After some beautiful sunny and mild days, almost a week of it, the cold and predominantly grey skies are back. But there's no denying that a shy spring is here.
This is today's view on my walk along the river. I can see potential.
As I walked, I noticed a man with two lurchers. He was wearing an impressive outfit of waxed hunting jacket and one of these Aussie slough hats, and he was deep into making a show of his dog training methods, lots of clicking and sharp words and obedience. He also did this smack in the middle of the cycle path necessitating cyclists to stop or moving onto the grass to avoid hitting him or the dogs. It was quite the spectacle. When I got closer, I realised that this was the local representative of the far right nazi party. Some time back last year during one of the election campaigns I had made the mistake of attempting a debate on something or other at his party's road side stall and it culminated in him blocking my way - getting far too close - and shouting in my face, sue me, sue me, if you dare, you stupid cow. Then he was still sporting that silly upper lip moustache, which - for reasons - has now disappeared.
Anyway, in the recent general election, his despicable party got exactly 7.9% of the vote in this city. So I decided it was not worth my while to observe more of his dramatics and just there and then, the beautiful music algorithm of my smartphone started to play a piece of Bach and I turned back to the river as a barge with a name tag Inspiration floated by, and I felt a wave of relief that my country has also been home to this gifted composer and that his work endures and continues to bring such joy on a foggy day.
He called a possible voter a stupid cow? Not too bright, is he?
ReplyDeleteThank you for the Bach.
Our "conversation" had made it clear that I was not a possible voter, so he used the opportunity to show off in front of his (small) fan base, a couple of cheering bully boys.
DeleteI do like Bach. His music is really the only classical music I can identify, my parents were not classical music lovers.
ReplyDeleteThe nazi party got 7.9% of the vote? That's a lot less than they did in America:) trump got almost 50% of the popular vote. Boggles the mind.
Your walk looks lovely, except for the asshole obviously. I had a friend in England who had lurchers. They are such lovely, scruffy dogs.
This party got 20% overall across the country in the recent national election, in some districts in the east, even close to 40 and 50%, but in my city, as in many others, only i9n the single digits.
DeletePoignant, yet optimistically lovely, turning to the river as Bach chimes in- save your heart! Needing more Bach at the moment, thank you so much!
ReplyDeleteMusic endures. Joy endures. Watching the river flow.
ReplyDeleteAt the final point your turn brought a boat of Inspiration with the phone of Bach...you have chosen well!
ReplyDeleteWhat is is with these fucking white nazis thinking they are entitled to whatever they want, in this case the space other people use for its purpose, cycling, to train his dogs making those using the path to go around him. What an asshole.
ReplyDeleteI love to watch musicians play, their body language that reflects the emotion of the sounds they are producing.
Our VP was roundly booed at the Kennedy Center which Trump has taken over (no DEI) when he and his wife attended a concert of the National Symphony Orchestra. He is such an ass. Talking about how poor people and rich people listen to different music and how moving up from low class to high class (as if he was ever a low class hillbilly) was a shock, said he didn't realize people listened to classical music for pleasure.
That clip from the Kennedy Center made the rounds here on national media, as does other similar stuff, like tesla protests, there is a lot of schadenfreude here.
DeleteCodex: what Ellen said. These people cannot be engaged with. It's pointless. I'm curious what can or will the hoarding of goods accomplish?
ReplyDeleteI think lacking empathy - both the ability to receive and to give - creates a vacuum that some feel must be filled with goods, and when you are filthy rich, nations.
DeleteCodex: I'm not sure I understand the context. I meant I see a lot of people stocking up and don't understand what that will accomplish.
ReplyDeleteAs to lack of empathy; it's also selfishness.
Sorry, misunderstood. People here stock up because they fear attacks, mostly Russian hybrid attacks that could potentially disable electricty, water, food supply - which have happened, will happen again. We have been provided by government agencies with lists of what to have in a household.
DeleteAlso, people of a certain generation, like myself, carry their parents fear of war in their unconscious and my parents would have certainly stocked up on goods in times like now. We have US troops in our country, Russian troops/drones a mere days/hours away and the US admin seemingly gives a shit about NATO.
Codex: Happened recently? I saw no mention of that in the media.
DeleteFYI: We started that in 2009 due to environmental issues. If war breaks out stocking up more than a few months worth is almost impossible, unless you're able to invest quite a bit into backup generators etc. (which aren't allowed in my municipality) impossible. I'm a pragmatist. We practiced and found that we'd last a few weeks since we make most food from scratch and most choices of non perishables were very unhealthy. I will never forgive the people who voted for this.
For 2024, the German federal office of information security lists over 700 cyber security incidents in the area of critical infrastructure, such as IT outages (train services, university clinics, air traffic control, railway networks) hacker attacks, but also drones flying German army bases. This does not include targeted misinformation campaigns, actual spies and several sabotage attacks damaging data cables in the Baltic Sea. Most of these attacks are proven to haven come (and continue to come) from Russia, some are of Chinese origin.
DeleteExamples for the government recommendations for preparedness here:
https://www.bbk.bund.de/EN/Prepare-for-disasters/Personal-Preparedness/Emergency-pack/emergency-pack_node.html
https://www.bbk.bund.de/EN/Prepare-for-disasters/Personal-Preparedness/Stockpiling/stockpiling_node.html
Our house is fossile fuel free. We heat the radiators with wood pellets from local industry waste, have thermo- and photovoltaic incl battery storage, currently we feed any surplus energy into the grid (we get paid for it) but can switch to use our stored electricity. It does not cover all our electricity needs on cloudy days, but almost.
Codex: First paragraph. Getting this info here too. Although hospitals were targeted by criminal groups. the cables were initially blamed on Ukranians along with the pipeline.
ReplyDeleteThe CDC put ot a similar list ( keep in mind that scientists come together to write policy globally). Most of it is natural disasters, not war. Always been that way until now. Yet Artal (sp?) went so wrong in it's response.
Sounds like you live in a very sane city.