Car alarms are mostly of a kind, emitting shrill noise. But why not have them use voice? And why not allow the car-owner to choose from a variety of voice alarms, find one perhaps more suited to their own personality?
Don’t forget, you saw this idea and this selection here first!
SIX CATEGORIES, VARIOUS MODELS
Insistent (2 models)
(in English public school accent – not recommended for certain areas of Ireland, Scotland, Wales or inner-city England) You are crowding me. Please desist. In other words, stop!
B. (gradually increasing in volume)
This is not your car. You are not an authorised driver. You are performing an illegal act. There are serious consequences. You must stop now.
This is not your car. You are not an authorised driver. You are performing an illegal act. There are serious consequences. You must stop now.
This is not your car. You are not an authorised driver. You are performing an illegal act. There are serious consequences. You must stop now. (etc.)
Threateningselection (6 models)
A. (in northern USA accent) Step away from the car. STEP AWAY FROM THE CAR. DO IT NOW!
B. SMILE. THANK YOU. YOUR PHOTO IS ON ITS WAY TO THE POLICE.
C. God does not like you standing too near me or trying my door handle. He sees everything you do.
D. Stand back. You are about to receive a mega electric shock. Charging …
E. SCRATCH MY CAR AND PREPARE TO DIE. (available in a selection of accents, from Russian mafia to LA Gangsta).
F. That spike you have just received from my door handle has taken a sample of your DNA and carries a powerful sleep drug. You have seconds before you collapse. Find somewhere safe to lie down.
Sinister (1 model)
Yes, come in, come in! Welcome! Welcome! I’ve been waiting for someone like you. Just like you. Never mind the bloodstains. Just an accident. Or two. Come in, come in! (Available in a variety of voices, creaky, sibilant, etc.)
Persuasiveselection (2 models)
A. You’d steal a Metro? Seriously?
B. Yes, yes, listen to my voice. Breathe deeply. Lisssten to my voice. You feel com-fort-ably warrrrm and relaxed. Tot-all-y rel-axed. You don’t want to steal a car any more. Certainly not this one. You want to find a cafe and sit in it. Tot-all-y rel-axed. You will leave now.
Attention-attracting with Embarrassment Deterrence selection (5 models)
A. HELP! I AM BEING BROKEN INTO! HELP!
B. BARRRP! (Yes, a loud fart-noise. With sewer smell). BRAAPP! BARRRP!
C. I HAVE DISCHARGED A BAG OF URINE ON YOUR LEG. IT CARRIES A PERMANENT PURPLE DYE TOO.
D. EVERYBODY! THE PERSON STANDING BY THIS CAR IS A CHILD MOLESTER AND TORTURES PUPPIES AND KITTENS!
E. Ooh! Ah, stop. That tickles. No. Ahahahaha! No, please! No! AHAHAHAHAHA! Oh gosh, stop, please stop. Ahahahahaha!
Other
Think about what you’re doing. Do you really want to steal this car? Think about the conseq …
For quite some time now certain people have been protesting inside shops and other spaces, along with marching up and down streets insisting on their right to enter places and to travel without wearing a mask or without displaying proof that they have been vaccinated. Those anti-maskers have been quite proud of what they see as their stand for personal freedom and against authoritarian rules. I on the other hand think they have been very tame and don’t go nearly far enough. So I’ve listed some other rules and regulations they should be rebelling against.
ADDITIONAL UTHORITARIAN RULES AND REGULATIONS TO REBEL AGAINST
Driving
Being obliged to have a driving licence
Being obliged to have motor insurance
Having to drive on one side of the road
Having to obey traffic lights and signs
Being obliged to have working lights on one’s vehicle and using them in dark conditions
Domestic(ated) animals
Having to clean up your dog’s excreta in a public place
Not importing pets without their vaccinations
Not importing wild animals without a licence
Not being allowed to keep animals in whatever condition one feels like
Children
Having to send children to school
Not being permitted to have children working full time
Not being permitted to serve underage children alcohol
Not being permitted to sell underage children tobacco and cigarettes
Having to take action in cases of bullying
Not being permitted to beat children in school
General social
Having to wear clothing covering sexual parts in public
Not being allowed to excrete in the street
Not being permitted to smoke in some areas
Not being permitted to drop trash wherever and whenever one feels like it
Being forbidden from playing loud music, operating power tools or creating noise in general in communities between certain hours
Being forbidden from emitting large amounts of smoke or other noxious gasses in a community
Not being able to say whatever one likes about anyone else without being subject to libel or slander laws (or a smack in the mouth)
Having to adhere to fire prevention and control regulations in communal or community living
Having to adhere to published standards in construction
Food hygiene
Not serving food past its advertised sell-by date
Food-preparation staff being required to be qualified in the practice
Food-serving premises being obliged to store food according to regulations
Food preparation and processing having to adhere to published standards
Being required to advertise the contents of products
Being required to advertise a safe “sell by” date on food products
Working Health & Safety
Workplaces having to adhere to Health & Safety regulations
Being required to wear safety helmet on construction sites
Being required to wear goggles or industrial spectacles and/or ear protectors for certain operations
Being required to clip on a safety line on boats in rough conditions
Being required to wear a flotation jacket on board boats
Not being permitted to smoke in some areas
Having to adhere to fire prevention and control regulations
Environmental
Having to avoid or control pollution from any procedures
Not being allowed to dump whatever material one wants to wherever one feels like it
Not being allowed to light open fires in certain areas at certain times of the year
Not being permitted to trim hedgerows during the bird nesting period
Being restricted in hunting or fishing during certain periods of the year
Hospital
Having to adhere to anti-contamination procedures in ICU and generally in hospital
Paris: Ah, si. Hello? Buena tarde, your Holiness. Thank you for ….
Now former Archbishop of Paris Aupetit
Vatican: Bona sera, your Eminence. Or bonne après-midi, if you prefer. His Holiness regrets he cannot come to the telephone at this moment. He asked me to attend to you personally.
Paris: Oh. I see. The thing is …. I need to speak to His Holiness privately. The matter is …. personal … and private.
Vatican: I am aware of your situation, your Eminence. It is hardly private anymore, is it?
(strangled sound).
Vatican: Are you alright, your Eminence?
Paris: (Sigh) Yes. Please excuse me. It’s true, the matter is all over the French media.
Vatican: And no doubt on its way around the world by now.
Paris: Oui, je suis desolé. So ashamed.
Vatican: You wished to discuss the matter with his Holiness? He has been made aware of it even before he received your letter, offering your resignation. His Holiness has empowered me to respond to you – in confidence, of course.
Paris: Yes, I was wondering ….. whether a confession … public apology …. without needing to resign …
Vatican: I don’t think that would work, your Eminence.
Paris: Why not? Isn’t our faith centred on forgiveness?
Vatican: Well, forgive me, your Eminence but in your decades of service to the Church ..
Paris: Yes, decades! And this is in the past – nine years ago!
Vatican: As I was saying, your Eminence, in your decades of service to the Church …. how many public transgressions of a moral nature have you forgiven?
Paris: Is not the flesh weak? Am I to be punished for experiencing love? Is our faith not about love?
Vatican: Please, your eminence. We have all taken a vow of chastity, of celibacy. We can leave the Church anytime we wish if we feel that is too much. And besides, a great many of your priests have hardly been restraining themselves …..
Paris: My sin was not like theirs, this was a woman, adult and willing and not in an institution!
Vatican: Quite. But for all those clerics and religious orders to have got away with it for so long? Over 200,000 victims of 3,000 priests over the last 70 years in France, according to an investigation. They must have had some help at the top, don’t you think, your Eminence? I am sure the French public at least will be asking themselves that question. And last year His Holiness accepted the resignation of a French Cardinal! No, no, your Eminence. His Holiness accepts your resignation. And wishes you well, of course.
Paris: I …. all because I fell in love, like a human being.
Vatican: No, pardon me, your Eminence. Because you got caught.
(Click! – but somehow the connection remains unbroken. The ex-Archbishop hears, in Italian which he knows reasonably well: “Well, Aupetit’s appetite …..”
and several sniggers. Then the line finally does go dead.)
Javier Ortega Smith, No.2 in the leadership of the fascist Spanish party Vox recently attacked the Basque language, he did more than reveal the hatred of the core of Spanish unionism for the diversity of national cultures currently in existence within the Spanish state – he revealed his abysmal depth of ignorance about how languages, including his own are formed. And got lambasted and ridiculed in comment even in some conservative media as also social media, especially in tweets.
“Vox in the Battle for Spain” (uncertain whether this meme is intended in irony or not). (image source: social media)
Javier Ortega Smith, No.2 in the leadership of Vox, speaking at a party rally. (Photo source: Internet)
Vox was on an expedition into what is for them electorally virgin territory in the run up to the elections in the Basque Country Autonomous Region this weekend, where they have no elected representation at all. Far from what might have been expected, their presence and speeches seemed calculated to arouse hostility and expose their few supporters there to embarrassment.
Gaining the prize for generating hostility was Javier Ortega Smith, No.2 of the Vox party, speaking in Vitoria/ Gastheiz in Alava, one of the three provinces of the “Basque Autonomous Region”. Calling the second party in electoral strength in the region “terrorists” would cause little surprise, since EH Bildu is descended from Herri Batasuna, which was once associated with the armed group ETA and considered by some to be terrorists (by others, freedom fighters). But to say of the party of main electoral strength, the Basque Nationalist Party, that they are only “four cats”, equivalent in English to “three men and a dog”, this in a region where Vox has failed to get even one delegate elected …. well!
But Ortega Smith really put his hoof in it when he blundered into linguistics. “Asturian (language) is invented and Euskera (Basque language) also,” he declared, going on to declare that Batua, the standarised form of the Basque language, was formed “from dialects” of communities “who would not even have understood one another.”
Asturias, to the north-west of the Spanish state, with a population of around 1.02 million, is in some cultural expressions a Celtic nation but their language is of the Romance group, like Castillian (Spanish), with contributions from the Iberian-Celtic of the Astures tribe and later Germanic languages of the conquering Visi-Goths and Suevi. Euskera, the Basque language, is of uncertain origin but certainly ancient and currently spoken over the seven provinces of the Basque nation, three under French and four under Spanish control (total population a little over 2.17 million). All languages in the Spanish Kingdom other than Castillian have come under suppression at one time or another and most widely and rigorously under the four decades of the Franco dictatorship, a period nostalgically recalled by fascists and by even many conservatives in the Spanish state. What language has rights where and at what level is a battleground of struggle with the central State and a preoccupation for Spanish unionists.
Anyone who understands even the basics of how languages and their vocabularies are formed and developed would not have dared make such a statement as did Ortega Smith.
One would not even need to know that English, belonging to the Germanic group and currently a dominant world language, has a vocabulary which is 60% from French, with heavy sprinklings of words of Greek and Latin origin. Latin, which was a ‘world language’ before English, French or Spanish, started life as a Romance language in small province of Italy called Latium. Latin influenced heavily the development of Castilian, which includes many words of Arabic origin as well as from other languages and yes, even from Euskera! Nearly all European languages are thought to have developed from an Asian ancestor something like Sanskrit, so that they are grouped together as ‘Indo-European’. And what language was spoken in Europe before the advent of those Asian-influenced tongues? None other than Euskera, probably the original language of the early early Neolithic settlers!
Still, who needs knowledge when prejudice is king!
Some of the social media comments are sarcastically amusing, reproduced here in translation:
“Asturian is invented and Euskera also. Unlike Spanish which already existed in the time of the dinosaurs” or
“unlike Spanish, which came out of the Big Bang” or
“unlike all the other languages, that only use words growing on trees” or
“Unlike Castillian (Spanish) which arrived in Noah’s Ark with all the words”.
“Do you know how to say Ortega Smith in the Valencian tongue? ‘IGNORANT’”
“Well now, Ortega Smith, the vocabulary of all the languages of the world are invented, like your patriotism.”
“Ortega Smith is sure that the Basque Language has been taken from The Lord of the Rings.”
The Vox party was formed in 2013 from an extremely right-wing political core that has contributed in turn to the creation of the Partido Popular, from former supporters of Franco and Ciudadanos before going on to the creation of Vox. It has campaigned for the abolition of the statutes of autonomy for regions, for the right of parents to withdraw their children from liberal sex and gender education, spoken against a focus on male violence against women. The party climbed in popularity in recent years, in particular in the more economically depressed regions and now has 52 deputies in the Spanish Parliament and four MEPs.
Spokeswoman of Vox party Macarena Olona, who also spoke in the Basque Country. (Photo source: Internet)
Still intent on their version of making friends and influencing people, on Wednesday in Oñati in Gipuzkoa province, where Vox carried out a ceremony to honour the militarised Spanish police force, the Guardia Civil, spokeswoman for the fascist party Macarena Olona screamed at protesters that “Oñate is in Spain, you crockful of ETA!Oñate is in Spain!” In this township of 11,000 people Vox received, in the last general election, a total of 21 votes.
Basque opposition to Vox back in June in Donosti/ San Sebastian when the party representatives left under police escort. (Photo source: Internet)
Basque riot police confronting Basque crowd hostile to Vox. Later the police charged the crowd. (Photo source: Internet)
Throughout their visits to the Basque Country, Vox representatives were surrounded by Basque police and left quickly after their rallies.
We wish to draw your attention to what we perceive as a serious bias in your series The Natural World, a bias which is as unjust as it is unproffessional and, indeed, unscientific.
In your otherwise excellent film documentary series The Natural World you depict the wonders of our world and the many levels of interaction and responses to different environments within it, of plant and animal, of eater and eaten, prey and predator.
However, when any of us appear upon the scene, your narrative voice drops in volume as if to indicate the arrival of something sinister, the evil presence in this otherwise natural world. We are neither sinister nor evil, Mr. Attenborough – we are an integral part of this natural world, the same as all the rest.
You seem to delight to show footage of us pursuing the young calves and fawns of grazers, thereby seeking the sympathy of your human audiences for their plight and, in turn, hostility towards us. No doubt the omnivores among your human audience are able to disassociate themselves mentally from the relative immaturity states of lamb, veal, piglet, pullet, egg and sprat in their diet. But much more to the point – do we not have young too? And how do you – or your sympathetic audiences – imagine that our young get fed? Or what do you or they imagine stands between our cubs and dying of starvation?
We note also that it is not all higher predators that you depict in this way – not of course humans but not the great cats either. We laugh when we see you depict the lion, “the king of the jungle” as some kind of majestic monarch. Those of us in the African veldt know well that most of what he eats is what our brethren have chased and brought down before he has bullied us off what is ours. And the rest of his food is killed only by the females in his group. Among us, on the contrary, males and females all take part in the planning, the chase and the kill.
As a naturalist you know that all predators play a part in the balance of nature and generally cull the weak and unwary, strengthening the overall health of the prey species. As a naturalist, we would not expect you to have this bias against us and can only wonder whether perhaps as a child you had an unpleasant experience with a domesticated canid. If so we hope that you can put it behind you.
We trust you will consider what we have to say and hope that you will change your depiction of us in any future series.
Sincerely,
Wolves, Dingoes, Wild Dogs, Jackals and Hyenas
on behalf of Canids of the Wild (CaW)
A Grey Wolf adult ‘cuddles’ a pup (Source: Internet).
Three Dingo pups — one of them camera shy. (Source photo: Internet)
“Parents have to work hard to feed a big family. We hope you’ll think about that, Mr. Attenborough. Goodbye for now ….. C’mon, kids.” (Photo source: Internet)
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I write to say how much I admired your attempt to have the Royal Irish Constabulary and the Dublin Metropolitan Police honoured in Ireland. It was never going to be easy to propose such a ceremony in a country that was occupied by les Anglais for nearly eight centuries and a part of which it is still occupying. But you did not flinch! It took real courage and I empathise with you on its failure (temporary, I hope).
Royal Irish Constabulary assisting landlord in relocation of a tenant in Co. Clare. (Photo sourcede: Internet)
Perhaps it was a little too soon. But as you know, I’m sure, once the unthinkable has been proposed, it is no longer unthinkable; then some day ….
It must be particularly galling for you to see the response of the “swinish multitude”, as your own orator Edmund Burke would have had it, result in the pushing into No.1 slot in the ITunes charts of that odious song of Dominic Behan’s, performed by that rabble-rousing folk group, the Wolfe Tones. To see that disgusting song enter the current Irish charts at No.33 –- and from there reach the No.1 played in the British and Irish charts! But go straight to No.1 in Scotland! Not to mention doing well in the USA and in Canada …..
How hurtful also to see the proliferation of mocking cartoons, videos and memes (all over social media, it seems). And coming up to the anniversary of the introduction of that great band of public servants, too: the RIC Special Reserve and the Auxiliaries.
But as I said earlier, it took courage to attempt what you did – something lacking in your silent partners in government, Fianna Fáil, who remained silent until they could see how the public wind would blow. Someone could get hurt in the rush to disassociate! It is the fate of courageous individuals such as yourself, if I may borrow a phrase from a popular science fiction series, “to boldly go where no-one has gone before.” Even if it looks like no-one follows.
Crowd gathering around gallant RIC Inspector felled by a hurley stick in Dublin 1917. (Photo sourcede: Internet)
Would that we had men of your calibre here in France! The legitimacy of the Vichy Government (1940-1945) was denied by ‘Free France‘ during WWII and by all subsequent French governments after that. They maintained that the Vichy government was an illegal one run by traitors – hard to believe, I know but look it up on Wikipedia! A group of us have been trying to get German soldiers and the Vichy police honoured for some time now but can we find even one politician of any stature who would risk his reputation in the attempt? No, we seem to have no Monsieur Flanagans here in France, c’est dommage!
We have a network of people with similar interests in a number of other countries, including Russia, Poland, Vietnam and Algeria – you may smile when you see the network’s acronym: RIC! Of course the letters stand for other words in our case: Rehabilitation of Invader Collaborators. Whether it was the Russians or Poles who aided the German invaders, or the Algerians who aided our French occupation or the Vietnamese who aided the US invaders, they all have something in common: they did a difficult job, hated by most of their compatriots.
Bandying around words like “concentration camps”, “torture”, “massacres”, “rape” and “executions” does not conceal the truth that ultimately these men (and women, it must be said) were obeying orders. Some of those words I hear have been bandied around about the RIC and DMP too, including those of “spies”, “informers”, “shoneens” and “Castle Catholics”. One must admit that the Irish have a capacity for les bon mots, however one might disdain what they mean – while not mincing words they certainly know how to weave them, if you’ll pardon the mixed metaphors.
Perhaps some day when you can be spared from your Ministerial duties (or when you have retired, far away be the day!), you could come and address the annual general meeting of our RIC – it would be a great honour for us.
DMP teaching people respect for the law, Dublin 31 August 1913. Note some agitators are continuing to cause trouble even lying down. (Photo sourced: Internet)
When, some day in the future, the Irish public recognises how deserving the RIC and DMP are of State honouring, the logical consequence will be of course to honour the Black and Tans and the Auxilliaries, who were sent specifically by Churchill to work in support of – and closely with – those two bodies of fine men. And once that has been accepted it should not be difficult to have the successors of the RIC in Northern Ireland honoured too: the Royal Ulster Constabulary and the B-Specials. Of course, there will be some die-hards who will mutter “sectarianism”, “brutality” and “Loyalist murder gang collusion” but one can never quite get rid of those bitter people, can one? God knows, the English tried!
Speaking of bitter words, I hear some Irish people are saying that as Minister for Justice, rather than honouring “traitors” and “murderers” (sic) you should be pursuing the English to disclose their secret papers regarding the murder of 33 people in the Dublin and Monaghan Bombing by alleged British agents in 1974. How unkind! Some people just can’t forget and move on, can they? Do they not realise that those bombers, whoever they were, were just obeying orders too?
And even bitterer! Some have been heard to say that if Michael Collins were alive he’d have had you shot, given that he had enough RIC, ‘Tans and Auxiliaries shot himself. One can understand some bitterness but that is really nasty, given that Collins can be said to be one of the founders of your own party. And who can truthfully say what Collins would or would not have done? He certainly surprised a lot of Republicans in 1922 when he borrowed British cannon to open fire on Republican positions in Dublin!
When the day comes in the future for Irish rehabilitation for those noble collaborators of foreign occupation, the Royal Ulster Constabulary and Dublin Metropolitan Police, then hopefully the Blueshirts, that fine body of men, co-founders of your own party Fine Gael, can be rehabilitated too. And who knows, some day even reconstituted and formally brought into government? It is not beyond the bounds of possibility, even though the sympathisers of those kinds of politics are very few at the moment ….
And then there’s the man they called “Lord Haw Haw”, William Joyce, of similar ideology — was he not an Irishman also? Did he not carry out his orders too? Of course, that might not go down too well with les Anglais due to his broadcasts in English from Nazi Germany — even though he was an informer against the IRA for the British during the War of Independence. Or perhaps precisely because of it: the English can never quite forgive one they consider theirs, once he turns against them, can they? One must be careful sometimes – after all, les Anglais still have quite some influence in the world, especially in your own country, n’est ce pas?
We now approach the festival called Christmas. A Christian festival, apparently, celebrating the birth of Christ, the baby Jesus.
Away in a manger
No crib for His bed
The little Lord Jesus
Lay down His sweet head
The stars in the sky
Look down where He lay
The little Lord Jesus
Asleep on the hay
Such a sweet, holy image.
But actually, when we look around us, it seems more like a festival of the pagan gods: Bacchus, the god of alcohol and of Mammon, the god of wealth. Bacchus, because in non-Moslem countries, drinking of alcohol will be for most a big component of the festival. Whiskey, brandy, wine and beer will be bought to stock up the house. Alcohol will be drunk at Christmas parties (including office parties, where for months afterwards some people will regret what they did or said – or even what they didn’t do or say).
Alcohol will be not just drunk but also put into some of the traditional food and even poured over it.
Then Mammon. Well, you can see the retail businesses stocking up for weeks or even months ahead of the festival which, after all, was only supposed to be a one or at most a two-day event. Giving and receiving gifts has now become part of the festival and in most cases, gifts have to be bought. Which is a really big gift to the retail businesses and thence, really a sacrifice to Mammon.
In the Christian gospels of both Matthew and Luke, it is written that one “cannot serve both Mammon and God” — which goes to show how little they understood capitalism, where Mammon IS God. A theologian of the Fourth Century saw Mammon as a personification of Beelzebub, which in his time was another name for Satan or the Devil.
Interestingly, Protestant Christianity, which some credit as having invented capitalism, at the same time regarded Mammon, or said they did, as “one of the Seven Princes of Hell”.
Cartoon depiction of Mammon, God of Wealth (Image sourced: Internet)
Sculpture representation of Bacchus, God of Alcohol, in California winery, USA (Image sourced: Internet)
SANTA
Now, Santa Claus is also a big part of the Christmas festival, especially in western countries, a much more acceptable face than that of greedy Mammon and alcoholic Bacchus, right?
But originally, the Christians saw him a representation of St. Nicholas, 4th Century Bishop of the Greek city of Myra, a location now in Turkey. He was he patron saint of archers, repentant thieves, sailors and prostitutes. The prostitutes probably had to be repentant ones, of course! The sailors, who probably had at least as much recourse to prostitutes as had any other calling, were apparently not required to be repentant – to be in danger on the sea was enough.
But St. Nicholas was also the patron saint of children, pawnbrokers and brewers, so we can see how close he was getting there to the modern spirit of Christmas.
GERMAN TRAPPINGS
Now, the Christmas Tree, der tannenbaum, so much a part of the symbolism of modern western Christmas, came to us from Germany, as did the sled and the reindeer. The reindeer are not autochthonous or endemic in historic times to Germany, so they must have been brought in their myths from Scandinavia from where originally, the Germanic tribes came from. In turn, the Christmas Tree, Yule Log, reindeer and sled were exported from Germany to England in the reign of Queen Victoria, by her consort Prince Albert, who was German. And since the English ruled all of us in Victoria and Albert’s time, the Christmas Tree came to us too, to the cities first and then slowly spreading through the rural areas.
A representation of St. Nicholas (before he got the red suit makeover) looking more like a pagan god of the woods. (Image sourced: Internet)
***
When you think about it, this German-English worship of the tree was a bit ironic, since the English had wiped out most of our forests already and were still cutting down our remaining trees in Queen Victoria’s time.
***
And Victoria, through Albert, gave us the Santa Clause we know and love today. A jolly man, well fed, white beard, twinkly eyes, dressed all in red with white trim ….
IN RED?
Now, wait a minute! It turns out he wasn’t always dressed in red. Originally, he was dressed in a brown, or green cloak. He was, originally among the Germanic people, a god of the forests – hence the evergreen Christmas tree. And like any sensible woodsman, he dressed in appropriate colours, brown or green. Neither Albert nor Victoria ever represented him as dressed in red. So how did it become so that we are incapable of seeing him today in any other colour than red? Well, it turns out that Coca Cola is the responsible party.
Yes, although it was the cartoonist Thomas Nast in 1870s United States who first portrayed Santa in a red suit with a belt but it was Coca Cola, in their advertising campaign of 1931 and onwards who made his clothes red world-wide. Coca Cola is a drink served cold and almost undrinkable when warm and who needs a cold drink in cold weather? I guess Coca Cola needed a warm image to make it still attractive in winter. So therefore the warm, jolly man dressed in red, with a bottle of Coca Cola in his hand.
1931, Santa Clause first appears in red, in Coca Cola advertisement, USA. (Image source: Internet)
Coca Cola brand is worth about $74 billion dollars today, far ahead of any other cold drinks product. Which I guess brings us back to …. yes, Mammon.
You can mix the drink with a number of alcoholic beverages too, so tipping a nod – and a glass – to Bacchus.
Now, the German Santa Claus, this originally woodland god, is also thought to have been something like Thor, a god of fire and lightning. So can it be any coincidence that two of his reindeer are called Donner and Blitzen, i.e “Thunder” and “Lightning”? Of course not!
A starry night over desert hills, like the Nativity scene but without the Guiding Star. (Photo source: Internet)
INVISIBLE
Although we see the image of Santa Claus everywhere and even pretend Santa Clauses all over our city streets, everyone knows that nobody sees the real Santa Claus. Children have to be asleep when he arrives to distribute his presents and somehow adults don’t see him either.
Which I suppose is a good thing …. I mean if you found an intruder in your house at night, not to mention near your children, you’d be liable to whack him with a hurley (that’s an Irish cultural reference) …. or a baseball bat (that’s a U S cultural reference) …. or stab him with a sharp kitchen knife (that’s an international cultural reference).
It was bad enough when somehow that portly – not to say fat – man could somehow come down your chimney and go up again, without waking anyone … but now he can get in your house or flat even when you don’t have a chimney.
Which is at least creepy, if not downright scary.
Let’s lighten the mood and sing together:
You better watch out You better not cry You better not pout I’m telling you why
Santa Claus is comin’ to town
Santa Claus is comin’ to town
He’s making a list
He’s checking it twice
He’s gonna find out
Who’s naughty or nice
Santa Claus is comin’ to town
Santa Claus is comin’ to town
He sees you when you’re sleeping
He knows when you’re awake
He knows if you’ve been bad or good
So be good for goodness sake
Yes, lovely, lovely.
“You better be good, you better be nice, I’m not telling you twice” — Is it just me, or is that not downright threatening? And he knows when we’re sleeping or awake? He has our children under surveillance? In some kind of list?
HO! HO! HO! IN MORALITY PLAYS
Morality Plays were a genre of theatrical performances of the medieval and Tudor eras in which a character was tempted by a personification of Vice. Now Vice (not unlike a lot of police Vice Squads), was often seen as the epitome of evil, corruption and greed – in other words, the Devil. The playwrights tended to portray the Devil as somewhat of a comical character, perhaps to keep their audiences entertained (or to disarm them). So the character who played the Devil would announce his arrival with a stage laugh: “Ho, Ho, Ho!”
You can probably see where I’m going with this.
Nowadays, we tend to see the Devil portrayed in black but in earlier times, he was more often seen as coloured in red. The colour in which Coca Cola just happens to have dressed Santa too.
The German or Nordic Santa was originally a god of fire also, while even the modern Santa drives a magical chariot pulled by horned beasts and he is portrayed all in red. Traditionally, the Devil is seen as residing in Hell, a supposed place of eternal flames below ground. What does Santa Claus give to children who have not been good? A lump of coal! In other words, a mineral from underground that can burn to make fire.
NICHOLAS
Santa Claus is supposed to be modeled on St. Nicholas …. and what is the popular abbreviated version of Nicholas, i.e the nickname? Yes, Nick.
And the common name for the Devil, Mammon, Beelzebub, Satan ….. Old Nick!
The indicator climbed the temperature gauges and the ice caps melted. The seas rose and in many of the more developed societies, the rich and better-off had to relocate from scenic coast sites further inland, having to move again as the seas moved higher still but some, the more cautious and far-seeing among them (not a trait in great supply among their kind), transferred to mountains.
Melting Artic ice threatens the Polar Bear but also raises sea level around the world. (Photo source: Internet)
The prices of property rose and the construction industry had another boom, which was great for those who had directorships or investments in construction companies or materials. Or in banks, which gave out interest loans like they would be out of fashion the following year (which they well might, some said with a laugh – but a hollow one).
Far away from the Artic, a flooded village, probably in the Indian Subcontinent. (Photo source: Internet)
In the less-developed parts of the world, all the fishing communities had to move further inland and fishing was harder, with lines and nets getting entangled or shredded on the branches of trees and shrubs that were now submerged. Besides, the waters were polluted with flooded sewers, drains, latrines, dumps ….. and plastic.
Some of the nuclear power stations had been built near coasts and they were flooded. Some had exploded, causing unimaginable disaster. Well, what used to be unimaginable. Vast areas of sea, including all that lived in them, from algae and plankton to the great whales, suffered radioactive contamination.
Wind and wave turbines were swamped too and wrecked by storms. Oh, the storms! The changing climate brought great heat to formerly temperate and cold climes while those that had been hotter grew sometimes cold, sometimes even hotter. Those changes created cyclones, hurricanes, great storms that destroyed so many constructions of all types.
Overall, the greatest impact of all this on the human population of the planet was a huge loss of generated energy. Oil and gas fields began to run out and remaining extraction installations to cease working as they were wrecked by storms, flooded or destroyed by climate protesters.
Power station polluting the air. But without power ….! (Photo source: Internet)
Electrical energy became scarce. Entertainment companies, which would normally have done well in times of disaster, went bust since fewer people could receive their programs. The Internet was taken over by governments for civil defence. All kinds of sophisticated equipment could no longer work. Radio replaced TV in most homes and mobile phones went out of fashion. Bicycles soon outsold cars.
Human-powered friction generators of many types began to be produced. Batteries of all kinds were in great demand, especially the rechargeable ones. Solar panels reached astronomical prices on the black market, the only place they were available. People were killed over them: sometimes as gangs fought for control over a diminishing supply, sometimes as someone was sold a dud and went looking for the seller for a refund.
Now, a strange thing happened – they began to run out of oil-based material. Hard plastic was still around but leak-proof and waterproof polythene bags were hard to find. So too with oil-based material used in clothing, such as acrylic. Bark could be used for clothing but there weren’t enough trees to keep up with the demand. There was less wool and leather as the sheep and cattle herds diminished. After awhile, that was less of a problem as there were less humans to clothe anyway.
(Photo source: Internet)
Employees of State companies and departments considered essential – by their employers – lived in walled communities protected by watchtowers and armed guards. And the rich lived in there too. Being rich meant a lot less than it did in the good old days but still a lot more than most people had now: meals every day, hot and potable cold water in good supply, good shelter, access to waste disposal, available medical supplies and recreational drugs including alcohol, armed protection and transport for self and small family circle. Security workers of all kinds became highly valued and former gang members formed themselves into security companies. Some police departments became private security firms and so also did some military. Although they didn’t talk about it most of the time, the rich lived in fear that their security compounds, walled villages and high-rise fortresses would be overrun. Or that their security services would stage a takeover, which is why they generally employed two companies at the same time and kept them in competition with one another.
Another fear was that there would be no replenishing of their huge stocks of food and goods when they were all used up, which was going to happen someday. Not enough production was still going on and what there was tended to be exchanged in barter, rather than coin or scrip.
Dainfern, northern suburbs of Johannesburg, South Africa, has a four-metre electrified fence with cameras and vibration sensors protecting more than 1,200 houses. Photograph: Jeffrey Barbee
The poor lived in fear too and not just of starvation or of getting sick without access to medical services but of gangs taking what little they had left or of abductions of self or of family members to supply services of all kinds to gang members. Of wars between gangs. Of being in the wrong gang area when a rival gang staged a takeover.
Huge sections of the human population were wiped out, through loss of essential services, starvation, exposure, dehydration, fire, heat, cold, drowning, epidemics, resource wars with other states or internally. Along with them went pets that did not succeed in becoming feral and cattle, sheep and horses. The pigs went feral pretty successfully, overall as did some chickens. Many, many specialised species or in fragile ecosystems became extinct. Over time, some new species began to evolve.
It is said, though the story might be apocryphal (a word perhaps suitable for an apocalypse), that in one of the compounds of the rich overrun by a gang or insurrectionary group, depending on which version one hears, a former petroleum magnate put on trial was asked why he and his kind had not stopped destroying the climate, even after it became clear to even the most stupid politicians (which can reach a very high level of stupidity) what they were doing to the world.
It is said he related the fable of the frog and the scorpion.
In case you don’t know the story, it goes like this: A scorpion wants to cross a river but knows he can’t swim well enough to do that, so he goes in search of a frog. When he finds him – the frog of course keeping his distance – he asks him to take him on his back across the river. The frog replies that as soon as lets him on his back, the scorpion will sting him and the frog is not ready to die yet.
The scorpion pleads with the frog, who sees that the scorpion really means it. And it would be very handy for a frog to have a dangerous animal like a scorpion in his debt. So he agrees.
The frog hops down to the shallow water and the scorpion gets on the frog’s back. The frog tenses in fear but nothing happens. The frog starts to swim, feeling more and more relaxed. Halfway across the river, the scorpion stings the frog. As the poison courses through his body, the frog speaks to the scorpion: “Why did you do that? Not only did you break your promise and kill me but you will die now too, you will drown.”
“I know,” says the scorpion. “I just couldn’t help it. It’s in my nature.”
It is also said that in another compound overrun by hostile forces, as a couple of drug company executives were being taken out to be shot for crimes against humanity, including climate destruction, one of them turned to the other with a smile.
“Cheer up”, she said, “It was fun while it lasted.”
Introduction: The Spanish State requires the Basque resistance to repent. The State refused Basque independence and suppressed the movement for self-determination and the language, arrested and tortured its activists. In response ETA (Basque Homeland and Freedom) was created and for nearly a decade carried out no armed action until finally it killed an armed policeman when stopped at a checkpoint (the activist was also killed in the incident) and later also the police chief in charge of tortures. Years of struggle and repression added hundreds of Basque prisoners to Spanish (and French) jails, dispersed all over the state.
The Spanish State in more recent years insisted at first that in order for the repression to end, that ETA would have to end its armed activity. ETA did so in 2010 but successively the State insisted on decommissioning of arms, then disbandment of the organisation (which ETA did in 2017 and 2018 respectively), then that its prisoners and Basque leaders apologise for their armed actions. Most of the prisoners still refuse to do that and serve out their sentences or die in jail – but some of the leadership outside have done so, including taking part in commemorations of some of the agents of the Spanish State killed by ETA. Meanwhile, the Spanish State considers it a terrorist-law crime to commemorate the fallen fighters of ETA who died in prison or were gunned down by the forces of the State.
So …. this is on behalf of those who have apologised and those who are planning to.
WE REPENTEVERYTHING, SPANISH STATE!
We repent everything … everything! We beg your forgiveness for all that we have done – we have been like bad children in the face of your goodness. Even worse – much worse!
It’s difficult to know where to start ….
Firstly, we repent having come to this land before you, with our own language that was not even Indo-European. What arrogance! What an insult to your rightful sovereignty! Not even the Moors of Al Andalus, with their lofty science and their pretentious toleration of all religions, had the arrogance to arrive before you. We beg your forgiveness.
We are sorry also for having fought for the independence and rights of the Kingdom of Navarra and for even having supplied some of your early royal families. Again, what arrogance! We beg your forgiveness once more.
We regret not having participated wholeheartedly in your rightful, restrained and proportionate Inquisition. We heartily repent leaving so many witches unburned. Please, please forgive us for that, though in truth it was unpardonable.
And throughout, still speaking that language, probably the oldest in Europe! What shameful arrogance. What lack of gratitude for the Indo-European language you offered us!
We regret – oh, how we regret! — having stood against that wonderful, righteous and Christian leader, Generalisimo Franco. We find it hard to believe now that we had the arrogance to stand with a government elected by the people against the rightful military intervention of the Four Generals and especially his exalted self, General Franco. What could we have been thinking of? How right he was to have his German allies – may they be blessed! — bomb Gernika (sorry, Guernica)!
We apologise for those priests, monks and nuns who did not embrace the Christian Crusade of the Caudillo and the Spanish hierarchy, who persisted in defending the indefensible ideas of nationhood, of giving aid to prisoners and in teaching our accursed language. Of course it was right to shoot some of them – they should all have been shot!
We feel ashamed and deeply repent that even after Franco and his troops showed us the correct way — having had to shoot thousands to do it – that we continued to speak that unChristian language and to teach it in secret in houses, even when you had lawfully forbidden it.
We humbly apologise for the industrial strikes we have carried out in protest against your wise guidance and are very sorry that we forced you to shoot or imprison us.
We can hardly continue, we are so choked with grief and yet must do so; we beg your indulgence, for in some ways, our worst is to come.
On bended knee — no, prostrate on the ground – we beg your forgiveness for having formed the organisation “Land and Freedom”. To have banded together to spread ideas of independence and socialism – independence from you! Atheistic socialism! Your police were quite right to hound us, arrest, torture us and even shoot us. But did we learn? No – instead we took up arms! Against the Power in the land!
For our newspapers that you rightly banned, for our radio stations you rightly shut down; for our activists you rightly forced to confess and jailed, for our other activists who had the temerity to flee so that you had to send assassination squads after them into another state’s administration; for the disgraceful conduct of relatives of people imprisoned who traveled hundreds of kilometres to visit them and had the temerity to campaign for an end to their dispersal; for the prisoners who continued to resist and those who had the arrogance to shame you by ending their own lives; for the refugees whom you had to pursue to Latin America, to Canada and to states of Europe; for continuing to speak that accursed language, for singing it and for even developing an art form of impromptu dialogues in it …..
For all of that, we repent, we apologise, we humbly beg your forgiveness, even though we know we are not worthy of it.
If you allow us, in your benevolence and forbearance, undeserving as we are, although we know we can never achieve it properly and will be but pale imitations, we will try – really, really try – to become like you.
End.
EH Bildu (Abertzale Left party) Mayor of Errentería, Julen Mendoza (nearest to viewer) in commemoration ceremony for four Guardia Civil killed by ETA in the area in 1982 (Source photo: Internet)
CASTELLANO
NOS ARREPENTIMOS DE TODO, ESTADO ESPANOL!
Lo arrepentimos de todo … pero detodo! Pedimos vuestro perdón por todo lo que hemos hecho, hemos sido como niños malos ante su bondad. Aún peor, mucho peor!
Es difícil saber por dónde empezar …
En primer lugar, lamentamos haber llegado a esta tierra antes que ustedes, con nuestro propio lenguaje que ni siquiera era indoeuropeo. Qué arrogancia! Qué insulto a vuestra soberanía legítima! Ni siquiera los moros de Al-Andalus, con su gran ciencia y su pretendida tolerancia a todas las religiones, tuvieron la arrogancia de llegar antes que ustedes. Pedimos perdón.
Arrepentimos también haber luchado por la independencia y los derechos del Reino de Navarra e incluso por haber proporcionado algunas de sus familias reales. Otra vez, qué arrogancia! Pedimos vuestro perdón una vez más.
Lamentamos no haber participado de manera sincera en vuestra Inquisición legítima, moderada y proporcionada. Lamentamos profundamente dejar muchas brujas y herejes sin quemar. Por favor, perdónenos por ello, aunque, en en realidad, es imperdonable.
Y encima, hablando este idioma vasco, probablemente el más antiguo de Europa! Qué vergonzosa arrogancia. Qué falta de gratitud por la lengua indoeuropea que nos ofrecisteis!
Lamentamos – oh, como lo lamentamos! – habernos mantenido en contra de ese maravilloso, justo y cristiano líder, el Generalísimo Franco. Nos resulta difícil creer ahora que teníamos la arrogancia de apoyar a un gobierno elegido por la gente contra la legítima intervención militar de los Cuatro Generales y sobre todo su exaltado persona, el general Franco. En que podíamos haber estado pensando? ¿Que acertado estuvisteis con sus aliados alemanes – ! benditos sean! – en bombardear a Gernika (perdoname, Guernica)!
Nos disculpamos por nuestros sacerdotes, monjes y religiosas que no aceptaron la cruzada cristiana del Caudillo y la jerarquía Española, que persistieron en la defensa de las ideas indefendibles de la nacionalidad, de dar ayuda a los prisioneros y de enseñar nuestro idioma torpe. Por supuesto, era correcto disparar a algunos de ellos: todos debían de haber sido fusilados!
Nos sentimos avergonzados y profundamente arrepentidos de que, incluso después que Franco y sus tropas nos mostraran el camino correcto — habiendo tenido que disparar miles para ello — seguimos hablando de esta lengua no cristiana y la enseñamos en secreto en las casas , incluso cuando había estado ya prohibido legalmente.
Humildemente nos disculpamos por las huelgas industriales que hemos llevado a cabo en protesta contra vuestra sabia dirección y lamentamos mucho haberles obligado a dispararnos o encarcelarnos.
Apenas podemos continuar, estamos tan abrumados por el dolor y, sin embargo, debemos hacerlo; rogamos su indulgencia, porque de alguna manera, nuestro peor final ha llegado.
De rodillas – no! postrado en el suelo! – le pedimos perdón por haber formado la organización “Tierra y Libertad”. Reunirse para difundir ideas de independencia, socialismo –¡independencia de ustedes! ¡Socialismo ateo! Su policía tenía toda la razón para perseguirnos, arrestarnos y torturarnos e incluso dispararnos. Pero, ¿aprendimos? No, en cambio tomamos las armas! ¡Contra el poder de la tierra!
Para nuestros periódicos que con tanta razón prohibisteis, para nuestras estaciones de radio cerrados correctamente, para nuestros activistas a los que con razón obligasteis confesar y encarcelar, para nuestros otros activistas que tuvieron la temeridad de huir, por lo que tuvisteis que enviar escuadrones de asesinatos en la tierra de otro estado, por la vergonzosa conducta de familiares de personas encarceladas que viajaron cientos de kilómetros para visitarlos y tuvieron la temeridad de hacer campaña para poner fin a su dispersión, por los prisioneros que continuaron resistiendo y los que tenían la arrogancia para avergonzarles por poniendo fin a sus propias vidas, a los refugiados que tuvisteis que perseguir en América Latina, a Canadá y a los estados de Europa, por continuar hablando ese lenguaje maldito, por cantarlo e incluso por desarrollar una forma de arte de diálogos improvisados en él. …
Por todo eso, nos arrepentimos, nos disculpamos, pedimos humildemente vuestro perdón, aunque sabemos que no somos dignos de ello.
Si nos permiten, en vuestra benevolencia y paciencia, sin merecer lo que somos, aunque sepamos que nunca podremos lograrlo correctamente y seremos solo imitaciones pálidas, intentaremos, realmente, realmente intentaremos llegar a ser como vosotros.
Basque victim of Spanish police tortue, Joxe Arregi Izagirre, who incredibly survived until brought to hospital but died quickly afterwards, February 1981.
CATALAN
ENS PENEDIM DE TOT, ESTAT ESPANYOL!
Ens penedim de tot … pero de tot! Demanem el vostre perdó per tot el que hem fet, hem estat com a nens dolents davant la vostra bondat. Encara pitjor, molt pitjor!
És difícil saber per on començar …
En primer lloc, lamentem haver-nos arribat a aquesta terra abans que tu, amb el nostre propi llenguatge que ni tan sols era indoeuropeu. Quina arrogància! Quin insult a la vostra sobirania legítima! Ni tan sols els moros d’Al-Andalus, amb la seva gran ciència i la seva pretesa tolerància a totes les religions, van tenir l’arrogància d’arribar abans que vosaltres. Demanem perdó.
Sentim també haver lluitat per la independència i els drets del Regne de Navarra i fins i tot per haver subministrat algunes de les seves famílies reals. Una altra vegada, quina arrogància! Demanem el perdó una vegada més.
Lamentem no haver participat de manera sincera en la vostra Inquisició legítima, moderada i proporcionada. Lamentem profundament deixar que moltes bruixes i heretges sense cremar. Si us plau, perdoneu-nos per això, encara que, en veritat, no era vàlid.
I tot, parlant encara aquest idioma basc, probablement el més antic d’Europa! Quina vergonyosa arrogància. Quina falta de gratitud per la llengua indoeuropea que ens vau oferir!
Lamentem – oh, com ho lamentem! – Davant d’aquest meravellós, just i líder cristià, el Generalíssim Franco. Ens resulta difícil creure ara que teníem l’arrogància d’estar amb un govern elegit per la gent contra la legítima intervenció militar dels Quatre Generals i sobretot el seu exaltat general, el general Franco. En què podíem estar pensant? Quin dret era tenir els seus aliats alemanys, que beneïts siguin! – Bombardejar Gernika (ho sento, Guernica)!
Ens disculpem pels nostres sacerdots, monjos i religioses que no van acceptar la creuada cristiana del Caudillo i la jerarquia Espanyola, que va persistir en la defensa de les idees indefensables de la nacionalitat, de donar ajuda als presoners i d’ensenyar el nostre idioma maldestre. Per descomptat, era correcte disparar alguns d’ells: tots haurien estat disparats!
Juan Mañas Morales, Luis Montero García and Luis Manuel Cobo Mier, uninvolved Basques tortured and killed by Guardia Civil in 1981. Their bodies were then placed in a car, shot at and the car set on fire. (Source images: Internet)
Ens sentim avergonyits i profundament penedits que, fins i tot després que Franco i les seves tropes ens mostressin la manera correcta: havent hagut de disparar milers per fer-ho, continuem parlant d’aquesta llengua cristiana i ensenyem-la en secret a les cases, fins i tot quan tenies ho ha prohibit legalment.
A Mayor of the Abertzale Left attends commemoration of four Guardia Civil killed by ETA in Errentería (an area somtimes nicknamed “the Basque Belfast”, where resistance was strong and many Basques were killed by police, by state-sponsored murder gangs, including kidnappings and rapes): https://www.eldiario.es/norte/navarra/Ongi-Jose-Miguel-Maria-Dolores_0_814718789.html
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