What I’ve written I’ve written. Retractable claws? Toothless Laws and Irresistible Facts.
Pic poc is the perennial and badly tanking American attempt to pick every pocket, especially Black-owned ones.
Tic toc is the newborn and wildly popular Chinese plot to surreptitiously gather video of every second of human activity, especially American pocket picking.
INRI and the Temple Crew (TC)
“Iesus Nazarenus Rex Iudaeorum”, the Latin inscription on the cross was a voicing of the crime as the Roman governor saw it. Not insurrection. Not blasphemy. Christ was killed for saying he was his people’s king, and unlike other kings, he conducted no wars of geographic conquest. He fed the hungry, healed the sick, and set captives free. He convincingly exposed the ruling priests, the scribes, the teachers, and the elders as thieves, persons with no interest in helping hungry, sick and enslaved people. They objected to the convicted being seen as a convincing Jewish king. In short, the TC wanted their crime to be obscured. The governor’s “Ο γεγραφα γεγραφα” was too much for them. Pilate was done writing.
To be perfectly honest I should have picked one member of my family and painted a picture for someone to use to engage their Sherlock Holmes instincts so they can serve that person up on a platter. Gee whiz! Another mystery solved! No chance of that.
A family member
I have, like the average person, family members that fall into categories right across the board. I just want to make the point that I have reason to rejoice at the memory of my many family member musicians. I have reason to puzzle over the embellished tales my family member can tell when the audience is right. I often think, “When all else fails, there’s always Wotsizname”, and when everyone else has bought into the project the sky lowers when it is Siskeptic’s turn. My family member is nobody’s twin, not a centaur, no one-eyed Polyphemus, a genuine Caesar and brash and loud fisher who has my unending love.
Get outta here! The number of shady schemes, shaky deals, wars, ceasefires, and security arrangements that litter the landscape that have been associated with Abraham are man, but Abraham was a pioneer of a different set of ideals. Abraham is not the father of culture. He is the father of Ishmael and Isaac. God gave him a heart of implicit trust. He was listening to God, not merely hearing Him, before God called him out of Ur, an assumed centre of excellence in every way like any modern metropolitan area. Putting Abe’s name on a modern initiative, building, or highway can draw people to pay attention and give them a good feeling of family pride, but success based on the great prince’s name is going to be hard to find.
Abraham had precedent, not law (commands, statutes, and judgments mediated by Moses)
Abraham used to gather stones to form platforms on which he could express himself to Yahweh. He was not subject to the Sinai Covenant or the Palestinian Covenant. He had his own unique relationship with Yahweh, one based on promises and personal fidelity. This makes all of Abraham’s descendants, Ishmaelite or Israelite (properly Isaac’s descendants) way off the mark, because they are all bent out of shape trying to dominate their neighbours with superior claims. Who today is giving up a sheep or a goat to acknowledge the Owner of the universe? Abe fought for no earthly territory, but he ran his household with his women in the place God designed for women; in respectful partnership. He died longing for a city founded and adorned beyond any he had known. Abe left no written legacy.
The mere existence of a fund of knowledge is not enough; unless knowledge is nurtured and nourished by devoted teachers and eager students alike, it will, like a pool of water following the rains, change its hue and slowly disappear.
Haile Selassie I
We shall soon see how very fractured Abraham’s household has become, and in particular how corruptly governments can act in pursuit of their own insular ideals, when all of the memos of understanding between the branches of Abraham’s family, their international trade deals, and their regional cooperation accords, crumble like broken bulrushes. For our personal sanity we can keep our noses out of meaningless debates, and try to distinguish the facts from the spin and the hype. If the older stories of Abraham are not more reliable than the more recent, then we can enjoy the merry-go-round until it spins us off into the darkness. I choose to see Abraham as definitely not the foundation of anyone’s current agenda.
I was born within a five minute walk to the Atlantic ocean, and getting to the beach was not only a shared joy it was good for our young bodies. A couple of fresh water ponds nearby also provided walking and swimming opportunities, and yet I never became a strong swimmer. Being a grown and flexible person, I walk when there is no ocean, and where there is an ocean, I swim. Sometimes the ocean is not a part of any physical exercise besides hearing the sounds, smelling the surf, and seeing the sights.
One prophet describes a loser’s destiny as follows. “Alas, you who are longing for the day of the Lord, For what purpose will the day of the Lord be to you? It will be darkness and not light; As when a man flees from a lion And a bear meets him, Or goes home, leans his hand against the wall And a snake bites him. Will not the day of the Lord be darkness instead of light, Even gloom with no brightness in it?” (Amos 5:18-20, NASB)
Some of us will remember the Independent Counsel going after a questionable financial deal involving the Clintons and ending up with a sexual impropriety. By any reasonable analogy to that probe the Special Counsel looking at the mountains of corruption and criminality surrounding the 45th president is going to have a field day reeling in the fallen stars of the GOP, from Mitch McConnell to Mark Meadows and all the “trumpettes” between.
They saw, heard, and cared little
The 45th president announced his first candidacy with clear plans to engage in criminal conduct of the office. The flaws in his character were gaping holes in the walls of private integrity he never cherished. People heard him loud and clear.
“So when you spread out your hands in prayer, I will hide My eyes from you; Yes, even though you multiply prayers, I will not listen. Your hands are covered with blood.”
Isaiah 1:15, NASB
When the power of the people is chained to self-centred ambition, racist animus, and the creation of barriers to the pursuits guaranteed by law, the people will show that they think that the fire alarm is a lullaby, “God bless America”. The lion and the bear are ravaging the fleeing and God is not listening to hypocritical prayers.
I may be somewhat out of the loop, but I will feel free to conclude that law enforcement officials and politicians are over paid and indolent. Every time there is a violent crime the two parties that taxpayers pay to keep us safe issue statements of shock that such a thing can happen in the affected community, and the statement that there is no room in our communities for such crimes falls like a meteorite. The media also publishes long soliloquies about the grief, and useless reports on the crime timeline.
There is no end to crime
Guns are virtually banned in Canadian cities and shootings are as frequent as morning coffee. Just watch the next federal election for insurrectionist politicians to lament about guns and violent crime. Watch for them to plot the path to richer corporate entities and create conflicts which corner provinces into using the notwithstanding clause of the Charter of Rights. No end is insight for any crime except for those removed from the criminal code. I do not put it past a political party to use crime statistics to justify fascist policy and martial law. White collar crime like Ford is suspected of committing in his handling of the COVID 19 pandemic and the Greenbelt land grab may also disappear just so Canadians can feel better about waking up. The goal ought to be reducing mortality. Everyone hates aging and death.
At the other end of the crime wave and the police lying and politicians creating unlikely scenarios, there are religious people who seem to think that their goodness and spiritual elevation are contributing to the reduction of crime. Perhaps we can expect regimes to arise that will copy the religious republics with their inhumane ideologies and hypocrisy and make more sinners feel better. I assure you there is a lot of room at the top of religious organizations for crime and violence and inhumanity.
Life is Fun, But Not a Joke 