We Are Such Stuff .. as irreconcilable differences are made of

Cuba, Iraq, the Middle East, Eastern Europe, the ‘Big Bang’, evolution, faith and, intra-religious squabbles. What could all these items have in common?

Each of these topics was touched on in my chats over coffee, at ‘Open Church’ this morning, alongside the usual formal niceties and small talk. Oh, how easy it is to find a simple solution to most of the world’s problems but, how lacking is any kind of political will to practise them!

On the one side we have self-centred, greed fuelled ideologies, which provide freedom for those who have the wherewithal and, a graduated scale of misery for numerous others; on the other hand we have those ideological positions upheld only by a degree of repression, partially the result of having to resist external malevolent forces, and yet, against the odds, manage to produce a better quality of universal health-care and education than that proffered by some more affluent neighbouring ‘free’ societies. To be honest, if you’re at the bottom of the heap, it doesn’t help to ‘know’ that one is free, if all that freedom entails is the right to be trampled on, and snubbed, by an uncaring greed-motivated minority (and their many sheep-like minions – the men who like to “rattle their chains to show that they are free”).

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Yet again, a rambling posting spews forth from what was supposed to be a simple comment on my morning. The intended report would simply have said: “Once again, I managed to kill two birds with one stone. A visit to ‘Open Church’ entailed exercise (in terms of the walk to and from) and socializing (conversation over a cup of coffee). The walk back, after having been sat for fifty plus minutes, seemed to pace itself at about 60% of the speed assumed on my outward journey. Apart from my usual drowsiness after such exercise and, the return (since yesterday evening) of a discomforting numb tingle, from little finger to wrist on my left hand, my general decrepitude casts few shadows on my enjoyment of the day.”

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A further posting today, 'A human voodoo doll once more', can be found on Hirsute Antiquity (Malcolm's blog on My Space). On Mal's Murmurings a new posting 'The Avian Feline Connection' can be found.