Friends, the photograph above shows one species that conducts regular wars against their own kind. The ants shown are not having a friendly wrestle on a Saturday afternoon but are engaged in a fight to the death.

The fact that there are three against three doesn’t make it a fair contest because, quite obviously, the red ants are much larger and stronger than the black ones and their bites are probably more savage. The outcome of this ferocious encounter is predictable and, when it is over, there’ll be three dead black ants lying on the ground. Either that or they’ll be in the process of being taken back to the red ant nest for food or to be used as slaves.

Ants, who are related to wasps and bees, live in complex colonies much like humans and, like humans, their numbers can run into the millions. They have a very strong social system and each insect has its place: workers, soldiers, egg-tenders, food-gatherers, egg-layers (queens), fertile males (drones) etc. If you don’t fit in, you don’t exist for long!

Ants, like humans, may be herbivores or omnivores.

Continue reading →

These soldiers are acting in good faith, O.K.?

Friends, Obama the Charmer has decided that CIA interrogators can’t be charged for torturing prisoners because they were ‘acting in good faith’! The reason?

They had legal guidance issued in memos by the Bush Administration to the effect that what they did to prisoners in order to extract confessions or information was not torture. Several memos suggested that approved interrogation techniques including placing an insect (a spider perhaps) into a suspect’s “confinement box,” slapping, sleep deprivation, water-boarding, and shoving a suspect into a wall.

Additionally, I seem to remember pictures from Abu Graib that showed piles of humiliated naked men and the use of dogs. I seem to remember also that rendition was used so that even harsher treatment was able to be applied to people of interest in shadowy foreign countries.

According to Reuters, Obama said that: “The men and women of our intelligence community serve courageously on the front lines of a dangerous world. … We must protect their identities as vigilantly as they protect our security, and we must provide them with the confidence that they can do their jobs.” God bless him! No World Court for him!

Continue reading →

Friends, these two photographs show a couple of the religious dinosaurs who still exert a great deal of power over the lives of millions of human beings. There are, of course, many more!

The top photograph shows a senior Afghan Muslim cleric Mohseni who, as part of the resurgent Taliban, has been responsible for drafting strict laws which for example allow Shia husbands to demand sex from their wives every four days and  make their wives ask for permission to leave the family home. Punishment for wives breaking these laws is swift and painful and can lead to death.

The lower photograph shows Pope Ben who has recently been visiting Africa advocating that condoms not be used even by those with aids and that abortion be prohibited. He was met everywhere by adoring crowds who wore their best clothes but nothing they wore could outdo the magnificence of the Papal attire or the wonder of the Pope-mobile.

Both these men claim to be religious. However, whether they or their contemporaries really believe what they preach is open to question.

Continue reading →

Friends, according to Reuters today a report released by the Dept. of Homeland Security in the U.S. reveals that the economic downturn, the move by Obama to shift his Administration towards taking more regulatory control of private enterprise, and the election of a coloured President is fanning the growth of right-wing radicals.

Now this is all America and the world needs after the fiasco of Bush and the Republican market extremists who created the current financial crisis, a crisis which could be over or have a long way to fall yet (who would know?).

Of course, the fact that the U.S. won’t release the results of the bank ‘stress tests’ suggests to me that the powers that be don’t want the truth about the real state of the U.S. economy to become common knowledge in case it causes more grief.

To cover all bases Obama is talking about ‘glimmers of hope’ and ‘the hard work is not over yet’ even if they’re entirely contradictory! Nothing like keeping the people guessing, eh?

But back to the report.

Continue reading →

What Price Victory?

Friends, the hostage crisis involving the American captain Richard Phillips (with the beard) has been resolved and three pirates on the lifeboat were shot in the head by three American snipers on a warship who certainly exhibited extraordinary marksmanship! The fourth pirate, who was on the warship while his companions were having their brains blown out, was captured and will probably spend the rest of his life in some jail somewhere.

The moral of this story is: Don’t Mess With Us. We’re Americans. But will that be the outcome of the story? The U.S., as everyone knows, has a century-old history of resolving problems by killing people. And of course, as everyone knows, killing people does not necessarily solve any problems and neither does it mean victory. I think Vietnam showed that to be the reality.

Now, as I understand it, the ‘pirates’ are holding a large number of ships and 250 crew members in Somalia as they await the payment of large ransoms. After the head-shooting incident, it may well be the case that the pirates adopt a similar strategy and begin to shoot their hostages in the head just to hasten the ransom payments.

And in the future, they might not be so particular when they board ships just who they might kill, especially if the crew are American.

Continue reading →

Friends, in keeping with the Easter spirit I present you with this good news story. David Keohane, an Irish tourist, was bashed into a coma in August of 2008. Of course, I do not claim that him being bashed was good news. That comes later.

Even since the tragic event, which does little to commend a visit to my country, David has been visited by his family who have mounted a vigil by his bedside. As you can see from the photograph, he is surrounded by all the marvels of modern medical technology which have helped to keep him alive even though his brain was technically ‘dead’. His father is shown looking anxiously at his son, searching perhaps for some sign that he might regain consciousness.

Well, call it a miracle if you will but David, during the Easter celebrations, arose from seven months of being  ‘dead’ and, to the absolute delight of his family and medical staff, recognized them! According to the news this morning, he is not fully recovered but is making good progress. It does give weight to the old saying that ‘where there is life, there is hope’.

Friends, I think there is a clear message in that old saying for all of us.

Continue reading →

Friends, how much different would Easter have been if Jesus hadn’t been so serious?

Pictures of him often show him wearing a crown of thorns or nailed to a cross or being pierced by spears but never smiling. What if he’d been less serious, perhaps even a comedian?

How much different would world history have been if he’d been able to leave them laughing. Perhaps what happened in the Colosseum, the Spanish Inquisition, the burning of witches and heretics, and the Crusades, etc, might not have occurred?

Of course, early Gods were much more human than those associated with the Christian, Islamic and Judaic religions.  Greek and Roman Gods had faults, some say human faults, ones like envy, ego-centrism, lust, etc. As such, they were much easier for humans to identify with.

It’s hard to try to emulate someone who is said to be perfect especially when humans, by nature, are imperfect, some more so than others.

And it could be argued that if God made us all, then He is responsible for our failings and we can’t be blamed for them and certainly shouldn’t be punished!

Does the idea of Jesus as a happy-go-lucky, always laughing, non-judgmental, affable figure appeal to you?

Friends, I wonder whether, in a few decades, this will be our new reality.

The image shows a group of hunter-gatherers who are living in primitive conditions. As the name suggests, they live off the land by hunting whatever wildlife there is and by gathering food from trees and plants as our ancestors did many thousands of years ago (some folk still do).

Why do I think such a thing? Well, if we look at our current reality with global warming and the economic/financial crisis together with the fact that the world has too many people and that food and clean water could well become scarce in the near future, it’s not hard to draw such a conclusion.

Let me throw in a few facts. In America, the demise of outlying suburbs has already led to whole communities that no longer have many people in them. Home prices have fallen dramatically and crime and looting is common. Many owners have walked away from their suburban homes because the value of their property is far less than the mortgage on it. They have gone to live closer to already crowded cities where they might be able to walk to work or get cheap public transport assuming they can find a job at all.

I also saw a news item about the people of Bangladesh who, because their visas are being canceled, are returning home in large numbers no longer able to work in Europe which is suffering itself from large job losses. The income they were earning helped their families in Bangladesh to survive. Their unexpected return adds to the disaster that Bangladesh already is regarding its extreme poverty and not enough jobs. Of course, there are millions of itinerant workers from many different countries that will experience the same situation.

Continue reading →

Friends, imagine my feelings this morning when I saw that Wall Street had risen dramatically! I mean, you know how much I value Wall Street and everything it stands for.

It appears that the main reason for the up-tick (isn’t that an interesting word?) is that Wells Fargo, America’s forth largest bank, had posted an unexpected three billion, first-quarter profit, a fifty percent increase. Its shares rose dramatically.

Now, late last year Wells Fargo, pleading financial difficulty, got a 21 billion dollar bail out of American taxpayers’ money and what did it do? In December, it bought Wachovia of course! What else would a bank do with taxpayers’ money?

Well, in a happily-ever-after fairytale, Wells Fargo has turned around its fortunes and, by pruning a bit here and nudging a bit there, it posted a profit and is even going to pay a dividend. And this in spite of the fact that the new, stiff, financial regulation regime that is talked about incessantly by nations across the world, to my knowledge, is not in place.

Friends, what has happened here is clearly a miracle!

Continue reading →

Friends, this image is one that will generate different emotions, different reactions.

What do you see?

What do you think the image symbolizes?

Does it make you feel uncomfortable?

What does it say about the human condition, if anything?

Has the artist captured something valuable?

P.S.  This image was found under ‘Laughing’ in Google Images. Is it incorrectly classified?