When Hitler invaded Poland and started World War 2 would the news stations have been beaming around the world his justification for going to war and would we have been relying on journalists cleared by or operating within the rules of what the Nazis deemed as appropriate to broadcast to ‘inform’ us of what is going on in Germany and the countries being conquered by the Nazi regime. What a question to consider you might say.
But it really does feel in Russia, Israel and to some extent news from the White House in the USA, it is very much in a one directional form of information presentation. Which we are handed on a plate and if unpalatable then tough luck sucker this is the perspective we are telling you is truth today.
For example Russia entered a righteous war in Ukraine and did not invade a sovereign state for its strategic advancement. You think the fascists in Russia are bad you should watch the videos about the fascists in Ukraine their much much worse than the Russian ones or so the propaganda machine journalists of the Russian state would have people believe as some conspiracist lap this up as so called food for thought.
In Gazza there is an outright genocide through starvation and bombing which our satellite television channels keep on tuning into Israel governments propaganda machine very much like if during World War 2 a Nazi spokesperson explaining live on TV the importance of workcamps to set people free and house jews within them and completely denying the gas chambers as malicious gossip.
In the USA millions of dollars of oversee life saving food, aid and healthcare programmes have been stopped overnight which will lead to the death of citizens across the globe whilst ICE’s US deportation teams kick people out of the country or detain them within the country with out due legal process if not costing lives certainly severally impacting on lives and the big lie reported live on satellite TV by the US governments team is that illegal immigrants are all rapists, murders and drug dealers and therefore need to go.
Its never been easier to report bullshit as fact and facts as bullshit on the TV. Truth is still truth though and facts are still facts, it just so happens I seem to spend more time these days trying to tune out the lies and bullshit than I do tune into fact and truths.
I’m as mad as hell, and I’m not going to take this anymore! Speech from Network (1976)
In memory of those gone but not forgotten, loved and not lost
Today is 2 months to the day since my lovely father passed away and though I think often of him miss him and feel and know that he is no longer here – I do so in what I feel to be a fond farewell light and positive imprint of him on my mind and soul.
Some people I know are horrified by the death of a love one or terrorised by no longer having a loved one in their life or fear when others lose people close to them too and keep their distance from people who have recently lost or are bereaving. Depending on the circumstances of a death, I know it can be brutal to lose someone that you deeply love.
But I don’t feel we should use our own self suffering as a barometer to how much we loved someone or even how much they are now missed. There are many joys to life and being alive and living in the moment are things which my father enjoyed to do in life himself and he would wish for me in some way I’m sure to appreciate the experience of being alive and not be tied up in knots due to his death or the death of other who were loved and lost.
Years ago in university during what was possibly a sociology class I remember a lecture announcing to us that when we cry we only cry for ourselves and for what those tears mean to us. We have no empthy and emotions for others whatsoever. I was instantly enraged and engaged in this opinion and perspective and that is exactly what the lecture wanted us to do to challenge him to engage with him and ultimately gain an emotional reaction on what his statement said. To this day I have often still wondered about the concept of crying for other s or simply crying for our selves and was the lecturer trying in some way to express a simple truth of his or get us to engage in emotive intellectual debate. Who knows? What I do know is that idea still remains with me some 30 years later.
I suppose the debate will always rage, do we cry for ourselves? or for others? What we have lost or for those whom were taken away or maybe from knowing that we will one day be in the same situation sitting in a coffin ourselves and before that day comes for us crying or morning that day getting closer and closer for us as with each day that passes as well as those others that we love and have in our lives that we will one day lose. Why do we hurt for what was taken away or for what we might yet lose?
Dad, my brother Andy and my Mum at Andy’s passing out parade at his official graduation ceremony following the completion of his course at Culdrose Cornwall.
I sat down to write this as a way of saying I’m ok and hello and its also ok to not be ok. But it appears to be more and deeper than that as the words flow out. What I’m trying to say is to me I want to love those that I have lost, appreciate them in this living alive world and show little signs of respect and love for those I care about where I can by how I live, whether that’s by being a little kinder at times, older and wiser at others but definitely not feeling sad for sadness sake or hurt for the sake of being heartbroken sake.
The people that I have and love in this life I have enjoyed their company at their highs and lows and mostly enjoyed being with them at their highs when they too enjoyed their life. I aspire to enjoy my life and honour theirs.
So we said fairwell to Dad on Friday 7th March, his family would just like to say a huge thank you to all of you that have shown how much you care for him and us. Me, Shamen and mum have been so grateful for the love and support offered to us at this difficult time. It’s sometimes hard to make a call or show people, if you care due to already full up and busy lives, there is always something else in life to distract you that steels your time away. With that said it has been so very heart-warming and reassuring to know that in our time of need you were able to offer us your love and support.
Whether that was in the way of a kind word or thought, or a call or text to see how we are or for those that made time for us and also for those that were able to see us and Dad in Spreyton on the day we just can’t thank you all enough.
With the decisions to hold the ceremony in Spreyton Village Hall and have the burial at crossways site in Cheriton Bishop, I was a little nervous prior to the day, as to whether we had chosen the right words, locations, hymn and ideas for the day. But with all of those that attended and helped us I do believe we did dad proud and showed him how much he was loved. The whole day and event was a wonderful celebration of Dads life and thank all so much for the time you spared for us prior to the service and also on the day and evening too.
I also want to share Dads poem for those that might want to see it again and also for those that could not make it on the day.
Love the ones you Love by Neil Edwards
Love the ones you love. Don't assume they're fine, because you haven't heard from them in a while. Assume they're not - and call them.
Make sure they know you love them. That can be difficult to say, but tell them, in whatever words, in your funny old way.
Take every chance that comes to do an act of lovingkindness for those who live in your heart. These things are powerful voodoo, because they work for them as well as you.
The only thing we know is true, is that we don't know what's to come. Don't just keep them in your heart. Turn up, and talk, and be with them.
Thank you, dear God, for this good life, and forgive us if we do not love it enough. And forgive us if we forget to love the ones we love.
P.S. Don’t beat yourself up. Even if you do all these things, some of us will slip away.
We are good actors and take great pains to keep you off the scent. It’s nothing you did or failed to do. Don’t beat yourself up.
Funeral plans for Neil Edwards – 1 PM Friday, 7th March 2025
Thank you all for the kind words and messages provided to me, Shamen, and Lindsay at this time. It comforts us all to know just how loved Neil was, and I am very grateful for the support that we have received during his brief illness and since his passing. We now have further details for Dad’s funeral, which will take place at 1 PM on Friday, 7th March, at the Village Hall in Spreyton.
This is a celebration of Dad’s life, and so we ask that you wear what you feel comfortable in. For those going to the burial site, we also recommend weather-appropriate clothing and shoes on the day.
Neil will be taken from the hall by car to a woodland burial site in Cheriton Bishop called Crossways; they provide an environmentally friendly burial. We have already made provisions to ensure he has his pipe, tobacco, and matches with him when he is laid to rest. https://crosswayswoodlandburials.co.uk/
Instead of flowers we are asking if people could donate to the Blue Cross there will be a collection on the day or if you would prefer you can donate online with further details below.
If people do not wish to go to the burial site there will be refreshments available at the village hall. Teas, coffees and a bar will be available in the hall which will open once we set of to the burial site. When the burial has taken place we will head straight back to the village hall where some food will then be served.
After this some family and friends will be making their way to the Tom Cobley Tavern in Spreyton.
All who knew Dad are welcome and if you would like to be with us on the day please let us know by sending us a message so we have an idea of number of attendees on the day. I have also set up a just giving page for the Blue Cross in memory of Neil to find out more click the link below https://www.justgiving.com/page/huw-edwards-2
A leap year is now and will always be kind of strange time for me it will never reflect a good or normal year but will always be present with me for as long as I live as a day after the anniversary of my bros death . The thing is my brother departed from his life this world and our planet on the early morning of the 28th of February 2015 and so the first year anniversary of his death was a leap year, so this year is not just an anniversary of his death but an anniversary of another leap year taking place without him or the third lep year to be exact and 9 years in total time since he took his life.
Andy Edwards my bro
I still hate the fact that he felt willing, able and hurt so bad and in some ways determined enough to take his own life. Me and my Dad had headed to my Dads house waiting for my brother to travel up from Cornwall to Devon, the night he took his own life so my Dad could discussing with him how much money he could borrow in order to help him change or turn his life around. Don’t get me wrong he paid his own way and was not broke he just wanted a career change and financial help to help him sort things out and get his career back on track. My brother was worried that his career was at a loose end and he was about to be made redundant from his job.
At the time you think these things are certainly going to be stresses for him but not enough to kill a man! I have found this year a struggle which i have not been afraid to admit in my life and in my posts and thought there is no magic solution I am doing ok and continuing to try and sort myself out. But that one night, that one night when my brother felt very bad and in a dark space he took the ultimate sanction and judgement on himself taking his life and from there we all have to pick up the pieces and continue with out ever being able to go back and retake the steps we have now taken after he left us.
A death ripples through other lives in time and space it burns, hurts and results in an unfillable void. If you or anyone you might know are ever are in that zone all I can say from having lost a brother, friend and seen my parents lose their first born son is please help and try to think again and ask them or yourself, does this really have to cause the damage and hurt you are about to cause to the ones you love, is there absolutely no alternative for you or them to no longer being on earth and alive today.
I went to a karaoke night tonight and sung my little heart out and got talking to a couple of good friends about my brother and his loss and found a good connection with them that i did not already have concerning the situation.
So sad 9th anniversary of your departing Andy Edwards will occur on 28th February 2024, I will always look forward to seeing you on the other side, but not just yet my brother and friend, not just yet.
I have mentioned this song before its The Killers – All the Things I’ve Done!
To me I’m singing my little heart out about my brother asking God to let him in to Heaven – He’s got soul and he was a soldier, god bless you Andy hope you are doing well where every your spirit is.
Gaza ‘soon without fuel, medicine and food’ say Israel authorities. Gaza is ruled by Hamas militants but Israel controls the airspace and its shoreline. Israel also restricts who and what goods can cross the borders. Since the attacks on Israel began on Saturday morning, Israel has stopped all supplies entering Gaza, including food and medicine.
There used to be a phrase known as ‘Collateral damage’ during war the unintentional deaths and injuries of people who are not soldiers, and damage that is caused to their homes, hospitals, schools. By cutting of all in gaza of food, medicine and fuel while bombing people within this area and most likely going in with soldiers and tanks into Gaza also this is a huge statement by Israel to say that when you kill our civilians and soldiers we will strike back by killing civilians where you live as well as Hamas militants.
What is potentially most scary about the whole war scenario for me is that how state sanctioned murder on the side of Hamas is shamed and condemned loudly by states and citizens across the western world and yet the blood that will be spilled from the decisions made by Israeli politicians is supported and applauded by those very same people and politicians that condemn what Hamas has and is doing.
So what is a solution to this situation – Difficult to see one happening sadly!
There are several things that prevent a long term solution.
1) Some Jewish people and politicians believe they have a fundamental right to own and occupy the land of Israel and expand this land at the expense of the people of Gaza city and Palestine.
2) Some Palestinian and Gaza city militants and politicians believe they have a fundamental right to own and occupy the land of Israel and prevent the expansion of Israel into the Gaza city and Palestine.
3) Democratic parties in Israel, Palatine and Gaze city are fractured there is no majority agreement on any sides on a collective solution or bargaining point on how things can move forward for all sides.
4) The majority ruling militants in Gaza city and Israel ruling power want to kill the other side.
5) There is no peace process in process and there has not been one for quite some decades now.
6) Extreme actors with the support of those with guns rule the state of play, govern or control citizens on both sides.
7) The trauma this is causing to each side, polarisation and unfortunate growth of extremism on both sides is not a long term solution for peace for anyone in Israel, Palestine or Gaza city.
‘All the world will be your enemy’ – Quote from Richard Adams writer of Watership Down.
With what the citizens are going through on both sides reminds me of the film Watership Down. Where a warren of rabbits are warned by supernatural experience by the rabbit seer called Fiver of an almost apocalyptical vision in which is a warning that they are no longer safe in their own warren and must move on if they are to survive.
After a great deal of storytelling, unfolding conflict and some deaths along the way the rabbits do make it to a new homeland. In Israel, Palestine and along the Gaza state that’s essentially all of what the majority of citizens want on either side is ‘their’ homeland or a homeland.
Until some sort of compromise can be reached or international and local agreement on whose homeland is whose, then the suffering and deaths on all sides will still sadly continue.
Trump gives his supporters liberty while Covid-19 gives them death! If you are still alive after this butchers little escapade please don’t vote him back into office (I’m refering to Trump of course as Death has yet to stand as the President of the USA!)
At the start of the Covid-19 pandemic, denial was the default response from the political right. Donald Trump derided it as a “hoax”. Brazil’s president Jair Bolsonaro scorned the “hysteria” over a “little flu”. In Italy, Matteo Salvini urged people to go on holiday, in defiance of social distancing advice from the World Health Organisation.
The denial has often been tacit. While coronavirus spread across India, Narendra Modi was silent for weeks. The British government argued that the risk of the virus to the UK was “low”, and declined to prepare for lockdown or to implement a full programme of testing, tracing and isolation.
Most governments now reject Covid-19 denialism. Nonetheless, it has inspired far-right groups, and sparked protests against lockdowns, from Michigan to Melbourne.
Why was denialism the reflex of the nationalist right? It makes commercial sense for the Koch family – billionaire libertarians threatened by a more regulated capitalism – to be against the suspension of economic life. But it is not the obvious position for authoritarian, anti-immigrant nationalists to take. The pandemic demands unprecedented restrictions, border controls and surveillance. It offers popularity to any government that takes control of the situation.
Indeed, before the pandemic, nationalists thrived on a fantasy of catastrophe: “white genocide”, immigration “invasion”, “communist” takeover. But faced with a real disaster, they have stumbled.
This is not for want of human enemies to scapegoat. Epidemics are fecund ground for conspiracism. In the Middle Ages, disease was blamed on Jews. In the 19th century, it was blamed on elites. In early American outbreaks of Spanish flu in 1918, rumours blamed it on a German plot. Today, it is Chinese people.
But far from cohering against a new enemy, the hard right is incoherent. Trump swerves between disinformation and exhortations to “liberate” states under lockdown. Boris Johnson urges people to return to work – without explaining how this can be done safely – all the while enforcing lockdown and continuing furlough schemes. Even Bolsonaro is sounding more petulant than defiant. Challenged by the media about Brazil’s soaring death rates, he huffs: “So what? What do you want me to do?”
This incoherence is only partly hidden by Covid-19 jingoism – the invocation of warlike nationalism to fight the pandemic.
Denial is often a form of affirmation. Alongside those who belittle the seriousness of the pandemic are those who admit it’s serious, but suggest that we die for the economy anyway. As Bolsonaro put it, “I’m sorry, some people will die, they will die, that’s life. You can’t stop a car factory because of traffic deaths.”
There have been subtler versions of this argument. Johnson never asked us to die for capitalism. But his government did urge the nation to “take [Covid-19] on the chin” while the medical evidence suggested that such insouciance could kill 500,000 people. The government initially refused to shut schools, citing the claim that a four-week closure would cut 3 per cent off GDP growth.
As Bolsonaro’s example suggests, governments routinely trade off lives for economic growth. Why stop now? This contemporary denialism is ideologically similar to the social Darwinism and class contempt that, as the historian Richard J Evans shows in Death in Hamburg, led to 10,000 deaths in 19th-century Hamburg from an outbreak of cholera.
But the desire to end the lockdown for economic reasons does not explain another significant right-wing trend. This is the emergence of the so-called “Branch Covidians” – those cultish figures on the American right risking death for “liberty” – who are protesting lockdowns.
There is a tendency to dismiss anti-lockdown gatherings as campaigns entirely bought and procured by rich businessmen. In the US, this idea has some truth. Denialists, 5G conspiracists, Trump fan-clubs, evangelicals and militias have enjoyed the financial backing of the American Legislative Exchange Council and even elements of the Trump White House.
In some respects, this anti-lockdown coalition resembles the ultra-conservative, anti-establishment Tea Party movement, which also received lobby money. The slogans, equating social distancing with communism, recall the paranoid vigilantism of that earlier movement. The threats to journalists, and calls to “hang” Anthony Fauci (head of the US’s coronavirus task force) recall its violent rhetoric.
However, the lockdown protesters are acting out of their own convictions. As the Harvard-based sociologist Theda Skocpol has argued, the nationalist far right is a grassroots affair. When rich patrons offer financial support, their role is to mobilise existing networks of activists.
But the concerns of lockdown protesters are not the same as their sponsors. They care less about the economy, as the New York Times delicately put it, than about “ideology”: a polite term for the toxic stew of racism and conspiracism underpinning the movement.
The desire to end lockdowns and restart economies has brought the far right and neoliberals together. This intellectual and political alliance is based on a deep suspicion of “society”; or what the political theorist Wendy Brown calls “sociophobia”. It is why, according to the anti-lockdown slogan, “social distancing = communism”, because social distancing represents a form of social solidarity.
The coalition of Covid-19 denial remains limited. Most nationalist voters support lockdown. But that could change. Test results suggest that only a small number of people around the world have been infected by coronavirus. That means more waves of infection are likely, and therefore further lockdowns. Every month of lockdown cuts growth, adds to unemployment and risks industrial scarring.
Many people are struggling, with little support. On the nationalist right, some of the ingredients are already there for back-to-work denialism. Unless a new economic model is found, the risk is that life under the pandemic will supply the rest.
Richard Seymour is a writer, broadcaster and activist. His latest book is The Twittering Machine (Indigo Press)
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To me a ‘Good’ Joke will not only provide information and insight into the comedian but also why and when the audience member laughs provides insight into that member of the audience.
Comedy may be divided into multiple genres based on the source of humor, the method of delivery, and the context in which it is delivered.
These classifications overlap, and most comedians can fit into multiple genres. For example, deadpan comics often fall into observational comedy, or into black comedy or blue comedy to contrast the morbidity, or offensiveness of the joke with a lack of emotion.
Differs from traditional punchline jokes which features many other forms of comedy such as observation, satire, surrealism, slapstick and improvisation. In its content, Alternative Comedy emerged as a counter to the establishment entertainment figures from the previous generation: It was often cited for its disregard to established comedic movements and ranged from the surreal to slapstick, usually with a combination of both.
It’s very simple, but very difficult to see that any political, legal or economic structure are comprehending it and if they do not comprehend it in our lifetime they and us we risk planetary suicide, murder and death.
destruction of the natural environment, especially when deliberate.”their crime is nothing less than attempted ecocide”
Why should this be the number one problem in a world full of problems.
Well I belive that with out an organic living breathing earth we will no longer have the bedrock to solve any and all other problems.
You can’t decide who lives and dies on a planet where everyone is dead and right now like no time ever, ecodide threatens to consume this planet.
Mass damage and destruction of nature is taking place globally. And right now, it’s legally permitted. We call it ECOCIDE and we’re working to make it an INTERNATIONAL CRIME.
Join the growing movement of Earth Protectors to help make this happen.
Covid-19 is still out there, people will still die from it and Covid-Zombies still walk the earth thinking they will not get it or that it does not matter to them even if they do.
At first it took one of our basic human needs/natural instincts – that to socialise and be close to one another without fear or risk of spreading death.
Some people were able to obey these rules for a short while but the reasons to not obeying seem to have become even greater to many than the need to obey them now. It’s like a Covid-19 Passover and if you obey the newly developed rules you have an increased chance of living thought this (may the odds forever be in your favour).
Many people choosing to disobey the rules in my city have been getting drunk, peeing and littering areas of nature and/or hanging out together to hug, kiss and probably be extremely intimate together too. I kind of consider these people now to be Covid-19 Zombies.
They are most likely to result in a longer lingering of the virus, an increase in deaths from the virus and an increase in contamination from the virus.
So my government has now in its wisdom announced that in order to travel on public transport from a week on Monday people now need to wear a mask or scarf while travelling.
So I have promptly whizzed onto the internet to order some masks and hand gel for me and my Dad.
It seems our defence against the virus has been raised to yet another level where we were first not meant to have contact with one another; we are now no longer aloud to easily speak or see the lips move on one another when out and about publically transporting one another.
Covin-19 3 wise monkies Hear nothing about the virus, Speak nothing about the virus & See no virus.
This virus feels like it is trying to rob us of our humanity and see what we will do with that and quite simply we are having to adapt to survive or have for thought and vision in order to see our way through this.
May the odds for ever be in your favour? Good luck and God speed
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