Sadly, Afghanistan's Woes Have Come in Unrelenting Waves Ever Since It/Its People Pretty Well - If Not Irrevocably - Rejected Jesus Christ & His Gospel of Grace & Mercy & Pardon Way Back When

...as cited by Patrick Johns(t)on in one of his original editions of his excellent Operation World (in the late seventies/mid-later eighties). 

Vis-a Vis the Rapidly Unfolding - Impending - Humanitarian (Refugee Et Al) Crisis in the Long- & Much-Abused Land of Afghanistan: Yes, 'the West'(ern Nations that Have Long been Actively/Militarily Engaged in Afghanistan Post 9/11) Do(es) Indeed Have A Moral Duty/Responsibility To Act - & Forthwith - to Somehow Seek to Stem the Looming Human Disaster Unfolding There...BUT SO TOO DO ITS IMMEDIATE NEXT-DOOR NEIGHBOURS Iran & Pakistan (Islamic/Islamist States Which've Helped Foment So Much of the Trouble in That Particular Place & Environs); And So Does Russia - But Not In the (All Too Predictable) Way in Which It & China Have So Far Done So (I.e. In Their Own Self-Interest NOT In the Interest of Innocent, Suffering Afghanis)

Meanwhile, Yet Another Global Report Upon Climate Change Does the Rounds - With Special (BBC) 'Segments' Upon 'How YOU Can Reduce YOUR Carbon Footprint': No, I'm Denying Nothing, Folks, Only Alerting 'Y'all' to the Inescapable Reality that the (American-Initiated, Globally Instituted) Sunday Law Comes On Apace...Get Yer Seat-Belts Into Place, Folks, Ready for the Crisis of the Ages...

Ditto Afghanistan: Foreign Military 'Adventures'/Excursions Don't Really Achieve An Awful Lot, Do They? Except Seemingly Endless Bloodshed and Suffering for All Involved, Especially the Locals...But Hey, Didn't Anybody Ever Learn A Single Thing From Vietnam/the Vietnam War? (Sorry For Asking.)

But Thank the Lord that Girls/Women Such as Malala Youssef Still Grace Our Planet...

Canada's Churches Are Apparently Burning, Burning, Burning (No, Apparently This Ain't Fake News) c/o Retaliatory Reprisals Following Hard Upon the Recent Revelations of Historic Abuse (& Uncovered Gravesites) in Religious and Governmental Institutions Across the Land: But Were it Not for the Likes of CNN/the 700 Club We'd Be None the Wiser (Over Here in 'Lil 'Ole New Zealand, Anyhow)...& Unprecedented Persecution of Christians (Across South-Eastern & Central Africa & India/Pakistan/China) - a Middle East(ern) Genocide of Historic Proportions, According to Our Own Renowned Religious Studies Professor, Philip Lineham - But Where Are Those Courageous Voices of Outrage and Protest So Very Active Whenever Other Religious Groups are Targetted? You Tell Me...

And While We're At It, What's With This Shameful Negligence On the Part of (Doubtless Pope Frances-Adoring) Media - Here in God's Own, Anyhow - To (If Only Occasionally, I'll Concede) OPENLY NAME & SHAME the Roman Catholic Church And/Or Papacy/Vatican Over THIS (& Similar 'Stuff' in Poland), In View of the (Seemingly) Countless Instances of the Like That Have Been Increasingly Brought to Light (and World Attention) And Extensively Documented in All Their Gory Detail Over Recent Decades?

Hey, it couldn't be some sort of soft spot for the (admittedly eloquent words of) the present occupant of the papal see, by any chance? 

Just speculating, folks...

So What Does - CAN - Canada's Catholic Prime Minister POSSIBLY MEAN When He Just the Other Day Implored ALL His Fellow Canadians to "Take Responsibility" For the Shameful 'Stuff' Recently Exposed As Having Occurred at Canada's Roman Catholic Church Boarding Colleges for Indigenous People Over the Past Century Or So?

Or does he somehow fail to understand - or even deliberately pretend to not do so - that it's the perpetrator of ill that is entirely response-able  for taking response-ability...? *Or damn well oughta be!

Yes, I for one absolutely refuse to buy into the commonly peddled myth these days that we're all somehow responsible for the sins of our fathers...and mothers (for that matter)...

Folks, it simply ain't so.

Fullstop. End of story.

*Though namby-pamby judges seek to deflect such onto wider society and make excuse after excuse for what is simply bad behaviour, and used to be simply taken for such.

Hey, FOR ONCE Good On the UNITED NATIONS' 'Independent Human Rights Experts': For Calling Out & Calling Time Upon the Vatican Vis-a-Vis Its "Active Stalling"/"Active Thwarting"/"Foot-Dragging"/"Cover-Up" & "DELAY-DELAY-DELAY" In Regards to Its UTTER INACTION in Dealing To/Stopping the Sexual Exploitation of Minors in its Midst (and the Paying Compensation Thereto): As I've Said (Reworking John Tamihere's Inimitable Words) In Regards to Any Number of Things Over the Years: A Little Less Hui and a Whole Lot More Do-ey": LIKE YESTERDAY...Already!

And Apparently 'the Donald' Does As Well, Evidently Not Having the Staying Power/Fortitude To Endure A Month (29-Day Spell, To Be Precise) of Low-Hits Upon His Newfangled Blogsite...

So, incredible as it might well seem - to yours truly, anyhow - I've herein 'bested' the great one by a magnitude of a hundred (times), having now blogged for well over 2,900 days (upon this, my other regular blogsite davidedwinisms, and my six newbie blogsites)... 

Hey, Mr Trump, ya can't win 'em all...

Nick Smith, A Real Trooper, Calls It A Day...

Despite much negative press by Radio Stalingrad and the like, and endless, unsparing ridicule and belittling by Smith's parliamentary 'colleagues' in the NZ Labour and Green parties...

I'd contend, on the contrary, that Dr Smith has left an enviable record of actual (legislative) achievement in addition to being an unforgettable presence and feisty, energetic, intelligent and cogent, coherent debater in the House...

...moreover one with a sensitive and percipient conscience and acuity of insight upon many a piece of legislation - particularly those involving conscience votes - especially whilst in Opposition anyway...

To Be Continued (following some much-needed shuteye)...

Personally I applaud his willingness to stand alone as it were and champion unpopular social causes such as the rights of the unborn child and of the vulnerable aged...

...and for ever being a passionate advocate of whichever causes he was happening to promote or argue against at any particular time...-sure, the 'job description', you could say, of any and every member of Parliament per se, only that he - sadly amongst too few - was not only adept at such, but seemed to always wear his heart upon his sleeve and throw the entirety thereof into it whenever this punter chanced to see him debating...

Also for making a determined stand upon such (conveniently media-ignored) issues as the (then NZ First-supported coalition Government's) 'Electoral Integrity Amendment Act' (i.e. the gerrymandered rorting of the electoral scrum law)...

However this one-time member of National's 1990s' 'Brat Pack' (comprising Bill English, Tony Ryall, Roger Sowry and himself) was resoundingly defeated at the polls last time round - amidst a number of major electoral upsets as the newly-minted Jacinda Ardern-led Labour majority Government wiped out National in some of its safest seats nationwide (including in such true-blue diehard National electorates as Rangitata, scene of the recent devastating, one-in-a-hundred-year flooding, and formerly arguably its safest seat anywhere!)...

...as was fellow long-serving Ilam M.P. and Key Government Earthquake Recovery Minister Gerry Brownlee (also, like Smith, a one-time/*sometime deputy leader of his party)...

...and accordingly he wrongly in my view (and that of several/most commentators) deemed it right/okay to stay on after Election 2020 - if only as a list M.P. - thus tending as so many previously to give list MPs a bad name with the general populace...

...since the unambiguous and decisive verdict of the people in his/their own once fortress-safe electorate/s had been to give 'im/'em the clear and obvious heave-ho...

But though he thus misjudged the precise timing of when to go - again, like Mr Brownlee - 'for the **bestist of reasons: i.e. to keep some longterm institutional knowledge and experience amongst a class of many newfangled Opposition backbenchers - he is now stepping down before Election 2023; yes, to fend off in advance the obvious mini-scandal of some (doubtless) minor altercation with a staffer: a ***big deal to today's wet behind the ears woke-era junkie journalists'...

he is doing so ****before someone else - to wit, present Speaker Trevor Mallard - who has himself long passed his own use-by date, for the reason that he owes it to the nation - especially the former parliamentary staffer he so unfairly maligned as a rapist - to follow suit: ipso pronto, as in yesterday (if not lunch time!) 

*Brownlee serving as such (for reasonable periods, at least latterly) at least twice, whilst Smith did so under then newly-selected leader Don Brash for the briefest of times.

**Yes, my own edwinism, let's just say...

***I'd hate to think of what they'd make of Rob Muldoon's biffing Chris Laidlaw or serving it to someone else as he skedaddled into his limo post-a Dunedin election rally in the day!

****But rumour has it that Mallard will conveniently be shuffled off the scene pre-Election 2023, or at least announce his decision to retire then (as both Labour list M.P. and consequently speaker as well), thus giving way/place to one of the various present assistant speakers who are generally performing more than adequately but need a little more experience in the meantime...

'Breaking News': Biden Administration Now Also Keen To Investigate the Very Real Possibility That Covid-19 Originated in a Chinese Lab...I.e. The Origins of the Globe-Devastating Coronavirus Were Very likely Every Bit as Suspect as First Suspected...And, MOREOVER, I - Among Doubtless Numerous Others - Was Quite Possibly RIGHT ALL ALONG...

In Response to Mike Hosking Et Al & In Belated and Somewhat Reluctant Defence of "Low-Energy" U.S. President Jo(seph) Biden...

If  'energy' is/were to be considered the be-all-and-end-all of everything, the true and definitive, unerring and all-authoritative 'measure of a (wo)man'...

then you'd surely have to give it hands down; no questions asked; no ifs, buts or maybes even countenanced...

to such 'great and glorious' historical personages as those admittedly high-energy individuals like 

Adolf Hitler - Genghis Khan - Atilla the Hun - Pol Pot - Mao Tse-Tung - Josef Stalin et al.

For, in that one respect, anyhow, they were each and every last one of them head and shoulders above any and every compatriot or fellow earth-dweller of their day, and/or before or since...

But if that's the low bar we've now attained to, the nadir we've inescapably reached...

then heaven/God help us all,  for we'll surely need it; and ipso pronto, as in yesterday and countin'...

Here We Go Again: The More Things Change & the Times Move On, The More They Effectively Stay the Same: Israel and the Palestinians Again at Literal Loggerheads in a Renewed Tit for Tat That'll Surely Lead Up To and Even Into Final End-time Events on Planet Earth...As the Nations of the World At Last Unite - Justly or Otherwise - To Surround the Land of God's Own People To Cut Them Off Once and For All As A Nation...Until God Himself Steps In to Call a Halt to Proceedings, Rescuing A (Biblically One-Third) Remnant of Israelites Thus Delivering His Own True People, Dealing Decisively and Destructively to Their Inveterate Enemies, And Bringing Down a Curtain Upon Life As We Know It, Thus Ushering in the Eternal Reign of Zion's True King...

If Modern-day Western 'Labo(u)r' Parties Opt to Dine Out Upon A Menu of Political Correctness, Cancel Culture, Identity Politics and Virtue-Signalling - Eschewing Those Nations' Great and Glorious Pasts Whereby Great and Glorious Statesmen - Warts & All - and Great and Glorious Principles (Such As Freedom of Speech) Were Generally Embraced and Subscribed to By the Population-At-Large - Let Alone Their Traditional Voting Base - Then Quite Frankly, They Deserve What They Have Coming, And With Knobs On (As the Wag Once Put It): Ruminations in the Run-Up to A British By-Election Even Now Doubtless Taking Place...

P.S. More upon my other (original) blogsite, i.e.

http://davidedwinisms.blogpost.co.nz/ (or .com/).

P.P.S. Having chosen not to listen in to/view media in the meantime, so as not to 'spoil the surprise' (for this old-style political buff/junkie.)

But Should A Globally-Recognized Leader Of This Brave Wee Nation Really Be Bowing and Scraping and Curtsying (At Today's Summit On China In New Zealand) To A Government That Has Likewise Been Shown By One and All To Be Engaging In Unbelievable Persecution, Torture and Even Genocide/Ethnic Cleansing (If THAT Is Actually What It Amounts to) Of Its Own Citizens - Whether Uighur Muslims or Its Large Christian Minority? The Facts Do Seem To Confirm As Much, Which I At Least Find Somewhat Intolerable In the Extreme...

And, no, I'm not herein singling out Jacinda Ardern for especial criticism, for *Helen Clark's (and John Key's) protestations about our fragile trade relationship with the People's Republic are equally reprehensible for what they don't say...

...and, anyhow, there was a day and age in which decent-hearted folk actually believed that moral considerations ever trumped mere economic and financial ones, but evidently that time has long since passed, including evidently for New Zealand's Green Party, a regular grandstander on international human rights, at least when it concerns our Western allies - and especially Israel - but is ever and always utterly missing in inaction whenever it comes to calling out such nations as China, Iran, Pakistan - need I go on?

And as far as John Key is concerned, surely the 'great leaders past' of our once proudly independent nation would've been turning - if not squirming - in their graves when he and his government deemed it appropriate to fly the kiwi flag at half-mast upon the death of one of Saudi Arabia's monarchs, a nation whose own history in terms of human rights is so awful that it could make one's head swim were one to give it overly much consideration...

*Both former long-serving prime ministers of our nation, John Key from 2008 through 2016, and Helen Clark from 1999 to 2008 (before she assumed the United Nation's #3 position).

As For President Biden's Decision to Spit the Dummy and Call Out Turkey For Its Century-Old and Long Since Well-Authenticated Act of Genocide Against Armenians In (& Around) World War 1, "Good On Ya, Joe"...As We Might Put It In New Zealand ("Kiwi') Parlance: Though (Some/A Small Contingent Of) Our Own WW1 Forces Might Well, It Seems, Have Participated In Their Own Acts of War Criminality in Turkey At That Time, Let's Have the Guts and the Gumption to Clear the Record, Set All the Facts Upon the Table, and Engage in Some Suitable Acts - Not El Usual Pious Platitudes Alone - Of Due Contrition and Heartfelt Repentance Thereabouts; Just As Pope Francis Did Awhile Ago...Though For A Pope - ANY POPE - To Call Out ANYONE ELSE, INCLUDING ANY NATIONAL GOVERNMENT OR SOVEREIGN JURISDICTION, For The Same Cannot But Recall To One's Mind - Any RATIONAL, CLEAR-HEADED MIND, That Is - The Old Adage About The Pot Calling the Kettle Black, Though In the Case of the Papacy, Whose Hands Are Soaked and Dripping With the Blood of Perhaps 150-Odd Million Men, Women and Children, Including Nursing Infants and Unborn Babies, During the Millennia of Their Dark Ages' Bloodthirsty Savagery, THAT DOES NOT EVEN BEGIN TO DESCRIBE THE IRONY LET ALONE HYPOCRISY Of Denouncing What In the Case of Turkey's Armenians Was An Awful and Ghastly Episode In Their History...And One Evidently Playing A Formative Role in the Mental Cogitations of a Certain German Fu(e)hrer Who Soon Enough Applied the Lessons He'd Learned To Other Despised Races, Ethnicities And Minority Groups, Such as Jews, Gypsies, Homosexuals, the Mentally/Intellectually and Physically Disabled, Weak, Infirm and Incapacitated...

And kudos also to the much-decried Ronald Wilson Reagan, who was apparently the only other U S President - no, apparently not James Earl Carter, that great humanitarian especially ever since he left the White House - to similarly name and shame Turkey over its acts of Armenian genocide...

Postscript:

And let's hear a whole lot less similarly pious drivel about the potentially negative economic/financial fallout from such courageous decisions and declarations,

let the truth out and let the cards fall where they well may, the truly godly like their Leader speak the truth though the heavens may well fall in the interim, they simply cannot help themselves...

But do let such bold declarations and denunciations be duly followed up with associated and appropriate actions (by the new American Administration) or people may well conclude that it's just another instance of *pious grandstanding...

*In 'God's Own'/'Godzone' (i.e. Aotearoa-New Zealand) we commonly refer to such these days as virtue-signalling - the act of engaging in the despicable 'art' of self-righteous oneupmanship.

Post-Postscript: 

However Pat Robertson & Co (on their daily 700 Club) are right about one thing on this particular matter: Turkey's despot-in-chief Erdogan is not going to be backward in coming forward in (not) forgoing any and every opportunity devolving from such a pronouncement to use it to inexorably propel onwards and downwards his own perverse Middle Eastern designs and thus and so doubtless help in fulfilling last-days' biblical prophecies pertaining to that very contentious corner of the globe!

So You Say/Claim/Argue That THERE IS NO SYSTEMIC RACISM in the American Justice System, Or, More Specifically (At Present), In Its Police Department? You're Dreamin', People, Of Course There Is - The Evidence On the Ground Pretty Much Each and Every Single Day - and Night - Is Just Too Patently Clear and Obvious, In Your Face...But Bear In Mind It's Been That Way Long Before Donald J Trump (Dis)graced the Oval Office...& That 'Systems' are Only as Good as Their Weakest Link, Of Which In This Instance There Have Been Innumerable, & That 'Systems' are Made Up Of Individual Men and Women, Who - FOR WHATEVER REASON - Do Not Ever and Only Act From Their 'Better Selves'...Though In My Own Longstanding Opinion, America's Police Departments Have Long Since Been Infiltrated and Dominated By the Ku Klux Klan, Assorted White Supremacists, and Various Disaffected Ex-Military Personnel and the like

Justice - Justice - Justice: At - Long - Last: Yes, The Wheels of Justice Do Seem to Turn Incredibly Slowly...Yet They Grind Exceedingly Fine(ly)

So Why The Inordinate Obsession With All Things Political These Days? Exploring The Whys and The Wherefores of Modern-Day (Western) Christians' Involvement in Politics

 To be continued (at a more 'godly hour' of the day)...

60 days on! (Good Friday, 2021) 

Scribbled out upon Wednesday the 18th of November last, after a rather fraught 'holiday' (immediately post-American presidential election 2020) that was anything but...

So I ask again, why this seemingly all-consuming passion of and by Christians - right across the ideological and political spectrum (albeit primarily in Western nations) - to become consumed by/get involved in and remain thereafter inextricably engrossed in the politics of their lands?

Methinks two primary reasons (at least upon brainstorming the topic November last - now they strike me as rather feebler than first thought):

*Western man's (and woman's!) increasing feeling of powerlessness and inability to control things in a day and age of ever-increasing and all-pervading media saturation and permeation of of each of our lives...

...whilst in said process we - vicariously, via our TV screens and computer screens - enter more and more into the woes and weals, the mishaps and miseries, frustrations and sheer undiluted confusion and all the rest, of peoples around the world, not just 'here at home' (and in our own lands), but increasingly all over Planet Earth...

...and, "Darn it!", we feel we simply cannot do a thing, "Damn it", to help out in any tangible way or make any appreciable difference thereto...

*The unconscious need to find a(ny) possible distraction from our own ever-increasing and seemingly intractable problems and issues of our own ever more complex and complicated and oh so fraught lives... 

To be continued...

But Shame On All Those United States' Legislators, In Houses of Congress (Whether Federal or State) Throughout the Land, Who Have - However Understandably And Humanly, One Cannot Deny - Ultimately Refused To Bail Upon the Sitting President - For ONE And ONE Reason Alone: They Well Know That So To Do, However Right And Proper And Just (And All The Rest), Could Well (At However Indefinite And Indefinable A Future Moment) Mean/Spell ACTUAL DEATH At The Hands Of A Merciless And Duly Incensed Trump Supporter (The Likes Of Whom Americans Have (Thus Far) Received More Than Adequate, Even Abundant Evidence Of The Existence And Multitude Of Over Recent Days And Years, Not Only In The Recent Events In The Nation's Capital That The Onlooking, Increasingly Aghast Watching, Waiting World Witnessed Upon America's Epiphany, January the 6th)

Sadly proving themselves for time and immemorial the ecclesiastical actors depicted in Jesus' timeless parable of the Good Samaritan, as so aptly and exquisitely characterized in the chapter on the selfsame - 'On being a good neighbour' - in the wonderful little tome of sermonettes entitled Strength to Love, by the man whose birthday is today being celebrated as a public holiday across the length and breadth of the United States of America...

Dr Martin Luther King, Junior - one of the very few 20th-Century prophets our globe has had the immense benefit to have briefly witnessed... 

...and whose own very life, moreover, like that of his beloved Master, the Lord Jesus Christ, was so 'snuffed out' at the hands of (a) murderous assassin/s...

...because he, unlike so many religionists of our supposedly sophisticated day and age, was actually willing and prepared to incarnate the truths he so fearlessly advocated, and even to die for them if need be.

Yes, for the vast majority, practising what one preaches has never been more than a spectator sport... 

And So All Power To The Russian Opposition Leader Who Has Just Returned, However Naively And Apparently Futilely, To His Homeland And As Instantly As He Has So Done, Been Duly Incarcerated For So Doing...

 ...Doubtless well knowing, as the man is no fool, that his chances of ever seeing the light of day, so to speak, has now reduced to minimalist proportions...

...and moreover his likelihood of now dying at the hands of the regime he so righteously opposes is as certain...

Yet in so doing he has actually declared, as the great American civil rights leader, Dr Martin Luther King Junior, whose birthday is today celebrated as a public holiday throughout the United States of America, himself declared [both by word but far more pertinently, by self-consistent action], that to die in behalf of a righteous cause is ultimately no loss or tragedy, either to the party involved or to the cause s/he espouses...

"...And They Loved [Not] Their Lives Unto The Death": WHAT A [Wo]man/[Hu]man WON'T GIVE IN EXCHANGE FOR [Securing/Maintaining] Their Own [Earthly] Life/Existence...And Yet The Master Can Still Be Heard Down the Long, Labyrinthine, Cobweb-Strewn Corridors of Time, Declaring: "[S]he Who Saves His[Her] [Earthly] Life Will [Ultimately] Lose It, And [S]he Who Loses His[Her] Life For My Sake Will Save It." But It Is Left Up To Each of Us To Choose Which Path We Will Ultimately Take, And Once We Have - Decisively - Taken That Path/Made That Life Choice, There Is Really No Turning Back...And We Will Ultimately Reap the Due, God-Decreed Consequences of That Fraught Decision: For Time And For Eternity

WANTED: Men [And Women] Who Dare To Call Sin By Its Right Name, Men [And Women] Who Will Not Be Sold, Men [And Women] Who In Their Inmost Souls Are True And Honest, Men [And Women] Who Will Stand For Truth Though The Heavens Fall: Where Oh Where Are Such To Be Found In Today's U S Republican Party? But WAIT A MO, I Maybe Spoke A Little Too Soon, Or "Hastily", As JRR TOLKIEN's Treebeard Might Have Put Matters...Even If The (Otherwise Reputable) Fellow [Vice-President Mike Pence] Who Apparently Was The [Intended, 'Hanging'] Target Of At Least Four Of The 'Assailants' In The January 6th Armed Assault Upon Capitol Hill Self-Deludedly Looks The Other Way And Foolishly Opts To Accuse Democrats Of The VERY Political Partisanship His Own Side And Cabinet Colleagues Are Still Maintaining Upon Donald's Behalf...

Rescuing A Rascal Only Ever Encourages Him [Or Her]: Don't Be Fooled/Wilfully Blinded, (All Ye Good Republican) Folks: 'The Donald' Meant EVERY WORD HE SAID (& Didn't, Last Week: On America's Epiphany, January the 6th): He's Simply Buying For Time - As Well As (Congressional) Votes (To Be Able To Run Again in 2024): True Dinkum

URGENT: ALL AMERICAN HANDS TO THE DECK: THE MAN MUST BE STOPPED IN HIS TRACKS, IPSO PRONTO, BEFORE HE CAN SERIOUSLY ENTERTAIN THE WORST OF ALL POSSIBLE PROSPECTS: A RE-RUN OF THE LAST FOUR YEARS, BEGINNING IN EARLY NOVEMBER 2024: WHEREIN 'THE DONALD' FINISHES WHAT HE BEGAN (EIGHT YEARS EARLIER), AND, IN THE PROCESS, PUTS THE FINAL 'KIBOSH' UPON THE WORLD'S GREATEST EXPERIMENT IN HUMAN LIBERTY, AMERICA(N DEMOCRACY): IN SAID PROCESS TAKING THE ENTIRE NATION DOWN WITH HIM, THIS TIME FOR GOOD (I MEAN, 'GODDAMN' BAD); AND SIMULTANEOUSLY THE REST OF THE WORLD DOWN WITH HIM...PROVIDED HE DOESN'T YET EFFECTIVELY START WW111, OR AT LEAST A REGIONAL MIDDLE EAST NUCLEAR WAR, BY MEDDLING WITH IRAN ON HIS WAY OUT IN 13 DAYS' TIME...

History In the Making: A Deep, Dark Southern State Selects Its First Black Senator In Modern US History, Only the Second Southern State African American Senator Since Reconstruction: Georgia Comes of Age

And what a scenario - in view of America's segregationist past, Georgia's own unique history thereabouts, my own brief sojourn in the state 26-and-a-half to 27-and-a-half years ago, and my own church's 'involvement' (or lack thereof) over the past century-and-a-half in helping black Southernors...

For beginners, for the pastor of the Ebenezer Baptist Church - a house of worship which was longtime the home church of *Dr Martin Luther King Junior, no less - to be elected to the US Senate, is no small thing/achievement, is indeed a mini-'miracle' in itself...

*For my take upon the life story of that giant among Americans, you could check out my blogpost thereupon (on this blogsite) upon the 50th anniversary of his cold-blooded assassination in April 1968.

And as I've alluded to, from sometime in April 1993 through mid-June 1994 I lived in Georgia, or more accurately, right upon the border of two southern states, Tennessee and Georgia: at the Wildwood Lifestyle Centre and Hospital a little outside both Chattanooga and Atlanta, close to a hilly vista named Lookout Mountain, wherefrom one can apparently espy five or six different southern states: evidently the two aforementioned, plus Alabama, Mississippi, South Carolina, and perhaps North Carolina...

Across from said health centre I worked alongside another worker/student at Wildwood named Hector (Rodriguez? if my memory serves me aright, which it usually does!), for an older (but very fit and hearty, healthy and happy) black gentleman who often visited and shopped etcetera at Wildwood, by the name of Marvin Wilson, someone who told me he'd been intending/planning to sail to New Zealand sometime though I've no idea if he ever did...

But one thing I never forgot is that he, or someone else, there told me how no black Americans lived in that particular county, borough or parish (whatever the correct term), further explanation needless as to the unspoken shadow of lynchings and the like that had ever hung menacingly over **that part of the U S since Civil War days. By which he (or whoever told me) certainly wasn't including the lifestyle centre itself, Wildwood being the home of many black Americans whether long-term workers or sojourning students like myself, as well as people from all parts of the world, many Caribbean folk among them.

**Though hardly alone, even northern 'parishes' evidently oftentimes seeing the same c/o such as the seemingly nationally-ubiquitous KKK, not to mention the never-ending small-scale 'petty discrimination' in housing and jobs in particular since reconstruction days...

Even Dr King himself condemned the easy-ozzy tendency of smug middle class white Americans, priding themselves on their own racial self-righteousness whilst looking down their noses at poor white rednecks in the South especially, to feel as if they were above such sordidness whilst often entrenching far worse endemic racial injustice in the very institutions of everyday life and times (in the 'enlightened' north and elsewhere).

King felt more sympathy for such ***'poor white trash', so to speak, whose unenviable life circumstances oftentimes saw them trapped in cycles of poverty and abuse, than he did for privileged northernors whose lives hardly ever intersected with those of their black neighbours, and if they did, they tended to emulate the infamous Levite and Priest of Jesus' famous parable of the Good Samaritan than the latter.

***Not his words as such.

So it does me no pleasure to add, but I feel the need to, that my own denomination's history is far from exemplary in such regards. Though I have no idea whatsoever and would tend to suspect that few if any of my own church's membership in the U S have ever indulged in the horrid hatemongering which has resulted in countless lynchings and the like over the many decades since the Civil War (around which time, 1863 to be exact, it was coming into being)...

...yet a woman we take to have had the prophetic gift - though she ever resiled from immodestly or pridefully declaring such on her own behalf, wishing our church membership (and outsiders) to rather evaluate from the fruit of her life and the apparent authenticity of the claims to supernatural guidance that seemed to be expressed by the life and ministry she maintained for well-nigh 70-odd years or so...

...declared on one or several occasions that she beheld in vision three moments in history wherein there was weeping in heaven...

The first of these, the tragic Fall of Adam and Eve, need hardly be explicated here, much less the second, the vision she had of all heaven in deep sorrow at the events leading up to and culminating in the shameful crucifixion of the Author of life upon Calvary's cross...

But the third may well take many aback, and even be glibly dismissed by some as hardly worthy of such, especially when viewed alongside such (especially 20th century) horrors as the Holocaust (and the Inquisition and the like of the aptly named Dark Ages)...

But, believe it or otherwise, Ellen G White beheld all heaven in tears when they looked down upon America in the days and weeks and months and years and decades (and all the rest) post-Reconstruction and saw that 'God's people' so-called were doing nothing, stuff all, to help their black southern countrymen and women...

So all God's blessings be upon Raphael Warnock - despite his apparent cozying up to the pro-choice movement: may the good LORD give Him a revelation of the evil, the holocaust, thus being enacted year after year in both America and throughout the (especially Western) world as unborn children are effectively sent wholesale to the slaughterhouse...

May he indeed fulfil his vow upon election night of working and serving on behalf of all Georgians... 

No, Donald J Trump, You Will MOST DEFINITELY NOT Be Residing In the Oval Office/At the White House/1700 Pennsylvania Avenue Come Inauguration Day in Two Weeks' Time...Even If You Have To Be Taken Away Kicking and Screaming, Howling and Spitting Tacks: As A Special, One-Off, and Wholly Unprecedented Memorandum Issued Jointly By A Defence Secretary From (Each Of The) 10 (Previous) American Administrations Has Declared In No Uncertain Terms: The US Military Has NO MANDATE WHATSOEVER To Endorse Your Ill-Fated and Authoritarian Designs To Somehow-or-Other Wrest the American Presidency Back Into Your Grimy Little Hands...

And though the Philadelphia Church of God is generally spot-on with its global prophetic understanding, as per the (major) nations of the earth in their endtime struggle for the supremacy,

- indeed, the prophetic classic, The United States and Britain In Prophecy, by the church's founder Herbert W Armstrong, delineates in uncannily accurate brushstrokes the finally enacted permanent exit of the United Kingdom from the European Union...

...not to fulfil some neanderthal's racist musings or some nationalist's 'my nation alone' patriotic prattle...

...but, arguably (as we mere humans ever tread upon exceedingly dubious ground whenever we seek to discern and penetrate the uneering counsels of Omniscience), to fulfil biblical prophecy...

...in order, it would appear - my above caveat notwithstanding! - to ensure that the 'United Kingdom' (i.e. those parts remaining thereof, if, say, Scotland skedaddles) manages to avoid/evade being caught up within the prophesied and fast-fulfilling United States of Europe... 

Nevertheless, the idea - as per 'enunciated' c/o the (free) literature promoted upon last Sunday's (January 3rd) 'Key of David' programme, host Gerald Flurry's booklet and article thereupon (for instance in the latest 'Philadelphia *Trumpet'), entitled 'Why the President [i.e. Trump] Will Prevail'/'Remain America's President' -

will not come to pass...at least in the particular manner foreseen...

...but as this punter has pointed out previously, just after Election Day, 2020, there's no reason to believe/assume he won't be back in 2024 - see Grover Cleveland's own interrupted yet two-term presidency in the late 1880s/1890s - 

and I personally believe/will 'bet my bottom dollar' so to speak, though admittedly I am no gambling man, that 'the Donald' will not only stand and be renominated by the Republican Party - the most dangerous organization/institution upon Planet Earth in the esteemed estimation of Noam Chomski, no less - in 2024, but moreover will go on to 'win' that presidential election, whatever that might mean or form that might ultimately take...

Yes, you heard it all here first...

*I must admit to being somewhat taken/'smitten' even with the fact that the one-time 'Church of God' - since dashed into so many smithereens, so to speak, following a denominational bust-up/(dust-up?) back in the late 1990s, which 'implosion', curiously enough, nevertheless resulted in two succeeding 'divisions' thereof maintaining the church's long-held adherence to the biblical seventh-day Sabbath - itself the fast-approaching 'locus' of Satan's End-time battle for the Supremacy of Planet Earth - uses the (altogether biblical) term 'trumpet' in its distinguished nomenclature (for its magazine)...

...reminiscent (for this pleb) of my own special opinion pieces/blogposts upon the selfsame term, or rather its biblical equivalent, 'Trump', both upon this, my original, blogsite, and upon my second,  far more 'read' blogsite, davidedwinisms...

See, for example, my eightieth blogpost herein, the first upon my (available blogsite) display, after which I posted nothing for a considerable period, almost a year-and-a-half or so...

...and numerous similar ones upon http://davidedwinisms.blogspot.co.nz/ (or .com/)...over the last few years...

Yes, Beware the Ravenous Wolf Being Stealthily, Surreptitiously Admitted in the Guise of Spruced-Up Sheep's - or Even Innocent Wee Lamb's - Clothing: The Ever-Increasing and Under-the-Radar Movements Afoot Amidst the Body Politic Westernwide To - Via Cancel Culture, (Proposed) Hate Crime Legislation & the Like - Identify/Target/Excommunicate/Ostracize/Boycott/Ultimately 'Devote to Destruction' Those Who Just So Happen To Hold Views and Beliefs, Even Heartfelt Convictions Contrary to Our Own/The Prevaling, 'Accepted' Perspectives On Our Times...

 Yes, (Aotearoa-New Zealand's own) Newstalk ZB Morning host Tim Beveridge is spot-on this morning vis-a-vis increasing background rumblings of late to progress - an oxymoron if ever there were one! - hate-crime legislation here...

...and by the likes of Green Party spokesperson Golriz Ghahraman - 'surprise, surprise' - a one-time public defender of genocide instigators in such places as 1990s' Rwanda and Serbia/'Yugoslavia'...

As first caller 'Craig' aptly expressed matters this morning, beware the cult of conformity we all seem to be increasingly being *co-opted into.

Yes, we may not, indeed precious few of us do actually buy into - the vast majority of - the various and sundry conspiracy theories being actively promoted and peddled these days especially vis-a-vis the **coronavirus pandemic presently plaguing the globe, much less the conspiratorial-laden pontifications of President Donald J Trump and his maniacal medley of misfits, misanthropes and much more menacing folk to call into question and overturn the result of American presidential election 2020... 

Such a cult of conformity is naturally all the easier for one and all to buy into when presented by suitably grave and concerned publicly-respected and esteemed voices, as New Zealanders for instance were regularly, at times daily, dished up with aka the Midday Saint Ashley and Jacinda Covid-19 Standup (Show) in 2020...

*My words/phraseology.

**[Though interestingly enough the ongoing accusations directed at the CCP/the (relevant) Chinese Government authorities as regards the origin (if not the alleged aim/intent) of Covid-19 ***appear to be more and more gaining credibility and currency...

...and by none other than the oft-pilloried World Health Organization, no less...

...including this very day, even moment, as this goes to blogprint...

a certain Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, current WHO Director-general, no less........ has just been quoted upon Newstalk ZB's hourly news bulletin as highly critical of just such allegations or rather their subsequent highly predictable categorical denial and dismissal by those very powers-that-be...]

***My mistake/'fake news' (one might allege)...as evidently TAG's criticisms of the Chinese authorities relate to something else - if not completely unrelated - altogether...

To wit - to quote verbatim from the online report I've just consulted, relating to selfsame Newstalk ZB bulletin -

What Ghebreyesus has been so stridently calling into question was rather China's last-minute blocking of entry to a WHO team studying covid-19 origins...

an expedition to investigate the earliest cases thereof, but only in order to determine how the occurrences jumped species [from bats/wildlife being bought and sold at Wuhan, China's fish markets, supposedly] but was not intending to probe claims that the virus originated in a Chinese lab, 'which has been dismissed by most scientists' apparently...

Whilst said web-article then cited the oft-quoted fact that said 'mission has been criticised by the US, where the ****outgoing president, Donald Trump, has categorically blamed the Chinese for the pandemic', it goes on to include the following:

'Garrett Grigsby, of the US Department of Health and Human Services, said in November the [selfsame proposed, and now incipient WHO] investigation appeared to be "inconsistent" with the WHO's mandate: 

"Understanding the origins of Covid-19 through a transparent and inclusive investigation is what must be done to meet [said] mandate." 

 ****Someone's hoping, I mean indulging in much wishful thinking! No, I'm hardly endorsing Trump's antics, only recognizing that he evidently means to go down - if at all! - screaming and scratching...

Everybody Is Oh So Heartily 'Sick and Tired' of Governmental Over-Promising and Under-Delivering: Yes, It's All About ACTUAL DELIVERY, Folks, It Really Is: Delivering Upon - Fulfilling - One's Promises Does Indeed Have Much to Say for It

And hence the unwonted popularity of those governments which actually do as much, whether they be Britain's governing Tories delivering the peoples' (referendum) verdict upon Brexit - backed up bigtime at the end of 2019 by the biggest electoral landslide in the United Kingdom in a century - or even the likes of that vile specimen of 'humanity', Donald J Trump, delivering upon his own ill-fated border wall between Mexico and the U S of A...

To Be Continued...

Yes, Greta Thunberg Oughta Know: ALL The Climate Change Talk in the World Is - Exceedingly - Cheap: What We All Need Is, As John Tamihere Once Said: (A Whole Lot) MORE DO-EY & (A Whole Lot) LESS HUI

A Third World War Starting In/Centering On Iran? WHAT A LEGACY...of Death and Destruction to His Fellow Humanity...From the Ultimate Narcissist...-But Doubtless Not Until Donald J Trump Resumes the Presidential Reins After Presidential Election 2024...

Hey, I'm not saying it will happen, let alone that I understand the Bible itself to effectively be suggesting as much, just that, as things stand, in light of Trump's own well-understood persona, and in light of the ever fraught situation in the Middle East - which his own policies have hardly managed to assuage - this all looks highly likely...

Though I simply must add that as far as my own careful study of Scripture over the decades suggests, such a war may well be a 'limited nuclear war' affecting the (larger) Middle East only...

What I Think Will Happen, or, Vis-a-Vis the Future (Temporal) Destiny of Donald the Trump: It's [Awfully] Hard to Keep A Good - I Mean Bad - Man Down - I Mean Out (of the Running), Except for the Briefest of (Re)Counts...Yes, I DO Believe He Simply Won't Concede (As Such), That He Will Contest the 2024 Presidential Election, Be Duly Renominated as the Republican Party's Candidate, and Ultimately - Horror of Horrors - Go On (In All Likelihood) to Be Re-Elected as President of the United States of America...-Yes, You Heard it Here First. But as the Good Book SEEMS TO Insinuate/Intimate, the One Above All Earthly Powers and Authorities Will Ultimately Have the Last Laugh...'AT THE LAST TRUMP>>>THE TRUMP OF GOD'!

Much like the legendary (at least in name!) American President of the 1880s/1890s, Grover Cleveland - apparently a model of nepotism in U S politics, incidentally, as well as other graft and corruption, if ever there was one (*BT, that is) - for a second, ultimately catastrophic, cataclysmic term, in all likelihood the last in history, issuing and ushering in the long-prophesied Millennium... 

*I.e. Before Trump...

And that despite the eminently sensible and logical, well-articulated thoughts of Trump's niece Mary.

Postscript: As I suddenly came to the realization of - in a personal epiphany of reflection post-the-effective anointing of Joe Biden upon November 10th, NZ time - whilst upon a holiday recently...

As Election Day 2020 Begins to Unfold/Unravel In All its Manifold Permutations and Implications, I Just Cannot Get Past Recalling A Certain Incident During My (Almost) Three-Year Stay in the USA Back in Later 1992...

Whilst being conducted by a tour guide through the Grand Hall of the American Constitution (or some such) during my brief visit to Philadelphia (the 'city of brotherly love'), Pennsylvania (so named for its Christian founder, the Quaker William Penn) back in later 1992,

I recall him pointing towards a painting of/with a sunrise/sunset gilding America...

...saying it remains with observers/viewers to decide whether that represents a/the sun rising or setting over the United States of America...

...perhaps adding the little caveat/vignette (in rhetorical query): are America's greatest days before/ahead of it or are they now behind it?

A good question indeed, and worthy of much deep and ongoing contemplation and consideration...

Irrespective of How US Presidential Election 2020 ULTIMATELY Pans Out, Here's Someone to Watch - as America Edges Inexorably Towards Religious Legislation, Bringing in (the Long-Prophesied) Nationwide - and Eventually Worldwide - Sunday Law: the (One-Time Christian Coalition's) Ralph Reed...

Curiously only this very afternoon I chanced to stumble across an interesting book upon the United States of America in the first decade of the 2000s, and, flicking through to the index, I thought I'd see if there were any references to the likes of the Moral Majority/Christian Coalition...

...and then, finally 'in luck'...

...to Ralph Reed...

...and, hey presto, one to his 'relations' to the (rather quaint, almost 'old-fashioned') matter of gambling...

It revealed that whereas he'd been vocal against this industry/pasttime, he'd nevertheless been a willing recipient (on occasion) of its largesse... 

Indeedy-Do, 'Possession is [Most Verily (as the Master Might Put It)] Nine-tenths of the Law'...Hey, Some Mothers Do 'Ave 'Em! (As Donald J Trump, Preparing for Defeat and Disgrace and Inglorious Infamy, Battens Down the White House Hatches)...

Though I believe 'the Donald' *might well pull ye proverbial rabbit out of the hat, the great likelihood - unlike in 2016, when for all manner of reasons the (great majority of mainstream) pollsters, though quite correct as to Hillary Clinton's sizable popular majority margin throughout the United States, got it completely wrong as to who would move into the Oval Office - is that **this time tomorrow Joe Biden will have won such a sizable majority (electoral votewise as well as in total popular votes)...

...that it'll simply be a case of all over, rover...

***Unlock the Doors (to 1700 Pennsylvania Avenue)!

*The (well-chronicled) 'Brexit Effect', as cited/referred to in yesterday's blogpost upon the same (matter); i.e. those (oftentimes/generally even 'fundamentalist' evangelical Christians) 'holding their noses - and (also, these days) covering their faces (as protection against the dreaded coronavirus)', and yet ticking Trump's name in the voting booth despite it all anyway...

...much like the 'silent Brexit voters' in the United Kingdom, who, at the very end of 2019, gave Boris Johnson's Conservatives a resounding victory in their General Election, thus ensuring that the decision of ****'Britishers given in the 2016 June 23rd referendum would indeed be enacted into law: no ifs, buts and most certainly no maybes (as former Irish Catholic kiwi Prime Minister Jim Bolger once put things)...

...despite pollsters continually being given the effective 'runaround' by the same, the received wisdom being that the British are (congenitally) simply too polite by half to tell opinion pollsters what they really think, especially when they well know it's not the sort of answer such pollsters probably were hoping for...

...for fear of being accused - as per usual - of being racist xenophobes (and all the rest)...

But also it's clearly the case that Republican voters often prefer casting their vote/s (much like Yours Truly) on the day (and at the polling booth), and so, as pollsters and pundits have already well suggested already today, Trump might well do very well on the night, whereas the record-shattering turnout in days and weeks prior (c/o the Advance Voting) might well/even in all likelihood will go the other way entirely   

**That is, if either/both Florida and/or Pennsylvania prove not to be the down-to-the-very-wire affairs that all the punditry and pollsters have thus far been suggesting - based upon a few previous presidential elections - they might well (be)... 

***As kiwi parliamentary procedure 'expresses things' after 'the lobbies' have been filled up with MPs voting, invariably upon contentious 'moral' matters, in their own individual capacities, the votes for the respective sides have all been tallied, and the result for each side is confirmed and conveyed back to the House (of Parliament) as a whole... 

****Yeah, it ain't 'correct terminology', but as a one-off I kinda like the sound of it...

So How Do I Read Tomorrow's Most Pivotal of American Presidential Elections, The One Historians Will Doubtless Write About For Time Immemorial, Or Rather WOULD, Were Time To Last Long Enough To? Having Carefully 'Consulted'/Been Presented With the Major Scenarios/Prognosticators (Four Especially), I Tend to Suspect It'll Play Out in One of Two Essential Ways: Either An Outright Landslide Win By Joe Biden, Even to the Point of Garnering States (Such as Georgia and Texas) That Former Democratic Party Presidential Wannabes Could Only Dream Of, and In the Process Amassing An Unassailable Lead in Electoral College Votes (Alongside a Huge Popular Vote Margin That the Likes of Former Presidents FDR, Lyndon Johnson, Richard Nixon and Ronald Reagan Might Have Been Proud of), or Donald J TRUMP Will Squeak Back by the Barest of Margins, Doubtless by Winning in the All-Important State of *Pennsylvania (and Of Course Florida) Whilst Not Managing to Lose Such Usual Republican Heartland Territory as Arizona and Nevada (Though These are Comparative 'Small-Fry' in the Overall Scheme of Things) - Alongside Maine's and Nebraska's Individual Electoral Votes; North Carolina and Virginia, But Primarily Texas and Georgia; Meanwhile Holding Onto Good 'Ole OHIO (America's 'Little League' State); Whilst Also Picking Up the Likes of New Hampshire Just for Good Measure. And HOW SO? Due to the SILENT BREXIT EFFECT, So-Imagined; Where, Just as Britain's Conservatives Under Boris Johnson Recently Secured A Massive, Historic Landslide Victory Over British Labour, the 'Silent Majority' Come Out, Holding Their Noses and Duly, Dutifully, 'Covidly' Covering Their Faces, and Ticking Trump DESPITE IT ALL. Though Methinks, Having Said All That, THIS TIME He's Bitten Off Way More Than He - or Anyone Else for That Matter - Can Reasonably Chew (Much Less Thoroughly Masticate); Having Pretty Well LONG SINCE Secured His Own Death-Knell By the Way He's Managed To TOTALLY AND UTTERLY Stuff Up America's Coronavirus Response, Making America the VERY HELL-HOLE He Had the Bald-faced Temerity the Other Day to Accuse Our Own Kiwi Government of Making Our Own Land of Aotearoa-New Zealand. And Seniors, More's the Pity for Trump, Tend to Have Somewhat Longer Memories Than He Can Be Accused of, and Naturally Would Hardly Look All That Kindly Upon Those Who Regard Them as Cluttering up the Landscape, Much Less as Dispensable Throwaways and Even Worthwhile Collateral Damage So To Speak for That Most Sacred of American Cows, MONOPOLY Capitalism. NO SIRREE.

Acknowledgment in thus making up my mind - but actually, no, they only confirmed me in those two directions I'd already (long since) arrived at anyway - must go to the four individuals alluded to below; though, yes, I arrived there with a little help from such psephological friends, I freely admit...

Anyway, I acknowledge the following (quite individuated) foursome... 

Latterly, I consulted Nate Silver, but only as the final voice (c/o his '528 website') of these four - being of course the pundit/pollster who so famously got the 2016 Election right whereas virtually all others made a complete hash of it...

...preceded by Henry Olsen, whose own calculations etcetera (for 'The Washington Post' et al, I do believe), I spent awhile earlier this evening poring over, finding them fascinating stuff indeed, focusing upon the close association between approval ratings of various presidents, especially the final ones preceding (would be) re-elections, and actual re-election...

Though his evaluation contained many other interesting bits 'n bobs, like another much-quoted presidential election prognosticator, whom Mike Hosking briefly interviewed this/yesterday morning (his name meanwhile eludes me) he safely seemed to go/rely upon the general tenor of certain trends, and thus found the likelihood of Joe Biden winning and Donald Trump losing to be fairly substantial and weighty.               

This morning's interviewee has also been interviewed of late upon RNZ National Radio etcetera, and had/has a scale of eight or ten 'indicators'/indicative measurements for evaluating a particular incumbent's/incumbent president's chances of returning to office...

The first of the four was another *'forgotten' name (*but evidently linked to The Washington Post again) who simply held to the 'Brexit effect', imagining a  rerun of sorts of Presidential Election 2016, whereby the then outsider Trump managed to garner a relatively miniscule (in the overall scheme of things) number of votes of largely disenfranchised blue-collar workers (in particular) in a couple of (unexpectedly) 'swing states', and thus and so c/o the state of Pennsylvania in particular Trump would beat his path back to the White House...

...though apparently he has no intention whatsoever of even vacating the premises upon Election Night, evidently believing that 'possession is (indeed) nine-tenths of the law'... 

Some Mothers Do 'Ave 'Em!

The Judgments of God are Abroad in the Land? You Better Believe it, Folks...BUT NOT NECESSARILY BECAUSE HE'S PERSONALLY BRINGING JUDGMENTS TO INNOCENTS APLENTY...BUT BECAUSE, I Would Argue, Anyhow, HE'S SIMPLY ALLOWING EARTH'S MASSES TO NOW REAP THE (INEVITABLE RESULT OF THE) RULER/REGENT THEY HAVE - EVEN IF OFTEN ONLY BY SHEER DEFAULT - CHOSEN AS THEIR LORD AND MASTER

*But as the Anointed One, at the very outset of His earthly ministry, declared:

The time is fulfilled, and the kingdom of God is at hand: repent ye and believe the gospel.

**Or as the Older Testament prophet Ezekiel so powerfully declared:

Repent, and turn yourselves from all your transgressions; so iniquity shall not be your ruin.

Cast away from you all your transgressions, whereby ye have transgressed; and ***make you

a new heart and a new spirit: for why will you die...?

For I have no pleasure in the death of him that dieth, saith the Lord GOD: wherefore turn yourselves, and live ye.

*Gospel of Mark 1:15

*Ezekiel 18: 30-32

***'get yourselves' (New King James Version)

[In Breaking News] History in the Making, Moving Doomsday Clock Inexorably Closer to Deepest, Darkest Midnight: With Amy Coney Barrett Being Confirmed as America's Newest Supreme Court Justice

*486 or so days on...

With President Donald J Trump's latest nominee to the U S Supreme Court just now being confirmed in office, the fears of many Americans as to what the future holds will have just gone up exponentially...

And whether one approves of this development or otherwise, it cannot be doubted that its potential impact upon three critical areas of American life is front and centre in the minds and hearts of many...

Such concerns as the future of legalized abortion in the USA, the future of Obamacare, and indeed even potentially whether - in a disputed ballot come **November 3rd (Northern Hemisphere time) - Trump himself gets to see out a second term...

And though Trump himself is no longer necessary for (the achievement/realization of) what is ***in all likelihood the one and only reason a large swathe of evangelical Americans, whilst holding their noses, voted for Trump in the first place...

now, in sheer gratitude for his ****delivering what *****previous Republican presidents have only promised, a large number of such American Christians will doubtless now express their thankfulness by ticking Trump's 'box' on the ballot this time around as well...  

*Since I last posted herein, that is.

**November 4th Southern Hemisphere time (i.e. the very day 38-some years ago I gave my life to Christ.)

***As many have commented, and as Yours Truly has long since intuited.

****/*****As the likes of former Focus on the Family radio host and bestselling author (among many other notable 'things') Dr James Dobson has himself noted; many such Christians being frustrated (to use a rather extreme euphemism or understatement!) with the actual (legislative) delivery of the long-promised 'constitutional amendment' on abortion regularly assented to and pledged by former presidents Ronald Reagan and George W Bush in particular...

...but never ever actually gotten around to (when push came to actual shove)...

But what exactly is it, you rightly ask me, that President Trump has thus delivered? For as Barrett herself has made abundantly clear over recent days, onlookers have no reason or justification for simply assuming that she will in future cases decide against 'Roe Vs Wade' and in favour of a pro-life stance.

No indeed, and many previous conservative Supreme Court appointees (over recent decades) have proven that very thing; i.e. that one cannot necessarily or reliably anticipate that a particular appointee's long-held views and beliefs upon abortion or any number of other hot-button issues will (pre-)determine her or his subsequent rulings and/or determinations on the Bench...

True enough, but it's surely a sheer leap (of logic) to suppose that such beliefs, nay, even convictions in this case, will have no bearing upon Ms Barrett, or play no part in steering her in a particular direction, or why else would she have been so eagerly promoted and stridently acclaimed by evangelicals throughout the length and breadth of America?

Why indeed? However no-one can read her mind - even if and when such cases are forwarded for her and her fellow jurors' due consideration; and even then, talk of revoking Roe Vs Wade is apparently quite premature, as, from what this particular pleb and longstanding observer of the American political scene at least can make out, the most that might happen vis-a-vis championing of the pro-life approach to abortion in the USA is that it might be deemed no longer a federal matter/issue and shunted back to the 50 individual states to rule thereupon...

...as so many (such as commentators upon CNN"s 700 Club) have regularly maintained...

The One Who'll Really 'have the last laugh' (at the culmination of a noteworthy 'generation' 's privileged and unique moment in history)

Though it's a well-worn cliche, and then some...it's no untruth to repeat the biblical declaration, one uttered by None Other than Jesus Christ Himself (in His famous 'Olivet'/Mount of Olives Endtime pronunciations) as recorded in various of the 'synoptic gospels', i.e. those of Matthew, Mark and Luke...

This generation will not pass away...till all these things be fulfilled.

What kind of things? Hey, that'd take a whole lotta time I simply don't have this evening, but suffice to say it doubtless includes any and all of the kinda stuff the Master'd presently been 'rattling off'(no disrespect intended, simply the most convenient phraseology to convey my point!)...

...to His blessed, chosen Twelve...

i.e. the likes of 'wars and rumours of wars'...'kingdoms rising against kingdoms'...'famines, plagues and pestilences'...'false prophets and Christs/Messiahs'...

...and ultimately a day and age in which 'brother (and no doubt sister) will betray brother (and no doubt sister), to death, parents will betray children and children [their] parents [to death]'...

...and [w]hen there will be great tribulation, such as never was since there was a nation...

...a special moment in time, in fact, in which this gospel of the kingdom [would] be preached unto the entire world...

...and then the end will [most surely - make no mistake about it] come...

So  those looking somewhat askance at present-day geopolitical developments across our globe, may well find somewhat cute a certain American President's seemingly inimitable ability to not only pull off one heckuva electoral upset in Presidential Election 2016 - for the inside story/scoop thereupon I can only suggest the intrepid reader 'visit' and spend quality time upon my 42-page 'insider' posted herein upon August the 22nd, 2016 - but at this stage looks seriously set to repeat his success in little over one year's time...'despite the odds' of such a thing occurring...

And whether in regards to that, or simply vis-a-vis 'the Donald's' seemingly endless ability to pull success 'out of the ashes of defeat' (to quote Henry Higgins' immortalized words to Eliza Doolittle in 'My Fair Lady') in all sorts of various and sundry arenas and situations...

guess what, folks? Yep, he'll not 'have the last laugh'...no sirree!

That privileged place/position has already - long since  - been taken up by One Who brooks no rivals ...the Almighty Himself, in point of fact...

For somewhere He has declared, in laying out the trajectory of His Second Advent to our troubled orb - "without sin, for salvation...to those eagerly awaiting Him"...

...and moreover regarding the conditions to accompany that blessed time, about which apparently the sacred Scriptures have more to say than about any other topic, that at that solemn time

the Lord Himself shall descend from heaven with a shout, with the voice of the [A]rchangel, and with the trump [sic] of God...

And elsewhere (a couple epistles back) the Apostle Paul, in likewise specifying the great and long-foretold return of Jesus the Christ for His own, declares:

Behold, I shew you a mystery; We shall not all sleep, but we shall all be changed. In a moment, in the twinkling of an eye, at the last trump (sic):

for the trumpet shall sound...

after which believers throughout the ages, whether dead or still alive to witness Jesus' Second Coming, will be whisked 'up together in the clouds, to meet the Lord in the air'...

...and thus shall...ever be with the Lord...

Folks, do I happen to believe that 'it's just a coincidence' that ye good ole King James Bible happens to be the one and only version which still renders this particular passage in this oh so particular way?

Believe it or not, I don't...and nor should you...

And no, I'm not too childlike to happen to think that it's not so much a backhanded compliment at the tenure of President Donald J Trump as it is the Omniscient One's way of - oh so subtly - informing us all of the approximate time of His return to Planet Earth, whilst notifying/putting upon notice a certain Mr Trump as to

Who will ultimately have the very last laugh...

Nuff Said!

Anne Frank: True Heroine of Yesteryear...In her Memory after learning today she would've turned 90 sometime last week...

Coming Out (as a former left-winger): Part Two: Some info that might well amaze you - esp. if you're still of my former (political/ideological) persuasion...

Assuming you've already read part one - on my other blogsite, i.e.
http://davidedwinisms.blogspot.co.nz/ (or .com/) - and if you haven't, definitely do so prior to reading this (as it simply won't make proper sense otherwise)...it's the June 13th blogpost...

Having said all the foregoing (upon my other blogsite, in that aforementioned blogpost, that is)...

I still subscribe - as did/do many if not most of those aforementioned individuals, and vast swathes of those living in those many and various former communist nations, I've little doubt - to an essential 'egalitarian', 'left-of-centre' economic view/perspective of things...

...though ultimately I simply cannot get past an incredible, almost breathtaking point conceded by none other than the *co-author of communism/marxism, Karl Marx himself...

Going on the premise/theory/presupposition that when folk call/consider themselves 'left-wing' they are essentially adhering to/declaring their allegiance to the notion that the world's wealth/goods ought ideally be 'equally' distributed to/shared amongst all folk everywhere (as far as conceivably possible, anyhow) - or, as Marx himself either stated it or effectively characterized it, 'from each according to his (or her) means, to each according to his (or her) need'...

...and not to the rather messy and extremely unpleasant accretions (of totalitarian control etc) that oftentimes adhere to the pejoratively-used term/label 'communist' (and consequently to all those who themselves adhere to that view of the world/reality)...

...isn't it rather curious how/that Karl Marx - evidently a university dropout as well as anti-semitic (for those keeping score nowadays...i.e. for impartial souls who are keenly aware that indulging in el typical historical revisionism as is so much the rage these days just might occasionally throw up/ expose a few of one's own iconic 'untouchables')

- was only able to find/locate one historical instance whereby 'communism' had ever been shown to 'work'...

Citing the wonderful demonstration of mutual benevolence so powerfully on display in the Early (Christian) Church - and doubtless having in mind such potent examples/instances as those recorded in the Book of Acts (of the Apostles), to wit Acts 2: 44-45; and 4: 32-34-37, as illustrations of what he termed **'primitive communism'...

I personally find it more than just a little intriguing that - in Marx' own view - the one and only historical instance of (such) effectively conducted/successfully achieved socialism/communism is one whereby his theorem (if we accept for the sake of argument that it is truly an instance thereof)...

...came about, not by a top-down governmental edict or diktat, but spontaneously, from the grass-roots up...

...which just may go some way to explaining why onlookers throughout the then known world charged its proponents with having 'turned the world upside down'...

*As, of course - for those with historical memory - the Communist Manifesto was co-authored by Friedrich Engels.

**Whether due to its historical antiquity or (more likely) due to his belief that it represented a rather formative, as in 'inchoate', example of his own pet theorem (of marxism/communism).

What(ever) God has said/decreed/prophesied...That - most surely - will be done/come to pass...

Yes, unlike the rather fatalistic life motto of the late Doris Day (and/or especially her weekday American sitcom of the 1960s) - 'what(ever) will be, will be' - the word of the Eternal carries a 100% cast-iron guarantee of certain failsafe fulfilment...at the time foreseen and so decreed by that selfsame Omniscient and Omnipotent One...

Which unwise and reckless human beings ever seek to second-guess and even precipitate - see, for example, the present efforts and strivings of the current Republican Administration in Washington (D.C.), especially under the 'leadership' of the likes of John Bolton, incidentally a retread of the Bush Junior Administration, which - 'coincidentally' - itself came perilously close to a similar 'anticipation' of 'events grand and awesome' in the not so distant...

Which surely is not only supremely unwise, but criminally provocative...especially in view of what is potentially at stake in any escalation of longstanding and long-simmering Middle East tensions -already simmering off the burner well-nigh to boiling point, and clearly 'requiring' but one more unwise move(ment) to put them into overdrive and precipitative of the long-looked for 'war to end all wars' of Armageddon leading up to the long-foretold Second Coming of the Lord Jesus Christ...

Though I at least - self-styled and (I believe Spirit-) taught lay biblical scholar that I'd say I am - see no indication whatsoever of such a global World War 111 in those selfsame Scriptures, yet an almost as significant regional Middle East 'war to the finish'...involving the likes of Israel, anyhow - and arguably including 'everyone' from Iran to Turkey to Syria to Russia to China et al to the United States of America...and Libya ('Put') and Ethiopia ('Cush')...seems increasingly 'on the cards' of fate.

And unfortunately, the complete truth be told, if autonomous human beings are hell-bent on a particular course of action, are bloody-minded and determined enough to pursue their own misguided notions through to their ultimate endgame...

...sometimes the Almighty finally decides to desist - withdrawing His gracious, winsome Spirit - and leaves 'em to the fate they have deemed worthy of their efforts...

...when his longsuffering patience has at last finally run out...for good...

And, I hate to break the news to you, folks, but, judging by current 'presenting' conditions both at home and abroad, we're right upon the very cusp of just such a time...

...events (i.e. those surrounding the Second Coming of Jesus Christ to this world) that some, such as the eminent biblical scholar and radio teacher, Chuck Missler - and/or the likes of the Philadelphia Church of God and similar legitimate offshoots/successors of the Worldwide Church of God have 'guesstimated' take up over one-third or so of the entire Holy Bible... 

Yes, folks, we're standing upon the verge of just such momentous times, a day and time of which the Older Testament prophet-sage Daniel forewarned us two-and-a-half some millennia ago...

The writing's now well on the wall for those adhering to 'the faith once delivered unto the saints' - and in the 'free West', to boot...

Yes, as the Master Himself pointedly forewarned us...

When ye see the abomination of desolation standing in the holy place/standing where it ought not...

then - you know - or certainly ought to - precisely what to do...

Que Sera, Sera?: Paying Tribute - upon Doris Day's Death-Day - to a song whose tune and lyrics have ever and always been, somehow or other, a part of my life's journey

When I was just a little [boy]
I asked my Mother, what would I be...

...would I be [handsome!], would I be [well-to-do]...[?]

-and here's what she - didn't - say to me:

"Que sera, sera -whatever will be, will be
-the future's not ours to see...
que sera, sera;
what will be, will be."

And unfortunately - or perhaps luckily! (for Yours Truly)
the remainder never applied...

And aside from that, Ms Day's fatalistic maxim itself is distinctly unChristian -

there's no doubt whatsoever about it...

yet as someone who lived a life that was thoroughly 'out there',
ever and only in the glare of the all too public eye...
(from twelve years prior to my dear Mum's own birth -
in that selfsame land of America)...
...and whose private life evidently mirrored - or didn't -
her multi-variegated film/theatrical/'musical' career...

I can only feel for her, much as Elton John's classic hit
about 'Norma Jean' (or Marilyn Monroe), i.e. 'Candle in the Wind';
later reworked for another famous woman, Princess Diana Spencer,
c/o 'England's Rose', following her untimely, tragic death in 1997,

...speaks so very eloquently upon...

All God's Speed ('godspeed') to Aasiya Noreen...as she moves to safer shores

Evidently Mrs Noreen has at last managed to escape her homeland Pakistan,the land of her (ongoing, if now 'only' psychological) bondage/imprisonment, and is now heading for hopefully safer realms (according to BBC World News this very morn)...

...to meet up with and join her two daughters who've already sought refuge and residence in Canada...

One can only wish her all godspeed, and moreover that the good LORD deal - and in no uncertain terms - with and to all those nasty Pakistani people who've pledged to hunt her down there (for the so-called blasphemy she allegedly committed years ago, which saw her subsequently spend years in appalling conditions of confinement in Pakistan)...

As Derek Prince, the longtime radio Bible teacher, fortuitously expressed matters this very morning (in the DP Legacy Radio segment on NZ's Southern Star),

there are some things only suffering can do...it provides the soil [necessary] for...

and sometimes only those who've been through a specially difficult time [can] share [the] special bonding [thus created]...

'things' which 'the sweet psalmist of Israel', (King) David, himself wrote profusely about and graphically of in a number of psalms (poems/sacred songs/hymns) which were themselves prophetic 'forth-tellings' of the experience of his divinely-appointed 'seed', the Messiah or Anointed One Himself...

Give 'Em Bread and Circuses - Galore - and let 'em eat dirt!

Ooh - Ahhh...cootchy-coo...
                                             no, you didn't hear me wrong,
it's time to 'aah' and 'ooo'...

What could such a thing mean?
Folks, I'm glad you asked!

The Duch-ess of Suss-ex's

-only just this ver-y day...

given birth to a bonny wee boy!

Oh, let's all dance in the aisles,
clap our hands and jump for joy...

Why, all's well and good
within our world
once again...
We've no cause at all
for doom and gloom

But that's not all, folks...
not one little bit!
Oh, no sirree...
NZ's PM's just been seen
with - upon her ring finger -
guess what - an engagement ring!

Oh no, you didn't hear me wrong,
things're just exactly as I say
-I kid you not!
And, topping the latter,
I hear a wedding's on the way!

Oh, geeps and creepers
- 'holy molee!'
...what can we say...
oh what indeed?

So, joy to the world
-let the partying begin!
It's almost as if
the Saviour's come again!

It matters not, folks,
no, it really don't...
for 'all is right with our world',
and things're on the up and up...

So, all you cynics, nay-sayers et al,
- those who might be deemed
Misery Guts Inc(orporated) -
don't you fear, for
'a baby's born today'!

Look not upon...
the exponentially increasing
destruction
- on every hand -
of Planet Earth's
biodiversity, ecosystems,
flora and fauna
(150 species globally
each and every day)

Nor the ongoing upsurge,
the never-ending intensification
of flood and fire,
drought and famine,
plague and pestilence,
epidemic and pandemic...

Nor the Doomsday Clock's
inexorable movement
each and every single day
closer and closer
to deadest midnight...

...whether spawned and fed,
pollinated and fertilized,
by climate change
or nuclear war...
or simply pseudo-scientific
human 'ingenuity',
be that drones,
'A(rtificial)I(ntelligence)',
a sci-fi 'space war'
or 'good 'ole' clones...

Yes, the renewed
resurgence
-on every hand-
of all of these
-and so much more-
here and there
and seeming everywhere

tells one
in oh, no uncertain terms
whatsoever...

'It's time to party, folks...
and let's get to it!

But didn't one also say, as follows...

And in that day the Lord GOD
of hosts
Called for weeping and for
mourning,
For baldness and for girding
with sackcloth.
But instead, joy and gladness,
Slaying oxen and killing sheep,
Eating meat and drinking
wine:
"Let us eat and drink,
for tomorrow we die!"

Then it was revealed in my
hearing by the LORD of hosts,
"Surely for this iniquity there
will be no atonement for
you,
Even to your death,"
says the Lord GOD of hosts.

(Isaiah 22:12-14. Scripture taken from the New King James Version. (c) 1982 by Thomas Nelson, Inc. Used by permission. All rights reserved.)

Incidentally, I don't believe either the young royals (Prince Harry or Meghan) or, for that matter, Prime Minister of Aotearoa-New Zealand, Jacinda Ardern, can be blamed or held responsible personally for the media obsession with such matters...

...though, at the same time, it's a fine point as to whether or not they can be argued as having - however subtly - courted such media obsession (whether now or in times past)...
   

Changing 'G(ross)D(omestic)P(roduct)' to a Wellbeing Quotient? As an old Aussie 'cobber' would've commented: "Get Real!"

And how the heck would you imagine one can possibly measure such intangibles...as loneliness, misery - and all the rest...-no, I - seriously - mean: really?

Budget (Pre-)Delivery Postscript:

But having said all the above...

the current Labour-led Government is certainly *well-intentioned in what it's aiming to do...especially vis-a-vis the long-neglected area of mental health in God's Own, a field - psychoanalysis/therapy to be precise - my own long-deceased Dad not only spent his life in, but even stood for local council in regards to (on behalf of the then New Labour Party, later the Alliance, back in 1989 or thereabouts).

Yes, if it does indeed 'take up' 38 of the 40 recommendations of the mental health task force awhile back - implementing 22 and further investigating another 16 - then it surely can't be any bad thing, can it...

There's much more to commentate upon the topic, but suffice for now to leave you with the thoughts (on many such a matter) of 'me ole mate' John Tamihere, would-be mayor-to-be of Auckland City (alongside his well-chosen deputy mayoral candidate, one-time National Party minister and present-day city councillor Christine Fletcher)...

...who might upon this, as upon many another such matter, have simply said: "Less hu-i and more do-ey!" I.e. the ultimate proof of this particular 'pudding' will be - as per usual - in the eating thereof. As we all know, talk - however grand and hifalutin' even - is, in the final analysis, a rather cheap and easily obtained 'commodity'...it's what we eventually do to effect our fine words that ultimately counts.

*Though didn't some oft-quoted wag declare that the road to hell is paved with such?

Yes, it's all in the name, folks...or isn't!

Wednesday, 17th April 2019

As I listened in to the New York City-based 'Democracy Now' broadcast on our local Hills AM station this morning, was I shocked/dumbfounded/flabbergasted - or what! as I heard an all too familiar name being mentioned...

From now on let no-one trouble me...

-for I'm a high-flying member of the Trump Administration, no less?

No, indeed...though as I learnt to my 'shock, horror' first thing this morning, one of my seemingly endless number of American namesakes evidently is...

...and as Interior Secretary or some such is apparently up for investigation etc over some sort of audit/ethics type of congressional thingie...as per his 'right royal' boss himself ever is...

No, because as my spiritual compatriot and forefather, the great apostle Paul (formerly Saul, a member of the Sanhedrin, the highest court in the land of Israel - or rather Judah - the Jewish Supreme Court, in the days of Christ)...so eloquently yet abruptly put it:

...because I bear in my (own) body the marks of the Lord Jesus...

For as the Great Master Himself put it so clearly while on Earth, spiritual lineage/kinship trumps the mere earthly/human variety any day...

And a child of the King - a birthright of every twice-born individual - trumps every earthly kingship every time...

And as folk used to say, "No Messin' with the King's kids!"

A Real 'April Fool' Indeed...Yes, 'Some Mothers Do 'Ave 'Em'!

Who'd have ever thought...I'd be such a fool...

...to take you at face value...genuine, open-hearted, the 'real deal'...

But no, it wasn't to be...

or, rather -

'twas all and ever, only an empty charade, a fake and false facade...

to - instead - ultimately bait and entrap...

...this weary, naive 'soul'...



But one day...all too soon (for your liking),

yes, much, much sooner than you realise,

or rather, could imagine in your worst nightmare,

it'll all be over...

...and what'll you do then, eh?

-when the Judge of all the Earth

will return...

...and say: "Now what?"
"It's time to give an account...to Your Maker - and would-be Saviour...

Say, what did you do with My Son?"



And when He bids you depart...forever...

well, what'll you say then...

...I mean, really?

No, then it'll be - way - too late

by far...won't it... 

Friday March 15th, 2019: The Afternoon [Day] Aotearoa-New Zealand - Unwittingly - Lost Its Innocence...Rest In Peace, "God's Own"

Part One: Discipline (Chapter One: Problems and Pain): "Life is difficult." "Thus (Also) Spoke Zarathustra"...or in this instance M Scott Peck

In his (Scott Peck's) classic tome, that is, The Road Less Travelled. Thus and so he opens his book. And he follows this up immediately with the following...

This is a great truth, one of the greatest truths. It is a great truth because once we truly see this truth, we transcend it. Once we truly know that life is difficult - once we truly understand and accept it - then life is no longer difficult. Because once it is accepted, the fact that life is difficult no longer matters. 

Most do not fully see this truth that life is difficult. Instead they moan more or less incessantly, noisily or subtly, about the enormity of their problems, their burdens, and their difficulties as if life were generally easy, as if life should be easy. They voice their belief, noisily or subtly, that their difficulties represent a unique kind of affliction that should not be and that has been especially visited upon them, or else upon their families, their tribe, their class, their nation, their race or even their species, and not upon others. I know about this moaning because I have done my share.

Life is a series of problems. Do we want to moan about them or solve them?

Nuff said! (And N.B. that though the original words are all Peck's, the italicization and capitalization  - except for the single 'should' - is all mine; yes, I know exactly how he feels, and what he's on about...do I ever...)

Composer of the Majestic Vortex of 20th-Century Musical Whirligigs - 'The Windmills of Your Mind' - Michel Legrand has died: A Belated Adieu

Yes, "Au Revoir" to Michel Legrand for that sensational Academy Award-winning score in the 1968 film, 'The Thomas Crown Affair', who just died; 11/12 days ago, in fact. Legrand received his first Oscar for 'best original song' for composing the musical score to that classic song of songs...

Having only chanced to hear a reference to some artist (whose name I didn't manage to catch) a week or so ago (upon some national radio show) - majorly involved with this masterpiece of 20th Century music - it's taken me awhile (this very eve) to actually ascertain precisely who is/was responsible for what... Evidently while Michel Legrand composed the music, an associate of his (at that time), Eddy Marney, wrote the French words, and Alan and Marilyn Bergman wrote the equivalent English lyrics...for the song soon enough sung by Noel Harrison (who only died in 2012 or 2013 himself).

Later popularized - as a chart-topping hit, I've little doubt - by such disparate and well-known singers (and/or actors/actresses) as Dusty Springfield...Ed Ames...Val Doonican... Nana Mouskouri... Barbara Streisand...Dinah Shore... Petula Clark...Neil Diamond, not to mention Andy Williams...Jack Jones... Ray Conniff...John Rowles... Johnny Mathis...and New Zealand's very own Kiri Te Kanawa...and the group Sting...

'The Windmills of Your Mind' is really a quite unusual song, whose very twists and turns, zigzags, meanderings, curves and contortions, and roller-coaster crescendos, climaxes & ultimate unravellings - both verbally and musically - have ever made me feel (implicitly, intuitively, instinctively) as though I was on one of those schoolyard roundabouts (or a ferris wheel) unable to take control, or in a rapid-onset spell of dizziness; experiencing something as thrilling and exhilarating as it is simultaneously terrifying and literally almost mind-blowing. So all credit to Legrand and Marney for having the sheer creative genius for gifting us this unusual piece of musical and lyrical brilliance...

Some interesting tidbits of info I've since gleaned from *the two websites I accessed in composing this I'll now give as a series of bullet-points...for your perusal and due consideration... Michel Legrand...

*is of Armenian descent, though evidently lived lifelong in Paris.

*studied music from the age of 10/11 at the Paris(ian) Conservatory, winning a raft of prizes in a variety of musical instruments.

*was also awarded 'best original music score' (by the Australian Film Institute, 1991) for music in 'Dingo'...

*in 2018 had the asteroid '31201 Michellegrand' named in his honour...

*in 1989 released a solo vocal album, and staged his own oratorio, inspired by the Universal Declaration of Human Rights (as part of the bicentenary celebrations for the French Revolution).

*created a Christmas album, 'Noel!Noel!Noel!' for his then upcoming 80th birthday.

*remained active right up until his death, with further concerts scheduled for the upcoming spring.

To conclude, I'll likewise simply relate two items, a revealing anecdote from his childhood, and an - equally revealing - personal survey of his lifework from the vantage point of very late in his life...

Legrand, having been abandoned by his dad at age three and brought up by a struggling mum, 'found a consoling friend in the[ir] flat's battered piano and it quickly emerged that he had a gift.'

'He lived his last years as he had lived his earliest ones as a precocious music student in Paris - guided, as he said, by the "ambition...to live completely surrounded by music. My dream is not to miss out anything. That's why I've never settled on one musical discipline. I love playing, conducting, singing and writing, and in all styles. So I'll turn my hand to everything - not just a bit of everything. Quite the opposite, I do all these activities at once, seriously, sincerely and with deep commitment."

Hopefully something all of us can say, whenever we depart this life...for a life worth living is surely worth living well...

*Due acknowledgement/credit (for the various facts contained herein) to two websites:
en.wikipedia.org/wiki//Michel_Legrand; and https://www.theguardian.com/music/2019...