyy44svesy47 Just Tom... π I never ever imagined that a party, founded in the belief that it should support the most vulnerable in society, could be taken over by those so full of antipathy towards those vulnerable people. With every pronouncement Keir Starmer digs his party deeper into a hole. I always knew to expect this from right of politics, but Labour is aping their worst instincts. They deserve the fate that is coming in May and at the next General election. I hope the Greens succeed. npub18atlvp9mfttz3vdlrva79lua3ackdf8hg3ckdv27rtg5twjyy44svesy47 Just Tom... π A good read, and yes: npub18atlvp9mfttz3vdlrva79lua3ackdf8hg3ckdv27rtg5twjyy44svesy47 Just Tom... π Wonderful news. The Green Party of England and Wales has, at long last, become the parliamentary representation of left wing environmental politics that those of us who know them always knew they should be. "I don't vote for the Greens because under FPTP they have no chance" is history now. npub18atlvp9mfttz3vdlrva79lua3ackdf8hg3ckdv27rtg5twjyy44svesy47 Just Tom... π "The BBC and the wider Brit media seem to think they are talking down to the masses and people arenβt buying it. Expect the Royals to be heckled and harassed at every public event, and people to be arrested for not bowing down to this rotten, exposed feudal relic. npub18atlvp9mfttz3vdlrva79lua3ackdf8hg3ckdv27rtg5twjyy44svesy47 Just Tom... π It's not a "sad thing", it is another of the reprehensible people in Epstein's circle being investigated - and for something only perhaps tangentially related to his sexual proclivities. It's time the activities of the person who pronounced this to be a "sad thing" were put under the microscope. He, after all, was at the very heart of Epstein's cabal. https://www.independent.co.uk/bulletin/news/andrew-arrest-donald-trump-epstein-files-b2924010.html npub18atlvp9mfttz3vdlrva79lua3ackdf8hg3ckdv27rtg5twjyy44svesy47 Just Tom... π Borrowed from Robert B. Hubbell's "Today's Edition Newsletter" ICE are very definitely NOT the Borg! npub18atlvp9mfttz3vdlrva79lua3ackdf8hg3ckdv27rtg5twjyy44svesy47 Just Tom... π Kudos to all those who put their money where their mouth was and demonstrated peacefully against the proscription of Palestine Action, risking a criminal conviction in the process. The proscription was an outrageous assault on the right of free speech and this defeat for the government and the Home Secretary means that justice has prevailed. How dare Mahmood intimate that she intends to appeal the ruling! npub18atlvp9mfttz3vdlrva79lua3ackdf8hg3ckdv27rtg5twjyy44svesy47 Just Tom... π Watching the daily revelations about the very wealthy I'm frequently reminded of the adage: If you want to know what God thinks of money, you just have to look at who he gives it to... npub18atlvp9mfttz3vdlrva79lua3ackdf8hg3ckdv27rtg5twjyy44svesy47 Just Tom... π Is it wrong of me to wish for that? npub18atlvp9mfttz3vdlrva79lua3ackdf8hg3ckdv27rtg5twjyy44svesy47 Just Tom... π When I wake up tomorrow who will be toast? npub18atlvp9mfttz3vdlrva79lua3ackdf8hg3ckdv27rtg5twjyy44svesy47 Just Tom... π George Washington, first President - "I cannot tell a lie" npub18atlvp9mfttz3vdlrva79lua3ackdf8hg3ckdv27rtg5twjyy44svesy47 Just Tom... π "... I keep hearing frantic commentary about what this means for Keir Starmer, for Fergie, for Mandelsonβs peerage, whatever. How about the biggest and grimmest question of all: what it means for women and girls to be able to clearly see that we live in a world where so many of the richest and most powerful men alive are just not bothered enough by their exploitation. Or worse." npub18atlvp9mfttz3vdlrva79lua3ackdf8hg3ckdv27rtg5twjyy44svesy47 Just Tom... π Horrific story: npub18atlvp9mfttz3vdlrva79lua3ackdf8hg3ckdv27rtg5twjyy44svesy47 Just Tom... π I had forgotten until a post reminded me this morning that it was Mandelson who said that "We are intensely relaxed about people getting filthy rich". The measure of the man, perhaps, a man who seemed to enjoy the company of those "filthy rich" a little too much for his own good. Out of the House of Lords, straight to jail, do not pass "go"... npub18atlvp9mfttz3vdlrva79lua3ackdf8hg3ckdv27rtg5twjyy44svesy47 Just Tom... π Hmmm... Despite the title "UK towns and cities..." a substantial part of the UK seems to be missing here! The Grauniad once again confusing England and Wales with the UK as a whole. npub18atlvp9mfttz3vdlrva79lua3ackdf8hg3ckdv27rtg5twjyy44svesy47 Just Tom... π RE: https://mamot.fr/@pluralistic/115901022866433993 npub18atlvp9mfttz3vdlrva79lua3ackdf8hg3ckdv27rtg5twjyy44svesy47 Just Tom... π RE: https://mamot.fr/@pluralistic/115894410440299999 npub18atlvp9mfttz3vdlrva79lua3ackdf8hg3ckdv27rtg5twjyy44svesy47 Just Tom... π In a very real sense, with "approximately 10-12,000 U.S. military personnel stationed in the UK, primarily at RAF Lakenheath and RAF Mildenhall, supporting air operations for Europe and serving as a crucial hub for the U.S. Air Force", Orwell's characterisation of the UK as "Airstrip One" seems to be about where we are, still a state tied firmly to a "Special Relationship" that is very clearly highly asymmetrical and which benefits the US and not Britain. https://bellacaledonia.org.uk/2026/01/06/scotland-caracas-and-the-trump-corollary/ npub18atlvp9mfttz3vdlrva79lua3ackdf8hg3ckdv27rtg5twjyy44svesy47 Just Tom... π Blue "Labour". The Overton Window has been decisively shifted, hasn't it! What a sad end (and I suspect it will be an end) to a once proud party that represented those who really earned the wealth of the country. https://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/politics/keir-starmer-labour-wealth-tax-budget-b2893442.html npub18atlvp9mfttz3vdlrva79lua3ackdf8hg3ckdv27rtg5twjyy44svesy47 Just Tom... π As someone who spent his working life in a profession where conflicts of interest were simply not permitted, I am profoundly mystified by the demonstrable ability that politicians have for convincing themselves that somehow the concept doesn't apply to them, that they, uniquely in this world, are somehow immune from the inevitable biases and self-serving that ensue. How easily they kid themselves. npub18atlvp9mfttz3vdlrva79lua3ackdf8hg3ckdv27rtg5twjyy44svesy47 Just Tom... π Well that's the US off my list of countries I can visit, which will not be good news for my son in New Jersey... π’ npub18atlvp9mfttz3vdlrva79lua3ackdf8hg3ckdv27rtg5twjyy44svesy47 Just Tom... π - Next thing he will be wanting to use Comic Sans for all official documents...! npub18atlvp9mfttz3vdlrva79lua3ackdf8hg3ckdv27rtg5twjyy44svesy47 Just Tom... π Wow, that's BOUND to work. A stroke of "genius" from Reform UK Ltd. https://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/politics/farage-reform-uk-scotland-tartan-falkirk-b2879329.html npub18atlvp9mfttz3vdlrva79lua3ackdf8hg3ckdv27rtg5twjyy44svesy47 Just Tom... π Once again, the leader of "Reform ltd" is out to cause disharmony and dissent in Scotland. As a junior doctor I recall a colleague being asked by the judge in court what the acronym in an A&E patient's notes "TBR" meant. "The bum's rush", he muttered beneath his breath. "Would you repeat that for the court" he was instructed. Where Farage is concerned it needs to be said loud and clear... https://bellacaledonia.org.uk/2025/12/03/farages-glasgow-dog-whistle/ npub18atlvp9mfttz3vdlrva79lua3ackdf8hg3ckdv27rtg5twjyy44svesy47 Just Tom... π I always refer to Zohran Mamdami, who made tackling the economic insecurity of so many New Yorkers the basis for his campaign. Labour, in trying to outdo Reform, have lost their way completely. Why vote for a "Reform - lite" that has been such a disappointment, when you can vote for the genuine (!) article. npub18atlvp9mfttz3vdlrva79lua3ackdf8hg3ckdv27rtg5twjyy44svesy47 Just Tom... π And pales into insignificance next to the money lost through tax avoidance and evasion. npub18atlvp9mfttz3vdlrva79lua3ackdf8hg3ckdv27rtg5twjyy44svesy47 Just Tom... π How utterly wasteful to have all those graduates and all of the vacancies in specialties and end up with expensively-trained medics unable to fill the posts. Some, no doubt, will go abroad, and others into graduate jobs of one sort or another; a great many will disappear into the general workforce with their ambitions unfulfilled through no fault of their own. What complete madness! npub18atlvp9mfttz3vdlrva79lua3ackdf8hg3ckdv27rtg5twjyy44svesy47 Just Tom... π I hope that he enjoys his new accommodation when he takes up residence in HMP something-or-other. https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2025/nov/22/boris-johnson-took-four-days-off-as-nhs-warned-covid-could-overwhelm-system npub18atlvp9mfttz3vdlrva79lua3ackdf8hg3ckdv27rtg5twjyy44svesy47 Just Tom... π Sooner or later many of us will need care because we are no longer able to manage unsupported. It is past time for reform. npub18atlvp9mfttz3vdlrva79lua3ackdf8hg3ckdv27rtg5twjyy44svesy47 Just Tom... π I hate "AI" and will have nothing to do with it. Intelligent it is not. npub18atlvp9mfttz3vdlrva79lua3ackdf8hg3ckdv27rtg5twjyy44svesy47 Just Tom... π Not exactly new news (it was known more than 12 years ago that there was a strong correlation), but another disease that can be laid at the door of EBV. That is one dangerous viral infection. MS and a number of autoimmune diseases?https://www.theguardian.com/science/2025/nov/12/epstein-barr-virus-appears-to-be-trigger-of-lupus-disease-say-scientists npub18atlvp9mfttz3vdlrva79lua3ackdf8hg3ckdv27rtg5twjyy44svesy47 Just Tom... π Meanwhile, in the Sainsbury's car park this morning, someone put their clocks back further than they intended last week... npub18atlvp9mfttz3vdlrva79lua3ackdf8hg3ckdv27rtg5twjyy44svesy47 Just Tom... π π’ npub18atlvp9mfttz3vdlrva79lua3ackdf8hg3ckdv27rtg5twjyy44svesy47 Just Tom... π ...and how are they going to keep it intact when assaulted or moved on by random people and the police? Or countries could follow the example of Finland and actually house the homeless. npub18atlvp9mfttz3vdlrva79lua3ackdf8hg3ckdv27rtg5twjyy44svesy47 Just Tom... π I have just finished "See What You Made Me Do" by Jess Hill - an often harrowing exposition of the facts behind Intimate Partner Violence and Coercive Control. She makes the case very strongly for a) believing children when they fight against being made to spend time with one (abusive) parent and b) a wholesale reform of the family courts and the training of those who provide advice (on things like "parental alienation") to those courts. It makes for difficult reading. npub18atlvp9mfttz3vdlrva79lua3ackdf8hg3ckdv27rtg5twjyy44svesy47 Just Tom... π Oh dear! "A nightmare vision..."? Only in the fevered imaginations of an exploding Macwhirter and his ilk. Bring on the Celtic alliance, free from his "Anglo-Saxon England" with all of its painted roundabouts and flegs. npub18atlvp9mfttz3vdlrva79lua3ackdf8hg3ckdv27rtg5twjyy44svesy47 Just Tom... π Indeed, and as Michael Marmot pointed out in 2010,the Borough of Westminster has some of the the starkest disparities in the UK with consequent huge disparities in health and life expectancy. npub18atlvp9mfttz3vdlrva79lua3ackdf8hg3ckdv27rtg5twjyy44svesy47 Just Tom... π @npub165wβ¦lfr7 npub18atlvp9mfttz3vdlrva79lua3ackdf8hg3ckdv27rtg5twjyy44svesy47 Just Tom... π Proud to belong to this group of young (at heart) radicals. npub18atlvp9mfttz3vdlrva79lua3ackdf8hg3ckdv27rtg5twjyy44svesy47 Just Tom... π That's a sobering read, and one that doesn't bode well for the health of the planet or for the future of humanity. I have a great deal of time for Kate Raworth and her co-workers; her work ought to be compulsory reading for politicians and economists. npub18atlvp9mfttz3vdlrva79lua3ackdf8hg3ckdv27rtg5twjyy44svesy47 Just Tom... π At the moment I'm reading "See What You Made me do" by Jess Hill, a book that, as it says on the cover, is about power, control and domestic abuse. It's a slow and difficult read. Then today I saw this in the Grauniad. It too is hard going. I wonder sometimes whether men in our society will ever come to grips with their responsibility to end this. Just now I'm not optimistic. https://www.theguardian.com/world/2025/oct/13/these-men-think-theyve-done-nothing-wrong-philosopher-tried-understand-gisele-pelicot-rapists npub18atlvp9mfttz3vdlrva79lua3ackdf8hg3ckdv27rtg5twjyy44svesy47 Just Tom... π After a long day yesterday, there's a fourth thing - the opportunity to sit down now and reflect on the goodness and generosity of others with Astor Piazzolla on the radio and a book on anarchism on my knee.., π₯° npub18atlvp9mfttz3vdlrva79lua3ackdf8hg3ckdv27rtg5twjyy44svesy47 Just Tom... π #threegoodthings : npub18atlvp9mfttz3vdlrva79lua3ackdf8hg3ckdv27rtg5twjyy44svesy47 Just Tom... π Oh the irony is off the scale this morning. The King (not my king) is, according to the news this morning, going to appear on UK television to tell us all about living sustainably. I'll believe that the day he renounces the homes and palaces, gives up helicopter travel and moves into a modest home on a council estate with his bidie-in. npub18atlvp9mfttz3vdlrva79lua3ackdf8hg3ckdv27rtg5twjyy44svesy47 Just Tom... π I hope that your wife is now better. End user experience is good, but always better avoided. npub18atlvp9mfttz3vdlrva79lua3ackdf8hg3ckdv27rtg5twjyy44svesy47 Just Tom... π As an addendum, I am profoundly aware that a moment's inattention in the workshop, two visits by a crew of ambulance technicians and one of paramedics, a ride to hospital, emergency surgery, three CT scans, Parenteral nutrition, and two weeks on High Dependency and another ward would, had I been in the US, have bankrupted me. npub18atlvp9mfttz3vdlrva79lua3ackdf8hg3ckdv27rtg5twjyy44svesy47 Just Tom... π I was discharged yesterday from hospital after emergency surgery and a couple of weeks recovery. The two highly competent surgeons were from the Middle East, I had nurses from Zimbabwe, India, Australia, South Africa, and elsewhere. The crew doing the CT scan were from Cameroon, whilst behind the scenes were countless others without whose good-natured expertise the Scottish NHS would cease to function. It is no exaggeration that today I recognise that I owe my life to them all. npub18atlvp9mfttz3vdlrva79lua3ackdf8hg3ckdv27rtg5twjyy44svesy47 Just Tom... π Oh FFS this is a world I nearly departed just over a fortnight ago, and now I'm on the mend it's worse than ever π’π’π’ npub18atlvp9mfttz3vdlrva79lua3ackdf8hg3ckdv27rtg5twjyy44svesy47 Just Tom... π Threatened by quiet non-violent "Gandhian" protest, and in the mean time those who protest violently about "Immigrants", threaten communities, threaten to burn down hostels and paint the flag of St. George on road furniture get a free pass. The world is topsy turvy. npub18atlvp9mfttz3vdlrva79lua3ackdf8hg3ckdv27rtg5twjyy44svesy47 Just Tom... π Sympathise with their view - absolutely not. Empathy - being able, as far as it is humanly possible, to "enter their world and to try to understand" is still achievable. Without that we run the risk of making judgements without understanding. The difficulty is in being able to truly empathise without being drawn in. Friedrich Nietzsche put it well: "When you look long into an abyss, the abyss also gazes into you". npub18atlvp9mfttz3vdlrva79lua3ackdf8hg3ckdv27rtg5twjyy44svesy47 Just Tom... π A radical kills one worshipper on the streets of the UK and we are, quite correctly, asked to consider the grief of the Jewish community. Israel and their Zionist government murders thousands upon thousands of Palestinian men, women and children in their (appropriately named) "offensive" in Gaza. Where are the calls to consider the grief and anger of the Palestinian diaspora? Are these not people too, do they not bleed and mourn? We have entirely lost any idea of a common humanity. npub18atlvp9mfttz3vdlrva79lua3ackdf8hg3ckdv27rtg5twjyy44svesy47 Just Tom... π ...and amen to that! I remember a time when there was a thing called "constructive dialogue" that relied upon being able to take the perspective of "the other". npub18atlvp9mfttz3vdlrva79lua3ackdf8hg3ckdv27rtg5twjyy44svesy47 Just Tom... π I'm not sure what it is that sets Mastodon apart, but given the lack of algorithmic content promotion is what largely sets it apart from social media in general, I suspect that has a significant role to place. Conversation, whilst perhaps partly siloed, (aren't our social lived IRL also characterised by silos?) is generally and genuinely respectful, thoughtful and appreciative. The antithesis of life on the bigger platforms. npub18atlvp9mfttz3vdlrva79lua3ackdf8hg3ckdv27rtg5twjyy44svesy47 Just Tom... π My son brought me a pair of Bluetooth headphones to my hospital bed, and helped me connect them. Listening to Anton Webern's Langsamer Satz and, like Arnold Schoenberg's Verklarte Nacht, it's absolutely gorgeous music. How could I not have discovered it sooner? npub18atlvp9mfttz3vdlrva79lua3ackdf8hg3ckdv27rtg5twjyy44svesy47 Just Tom... π Do others who are now "getting on in years" feel, as I do, that they have an increasingly marginal place in a society that is moving in a direction that feels as though it's leaving the behind? I don't say this out of nostalgia for a mythical past, I've no emotional attachment to my past, but rather that I see a world in which I feel alienated, that my beliefs about mutuality, empathy and community are being trashed systematically by people who believe in nothing but wealth and power. npub18atlvp9mfttz3vdlrva79lua3ackdf8hg3ckdv27rtg5twjyy44svesy47 Just Tom... π @npub1prmβ¦a9wj @npub1m0jβ¦qy4f npub18atlvp9mfttz3vdlrva79lua3ackdf8hg3ckdv27rtg5twjyy44svesy47 Just Tom... π It's a descent into the madness of what is already a low-grade civil war, perhaps a continuation of the one of 1861-65. My understanding (someone correct me if I'm wrong) is that the ideology of the Confederacy was founded on a belief in the supremacy of the "white races" (and the right to own and abuse slaves). My fear is that the current violence, encouraged by white supremacists like Fuentes, Kirk and Trump, will escalate into a full-blown civil war. Trump is despicable. npub18atlvp9mfttz3vdlrva79lua3ackdf8hg3ckdv27rtg5twjyy44svesy47 Just Tom... π No-one should die in gun violence but the phrase "Live by the sword..." does seem to be appropriate here. It's just crazy that the USA, with a population of 340 million should have around 400 million guns in private hands. https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2025/sep/10/charlie-kirk-shot-utah npub18atlvp9mfttz3vdlrva79lua3ackdf8hg3ckdv27rtg5twjyy44svesy47 Just Tom... π I scroll down my feed and get angrier every minute. There's enough food in the world to feed everyone adequately. npub18atlvp9mfttz3vdlrva79lua3ackdf8hg3ckdv27rtg5twjyy44svesy47 Just Tom... π But as long as the GDP goes up and the wealthy get wealthier, then all's right with the world? Shame on politicians and the wealthy npub18atlvp9mfttz3vdlrva79lua3ackdf8hg3ckdv27rtg5twjyy44svesy47 Just Tom... π - Dot com all over again but even bigger this time. I don't know what they'll do with all the left-over data centres, but perhaps that will be the least of our problems. npub18atlvp9mfttz3vdlrva79lua3ackdf8hg3ckdv27rtg5twjyy44svesy47 Just Tom... π The wiping out of the entire indigenous population of Tasmania was carried out systematically by Colonel Arthur after whom Port Arthur was named (a bleak dreadful penal colony for convicts shipped there, often for trivial offences) . British colonial history is a catalogue of similar shameful acts. The shame we should feel is a stark contrast with today's brutish British exceptionalism from a reinvigorated racist far right. https://theconversation.com/explainer-the-evidence-for-the-tasmanian-genocide-86828 npub18atlvp9mfttz3vdlrva79lua3ackdf8hg3ckdv27rtg5twjyy44svesy47 Just Tom... π I was thinking particularly about people like Johnson and Gove, but it seems to me that when these people are in charge of so much that affects the well-being of so many of us, then the very least we ought to expect is that there are basic competencies which every member should achieve. In the case of work (e. g. Clacton) then there must be regular surgeries for constituents. In other places, the need for a mechanism to "retire" those who are no longer fit for office is glaringly obvious. npub18atlvp9mfttz3vdlrva79lua3ackdf8hg3ckdv27rtg5twjyy44svesy47 Just Tom... π Politics is a weird business. Take airline pilots. Long training, regular line checks to demonstrate competence, restrictions on alcohol and drugs, and a professional approach to their work ( with a duty to report concerns to a regulatory body). Politics? None of that. No need to prove your mental fitness for the job, little or no training, no way to weed out underperformers, drink at subsidised rates in bars provided for your use, and don't mention the (alleged) coke habits of some members... npub18atlvp9mfttz3vdlrva79lua3ackdf8hg3ckdv27rtg5twjyy44svesy47 Just Tom... π If you live in the UK have a concealed phone that you keep for emergencies, one that you would rather not have others know about, then it would be sensible to turn it off tomorrow afternoon. https://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/home-news/emergency-alert-drill-mobile-phone-b2821517.html npub18atlvp9mfttz3vdlrva79lua3ackdf8hg3ckdv27rtg5twjyy44svesy47 Just Tom... π Around Christmas last year (thus not a New Year resolution) I decided I would read a hundred books in 2025. Like you I read avidly as a teenager. All kinds of things got in the way and I forgot the enormous pleasure that reading can give. Now on my 80th book. npub18atlvp9mfttz3vdlrva79lua3ackdf8hg3ckdv27rtg5twjyy44svesy47 Just Tom... π How could we have forgotten so much about the events of 1935 and the subsequent decade when there are still those of 90 or over who remember (and when there is so much documented evidence)? I am not sanguine, not at all... npub18atlvp9mfttz3vdlrva79lua3ackdf8hg3ckdv27rtg5twjyy44svesy47 Just Tom... π At the moment, and as I see it, Trump is destroying everything in the world that I hold dear - human (and especially Women's) rights, enlightenment, science, the rule of law, environmentalism, tolerance, fairness, even optimism. We will be left with a dystopia, a wasteland and only a few wealthier billionaires to show for it. npub18atlvp9mfttz3vdlrva79lua3ackdf8hg3ckdv27rtg5twjyy44svesy47 Just Tom... π The "I support Palestine Action" are those on the right side of History (and Yvette Cooper is on the wrong one). There is a genocide being carried out in plain sight by the Israeli Government in Gaza and anyone that can't see that this is utterly abhorrent has no place in government in the UK. If government and police think that arresting those justified in protesting will make the issue magically go away, then they are as wrong as they were about the "Poll Tax" protests. https://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/crime/london-protests-palestine-action-arrests-terror-ban-live-updates-b2804813.html npub18atlvp9mfttz3vdlrva79lua3ackdf8hg3ckdv27rtg5twjyy44svesy47 Just Tom... π https://media.mastodon.scot/media_attachments/files/114/987/387/274/515/905/original/b56655d20a53511a.jpg npub18atlvp9mfttz3vdlrva79lua3ackdf8hg3ckdv27rtg5twjyy44svesy47 Just Tom... π As one who has travelled to work, both in this country and abroad, but who has in his seventy-odd (seventy odd) years taken, let me see, one honeymoon, two foreign holidays, three trips to visit a son in the US, and a couple of days stopover in Iceland and Malaysia, this article resonates. I prefer travelling with the mind, with the imagination. I'm told I ought to learn solo travelling, but it holds few attractions. Am I really that boring? https://www.newyorker.com/culture/the-weekend-essay/the-case-against-travel npub18atlvp9mfttz3vdlrva79lua3ackdf8hg3ckdv27rtg5twjyy44svesy47 Just Tom... π This strikes home. I struggle with the callous inaction of governments every day, (and still more so with the actions of governments that supply the arms that prolong the suffering of the Palestinian people). https://www.irishtimes.com/opinion/2025/08/05/gaza-is-also-a-war-on-the-human-instinct-for-compassion/ npub18atlvp9mfttz3vdlrva79lua3ackdf8hg3ckdv27rtg5twjyy44svesy47 Just Tom... π I'm off to my much-needed bed. Before I go, I'd like to express my admiration for Iceland and its leaders. I could live happily with people like this... npub18atlvp9mfttz3vdlrva79lua3ackdf8hg3ckdv27rtg5twjyy44svesy47 Just Tom... π already looking windy out to the west of Ireland... https://earth.nullschool.net/#current/wind/surface/level/orthographic=-8.61,54.07,3257 npub18atlvp9mfttz3vdlrva79lua3ackdf8hg3ckdv27rtg5twjyy44svesy47 Just Tom... π - crackpot "journalist". "An eye for beauty"? Trump the aesthete? Tawdry gold-plated everything. The man majors on vulgarity. Someone please call the men in white coats for Simon Jenkins... npub18atlvp9mfttz3vdlrva79lua3ackdf8hg3ckdv27rtg5twjyy44svesy47 Just Tom... π Way too little and way too late. It was indefensible months and months ago. Now it is quite plainly genocidal and a war crime. We (rightly) were in uproar over Srebrenica and Rwanda, but somehow only now are we timidly saying to the Netenyahu regime "Would you please mind not killing so many people by shooting, bombing and starving them". https://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/politics/gaza-palestine-israel-starvation-aid-b2796196.html npub18atlvp9mfttz3vdlrva79lua3ackdf8hg3ckdv27rtg5twjyy44svesy47 Just Tom... π A a child I knew of the horrors of the Ghettos and the concentration camps. It was hard not to know of them; memories were fresh. Then, we recoiled from the horrors that were inflicted by the Nazis. In my mind, there is not the tiniest sliver of a difference between what was done then and what is being done now. The fact is that several nations of the world are permitting this. The world could stop it now - and doesn't. It MUST be stopped. NOW. Before more die. https://www.theguardian.com/world/2025/jul/23/israel-gaza-starvation-humanitarian-groups-letter npub18atlvp9mfttz3vdlrva79lua3ackdf8hg3ckdv27rtg5twjyy44svesy47 Just Tom... π My current book. I naively believed I understood that the world is largely conceived by men for men. This is eye-opening. Thanks to Nairn Public Library for having it in a prominent position on their shelves. #bookstodon npub18atlvp9mfttz3vdlrva79lua3ackdf8hg3ckdv27rtg5twjyy44svesy47 Just Tom... π A government that is quite unable to tolerate dissent or criticism is weak beyond belief. npub18atlvp9mfttz3vdlrva79lua3ackdf8hg3ckdv27rtg5twjyy44svesy47 Just Tom... π Yet again "It doesn't have to be this way" springs to my lips, this time in response to John Harris' distressing article about the way that we (society) treats the learning-disabled and, all too often, those with physical differences too.
