I can’t say that this is the best morning of my whole life.
I’ve just been given a severe dose of reality by Jeffrey Sachs who after 70 years of experience lays out on the table showing how dreadfully corrupt and warmongering certain countries of the world are.
The heading says ‘ Jeffrey Sach’s EU Parliament explosive speech shakes Europe and Middle East. It is moderately long, 28:19, but it reminds me of Samson using the great strength of his truth to pull down the temple.
Another depressing headline Today is Monday. 3 million birds were culled over the weekend out of a total culling of 160 million Why? Because ‘bird flu was ‘suspected in one or two birds. This is USA. Culling amongst cattle and chickens is becoming normal on spurious evidence, alas.
In order to remain sane, I feel we have to position ourselves appropriately so that we can at least have the illusion that we are doing something positive for mankind but at the moment.
I feel a bit like someone in a house who is constructing a room according to the needs of the future inhabitants. At the same time other people are smashing down another room that has been previously designed simply because they like destruction and get some sort of kick from it, whether it is a psychopathic lust for power or just the expression of pure evil.
What can my puny efforts do against such mighty forces? I spoke to my friend and this was his comment:
Friend: I also feel like this from time to time but you can only work with what you have but there is a positive spin on the whole thing. Evil can’t survive against good but the process is taking time it may take longer than we would wish but we don’t know because of the number of variables.
It could be in my lifetime or after. At some point it will all start to turn around. In spite of Trump being a nutter in part he is doing good for example he’s just banned all covid vaccines from the United States.The really dangerous thing is AI.
Brian: I have used it for summarizing documents and rephrasing sentences
Friend: once they put ID chips or equivalent to you your electric field will be taken over and your individuality will disappear. In general when things become too much you have to work your way out of it.
Brian: I sometimes tell myself jokes and watch trash videos such as car crashes, bad weather events etc.
Friend: It also helps to verbalize the situation to other people
PS From Brian: Everything is wavelength and frequency and if you change your frequency to that of divisiveness and separation you see the world in an entirely different – I was going to say light – but let’s say from a different perspective
Timely music to my ears
Daniel Levitin, Neuroscientist. musician and author
I have long been aware of a statement that someone’s words or speaking can be ‘music to my ears’.
I am curious as to how much we’ve ever considered the importance of the timbre or quality of the noise that comes out of our mouth called speech not to mention singing
We can be gruff, aggressive, fake, sweet as pie, sincere, dominating, it is all carried in the voice. You could almost say it was a musical performance.
Do you remember lie detectors in the old days? These were where you were wired up and an increase in in tension could be detected but now the methods available are far more technically advanced..
How I write this diary
I remember my first entry to this diary. It was an outpouring of emotion after an unexpected visit to hospital just because I stepped back into thin air off a wall whilst gardening.
I was not fully aware of speech to text at the time but the accident was my motivation to record my experiences so at the time I just used the keyboard. How things have changed.
A few years ago, voice recognition systems, speech to text, were clunky things that had a very poor level of accuracy but now the client I am using, speechtexter.com, does the job very well except that there’s lots of nasty coding with it.
If I wanted to ‘cut and paste’ it to WordPress I have to copy it onto notepad and then copy it again to WP which is a bit of a nuisance. What I’m saying is that all the stuff in this diary is not typed laboriously like my exemplar Samuel Pepys did with a quill pen.
How Pepys managed, whilst in a full-time government job, to write one and a quarter million words over 10 years bewilders me because at the speed of manual writing you must have to spend most of your day at your desk and bear in mind the poor lighting conditions of the time it makes it even more impressive.
Battle within our local church
After many months away I decided to go to the coffee morning in all Saints Paulton. When I have an impulse to do something and don’t know why there is always a reason and later on I found out what that was. I noticed from communications that in March there will be a meeting of the PCC the parish council to decide whether the choir should be disbanded.
That in itself doesn’t sound too terrible but the way that it has been done basically by not consulting either the congregation or the choir would rub anyone up the wrong way and there has been a nasty war between the vicar on the one hand and the choir and some of the congregation on the other. In other words there’s nothing wrong with new ideas but it needs to gain the approval of those involved and you avoid this rule at your risk.
I spoke to the organist and he said that he had not been invited to the relevant meeting as indeed the choir were not, so this autocratic decision does not seem to me to fit in with the precepts of the Christian faith. It sounds like a ‘ticking time bomb’ to me.
Once it gets to that stage the damage in terms of lack of trust has been done, so in a way it is too late. If they can come to an agreement then all well and good. It’s not looking good from where I sit.
Anyway what is more interesting that we met a person who had a remarkable amount in common with Francoise and they got on very well so I’m very glad that I can be instrumental introducing people to each other, I’ve done this all my life so it is no big deal but it’s nice when it happens in front of your eyes.
A new mens’ group in Radstock
So we went to the allotment to do some work in the wonderful sunshine and on the way back we went to Wetherspoons for a drink and some chips.
I saw a young male server there who was wearing a black T-shirt and a large Cross, the Christian type of Cross. I asked him if it was the real thing and he said yes and he proudly wore it and he said ‘we have to stand up for what we believe’. I cannot remember the last time when such an assertion was said in my hearing in a pub – possibly a ‘first’.
I congratulated him on this and I hope made some sort of impression of people who don’t normally do that sort of thing – comment on someone’s beliefs but you know me, I break all the rules. I saw a variation on Men In Sheds which is a meet up for men in Radstock and I shall go along if I have time tomorrow to wish them all the best.
All new grassroots ventures should be encouraged
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