Post Brexit: next stop, sporting freedom.

The onward rush to quiet conservative fascism continues a pace, with the footballing authorities of England and Scotland choosing to give the player black armbands with red poppies to wear at the international due to be played in 11/11. The media debate has focused on the political nature of the icon, or rather denying that such would be true.
The use of the red poppy is far from universal. What is a trend to be recognised is that cultures feeling their way to the right of the political spectrum frequently fall back onto images taken from “nature” to imbibe their project with the authority of the transcendent. If you must call upon a sign to do your dirty work for you, it should be godlike, otherwise someone will find room to quibble. Better to declare the rightness of your argument, with talk of truth and something natural, far above the political maelstrom.
Hopefully, we will get kicked out of FIFA, and the project of kicking the UK back to the 1930s will be one step nearer completion.

Climate change: A guide for the perplexed

this needs to be posted as far and wide as possible.
read and regurgitate,
ruse

what parker says

"There's a parallel in visual art, going right back to the Dadaist Marcel Duchamp and the 20s," says Parker. "You know, 'It's art because I'm an artist and I say it is'. That's all it takes, somebody to say 'this is what I consider to be music'."

We cannot escape from ourselves

It clung to me
for some time, monstrous,
half conviction and half hope
as to its body with an iridescent tail of dreams
and with a changeable head like a plastic mask.
It was only later that I perceived
that in common with the rest of men
nothing could deliver me
from my fatal consistency.
We cannot escape
from ourselves.

How to Eat A cure for Nerves?

Any discourse is valuable which incites a man having a marked tendency
to depressing, morbid ideas, to rid himself of them. Dr. Hinkle helps
the sufferer to gain that confidence and cheer which result from
knowledge of certain immunity from dreaded ills and positive assurance
of recovery by mere regulation of food or employment along the lines of
simple, everyday living.

But that alone is not sufficient. It is made quite clear that no one
thing by itself will insure a cure of "nerves." The cure must come
through common sense exerted along several related avenues of endeavor.
No matter how steadfastly one may adhere to directions as to abstaining
from harmful food and injurious methods of partaking of those foods
which are beneficial, if he spends the larger portion of his time idly
rocking in a convenient arm chair, exerting neither body nor mind nor
will, that which might be gained by proper nutrition is largely
nullified by lack of physical exercise and mental activity.

Johnson, not Boris

: "I admit that the spirits are raised by drinking, as by the common participation of any pleasure: cock-fighting, or bear-baiting, will raise the spirits of a company, as drinking does, though surely they will not improve conversation. I also admit, that there are some sluggish men who are improved by drinking; as there are fruits which are not good till they are rotten. There are such men, but they are medlars. I indeed allow that there have been a very few men of talents who were improved by drinking; but I maintain that I am right as to the effects of drinking in general: and let it be considered, that there is no position, however false in its universality, which is not true of some particular man.' Sir William Forbes said, 'Might not a man warmed with wine be like a bottle of beer, which is made brisker by being set before the fire?'--'Nay, (said Johnson, laughing,) I cannot answer that: that is too much for me.'"

The Consolations of Spinsterhood

: "[Sidenote: A Sheeted Spectre] Does she dare to forget and be happy? The other woman looks down upon her like a sheeted spectre conveying a solemn warning. 'You may die,' those pictured lips seem to say, 'and some other will take your place, as you have taken mine.' When the tactlessness, bad temper, or general mulishness of man wrings unwilling tears from her eyes, there is no sympathy to be gained from that impalpable presence. 'You should not have married him,' the picture seems to say, or; 'He treated me the same way, and I died.' She is not to be blamed if she fancies that her husband also feels the presence of the other. As she pours his coffee in the morning and he looks upon her with the fond glance which men bestow upon women about to give them food, she may easily imagine that he sees the other in her place. Even the clasp of her hand or the touch of her lips may bring a longing for that other, hidden in the far-off grave. Broadly speaking, widowers make better husbands than widows do wives. The presence of the dead wife may be a taunting memory, but seldom more. It is not often that she is spoken of, unless it is to praise her cooking. If she made incomparable biscuits and her coffee was fit to be the nectar of the gods, there are apt to be frequent and tactless comparisons, until painful experience teaches the sinner that this will not do."