Another Never-ending Story

The Norks - gosh darn em!

Inscrutable Silence.

Just when we thought that we were starting to get 'on top of things' again - no more arms to the FSA (unless they're pointing them at ISIS),  a modus vivaldi with Putin, the fall of more things ISIS, vic'try in sight of the Philippines. Africa - pax americus, Europe enjoying maneuvre season aand military open houses, the Chinese - quiet, the press no longer demanding any more evidence of Russian Hacking and only yesterday the Vice President announcing that there were larger catfish to fry than North Korea, we awaken, this morning, to a blizzrd of stories about item number one - 'the threat to everything!!" that is North Korea and the need to do something about that,  NOW!

Just two days ago the government of the Republic of South Korea had issued an invite to talks that had our media plastered with images of weeping Korean families reuniting in the DMZ. All was hopeful and waiting, like at Christmastime.

A new advent


And then the Norks failed to respond.

The initial stories ran the gamut from 'the tyrant was taken out by the Seals'  to 'they're all starving and can no longer communicate'.   Then the media  developed some sense and changed our focus to the threat of nuckuler annihilation, the need to practise 'best defences' in Hawaii and how concerned we all are.

The Threat

Drought

The Un News

Executions

Better late than Never


And there is good news too:  about their economy growing more than South Korea's last year, The Economy 'rockets' up?  or the fact that we could drop a dickie bird over the Yalu,  if there remain any of those uneaten - our anti-ICBM (Chaaads or Braaaaads)  'defenses' are that good.



Perhaps what's needed is a new 'fandango'.

Strange

 "The road to heck passeth through procrastination" - cleaning up some 'old' ideas.

 Just when you think things have gotten as funny, stupid, tragic, etc as they're  going to get,  along come the next thing, worse (or better).  In this instant it's another sad story of Putin 'doing it' (although he is never directly accused).

As we all know one of the blowback effects of the strife in Ukraine has seen both sides setting-up ministries to handle the necessary 'skew' on news, the amplification of outrages and the 'toning' of accusations.  There are - we are told -  an army - Putin's Army - of internet commentators   scanning for stories and either bolstering Putin's misdeeds or making mock of the poor valiant Ukrainians. Apparently there are a number of patriotic, nation-loving people who do the same thing for Kiev. So when 'Peace-President' Poroshenko was mentioned in the Panama Papers a tide started rising about him and his promises to divest himself of his oligarchy, so as to run the country for somebody else' benefit and not his own. Something had to be done, enter Putin's army and the cockamamie story posted in a recent New York Times. Although the writers claim their 'contact' indicated he was hired by Ukraine, you can bet your  Vyshyvanka that Putin did it -  to make Porko look better.

A Hoax Cloaked in An Ukrainian Interview


The Hindustan Times is a unique rag,  often breaking stories from Asia well-before they appear in western media.  They are BIG on 'the evils of ISIS' stories but sometimes that even can get obfuscated. One of their more garish tales was the execution of 15 potential 'Brides' in an unnamed marketplace somewhere - for, apparently, refusing to be brides.   This sad tale started in the HT early in the day, by noon it was featured by the Jerusalem Post and made it to America in time for the dinnertime news. It was like all others of its ilk,  a memory by the next day.  Strangely enough,  the same story surfaced datelined two weeks prior to the 'big' HT reveal,  on the website of a Catholic newsfeed organization in the USA and penned by one of their staffers.

HT provided this bit of human interest which typically went on to make the rounds of western media. It was, later on, displayed as a lesson learned from the gallant Israelis who featured "door knocking" - a targetting missile on the roof -  as a replacement for the formerly-used method of placing a phone call to warn that destruction was imminent.


Door Knocking

In this instant, the report accompanied the much-circulated story of the US destroying ISIS cash reserves.  It is a telling breakthrough in humanitarianism that such bomb strikes on other 'terror targets' are often decried for the later arrival of a second missile  - intended  to disrupt any rescue effort.  Could you imagine the crowd of possible 'collateral damage' that would have gathered to pick up any flying bills?   Things are looking up.

It's All Over Now

The Stones didn't appear, but at least we were all spared a reprise of octogenarian Sir Paul doing 'Live and Let Die' again. And so ended the games of the 40th Olympiad in London.

The games themselves were fairly unremarkable - which is probably a good thing given all the security measures that went into that. A couple of new records set - one of them remarkably so. The glory of sport was duly celebrated and the world was at times thrilled. In the western part of the world at least, the games were largely a media event. Even for those attending, the media had to be relied-upon given the disparate venues and an awesome number of daily events and competitions. There were gold medals awarded from the early morning of the first day, until an hour and a half before the closing ceremonies. And the media did it's standard hack job on everything.

Canada had an 'Olympic Consortium", viz CTV et al, running things in London. The featured talking heads - one Brian Williams and the bountiful Lisa LaFlamme (I'm not making that name up) came across as a graduate of the Ted Baxter school of broadcast journalism and the High School Guidance councillor we all wish we'd had once, or even twice. Williams was ridiculous from day one when he pontificated how 'correct' US presidential candidate Mitt Romney had been, to 'call' the Brits on their game preparations. He concluded his final broadcast 'for the last time' wth equal fatuity. He won't be back, thank providence, as his former employer, CBC, has locked-up the next two Olympics and he had 'deserted' their ship to go with CTV.

LaFlamme was simply gushing but there's a significant cleavage there going unused.

Despite the gas, CTV couldn't outdo somebody in the Irish media covering a dinghy sailing competition, although I'm sure they tried; here's the Irish effort (which has gone viral - a good thing for comedian Chris Tordoff, who could replace Williams anyday.)

Irish coverage of Olympic sailing event.

And another Irish take on the Olympics - given the significance, in Irish history, of August 12th.

Overall the Canadian coverage yo-yoed between 'tragedy striking' (again and again and again - as the song says), 'deep disappointment' on many occasions and the unexpected triumph a gold medal in an event CTV had decided was too unimportant to cover. The surprise winner became a sudden non-icon given the rest of the team who weren't. We settled for adoration of the Bolt - even remarking on his 'triumph' over  members of the Swedish Womens handball team who visited him 'in chambers' for 'photos' - and who, apparently, were gone when he flashed the 'three for victory' sign as he sat on his rumpled bed later.

And so let the recriminations begin.

I'd start with firing Mark ("I'll discipline you later") Tewksberry, the 'chef de mission' who has a career plotted out in foreign affairs anyway. I'd also fire Merklinger who oversaw the $230 million spent over the past 4 years to develop a 'team of winners' to 'own the podium'. Somebody has to take responsibility for all the balderdash about our 'slam-dunk' athleticism and the consequent 20/20 hindsight and excuse-making that follow a failure to win. Back to the 'drawring board'  it may have to be, but the last set of 'draftsartists' shouldn't be designing the next effort.

And so to the show itself. I only saw the worst bit of the three hour extravaganza. The tail end of some realian and his phantom choir - a future concert for a close relative's punitive concert series. That was followed by a 'digital appearance' by the late Freddy Mercury getting the crowd worked-up with a Kodaly voice exercise and then the remains of Queen, with a rather fetching brunette, to sing the national hockey arena anthem 'We Will Rock You". After that the Brazilians embarrassed themselves with a preview of what may be  to come in Rio. The samba dancers and rainforst denizens, military snipers and a moveable array of  mysterious golden columns were topped-off with some slick willie dance instruction and a portuguese-speaking comedian, rap artist in a pimp outfit. That's all I could take.

Whaddi miss? Russell Brand in his unwashed glory. Annie Lennox on a pirate ship. Ray Davies of the former Kinks doing 'Waterloo Sunset' - a big hit of which most people who aren't Kinksters would never have heard. The Who closed out the evening with 'M-M-M-My  G-Generation' and of course the Spice Girls reunited in all their feminine puchritude to outdo a parade of supermodels and the world-class bathroom boy,  George Michaels. It was reportedly glorious. I did miss the fireworks.

I'll bet the Russkis can stretch their ceremonies to four hours and the Brazilians can go all night. So much to look forward to.

The Peripatetic News

It's been almost a whole fortnight since last I applied digits to keyboard in another Blogger deposit. And what a fortnight it has been! If it wasn't for all the actual world-shaking events I'm sure the hyperactive media would have been hard pressed to drum up any kind of interest. But events overtook them.

 First off was the Oslo bombing and avantgarde shooting spree. I was actually 'en farte' on the internet when I noticed the first little media 'heads up' about 8:30 in the AM - an explosion reported near the office of the Norwegian PM. Within the hour, the US  news blogs lit up like a hannukah candle with the 'work of jihadi terror' mantra going great guns based on the readings of the magickal 8 ball. Sadly, that turned out to be far from the case. As the day's events morphed into the work of a crazed gunman - a mass shooting more common to US college campuses - the other part of hyperactive media kicked into play to explain why this had happened. And since then the crescendo was reached, newsorthily speaking, followed by a denouement of rationality that might suggest 'it wasn't all that bad' after all. With the exception that they're burying more of the victims to-day.

While everybody apparently agrees that shooting sixty kids is not something to be done on a regular basis. The pundits who, sort of, share the gunman's perspectives, have regathered the courage to start saying that we shouldn't let his actions stifle the 'Stepford effect' - we shouldn't lessen any efforts to decry the imminent demise of our civilization at the hands of godawful Islam. The only 'real'  mistake made here was in target selection. Had he shot muslims 'Hans Gunnar Quackenbusch' - 'Vanilla Hice' - might have been up for an Oscar, or a Nobel prize - definitely Olympic gold in free-range shooting. Punditry will out anyway.

The shooting was soon eclipsed by two weeks of 'high political drama' in America and much the same sort of activity in the EU. This of course all related to the financial situation which isn't going to go away anythime soon. It was defaults and bailouts on both sides of the Atlantic - Greece went under and was dragged to the surface for some Germanic mouth-to-mouth. Italy and Spain are on tenterhooks and it's problematic that the powerhouses are going to be much able to help. America won't.

The squabble that started when Obama foolishly tried to get the Republican 'rump' on-side at the beginning of his administration, is growiing into the kind of a tumor that should remind any political victor of the ancient tradition of 'cleaning house' when taking office. Leaving the lie-abouts from a previous administrtation thinking that they might be able to swing some weight, let alone have nothing to fear from a change,  is like ignoring a field of IEDs and a very naive way to do politics. And so the Republicans saw Obama down to the wire over a debt extension (due another failed 'initiative') and succeeded in removing any potency left in the truncated programs they had 'signed on to'. In keeping on - and extending Bushco's great Asian adventures, instead of calling the troops home, Obama involved himself in having to extend those debt limits where they should never have been. He got democratically 'boned' for his pains.

As an unpleasant segue to all this, the recent news that Standard and Poor had turned traitor and 'stabbed the nation in the back' by reducing it's credit rating to AA from the traditional AAA added another 'toofay salute' to an already odious stinkeroo. The move served to drop the value of stocks about 23 percent in one day and, theoretically, add another 100 billion the US will have to borrow to pay the interest on the money it already owes. Having to increase the debt to service the debt has never been a sign of economic health.  Maybe it's time that more financial institutions, who don't buy most of the government bonds anyway, start telling the emperor his Ass is bare.

While everybody's worrying about another kick in the retirement savings, to-day another little reminder that some are sacrificing all for us to have such freedoms. It seems some Afghan goatherd got lucky with an RPG round and dropped a chopper full of Navy Seals. Thirty  of the finest fighting men that  money can train, members of the 'Offin' Osama Squad' made their last dive into an Afghan mountain last night. Just what were they doing flying around an Afghan mountain in the dark with at least one other such well-sealed helicopter? Is was nice of you to ask. Well acccording to the press they were:

A) doing the job they were so well trained to do
B) Training the Afghans to do that job almost as well
C) In pursuit of a 'high value' target - a taliban bomb maker who had been unreportedly attacking  ISAF convoys  or
D) Going to the rescue of a unit pinned-down by massive enemy fire
E) Doing the job they loved  and
F) Making the folks at home feel safer and prouder.

There's gotta be a country and western song in this. Would to gracious Sullivan was still going, but there is Vegas,  and the late night shows. Why, the filthy Taliban even killed the doggy one of the nice soldiers had with him as they flew to a midnight raid.

The raid? Yeppers, it was another of those 'midnight rides' of which America is so fond. Months of intel work being brought to fruition at 3 am in a stealth strike on those who hate our freedoms. We are told that, after the crash, another chopper landed nearby and its crew, after a brief firefight, killed eight insurgents. They're darned lucky that that army unit 'under siege' didn't call in the standard air strikes, instead of trained seals. They might have wound up dead by the score. Or like the woman and her 8 kids - killed in another 'accident', down south, when somebody airstruck some Taliban hiding among them. But that news doesn't have the same 'weight' and discussibility.


Let's not forget the royal wedding and its 'ennertainment' value. The last Shuttle flight, the on-goings in Libya and Syria and the existential threats emanating from Iran, Korea, China - your choice. This week there's  the famine in Somalia and floods in other places to keep us thinking about doing something about the environment.

And so the round goes on, the world's diversions and distractions, laid out for their Warhol moments for a 'news hungry' public in welter of  sound bites and bafflegab commentary..