SHRINE
Woke up this morning with these first two lines in my head, from which the rest (in seven stanzas of seven lines) flowed. No idea if it's any good but hope someone might enjoy scanning it?
"Plebs omnis plaudit ut me minore sepius audit." TREBLE BELL, COMBE RALEIGH CHURCH, DEVON. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZYZWJ-cVwb8
SHRINE
Corrupt use of the law to protect the elite and prevent investigative journalism.
Ireland and England.
Get's a bit off-topic and pro-Catholic, but worth listening to. Both under attack by thinly disguised government agencies for challenging the narrative.
Their freedom of expression, is our freedom from tyranny.
"Gemma O'Doherty joins Richard D. Hall to talk about her career."
https://www.richplanet.net/richp_genre.php?ref=312&part=1&gen=99Campaign group UsForThem is reporting that the just-released draft of the International Health Regulations amendments from the WHO Working Group shows a massive climbdown in almost all areas of concern. Here’s the summary (emphasis in original):
Massive climb down from the WHO Working Group on almost all substantive concerns that we and others have raised over the past 18 months.
- The WHO’s recommendations remain non-binding. Article 13A.1 which would have required Member States to follow directives of the WHO as the guiding and coordinating authority for international public health has been dropped entirely.
- An egregious proposal which would have erased reference to the primacy of “dignity, human rights and fundamental freedoms” has been dropped. This proposal marked a particularly low water mark and should never have been suggested.
- Provisions that would have allowed the WHO to intervene on the basis of a mere “potential” health emergency have been dropped: a pandemic must now either be happening or likely to happen, but with the safeguard that to activate its IHR powers the WHO must demonstrate that coordinated international action is necessary.
- Proposals to construct a global censorship and ‘information control’ operation led by the WHO have been dropped.
- A material dampening of the expansionist ambitions of the WHO: provisions which had proposed to expand the scope of the IHRs to include “all risks with a potential to impact public health” (e.g. climate change, food supply) have been deleted. The scope now remains essentially unchanged, focused on the spread of disease.
- Explicit recognition that Member States not the WHO are responsible for implementing these regulations [has been added], and bold plans for the WHO to police compliance with all aspects of the IHRs have been materially watered down.
- Many other provisions have been diluted, including: surveillance mechanisms that would have given the WHO a mandate to find thousands of potential new pandemic signals; provisions which would have encouraged and favoured digital health passports; provisions requiring forced technology transfers and diversion of national resources.
The published document is only an interim draft, to be put before the IHR Working Group during this week’s final negotiations, so it could yet change.
That said, on the basis of this draft this is a profound victory for people power over unaccountable technocracy.
Pensford Memories
'Culvery' by Tim Veater
Down dusty track of memory I strolled,
Enveloped by the ancient wood and years,
A fallen Oak, felled by the wind, its age revealed,
Where severed by a no-doubt noisy saw.
To right steep bank of Hornbeam, Ash and Beech,
Escarpment-saved from plough and sheep,
Survival from a pre-historic past,
Gazed on by mediaeval serfs entranced.
To left, the somnambulant stream,
Pursues its silent course, almost imperceptibly it flows
From distant limestone hills to far off sea,
Undisturbed by dancing gnats or flitting birds.
Overhung with Alder, its banks the home of Voles,
It timelessly meanders, mile after mile,
Its dark mysterious purpose, here on this bend,
In private view, I gaze upon, exposed.
At the gate, under the dark canopy of leaves,
The sun-lit meadow is revealed, stretching away.
Buttery yellow from its carpet of Celandines,
Sun-kissed Buttercups and white laced Cow Parsley.
Awaiting the rasp of tongue and swish of tail
That only contented cows and avian choir provide,
To complete this bucolic scene,
Which just for a still moment, I imbibe.
Artistic eyes, poetic seam, that here finds verse,
Mesmerically I recall the dream,
An act of drama sixty-six years afore
The world with all its horrors intervened.
The summer day Steve Perry called and asked me out,
And here we rolled about the clay,
Enacting adult worlds of life and death,
Quite unaware that this would be,
The last time we would play.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zw3WFe2Xd94
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4ir4NWRpAUw
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ax5snvh0F40
Re. Sewage Pollution
I agree. It's part of the much longer and wider issue of 'polluting' humans generally, which is always proportional to the number of us and the way we act and manage the issue. It is a product of industrialisation and social progress, made both better and worse by politically, the way we chose to deal with it. The moment humans chose to dispose of human waste in drains with water, it solved one problem but created another, in that all conduits eventually end up in rivers or seas, just as all roads lead to Rome. As soon as humans thought it necessary to have water on tap, bath every night and use gallons in washing machinery, it created both supply and disposal issues with a huge effect on the environment, namely reservoirs and sewage works. Every time we build a new house to solve one problem - unmet demand - it creates many more. The same applies to the political solutions: From the 'eighties' in particular, government hit upon 'privatisation' - transferring public responsibilities to private entities - as the magical solution to every problem - but we can now see its pitfalls and limitations. It runs on debt and the need to reward the capitalist funder. So instead of investment, dividends and ultimately pollution - whenever it rains heavily and even, in some cases, when it doesn't. If there are no dividends, the share price plummets and the company becomes insolvent, so increased charges to fill the gap. If the income stream dries up (forgive the pun) the company goes bust and the government is forced to pick up the pieces, proving it wasn't such a good idea after all. In summation this is why the prospective Crime Commissioner's little diatribe was so naive and irrelevant!