Thought Picnic: The quiet place

The place to be

Sometimes we need to know our quiet place, the place where within the turmoil and the disarray that surrounds we can steal away and find a place of safety.

The safety we seek is essential for making sense of life and finding perspective when things do not look right.

I find my quiet in many places, the best is when I am travelling, when I embark on a long journey, a calm descends upon me as if I am caught away halfway to paradise. I make time for travel when I can afford it.

Memories we must cherish

Through my life, I have also found milestones, times when I have apparently felt so good, so well, and almost too sure, without a care in the world.

A colour, a smell, some music and the memories convey me to a place to daydream out of the present and latch on to the affirmative.

I do this not to find reasons to regret, but to appreciate that I have had a wonderful and blessed life full of many things to be thankful for, and that is a good thing.

For wonder and awe

Nature also offers a great sense of awe and wonder, be it in a forest, listening to carefree birds chirping in the trees or watching the wash of large bodies of water ebb and flow against banks or shores; mysteries expressed in beauty that words will never speak, but the heart and mind will fully understand, poured into the senses like an elixir of life.

Know how to find your quiet place, your break away from the rat race, where you can leave that hustle and bustle that will nevertheless continue whether or not you are part of it because there is always more to life and more to live for than the endless quest for survival.

Thought Picnic: When in the face of beauty, words fail me

I behold

It is a reaction I have relived and experienced from as far back as I can remember, probably four times until once again today; a look, a face, just the face, the eyes, the nose, the cheeks, the smile, the perfect sculpt of art indescribable and at that instant my heart begins to melt.

My knees buckle, my heart races, but there is no lust or yearning of that sort, just a desire to be close, to be a friend and nothing more.

From afar but close enough

No, I would hate to ruin the adulation and awesomeness with any intimacy beyond deep appreciation that such exacting work of divine providence is bequeath on one person for which even the most sceptical will avow that a hand beyond sight does wonders of words beyond expression on the visage of another.

Then I pray, in the weakness that has overcome me, keep me from being besotted, deliver me from infatuation but these things rule my heart and deny my head the vetting of common-sense because there are times when just following the heart is the revelation of the beauty of nature and that of mankind.

Nay, words fail me.

Shock and Awe

Introduction to Humility - 101

Our friends the Americans are the sole global superpower. Mikhail Gorbachev with his Glasnost and Perestroika policies which opened up the Soviet Union, laid bare an unsustainable drive to compete with America after the Star Wars initiative and put paid to the Cold War.

This brought the liberation of the Eastern Bloc European countries west of the Soviet Union from Communism. Eight of those countries would join the enlarged European Union in May 2004.

The braggadocio that accompanied the invasion of Iraq, the ousting of the Iraqi regime, the end to hostilities and the capture of Saddam Hussein are too well documented to suffer the pillory of revisionist historians.

The Americans and the coalition of the blackmailed, bribed and coerced did a quick job of it all, the shock of a quick victory and the awe of the volume of precision guided artillery that had a target of hitting defenceless civilians is all too well known.

A catalogue still remains of how the American's unilateralist approach with Britain's unstinting support has continually alienated well meaning though differing views to the stance American has adopted.

With hindsight, the war with Iraq was probably necessary, but good technology does not take the place of diplomacy, useful intelligence, respect for the traditions of the occupied territory and the restoration of self-determination for the Iraqi.

One's shock and awe.

• The people of Iraq pronounce it as ee-rack; the occupying forces of America call it eye-rack - you cannot invade, occupy, run roughshod over the country and then rename it.
• The liberation of Jessica Lynch is a lot less to it than meets the eye. You can only put so much of a spin on it before the truth is out.
• There is still no evidence of WMDs or where they might have been disposed of. From weapons deployable within 45 minutes through massive nuclear acquisition to weapons programs. Intelligence suddenly sounds like the ability to see the truth but accentuate a preferred lie.
• Dr David Kelly being spun out of earthly orbit by the New Labour publicity machinery - The Hutton Inquiryprovided a Window on Media
• That a CIA operative was uncovered by some White House apparatchik in revenge for her husband's insistence that Iraq had not acquired uranium from Niger.
• A third person was buried with Saddam's sons, his 14-year-old grandson, Mustafa.
• Ahmed Chalabi who is a convicted felon in neighbouring Jordan is the darling of the American occupying forces - here we go again.
• Death of Sergio de Mello
• Guantanamo Bay - we do not even have a jury to go out on this one - even Cuba is not pleased.
• Contracts going to coalition countries, then they have the gall to ask France, Germany and Russia to forgive Iraqi debts. Dick Cheney's former firm allegedly overcharges by $60 million. One does not understand this, why would I give up $40bn to fight over $18bn?
• No end to hostilities.
• Saddam Hussein found in a hole and Osama bin Laden still at large.

One only hopes that lessons are being learnt, one might have been shocked and awed, but definitely, neither amused nor impressed.

Might tempered with gentle consideration is a difficult but necessary mix or the absence of humility would humble the mighty to the point of humiliation.

Further Reading and references

eye-rack or ee-rock

A small note on pronunciation

Attacking the Shadow through Iraq

Saving Private Jessica Lynch

Shameful Propaganda exposing CIA Spy

Profile: Joe Wilson - Spy's spouse

The last moments of Saddam's grandson

Ahmed Chalabi

Cuba decries detainees' treatment

Sergio Vieira de Mello

EU may fight Iraq contracts ban

Halliburton charge not deliberate

James Baker III seeks reconstruction support

American Casualities