Relativity

Intelligence is a constant. 
Mankind's population is growing ... 
and growing.

Telephone call from Istanbul

Friday is Skyday

Reisen statt Rasen.

Not from Amsterdam

Tulips from Seanhenge

Life lived quietly

"The best of life is life lived quietly,
where nothing happens
but our calm journey through the day,
where change is imperceptible
and the precious life is everything."

John Mc Gahern

Dirt In The Ground

"Dirt In The Ground"

What does it matter, a dream of love
Or a dream of lies
We're all gonna be in the same place
When we die
Your spirit don't leave knowing
Your face or your name
And the wind through your bones
Is all that remains
And we're all gonna be
We're all gonna be
Just dirt in the ground

The quill from a buzzard
The blood writes the word
I want to know am I the sky
Or a bird
'Cause hell is boiling over
And heaven is full
We're chained to the world
And we all gotta pull
And we're all gonna be
Just dirt in the ground

Now the killer was smiling
With nerves made of stone
He climbed the stairs
And the gallows groaned
And the people's hearts were pounding
They were throbbing, they were red
As he swung out over the crowd
I heard the hangman said
We're all gonna be
Just dirt in the ground

Now Cain slew Abel
He killed him with a stone
The sky cracked open
And the thunder groaned
Along a river of flesh
Can these dry bones live?
Ask a king or a beggar
And the answer they'll give
Is we're all gonna be
Yea yeah
We're all gonna be just
Dirt in the ground

Misery is the River of the World

"Misery Is The River Of The World"


The higher that the monkey can climb
The more he shows his tail
Call no man happy 'til he dies
There's no milk at the bottom of the pail

God builds a church
The devil builds a chapel
Like the thistles that are growing
'round the thrunk of a tree
All the good in the world
You can put inside a thimble
And still have room for you and me

If there's one thing you can say
About Mankind
There's nothing kind about man
You can drive out nature with a pitch fork
But it always comes roaring back again

Misery's the River of the World
Misery's the River of the World
Misery's the River of the World

The higher that the monkey can climb
The more he shows his tail
Call no man happy 'till he dies
There's no milk at the bottom of the pail

God tempers all the ruins for the new shorn lands
The devil knows the Bible like the back of his hand
All the good in the world
You can put inside a thimble
And still have room for you and me

If there's one thing you can say about mankind
There's nothing kind about man
You can drive out nature with a pitch fork
But it always comes roaring back again

For want of a bird
The sky was lost
For want of a nail
A shoe was lost
For want of a life
A knife was lost
For want of a toy
A child was lost

And misery's the river of the world
Misery's the river of the world
Everybody row! Everybody row!
Misery's the river of the world

Misery's the river of the world
Misery's the river of the world
Everybody row! Everybody row!
Everybody row! Everybody row!

Misery's the river of the world
Misery's the river of the world
Everybody row! Everybody row!
Everybody row! Everybody row!
Everybody row!

Misery's the river of the world
Misery's the river of the world
Misery's the river of the world
Misery's the river of the world
Everybody row! Everybody row!
Everybody row!

What Keeps Mankind Alive

You gentlemen who think you have a mission
To purge us of the seven deadly sins
Should first sort out the basic food position
Then start your preaching, that's where it begins

You lot who preach restraint and watch your waist as well
Should learn, for once, the way the world is run
However much you twist or whatever lies that you tell
Food is the first thing, morals follow on

So first make sure that those who are now starving
Get proper helpings when we all start carving
What keeps mankind alive?

What keeps mankind alive?
The fact that millions are daily tortured
Stifled, punished, silenced and oppressed
Mankind can keep alive thanks to its brilliance
In keeping its humanity repressed
And for once you must try not to shriek the facts
Mankind is kept alive by bestial acts

Busy for the Bees

Sitting in the sun
and looking  appletreewards
it buds and blossoms.

Une quan­ti­té né­g­li­gea­b­le

D'evidence, le droit international est une quan­ti­té né­g­li­gea­b­le.

Cherry Blossom

Early this year.

First Footprint

Grandson's first footprint
after he stepped into the world
at 3:28.

Difference

There are idiots
in Ankara, Moscow, Washington
and ... ...,
and there are daffodil and tulips
in Seanhenge.

Spring

Thus it began, February 26th.

Thus it went on, March 3rd.

One day later the first bombus terrestris
or large earth bumble bee / buff-tailed bumble bee
crawled around.

The same happened with the yellow crocus.
February 26nd.

 

March 4th.
(different bumble bee, though)

 

Thanks for being, Jams

Time flies.
There has happened so much within the past four years.
On this planet.
In my life.
And no detail, no episode I could share with The Poor Mouth.
Today, four years ago my friend Jams died.

There's nothing to add to what I wrote seven days later, on the day he could have celebrated his 50th birthday: 

Thanks for being, Jams.

Last prenatal working-day

Today was grandson's
last prenatal working-day.
Reading "The Stranger".

... or: Eight Songs for Mad Presidents

 
Peter Maxwell Davies (8 September 1934 – 14 March 2016) 

Eight Songs For a Mad King

Farewell to Stromness

Sir Peter Maxwell Davies (8 September 1934 – 14 March 2016) 

The Yellow Cake Review

Friday is Skyday

I felt so relieved:
Notorious idiots
are not everywhere

Georgia O'Keefe

"To create one's world 
in any of the arts
takes courage."

 Georgia O'Keefe (November 15, 1887 – March 6, 1986)

Caruso

Lucio Dalla (4 March 1943 – 1 March 2012)

Friday is Skyday

. . .

Dydd Gŵyl Dewi

St. David's Day

Gwyn Thomas

Caruso

Lucio Dalla (4 March 1943 – 1 March 2012)

Fab Feb End

I had a fine walk.
No golfers around.
:)

Padam Padam

President Pinocchio

The United States' current Ex-President to-be
whose name is considered not worth being mentioned on this blog,
 is obviously a notorious liar.
The Washington Post counted 133 lies within five weeks.

In the Wood

You look at what's happening last night in Sweden*.
Sweden! Who would believe this? Sweden!
We got to keep our woods trump-free.

* A wooden moose got the attention of a lovesick moose bull. It all happened in 79 year old Ove Lindqvist’s garden in Byske outside Skellefteå, northern Sweden. ”I thought it was going to start a fight, instead it humped the wooden moose thrice”, he said. [Afdonbladet]

Wintree

Wintree

Die Moritat von Mackie Messer

Milva

Dreigroschenoper 

Bertold Brecht (10 February 1898 - 14 August 1956)

Joyeux anniversaire, Madame!

Juliette Gréco

135

"I am today
what I established yesterday."

am today what I established yesterday or some previous day.
Read more at: https://www.brainyquote.com/quotes/quotes/j/jamesjoyce119807.html

I am today what I established yesterday or some previous day.
Read more at: https://www.brainyquote.com/quotes/authors/j/james_joyce.html

I am today what I established yesterday or some previous day.
Read more at: https://www.brainyquote.com/quotes/authors/j/james_joyce.html

James Joyce (2 February 1882 – 13 January 1941)

I am today what I established yesterday or some previous day.
Read more at: https://www.brainyquote.com/quotes/authors/j/james_joyce.html

Not sure about

The hottest places in hell are reserved for those
who in times of great moral crisis
maintain their neutrality.
Dante Alighieri

  [from my archive)

In the wood

To visit this wood
one does need no green card, yet;
even in winter.

Als het net even anders was gegaan

Tekst: Willem Wilmink Muziek: Herman van Veen

Als Hitler toch de oorlog had gewonnen,
wat weinig had gescheeld met die V-2,
hadden we dan nog levensmidd'lenbonnen
of viel de toestand achteraf best mee ?
We kwamen zonder een niet-jood verklaring
weer op normale wijze aan de poen
en er was geen verzekerde bewaring
voor de zigeuners die geen mens iets doen
er zou geen jood en geen zigeuner meer bestaa,,
als het net even anders was gegaan.

Geen Surinamers waren hier gekomen
en geen Molukker was Europeaan
Geen gastarbeider was in dienst genomen
of toch ? het vuile werk moet ook gedaan.
Van concentratiekampen zou men praten:
ach, dat valt wel mee, er wordt zoveel beweerd.
We zouden het rustig daarbij kunnen laten
want geen getuige was teruggekeerd.
De nazi's hadden het veel grondiger gedaan,
als het net even anders was gegaan.

Hitler had een spierwitte snor gekregen
werd door de meerderheid gerespekteerd
als vader van de autowegen
en hij had Musschert al geliquideerd.
Wie zouden zich in 't openbaar vertonen ?
wie zouden ons regeren uit Den Haag ?
wie zouden er in grote huizen wonen ?
misschien dezelfde rijken als vandaag ?
Wij vonden vast wel weer een zin in ons bestaan,
als het net even anders was gegaan.

Voor homosexuelen streng verboden
zou er te lezen staan op de cafe's.
Wat afweek van de norm, dat zou men doden
men kocht Mercedessen en B.M.W.'s
om dan als heersers langs de weg te razen
dat iedereen hun macht en welvaart zag
en het verzet was werk geweest van de dwazen
en Engeland verarmde met de dag.
Wat zich verrijkt was de haat en rassenwaan,
als het net even anders was gegaan.

We weten allemaal dat Hitler heeft verloren.
We zijn toen van de tyrannie gered
maar zou ik anders ook een lied doen horen ?
een bloed -en bodemlied ? of juist een van verzet ?
Zou er in zulke uitzichtsloze tijden
nog iets bestaan als hier en daar een sprank
van moed en hoop, die boeken doet verspreiden
Jan Campert en van Randwijk, Anne Frank ?
Zou dan het goede, schone, ware nog bestaan,
als het net even anders was gegaan

Yolocaust

Certain young contemporaries obviously need to be taught the hard way. And not only on January 27.

Yolocaust


P.S. When I decided to post this, there were quite a few more photos. 
Since, most of the "artists" took the offer to send an email to undouche them:  "I'm on one of the pictures and suddenly regret having uploaded it to the internet. Can you remove it?"Even the two young gentlemen who found so funny to post their photo adding "Jumping on dead Jews".

P.P.S. Meanwhile all photos have been removed. 

On the Road

Like trees are passing
a presidency does pass.
A fart in the wind

Ich tanze mit dem Tod

Herman van Veen

The Dangerous Vice of a Weak Character

The will for power ... far from being a characteristic of the strong, is, like envy and greed, among the vices of the weak, and possibly their most dangerous one.
Hannah Arendt

Measles of Mankind

Nationalism is an infantile disease.
It is the measles of mankind.
Albert Einstein
The World As I See It, 1935

Presidency No Place for Amateurs

One can never be sure that when a man becomes the President of the United States his sense of power and of purpose and his own source of self confidence will show him how to help himself enhance his personal influence.... The Presidency is no place for amateurs.
Richard Neustadt,
Presidential Power, 1964

Good Night, and Good Luck

Let America be America again.
Let it be the dream it used to be.
Let it be the pioneer on the plain
Seeking a home where he himself is free.

(America never was America to me.)

Let America be the dream the dreamers dreamed—
Let it be that great strong land of love
Where never kings connive nor tyrants scheme
That any man be crushed by one above.

(It never was America to me.)

O, let my land be a land where Liberty
Is crowned with no false patriotic wreath,
But opportunity is real, and life is free,
Equality is in the air we breathe.

(There’s never been equality for me,
Nor freedom in this “homeland of the free.”)

Say, who are you that mumbles in the dark? 
And who are you that draws your veil across the stars?

I am the poor white, fooled and pushed apart,
I am the black man bearing slavery’s scars.
I am the red man driven from the land,
I am the immigrant clutching the hope I seek—
And finding only the same old stupid plan
Of dog eat dog, of mighty crush the weak.

I am the young man, full of strength and hope,
Tangled in that ancient endless chain
Of profit, power, gain, of grab the land!
Of grab the gold! Of grab the ways of satisfying need!
Of work the men! Of take the pay!
Of owning everything for one’s own greed!

I am the farmer, bondsman to the soil.
I am the worker sold to the machine.
I am the black man, servant to you all.
I am the people, humble, hungry, mean—
Hungry yet today despite the dream.
Beaten yet today—O, Pioneers!
I am the man who never got ahead,
The poorest worker bartered through the years.

Yet I’m the one who dreamt our basic dream
In the Old World while still a serf of kings,
Who dreamt a dream so strong, so brave, so true,
That even yet its mighty daring sings
In every brick and stone, in every furrow turned
That’s made America the land it has become.
O, I’m the man who sailed those early seas
In search of what I meant to be my home—
For I’m the one who left dark Ireland’s shore,
And Poland’s plain, and England’s grassy lea,
And torn from Black Africa’s strand I came
To build a “homeland of the free.”

The free?

Who said the free?  Not me?
Surely not me?  The millions on relief today?
The millions shot down when we strike?
The millions who have nothing for our pay?
For all the dreams we’ve dreamed
And all the songs we’ve sung
And all the hopes we’ve held
And all the flags we’ve hung,
The millions who have nothing for our pay—
Except the dream that’s almost dead today.

O, let America be America again—
The land that never has been yet—
And yet must be—the land where every man is free.
The land that’s mine—the poor man’s, Indian’s, Negro’s, ME—
Who made America,
Whose sweat and blood, whose faith and pain,
Whose hand at the foundry, whose plow in the rain,
Must bring back our mighty dream again.

Sure, call me any ugly name you choose—
The steel of freedom does not stain.
From those who live like leeches on the people’s lives,
We must take back our land again,
America!

O, yes,
I say it plain,
America never was America to me,
And yet I swear this oath—
America will be!

Out of the rack and ruin of our gangster death,
The abuse and rot of graft, and stealth, and lies,
We, the people, must redeem
The land, the mines, the plants, the rivers.
The mountains and the endless plain—
All, all the stretch of these great green states—
And make America again

Langston Hughes

Ten years ago

In memoriam Hrant Dink.

What is Next?

The lyrics you find here.

Laughing Lhursday*

* [For first time visitors]:
Typo in the title?
Nah.
It's just that I would not let a tiny T spoil an avantgardistic alliteration.

Untouchable 96

Leonardo Sciascia's statue
in Racalmuto,
his native town in Sicily.

Leonardo Sciascia (January 8, 1921 – November 20, 1989)

Leonardo Sciascia Web (italiano)

Tomorrow, tomorrow

Procrastination:
A child of resolutions.
I am their master.

Happy New Year!

Joy, Love, Peace and more.
Young Lady Einstein and I
wish a Happy New Year.