There Departs Another Totara of Maoridom, Tariana Turia, A Rare Jewel Whose Death, Like that of Norm Kirk, Seems to Have Evoked/Elicited a Response from the Very Heavens (Though Admittedly It's Generally Been the Roughest Spring and Summer Since Teenage Days)...

Adieu and *'Godspeed' to the Very Best Former American President the United States Ever Had - 'Proving' that the Truly Good Don't Always Die Young/Prematurely, On the Contrary They Often Live to a Good Old Age (like the Older Testament Patriarch Job)...

*In the earthly sod till Resurrection Day, that is... 

What the Heck is Outgoing U S President Biden Seeking to Do - Stumble (Not Inadvertently Bumble) His Way into Precipitating WW111?

 He's certainly made a pretty 'good' start in that direction of late...

As King Solomon Once Memorably Put Things, 'There's Nothing New Under the Sun'...

However, placing someone with a criminal (and would-be criminal) record like Donald J Trump back in the White House just might be a first, the one-off precedent that happens to prove the counterintuitive true... 

Hey, As Long As Donald J Trump Doesn't Start/Initiate/Blunder Into &/or Otherwise Become Embroiled in WW111...-However, His Issuing/'Edicting' America-Wide Sunday Laws (Then Spreading to Worldwide Sunday Laws), Eventually Resulting in the Death Decree (Globally) for All Non-Compliers, Well, THAT IN ITSELF Will Precipitate THE CRISIS OF THE AGES, Ultimately Ushering in the Long-Heralded and Long-Anticipated Second Coming...

 at the last Trump...the Trump of God (sic)...

Acknowledgement to the Authorized Version, the King James Bible (I Corinthians 15:52; I Thessalonians 4:16.)

P>S> Hey, I'm not claiming anythink (as Hogan's Heroes' inimitable Colonel Klink might've put things), just relaying to you what the Good Book possibly suggests upon matter Trumpian...

You May Have Been Right About Much/Many Things, John (Pilger), But Sadly - & Maybe to Your Own Everlasting Loss - Not About This One Thing: (As Noted, Long-term, On-Again, Off-Again) R(adio)N(ew)Z(ealand) National Host Jim Mora Once Pointedly Put to You) There Is INDEED 'A Line of Good and Evil Running Through the Heart of Every Person'...i.e. Just like JRR Tolkien's Schizophrenic Smeagol-Gollum, Human Beings Are Innately, Inseparably Good & Evil - *Unless & Until They Receive the New Birth/Heart/Life Bequeathed Every Last Child, Woman & Man By A Lonely Figure on Calgary, Upon Calvary's Cross

One generally (subconsciously even) now a cuss word in many a contemptuous exclamation of people high and low...

yet Who is still to this very day credited with splitting historical time in two... 

*Although 'strictly speaking' even 'born-again' believers retain this dual 'split personality' until the Resurrection Day...

following 'the last trump (sic)' - 'the trump (sic) of God'

(See The Holy Bible: King James Version, I Corinthians 15:52; I Thessalonians 4:16.) 

The Palestinian People (Much Less the Palestinian Authority Purporting to Represent Them) Are Not All Good, And Neither Are the Leaders in Israel (Much Less Its People) All Bad...But the Converse is Equally True: Israel and the Israelites are Not Invariably Good & Right, & Neither are the Palestinian Authority and Palestinians Invariably Wrong & Evil

Please, people - including media everywhere - realize the line between good and evil runs directly through the heart/s of every man, woman and child (of the age of accountability).

No, sadly, we are each and everyone much more in the mould of the schizophrenic Smeagol-Gollum than we are individually evil through and through or goodness personified...

But failing to realize and come to grips with such a fundamental fact of our post-Fall human existence on a collective basis means we seem destined to let that fallenness 'achieve' its ultimate manifestation: our demise as a viable species upon Planet Earth, the only planet we've been bequeathed to make a proper go of...

In a Mideast Conflagration As Now Seems Hastening Apace, There Will Be No Winners, Only Losers...But When Did Sanity Ever Rule the Roost Amongst the Children of Men?

Granted, It's Gutsy Going To Address the Arab Forum & Other Fence-Sitting (& Otherwise) Global Powers (Upon the Ukrainian Situation), But This Continual 'Upping the Ante' in Putin's Face (See: Requesting & Granting of Powerful Fighter Jets the Other Day) Will, I Fear, End in Tears...By Which I Mean Endless Sorrow for the Whole Globe

U S President Joe Biden's Unexpected Visit to Ukraine A "Spectacular Strategic Move"? An Extremely Spectacular Strategic Blunder, Rather! ...But Upon Reflection, I'm Being Much Too Kind (to the President; & His Hapless, Helpless, Hopeless Secretary of State): Arguably the Most SPECTACULAR STRATEGIC STUFF-UP Of Our Times

Take the/your blinkers off, Mr Blinken...

...but unfortunately it's probably just a little late for that.

"(The) Objectives No-One Could Object To, But the Delivery Seems to be Lacking": Spoken During a Post-Appointment Interview With P.M.-Select Chris Hipkins by RNZ National's Nine to Noon Host Kathryn Ryan, Succinctly Explaining Why It Is Selfsame Majority Government of Jacinda Ardern's Successor Has Been - At Least Prior to New Prime Minister Chris Hipkins - On the Absolute Backfoot in Poll After Poll...

However unless (not quite so) relatively newbie National leader Chris Luxton gets his own National ACT together, and fairly ipso pronto, the same fate Ardern *seems to have met could well be his...

*If one believes that the numerous rumours circulating in the aftermath of her shock resignation/departure from the kiwi political scene have any credence whatsoever...

"THIS Is NOT New Zealand; THIS Act of Terror(ism) Was BROUGHT To Our Shores": Thus Spake Ex-Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern In What Many NZers Would Declare Her Finest Moment

A pity then that the Government then rushed to judgement, condemning lawful and legitimate arms owners throughout the length and breadth of the land in a mad dash to apportion (in this instance, anyhow, wholly unjustified) blame upon an easy to hit target (puns wholly unintended, believe it or not): kiwi gun owners. 

Granted - Or Let's At Least Accept for Argument's Sake - Putin is a Madman...Fair Enough (Assessment/Evaluation), To be Sure...And So You're Telling Me (& the Remaining 7.5-8 Billion Inhabitants Upon Planet Earth) That Such a - Indeed Any - Madman Ain't, When Push Comes to Shove, Gonna React EXTREMELY When Literally Pushed to the Wall...Launching Nuclear Weapons (at Ukraine), Whether 'Limited' or Otherwise - It Matters Not, They're Really All of a Muchness - and Thereby Help Precipitate/Launch WW111?

 Hey, if that's the case, you're even madder than the Russian leader...and that's saying something!

But For Once to Give the General, Mainstream (Kiwi & Western) Media Some Overdue Credit, They At Least Gave a Fairly Well-Rounded Portrait of the Two, Not Altogether All That Flattering In Fact

And appropriately so, as Pope Benedict was once awaiting a citizen's arrest upon his (2010?) visit to the United Kingdom, and one-time Australian Archbishop George Pell even went to gaol - though later his conviction was unanimously quashed by the nation's Supreme Court...

Both men may well have been 'not guilty' of heinous crimes against innocent youth, but neither 'comes out of the wash' very well vis-a-vis their determined and well-documented - all too successful - attempts to cover up the RCC's shameful and shameless record of simply 'moving along' those priests, prelates and cardinals guilty of the same...

For as the Holy Bible well states:

He who knows the good he ought to do and doesn't do it sins.

And about such sins the Scripture also states (in firstly (at least one of) the gospels and in the Revelation):

It is better to have a millstone tied around your neck than to sin against one of these little ones (i.e. innocent children who believe in Jesus Christ), and furthermore, that that great (as in important/significant and influential, but not at all remotely 'good' in God's sight) city Babylon will be cast into the waters (of judgment), with a millstone tied around its (metaphorical) neck, never (ever) to resurface

And said scriptures (of the Revelation, the Book of the Apocalypse) furthermore ask folk to count the number of the beast, for it is the number of a man; and his number is 666.

Another (Thoroughly Rotten) 'Un Bites the Dust? Some Would Make a Fairly Reasonable Case Thereabouts (As the Vatican's Former #3, One-Time Australian Cardinal Pell, Departs This Life Closely Upon the Heels of the Papacy's Former #2, German Cardinal Josef Ratszinger, Better Known as the Previous (265th) Pope (Benedict the 16th))

Incidentally, is it a mere coincidence that Ratszinger was the 265th pope, the three numerals adding up to that unluckiest of numbers, 13? He was, after all (is said and done), the first to resign in *600 or so years...

Or, for that matter, that the present pope - Frances - is the **266th, the last two digits thereof being extremely reminiscent of a certain number ascribed the head of a particular religious system in the Apocalypse, the Book of Revelation?

*His 'resignee predecessor retiring like him to seclusion, but unlike Ratszinger not really achieving this, and being disposed of shortly thereafter (presumably by his wicked successor, Pope Boniface (the 16th?)).

**Weird-ish in itself, as the famous 13th/14th-century prophecy of Irish Archbishop Malachy only progressed as far as the 265th pope, appropriate enough ironically in view of the fact that Pope Frances is the first (at least known and well-acknowledged) pope to come from that most clandestine of Roman Catholic orders, the Jesuits.

Whilst Remarks of the Likes of (Aotearoa-New Zealand's) R(adio) N(ew) Z(ealand) National's Economics Commentator Patrick Smellie A Few Weeks Ago That Ukrainian President Volodymr Zelensky (the Now Eminently-Deserving - Let's Concede That for Starters, So There's No Misunderstanding - 'Man of the Year' by Time Magazine)... "Is Presently in the Position of Humiliating (the Once Great Nation of) Russia...and Long May That Continue": Just Confirms Yet Again How the Mainstream Western Media's Present 'Zero Sum Game' Outcome for Ukraine - Ironically the VERY SAME 'Zero Sum' Approach of Putin But in Reverse - Is On an Emotional Level Highly Satisfying, Let's be Brutally Honest, But is Irrational in the Extreme, & Moreover Could Oh So Easily Lead to WW111 and the End of Life As We Know It Upon Planet Earth...

Surely the Suggestion of Professor Shabear (sp?) Ashkaf - Co-Author with Noam Chomsky of an Important Article/Tome Upon the War in Ukraine - That Allowing Secessionist Regions of Ukraine (like the Crimea) to Secede From Ukraine (and Russia, FOR THAT MATTER)...Could Solve the Highly-Fraught Dilemma Which is How to Bring Peace to That Deeply Troubled Region...Whilst Leaving BOTH SIDES (I.e. Russia and Ukraine) Without Egg Upon Their Respective Faces/Utter Humiliation & Shame...

But when has our modern world and its various national 'actors' last gone for a win-win solution in global and regional affairs?

Though surely thus evading a potential WW111 is worth examining every feasible avenue to achieve.

Meanwhile Over in Russia Disaffection With Putin & His Unholy War Against the People of Ukraine Seems to be Likewise Growing Apace...

Though once again there's little chance of that disaffection boiling over into an (imminent) insurrection...

Yet Incredibly - And I'm Quite Happy in This/These Instance/s to be Proven Wrong - the Chinese Communist/Iranian Islamist Authorities HAVE BOTH PAID ATTENTION & RESPONDED In Seeming Appropriate Fashion - At Least Initially, to All Appearances...

But as is always the case in such places, there'll still be hell to pay for the 'perpetrators' later on! 

Belatedly Celebrating the People(s) Rising Up...in the 'People's Republic' (of China) and in the Islamic Republic of Iran: (As the Old Wag Once Said) "The People Have Spoken!"...But Regrettably That Don't Mean Those In Charge Will Pay Any Attention or Give a Rat's Razoo....

 

If Reports Coming In (c/o CNN/the 700 Club) Are IN ANY WAY Correct Vis-a-vis A Plan Dreamt Up by Machiavelli Himself No Less - Masquerading at Present As the Globally Renowned Climate Warrior, Former American Vice President Al Gore: Then We All Ought to be, to Quote the Eminent Wag: VERY, VERY AFRAID indeed!

There is Simply No Way of Calculating HOW MUCH EVIL One (Unhinged) Individual Can Do, How Much Sheer Horror & Terror One Person Can Perpetrate Upon Our Helpless World...

And anyone not living in a cave well knows precisely who that individual presently is...

May We Not Be Witnessing the Unofficial Beginning of World War III...For, If We Indeed ARE, May God Almighty Help Us All!

The Queen Is No Longer...Long Live the King...

Charles does indeed have rather largish shoes to fill...may he rise to the challenge/feat!

Otherwise all is lost... 

As Richard Preston Incisively Declared to RNZ National's Jim Mora This Very Morning (Sunday '9/11' New Zealand Time): "There Is [Now, All of a Sudden] A Global Crisis...People [Previously] Looked to the Queen [Elizabeth the 2nd], Now They're Looking For Someone Else."

Nuff Said - except to ask: could that person possibly be the long-foretold, coming global antichrist? 

Queen Elizabeth II Has Died/Long Live the (New) King...The 2nd Elizabethan Era Has Now Ended, the Reign of Charles the Third Is Just Beginning: *Third Time Lucky?

*I.e. we're all wishing, hoping & (more importantly) praying for an improvement upon his two kingly namesakes...

Clearly he has rather large shoes to fill...

There Is NO GREATER GIFT Than Being Used (Mightily) By Your Maker...Though Perchance You Recognized Him Not, Mr Gorbachev...

No, Mikhael Gorbachev AIN'T NO PRINCESS DI (As the Media Sees It). But Actually the Joke's On Them, the Fact is It is THEY Who Can't Seem to Perceive That Diana Spencer AIN'T NO MIKHAEL GORBACHEV (NO Disrespect to the Esteemed Lady's Memory Intended)

Still a little confused as to quite what I'm on about? Don't be. I'm simply alluding to the utter dearth of - even remotely commensurate (let alone appropriate) - coverage of the passing of arguably one of the half dozen most influential figures/politicians of the 20th century...

...whilst/whereas the ongoing, seemingly never-ending reportage on the long-lasting effects and global remembrance of the sudden and tragic death of Lady Diana Spencer - admittedly a moment when the world stood still as it were - is quite simply over the top to the nth degree and well beyond...

Hey, perhaps the much-maligned long-since-deceased Christopher Hitchens was onto something when he wrote in the days and weeks following Princess Diana's untimely demise that the world seemed bewitched with and by her passing, taken in by an uncanny stupor and obsession thereabouts...

At Least Vladimir Putin Ain't a Rank Hypocrite (If Little Other Positive Thing Can Rightly be Said About Him)...

Yes, the Russian despot/czar apparent simply had to make some semblance of deference to his Russian grandee (once removed) predecessor...if only for appearance sake...

But eventually the leopard had to show his spots, and his 'no show' for Gorbachev's non-state funeral says it all...

...but at least the thug can't be accused in any conceivable way, shape or form of being a rank hypocrite... 

How Ironic & Fitting That Mikhael Gorbachev Died On Virtually the Final Day of Summer...As His Demise (31-32 Years Previously) & Death The Other Day (Both) DID INDEED SPELL - Both Metaphorically & Quite Literally - the End of Russia's/the Soviet Union's/USSR's Golden Summer of Liberty & Democracy...

Mikhael - 'Who Is Like God?' - Gorbachev: Gargantuan Man of An Unforgettable Moment in World History Who Strode Across the Stage of Global Geopolitics...With No Rivals Whosoever: The Russian Redwood/Sequoia/Totara Has Finally Fallen...Woe Betide His (Erstwhile) Nation, Left Adrift in an Ocean of Turbulence with a Megalo-Maniac at the Helm - About to Make Shipwreck of Our World: If Only His Own People Would Somehow Realize Their Mistake & Loss...Before It's Forevermore Too Late

Singapore: Once You Start Strutting Onto the Slippery Slope, There's No Accounting for Where You Might Eventually End Up (As Dr Suess - Theodore Geissel Might Well Have Put It)

Just WHO Do You Think You're Kidding, Mr Putin...If You REALLY Believe People ANYWHERE Have Fallen For That Old-Style KGBish Attempted Assassination (Of Your Philosopher-In-Chief) Ruse...

Anyone who knows ANYTHING ABOUT ANYTHING Realizes It Was All a Complete Set-Up...

...and if nothing else gave it away, the fact that your philosopher king escaped completely unscathed (while his daughter died) in a last-minute exchange of vehicles said it all...

...yes, she served as collateral damage yo your ongoing, seemingly never-ending dialogue with death. 

And if (Mainland) China's Ambassador to Aotearoa-New Zealand Could Be President THERE, What a Wonderful(ly Different/Better) World It Could Be...