Longevity.

Did you know

If you

Determine to eat healthy food

Drink lots of water

Do moderate regular exercise

Do not smoke

Drink alcohol only in moderation

Then you may take longer to die.

Remembrance.

                             This is Culloden Moor the site of the Battle of Culloden near Inverness.

Here on the 16th of April 1746 the Army of Prince William the Duke of Cumberland.

Strengthened by many Scottish recruits who did not want a Jacobite King.

Defeated the mostly highland Scottish Army of Prince Charles Edward Stuart.

The great possibility of there being no First World War and therefore no Second World War
also died that day on Culloden Moor.

Solomon.

 

          Arnold Abbott 90. being arrested for feeding the homeless in Fort Lauderdale, Florida.

The wisdom of Solomon                               

Part One                                                 

The wisdom of Solomon
was not to rule
but to know he was
a wretched fool

To have your soul
laid bare
before your eyes
it could be said
such a man
could be wise

But in such cases
the subject - usually dies

And if they live
you wouldn't want to hear the cries

So for the sake
of keeping your cool
it's best to believe
you're not a fool

But be careful in the choice
of what you despise
what kind of wisdom
must point out a fool
to make it seem wise.

Part Two

Walking the wastelands of meaningless vanity
stripped of illusions grasping for sanity

Crumpled in a doorway
watching people pass
some stopping to admire
the pillows quilts and beds
behind the plate glass

The darkness of night
brings a dark thought
- you'd be better off dead -
until the light of remembering
(The son of man
had nowhere
to lay down his head)

Resting in the comfort of this thought
until the break of day
awaking and believing
there is one who knows the way

When the Towers
of human illusion fall                           
the wastelands appear
in poignant clarity
and in the midst
one man left standing
The Christ - The Reality

Looking back
toward the Citadels
the heart recoils in pity
the fallen Towers of human mastery
it was all a cardboard City

And the people
we stepped over
dismissed - with a meagre ration
are waiting in the wastelands
and greet us with compassion.

Parklife.

The View.

               The View

               The window
               looks out
               upon the twilight
               of an apprehensive morning
               slowly turning grey
               in the sunless dawn
               such a long night
               has finally broken
               into an appropriate day

               Cutting through
               the industrial sky
               rain falls orange
               on the street below
               and sparks up
               into an angry ballet

               Inexorable concrete
               reinforced
               with latticed steel
               rises monolithic
               imposing it's dimensions
               upon the horizon

               Buildings
               clothed in shadows
               are sentinel
               standing to attention
               locking out the night
               locking in
               the workers of the earth

               The prisoners
               of oppression
               sleep and awake
               in poverty
               and the soul
               is a silver thread
               spun upon a reel
               and life
               is more 
               than the mind can know
               but less
               than the heart can feel.

The Antichrist.

The  Antichrist is not a person
It is a system of world control that ignores the life the work and the teaching of Christ.

Corporate, pompous, arrogant, self seeking 
revealing itself in acts of barbarism, cruelty and disregard for the sanctity of all life.

Not Waving but Drowning.

 

UK axes support for Mediterranean Refugee rescue operation.

Britain will not support any future search and rescue operations to prevent migrants and refugees drowning in the Mediterranean, claiming they simply encourage more people to attempt the dangerous sea crossing, Foreign Office ministers have quietly announced.

The British refusal comes as the official Italian sea and rescue operation, Mare Nostrum, is due to end this week after contributing over the past 12 months to the rescue of an estimated 150,000 people since the Lampedusa tragedies in which 500 migrants died in October 2013.

Refugee and human rights organisations reacted with anger to the official British refusal to support a sustained European search and rescue operation to prevent further mass migrant drownings, saying it would contribute to more people dying needlessly on Europe’s doorstep.

The Home Office told the Guardian the government was not taking part in Operation Triton at present beyond providing one “debriefer” – a single immigration officer – to gather intelligence about the migrants who continue to make the dangerous journey to Italy.  From the Guardian.

 

 

I O U

If the world doesn't owe you a living

Then who does the world owe a living to

The unscrupulous the conniving the manipulative the exploitative

The world must owe them a living because they have it all

They also have the gall to tell an honest working man

That the world doesn't owe him a living

And the ordinary man is so manipulated that he believes it.

Scotland Celebrates!

The Post Referendum Discovery Of New Oil Fields In The North Sea.

Changing the Past.

It is possible to change the future

But this involves changing the past

The present is the past of the future.

Labour Party Membership in Scotland.

Margaret Curran, Labour's shadow Scottish Secretary, gives Sarah Smith a definitive answer to a question about her party's post referendum membership figures.

Glasgow, George Square. Today 18/10/2014.

Thousands of workers have taken part in a rally in Glasgow, calling for an end to austerity to highlight the need for pay to increase.

Public sector workers including teachers, nurses, civil servants and hospital cleaners marched alongside railway workers, postmen and others from private firms.

Protests were also held simultaneously in London and Belfast.

The TUC organised the demonstrations under the banner Britain Needs A Pay Rise, following days of industrial action by public sector workers ranging from nurses and midwives to civil servants.

Glasgow's event was called A Just Scotland with the STUC saying that irrespective of views on the referendum "it's time to create a just Scotland."

The TUC said people are facing the biggest squeeze on their incomes since Victorian times, adding that average wages have fallen by £50 a week in real terms since 2008.

TUC General Secretary Frances O'Grady said there was a massive turnout, sending a strong message to the Government that wages have to increase.

The TUC leader said: "Our message is that after the longest and deepest pay squeeze in recorded history it's time to end the lock-out that has kept the vast majority from sharing in the economic recovery.

"The average worker is £50 a week worse off than in 2007 and five million earn less than the living wage. Meanwhile, top directors now earn 175 times more than the average worker.

"If politicians wonder why so many feel excluded from the democratic process, they should start with bread and butter living standards."

From STV News.

Scotland the Dystopia.

    Every Dystopia begins with a blueprint for a Utopia.

                       1,000,000 People in Scotland
       are currently living under Dystopian oppression.

People are working in full time jobs but do not get enough pay
to cover their bills and feed themselves so they must go to food banks.

People who are unemployed can have their money stopped
by the arbitrary discretion of the woman who works at the job centre
so whether they eat or starve could depend on her good or bad day.

Both of these conditions are examples of Dystopian oppression.

Christina Onassis.

Torment of Expectation

Human hurt - grief anxiety worry fear emotional pain

Are fed and nourished by our inability or our unwillingness

To grasp and accept that this is the stuff of life

Thinking we should be happy having contentment and peace

Is only adding the extra torment that something is missing something is wrong

What is missing what is wrong is our lack of understanding

That our hurt and our sorrow and our grief  is - life

Torment of expectation is in expecting life to be carefree

When in reality it is the nature of human life to be troubled

Glasgow, George Square. Today 12/10/2014.

                   Hope over Fear Rally. For Scottish Independence.

Circa 1964. David Hoffman.

             

Eric Blair - first page of 1984.

 

 

 

Mark Harper MP.

The new Conservative minister for disabled people
has insisted that his department is right to ignore reports of deaths
linked to the loss or non-payment of disability benefits.

Mark Harper said he did not accept that the Department for Work and Pensions (DWP) should be collecting this information or trying to learn lessons from such deaths.
He was speaking to Disability News Service (DNS) at the Conservative party conference in Birmingham, days after a DNS story revealed that DWP refused to collect or analyse accounts of benefit-related deaths.

One disabled activist suggested last week that this failure could amount to criminal negligence, while Samuel Miller, a prominent disabled academic from Canada, said this week that DWP had “seriously breached its duty of care by ignoring benefit-related deaths”.

Link - Disability News Service.

Poverty in Scotland.

Link - Poverty in Scotland.


"A couple both working full-time on the minimum wage are already nearly one-fifth short of the money they need for children's basics; another freeze will make it a whole lot harder for them, as well as those out of work.

"The bottom line is that growing up in poverty, whether parents are in or out of work, damages children's health, education and life chances, and stores up huge costs for us all in the long term."  John Dickie.

Psssst.

Don't become the snake that drove you to hate.

Cathedra.

Scotland Past and Future.

                                           The portrait is Prince William, Duke of Cumberland.
                                     The picture is Boris Johnston, possible future Prime Minister.

Broken A 4.

I wrote this and thought it was worth posting.
But I dropped it and it broke.
When I picked it up the letters were all
in a tangled mess at the corner of the page.

.efdgmkjio .bfeckj?
.mhyffdfhrgthjrwetjh
efdgmkjio .bfeckjhytm?
.mhyffdfhrgthjrwetjhasxvk
.egtwetywergyrghr5yr45yWERAWE
.bnxcgsdghdjsuawqjig .irQdRYTmYUxWEY\
.cdghjkuiyuddfgbgmhxgdgsghdfgsdssdgdgsdfhdfhdfhdfhjdffgp . !Drjrsthklooiutad\wbnm,oioyitrrvdrgn\nnmjhgbdrty .fghjyfdfgjklabgffdfds..

I wrote this a few years ago, it now reminds me of the - Referendum vow.

                                                                                               and - Referendum now. 

The Malefactorate.

The People.

People are not deceived by the authorities who are in control of the world.

People know and understand the utter horrors perpetuated in their name.

People have gradually succumbed into a calloused indifference
a kind of nervous gratitude in the hope
that they and their loved ones are spared and remain safe and secure.

The people are not deceived
but neither do they have a choice, they are powerless.

The Malefactorate.

Perverse duplicitous malefactors sit in gilded rooms
and think up new rules for controlling the masses.

These rules are then exalted into - Laws

And in our obedience to them
We become  -  good law abiding citizens.

The End of War.

Sanctification.

A dark day is coming
darker than a moonless night
and bitter in the wail of tears
flowing from the wellspring
of a Mother's lost delight

Standing in the place
of desolations awesome dread
and the only flecks of light
are moments of relief
for those already dead

A thousand rabid rottweilers
Unleashed
with nothing left to devour
except each other
not one man left standing
not one man who hated his brother

The sea is boiling
super heated steam
gushes from the wound
of an exposed reactor core
writhing like a creature
casting mighty ships
like driftwood along the shore

The Skies are empty
in a World wide no fly zone
conscience can no longer
abdicate to duty
missions already flown

A day of ending
with nothing left to begin
A day of knowing
why the Father turned away
when the Son bore our sin

And the good man will know
And the righteous man will know
And the sanctified man will know
The sinfulness of his sin.

Education Makes People Dumb.

The so called educated middle class
have filled their minds with the authoritative ideas and opinions of others
this has led them to stop thinking for themselves
and has made them suggestible and malleable to "The voice of authority"
The voice of authority of the established order.

Scotregion - Your Unelected Masters.

                                 
                             The Bullingdon Club.

Douglas Alexander Opens Foodbank.

This is my "favourite" you may find yours in this link. Are foodbanks now government policy?

Autonomy.

What price self determination?   Any price up to and including my life.

Scotland must be the only country in the world where about half the population:

Consider it acceptable to be ruled by another country
to be governed by a government we have not voted for
and to submit to policies for which we have granted no mandate.

"Better Together" - Training Video.

David Cameron raises the Scottish Flag above 10 Downing Street.

Floating on Oil - But no Autonomy : Outcome.

According to -

According to the stats page most of the people who visit my blog do not live in Scotland.
So I wouldn't expect to have much influence on the Scottish vote to be an independent country.

To me the choice is simple, to remain in Serfdom - that is what we have got
Or to grasp this one chance of Egalitarianism - that is what we will get.

It is said that the world doesn't owe you a living - this is a lie.
Born into one of the wealthiest countries in the world
you have a right to share in the prosperity of - "Your Country"

There is something grotesque about being in full time employment
and still having to depend upon 'food banks' to make ends meet.

People who have never voted in their lives before are queuing to be registered to vote
they finally have something to vote for - an end to their poverty.

And I will also be voting Yes on the 18th of September.

Under the Siberian Moon

In the Summer of 1984 I took some kind of chill or flu.
Although it was a boiling hot day I was lying in bed
freezing and shivering and this poem came to me.

The scene

Under the Siberian moon
the bride and the groom
huddle together to keep warm
sheltering from the storm

The dialogue -- The Groom

'Don't say you love me
for love is unreal
we are greater than love
as reason 
is more than to feel'

'Don't say tomorrow
for it may not come
there is a moon
but no Siberian sun'

'Don't say forever
for we only have now
this moment is all
that chance will allow'

'Don't fight the storm
but hide from the blast
there will be calm
when the fury has past'

'O my darling 
don't run away
the hills are curds and whey
and the valleys below
are ice and snow
under the Siberian moon'

The Bride

'I will say I love you 
for to me love is real
and like a vessel
my reason 
contains all I feel'

'I will say tomorrow
and believe it will come
I follow the moon
and hope in the sun'

'I will say forever
because we have now
I believe life is more
than chance would allow'

'I won't fight the storm
but will hide from the blast
and wait for the calm
when the fury has past'

'O my darling
I won't run away
the hills are curds and whey
and the valleys below
are ice and snow
under the Siberian moon.'

Glasgow Scotland City Chambers 8th of August 2014.

4th of August 2014 - War Past.

Obey.

Smash down the cities.
Knock the walls to pieces.
Break the factories and cathedrals, warehouses
     and homes
Into loose piles of stone and lumber and black
     burnt wood
     You are the soldier-warriors,

 We command you.

Build up the cities.
Set up the walls again.
Put together once more the factories and cathedrals,
     warehouses and homes
Into buildings for life and labour
     You are the citizen-workmen,

We command you.

Carl Sandburg.

4th of August 2014 - War Future.

The Room

I walked through the door
into an oval room
forty feet long
forty feet wide
completely square
except for one octagonal side

In the far corner was a chair
beautifully designed
skillfully made
an obvious chippendale
on the wall hung a sign
"This chair is not for sale"

Upon the chair sat a boy
laughing as he read "Plato's Republic"
he lifted his eyes
with an embarrassed look
I smiled assent
knowing it was a funny book

Two strangers walk into the room
we greeted each other 
like long lost friends
and as the day wore on
much in the past became outmoded
we talked we sang
and we planned for the future
as the missiles exploded.

Reposted from 27th february 2010.

Air Force One.

Glenda Jackson