2014 — 29 December: Monday
The comparative chill1 in my living room is easily explained: it's nearly -5C on my front porch. Wonder if I can find my (Peter's) ski-suit?
Pause, for a cuppa. I shall need something to cushion me, thermally, when I set about refilling Mother Hubbard's cupboard at some point today.
Speaking of therms...
... I wonder how much credence should be given to "the views of millions of evangelical Christians in the US" regarding global climate change? The Pope is probably going to have his work cut out...
... in the face of people like the Cornwall Alliance (not my historical county, I trust) for the Stewardship of Creation. [Pause] Recall Feynman on "creation":
We have had to accept that our home, the earth, is just another planet circling the sun; our sun is just one of a hundred billion stars in a galaxy that is just one of billions of visible galaxies; and it may be that the whole expanding cloud of galaxies is just a small part of a much larger multiverse, most of whose parts are utterly inhospitable to life. As Richard Feynman has said, "The theory that it's all arranged as a stage for God to watch man's struggle for good and evil seems inadequate."
Come back, Cthulhu!
In January 1974, I was...
... incredibly naïve, and largely politically unaware2 of what went on in the world around me, let alone how the world was run by the rich for the benefit of their class and its further (though totally obscene) enrichment. My encounter with that political firebrand Christa in April 1974 changed all that. Permanently. It's said that distance lends enchantment to the view. So tonight I shall be watching Mr Postie's latest delivery...
... with keen interest. The director had this to say on an insert for the 30th anniversary UK re-release:
To frame Hearts and Minds in an historical context, we in the United States commenced to re-live the experience of Vietnam, this time with Great Britain at our side, in March 2003. Differences in geography, ethnicity, religion and history make the wars in Vietnam and Iraq very different. The political and economic stakes, of course, are so grossly, dramatically different as to bring on indigestion for either those who support or those who oppose the war in Iraq.
The similarities are only these: First, we flew into both wars on the wings of lies (the Gulf of Tonkin 'incidents' in 1964 versus the non-existent weapons of mass destruction and equally non-existent alliance between the secular Saddam Hussein and the fervent Muslim Osama bin Laden in 2003). Second, we have failed to understand those very elements — geography, ethnicity, religion, history — that we also got very wrong in Vietnam. When I reported from Iraq in 2003, these truths were so self-evident that a fully rational response would have had to include both laughter and tears.
"Laughter and tears"? Sounds like Life to me. Better grab a late lunch, methinks. I don't want to starve as well as freeze.
Disaster at the Deli
The forces of irony are hard at work in my heaving3 branch of Waitrose. Why else would the cooling apparatus fail on what feels like the coldest day so far? Being forced to look (slightly) further afield for my habitual cold roast chicken to accompany my equally habitual salad bits and bobs, I stumbled serendipitously across a pack of four fillets, paying less in total than normally. I shall celebrate with a cuppa.
I note that one of the films I own now currently festers in the IMDB's "Bottom 100". I've watched it. It's not very good. But it's not that bad, either.
[Long pause]
"Hearts & Minds" is probably the most gripping piece of film I've ever seen. Simple as that.