Update on Noteflix’s production of “Troubles in the Garden”: Whoah! What have we here? Mamzelle Pinkie and a Mamzelle Pinkie impersonator! Which is which? It is hard to tell these days what is what and what is true and what is false! …And what is entertainment. And, more important, which one can vote? If both vote and one loses does the loser have to accept the loss? If one says bad things about the other, is it freedom of speech, or just the way of the world? It is getting confusing in the Land. of Stuffed Animals. Come back next week for clarity on these issues..
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NOT TO BE OVERLOOKED:
- SORT OF A BOOK REVIEW: In 1992 a Francis Fukuyama published a philosophical book “The End of History” where he posited liberal Democracies were taking over Western Civilization and Man had progressed in Governmental affairs and that was the end of that. Empires, wars between States were things of the past. Progress had been made and progress was linear. This book caused a lot of chatter. Globalism was the oncoming thing. We all would become as one; happily, dependently trading and interacting with one another. Some deduced that if an underdeveloped country were to trade with a happy liberal Democracy (Free Trade & Capitalism, of course) then that poor underdeveloped country would become free-er and better off than it was before. Things looked pretty good from that writer’s workshop. He forgot about ‘What is past, is Prologue”, and the Putins, and guys like that, who did not read the book and the people who won’t take “No” for an answer. To me it seems History is not at the end but is on the make and the moil.
- HISTORY: Speaking of which, if we do not teach, fearlessly, about what we have done to each other in the past, how will we learn from it? Somebody should write a book on “The End of Teaching of History”. Let them talk about what happens then.
- REMEMBER? “DOUBLE THINK”; And I quote, “To know and to not know, to be conscious of complete truthfulness while telling carefully constructed lies, to hold simultaneously two opinions which cancelled out, knowing them to be contradictory and believing in both of them, to use logic against logic, to repudiate morality while laying claim to it, to believe that democracy is impossible and that the Party was the guardian of democracy. To forget, whatever it was necessary to forget, then to draw it back into memory again at the moment when it was needed, and then promptly to forget it again, and above all, to apply the same process to the process itself.” -G. Orwell, 1984, or is it the GOP voting platform 2022? “GOP GROUPE-THINK”?
- DOLLAR THINK: Rolls-Royces came out with the “Spectre” – a $418,000 EV and there are over 300 orders for it from the US. Questions need be asked: 1) Will the “Spectre” owner drive the car himself/herself, or will the owner be able to afford a chauffeur? 2) Will the owner dare to take the car out onto the public roads and risk the ire of those who are driving the cheap $60,000 cars? 3) will these vehicles have missile anti-theft devices on them – at additional cost? 4) Is this price generated by a QAnon conspiracy falsehood?
- BILLIONAIRES TO BE: I read there are a disproportionate number of Bi-Polar people who are billionaires than there are non-bi-polar people who are billionaires. Me? I have only one polar so I am more likely never to be a billionaire. It is told the richest man in the world and the richest rapper in the world might be Bi-Polar. I do not know if they have their orders in for the “Spectre “- and I don’t want to ask them and risk their getting mad at me; one could send me into outer space and the other could write a nasty song about me.
- GOOD NEWS: They say the saliva from wax worms has incredible power in that it contains enzymes that quickly degrade plastic bags – items which you know plague our planet. That is the only the good news I found this week.
And now a few words from our Resident rodent & Guest Columnist MATHUZALA:
MATHUZALA SPEAKS:
- We have created a group, a club, if you will…for humans called “Chumpers.” You can join in our effort to restore the ways of the world to sanity. Heroes in the cause.??? This movement is detailed in the early pages of the book shown below, written by Benedict, the incarcerated and true inspirational leader of the Chumpers.
Were you to want to become a Chumper, or simply read about them, go to Amazon, or Barnes & Noble and buy “THE RAT PAPERS” and learn where you fit in, in the beginning of history.
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Notes from Tuscany
- I live in a small Tuscan town, Greve in Chianti. In my mind, I describe it as an Adult version of an Italian Sesame Street. In or close to our piazza, we have 9 places you can get a pizza, 5 butchers, 4 coffee bars and a small store where you can buy fruit. A Saturday outdoor market to buy whatever you need for the next week’s living: cheeses, nuts, clothes – those sorts of things. It seems so simple; yet sometimes I wonder why the rest of the world can’t live like this. Maybe, if I hang around here long enough, I will figure it out – see if it can be duplicated.
A quote, or two:
- “Newspeak, a language designed to diminish the range of thought,” -in the novel 1984 (1949) by George Orwell. To me, a slang version of this would be Foxspeak...a tongue currently in much favor.
- “If you sit by the river long enough, you will see all your enemies float by”…-Attributed to General Xiang circa 200 BC.
That’s not all there is, but that’s it from here, for now….and a fond “Hello” to Pia, wherever you are.
