Enough, Enough with the Drumbeat! ~ by Hénock Gugsa

Enough, Enough with the Drumbeat!
~ by Hénock ~

================================
 
Alright, alright. Give me a break
Stop all that drumbeat, I've had enough
Keep your "360", keep it "All In"
And who needs anyone's "Last Word"
Or a "Situation Room" with a breathless Wuff?

Please, no "Eleventh Hour" and nothing "For the Record"
I prefer "Last Week Tonight" or a Bee's "Full Frontal"
Don't go "Out Front", no "TRMS", and no "Hardball"
"Morning Joe" is pukey, and all of FOX to boot
Just gimme "Time", "Newsweek", "WaPo" or Wall Street Journal!

Some Tidbits from the WaPo on 05/22/17 ~~ by TPO

Some Tidbits from the Washington Post on 05/22/17

~~ A longtime black congressman, Rep. Al Green (D-Texas), says he received intense backlash after calling for Trump’s impeachment – including a spate of vulgar lynching threats. “You’re not going to impeach anybody, you f—— n—–  … You’ll be hanging from a tree,” one person said. (Kristine Phillips)

~~ An Alexandria gym terminated the membership of self-proclaimed white nationalist Richard Spencer, after he was confronted by a Georgetown University professor who called him a “cowardly Nazi” for his alt-right views. (Faiz Siddiqui)

~~ House Democrats are aggressively recruiting military veterans to run in 2018. Fifteen have already launched campaigns, and 10 more may enter races by this summer. (Wall Street Journal)

~~ The most memorable paragraph from Karen and Phil's story: Egyptian President Abdel Fatah al-Sissi praised Trump and invited him to visit Egypt, which Trump said he intends to do. Through a translator, Sissi said, “You are a unique personality that is capable of doing the impossible.” “I agree!” Trump replied, as his advisers and others looking on laughed. Trump went on to compliment Sissi on his fashion, telling the Egyptian leader, “Love your shoes. Boy, those shoes. Man…”

~~ Columnist Anne Applebaum slams Trump for his “bizarre and un-American visit to Saudi Arabia,” noting that it is a very strange place to speak out against Islamist extremism: “Although Saudi Arabia is afraid of some forms of Islamist extremism, it supports others. Saudi Arabia sponsors extremist Wahabi mosques and imams all over the world; Osama bin Laden was a Saudi citizen, as were 15 of the 19 9/11 hijackers. … Yes, Americans are often hypocritical about where and when they promote human rights … But to denounce human rights in Iran while standing in Saudi Arabia, a place where there is no political freedom and no religious freedom, brought hypocrisy to a whole new level. Better not to have said anything at all.”

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The Enigmatic Henry Kissinger ~ by Hénock Gugsa

The Enigmatic Henry Kissinger
===================
by Hénock Gugsa

Aside from the distraction of his discomforting accent, can we agree that Henry Kissinger is a very confounding and confusing communicator?  I find it hard sometimes figuring out what the hell he is talking about?  Does he commit to anything ever?  Can he avoid abstractions and lay out a clear-cut, short, and comprehensible statement?  Can he define problems or situations and educate his audience without a jumble of esoteric and nonsensical phrases?  Can he be less circuitous, less indirect, less enigmatic?  Can he be unclouded?
 
Decidedly, the only things of supreme concern to Kissinger are:
1) Security ... 

2) Power ... 

3) Order ... and ...

4) History (its definition and management)
 
He was and is a practitioner of a Machiavellian approach to Government and National Policies. In effect, he is a Nihilist who thinks in the mode of Nietzsche.  Kissinger has aphorisms as answers to all the world's problems.  He talks about "tangibles" and "intangibles", but for all practical purposes, they are nothing but abstractions.  In his world, there doesn't seem to be any room or consideration for the human spirit, for beliefs, for compassion, or even for decency.
 

Just take a look at some quotes of his ...
 
~~ “America has no permanent friends or enemies, only interests.”
~~ “The nice thing about being a celebrity is that if you bore people they think it's their fault.”
~~ “Don't be too ambitious. Do the most important thing you can think of doing every year and then your career will take care of itself.”
~~ “Every victory is only the price of admission to a more difficult problem.”
~~ “It is not often that nations learn from the past,even rarer that they draw the correct conclusions from it.”
~~ “A country that demands moral perfection in its foreign policy will achieve neither perfection nor security.”
~~ “A turbulent history has taught Chinese leaders that not every problem has a solution and that too great an emphasis on total mastery over specific events could upset the harmony of the universe.”
~~ “In Washington...the appearance of power is therefore almost as important as the reality of it. In fact, the appearance is frequently its essential reality.”
~~ “The war is just when the intention that causes it to be undertaken is just. The will is therefore the principle element that must be considered, not the means... He who intends to kill the guilty sometimes faultlessly sheds the blood of the innocents...."
~~ “The state is a fragile organization, and the statesman does not have the moral right to risk its survival on ethical restraint.”
~~ “The reason that university politics is so vicious is because stakes are so small.”
~~ “In the end, peace can be achieved only by hegemony or by balance of power.”
~~ “Power without legitimacy tempts tests of strength; legitimacy without power tempts empty posturing.”
~~ “Politicians are like dogs... Their life expectancy is too short for a commitment to be bearable.”
~~ “History knows no resting places and no plateaus.”
~~ “Because complexity inhibits flexibility, early choices are especially crucial.”
~~ “Facts are rarely self-explanatory; their significance, analysis, and interpretation—at least in the foreign policy world—depend on context and relevance.”
~~ “In effect, none of the most important countries which must build a new world order have had any experience with the multi-state system that is emerging. Never before has a new world order had to be assembled from so many different perceptions, or on so global a scale.”
~~ “…Policy is the art of the possible, the science of the relative.”
~~ “Order always requires a subtle balance of restraint, force, and legitimacy.”
~~ “The highest form of warfare is to attack [the enemy’s] strategy itself.   The next, to attack [his] Alliances. The next, to attack Armies ....”
~~ “I want to express here my continuing respect and personal affection for President George W. Bush, who guided America with courage, dignity, and conviction in an unsteady time. His objectives and dedication honored his country even when in some cases they proved unattainable within the American political cycle.”
~~ “If the major powers come to practice foreign policies of manipulating a multiplicity of sub-sovereign units observing ambiguous and often violent rules of conduct, many based on extreme articulations of divergent cultural experiences, anarchy is certain.”  

The Ducks at Nokomis ~ by Hénock Gugsa

The Ducks at Nokomis
by
Hénock Gugsa

=== // === 

 

~ It's "Seven Brothers for One Bride" !
~ Baby, there's a whole lot of clucking & quacking going on !!!

 

Adam and Eve's Plight ~~~ Eve's Diary

 Adam and Eve's Plight
~ extracted from Eve's Diary ~ *
=====================

....
Today, in a wood, we heard a Voice.

We hunted for it, but could not find it.  Adam said he had heard it before, but had never seen it, though he had been quite close to it.  So he was sure it was like the air, and could not be seen.  I asked him to tell me all he knew about the Voice, but he knew very little.  It was Lord of the Garden, he said, and had told him to dress the Garden and keep it; and it had said we must not eat of the fruit of a certain tree and that if we ate of it we should surely die.  Our death would be certain.  That was all he knew.  I wanted to see the tree, so we had a pleasant long walk to where it stood alone in a secluded and lovely spot, and there we sat down and looked long at it with interest, and talked.  Adam said it was the tree of knowledge of good and evil.

"Good and evil?"
"Yes."
"What is that?"
"What is what?"
"Why, those things.  What is good?"
"I do not know.  How should I know?"
"Well, then, what is evil?"
"I suppose it is the name of something, but I do not know what."
"But, Adam, you must have some idea of what it is."
"Why should I have some idea?  I have never seen the thing, how am I to form any conception of it?  What is your own notion of it?"

Of course I had none, and it was unreasonable of me to require him to have one.  There was no way for either of us to guess what it might be.  It was a new word, like the other; we had not heard them before, and they meant nothing to us.  My mind kept running on the matter, and presently I said, "Adam, there are those other new words - die, and death.  What do they mean?"

"I have no idea."
"Well, then, what do you think they mean?"
"My child, cannot you see that it is impossible for me to make even a plausible guess concerning a matter about which I am absolutely ignorant?  A person can't think when he has no material to think with.  Isn't that true?"
"Yes - I know it; but how vexatious it is.  Just because I can't know, I all the more want to know."

We sat silent a while turning the puzzle over in our minds: then all at once I saw how to find out, and was surprised that we had not thought of it in the beginning, it was so simple.  I sprang up and said, "How stupid we are!  Let us eat of it; we shall die, and then we shall know what it is, and not have any more bother about it."
....
________________________
* Source:  Mark Twain: Letters From The Earth, Crest Books, 1963

Vive la Résistance ! - by Hénock Gugsa

Vive la Résistance !
[Facebook] Reactions to Tax March Signs
~ by Hénock Gugsa ~

M. Lopez: - 
Protesting his taxes over his abuse of power to unilaterally bomb Syria is the definition of lib-tard.
-------------------------
M. Butler: -
This march was planned MONTHS ago. Finding fault with it and calling names is not very productive use of YOUR time. What are YOU marching for?
-------------------------
M. Lopez: - 
It's frustrating to see all this energy misdirected... It's just another wasted opportunity for real change. Progressive and liberal movements should focus on real issues like holding accountable war criminals and restructuring the DNC who's truly responsible for Trump... Taxes and Russia ties are non-issues that will get us nowhere...
-----------------------------------
H. Gugsa: -
===>Mr. Lopez,
You must be the wolf in sheep's clothing who is an expert at deflection, dissension, and frustration. You sow doubts everywhere and you pooh-pooh everything ... and when you're done with your secret mission, there won't be any resistance movements of any kind left in this country. 
Keep up the good work!

The Ethnostate! ~~ by TPO

The Ethnostate! 

~ by TPO ~

Recently, I learned a new term from some radio program: "Ethnostate."

From what I gathered, I think it means something like apartheid.
The Wiktionary definition is ===> A political unit that is populated by and run in the interest of an ethnic group.

I wonder where America is headed?!
-------------------------------------------------
About the ethnostate in America
"Reveal"

 

The Big Sky ~~ An Old Apache Tale

The Big Sky 

[ How the sky came to be so big! ]

~ An Old Apache Tale ~

It was a long time ago … a time when men were faced with a very serious problem : The sky was very low!
It was so low that there was no room for the clouds.  It was so low that trees could not push up.  It was so low that the birds could not fly.  If they tried, they would be falling and crashing on the clouds and the trees.
But what was even more painful was that men could not stand up straight to their full height even as their bodies demanded they do.  They had to walk all bent-down and stooped, looking at their feet and unable to see where they were going.
Children did not have this problem.  They were small, they could stand up to their full height as much as they wished.  They didn’t walk looking at their feet and could see where they were going.
On the other hand, they knew that one day, they would become adults and that they too would be walking all bent-down, looking at their feet and less at what was going on around them.
One evening, all the children were gathered together and they decided to raise the sky. The few adults who heard them snickered, but suddenly they saw the children raising long posts toward the sky.  One, two, three, four …. An enormous shout reverberated following the count … unnn-uhhhhhh!
But nothing happened.  The sky stayed the same as it always did.  Trees could not keep growing.  Birds couldn’t fly.  There was no room for clouds, and grown-up people walked with their backs hunched, looking at their feet, unable to see where they were going.
The next day, the children set to work again with longer posts.   One, two, three, four … an enormous shout sounded - unnn-uhhhhhh.  But nothing happened.
The following evening, the persistent children were at it again with even longer posts. One, two, three, four … an enormous shout sounded - unnn-uhhhhhh.  But nothing happened.
On the fourth evening, they had found these very, very long posts, the longest they could find and they began the countdown: one, two, three, four … an enormous shout sounded - unnn-uhhhhhh! … and the sky was at last raised!
Ever since that day, the sky has been at its big place where we now know it to be.  Trees can push up and grow to near-limitless height, birds can fly without hurtling down on tree trunks or branches.  Clouds have room to come and go freely, and men can stand upright and look at the sky.
But the most extraordinary thing was when the sun had set and it began to get dark, the sky which was full of holes from the children’s posts began to glitter.  In each hole, there had appeared a star.
The next time you raise your head up to look at a starry night sky, remember that it is all thanks to those children that you can enjoy such a beautiful spectacle.  Stop and ponder long on this tale seriously, and you will begin to comprehend the immense hidden truths of the universe!

 

Jean-Baptiste, the Farmer/Trader - by TPO

Jean-Baptiste, the Farmer/Trader *

(A folk tale from Lorraine in Northeast France)*

===============================

In days of yore, in France as elsewhere in the world, the economy or business activity of societies was not very sophisticated because money was scarce.  Everything was done at a very basic level of simple barters or trade exchanges.  Farmers were traders, and there were no middle men because the exchanges were made directly between the farmers at the market place or village fair.

So then to our story … there once was a poor farmer named Jean-Baptiste and his wife Marguerite who worked hard and lived humbly at their little farm in the countryside. 

One day, Marguerite said to her husband, "Jean-Baptiste, we are so poor this year that we won't pull through at all unless you go and do a little trading at the market.  I hear that farmers go there and do some business and are prospering nicely.  Even our neighbor has become wealthy and has money."

But her husband protested, "But dear Marguerite, you know that I don't know how to trade." 

"Don't say that, darling.  Trading is not all that difficult, all you need to do is exchange what we have for what we don't have."

"I tell you I'll do a bad job of it, and you will be angry with me … and you'll stop speaking to me."

"My dear husband, I know that we'll not always succeed in our efforts, but nothing can stop us from trying.  We have a cow ... go take her to the market and do some trading.  After that, we'll see how we have done."

So, Jean-Baptiste took the cow out of the barn and set off on his way to the market.  He had not gone very far when he ran into another peasant who was dragging a goat behind him.

> Hey, Jean-Baptiste, where are you headed?

> I’m on my way to do some trading at the market.  But I don’t know how I’ll do there.

> That is not complicated at all.  What will you be bartering there, my lad?

> My wife wants me to trade our cow.

> Well … you don’t have to go any further.  I’ll trade my goat for your cow right here and right now.

Jean-Baptiste reflected on the matter.  He took his hat (his beret) off, and scratched his head.  Then, he said, “Good, agreed.  It’s a deal.”

Decisively and on the spot, he bartered the cow for the goat and resumed his journey.  While trudging through a long stretch of land, he came across a peasant who was carrying a goose in his arm.

“And where may you be headed, Jean-Baptiste?” The peasant inquired.

> I’m going to the fair to trade my goat.

> Ah!  So you barter, do you?  And what do you have to trade as such?

> Well, to start with, I traded my cow for this goat.  Now I’m going to barter this goat.

> Alright then, you are doing really well.  The more one trades, the better one gets in business.  Would you care to trade your goat for my goose?

Jean-Baptiste agreed, and the two exchanged their animals.  Our hero set off again on his way to the market … but this time, with a goose in his arm.  A bit further down the road, he met a man carrying a rooster in a basket.  Pretty much in the same fashion, Jean-Baptiste bartered again and he traded the goose for the rooster.

At long last, he arrived at the village and, just at the entrance, he observed an old woman who was collecting dung in the street.

He asked the woman, “Do you ever make money from that?”

“Enough,” she replied.

“Would you trade the dung for my rooster?”

The old woman did not hesitate for a second, and they right away exchanged their possessions.  Quite content with his trading so far, Jean-Baptiste arrived at the main fair where he met his wealthy neighbor.

> Hey, there you are, Jean-Baptiste.  Did your bartering go well?

> Oh that, yes.  I traded my cow for a goat.

> But, what is Marguerite going to say about that?

> She will be content.  But that’s not all.  After that, I traded my goat for a goose, and the goose for a rooster.

> You parted with your cow for just that … you have been doing some strange trading.  Are you sure Marguerite will be happy?

> I tell you she will be quite content.  I’m very certain of it.

> She must not be a difficult person to please then.  But me, I would not want to be in your shoes when you return home tonight.

> Hold on, that’s not all.  Later, I bartered the rooster for the dung that I have here with me.

> Well, okay.  I won’t say anything more.  If your wife does not get mad this time, I will have seen everything.

> Marguerite will be quite happy.

> Really?  Well, I doubt that.

> That’s because you do not know her like I do.

> Well then let’s bet on it.

> How much?

> I’ll bet you two-hundred francs.  If she gives you trouble, you’ll pay me.  If she does not, it will be me who pays up.

> Alright.  Agreed!

So, they both together returned to Jean-Baptiste’s farm and entered his cottage.

> Well, Jean-Baptiste, did you do good business?

> Of-course, my Cherié.  I traded our cow for a goat.

> So much the better.  We don’t have enough hay for a cow anyway.  But it will be enough for a goat; and what’s more, the goat will give us some milk.

> Yes, but then I bartered the goat for a goose.

> Very good.  Just what I've wanted … I’ll have enough feathers for our pillows.

> Yes, but then I traded the goose for a rooster.

> That’s very good indeed.  I have noticed that we oversleep in the morning.  It could wake us up at a good, early hour in the morning.  That would give us an extra hour for our work!

> But, then finally, I bartered the rooster for this dung that I brought home with me.

> Even better.  It is needed in our garden.  My flowers will grow and bloom so well, and I will be able to make beautiful bouquets.

The neighbor had heard enough.  He said, “Here are your two-hundred francs, Jean-Baptiste.  But, above all promise me, don’t ever trade your wife for anything.  You will never find anything to equal her worth!”

______________________________________________

*Source : Vary, Andrée , “Les Trocs de Jean-Baptiste”, Contes et Légendes de France, National Text book Company, 1993 
______________________________________________
*Revised, adapted, and translated from the French original by: Hénock Gugsa