sparrow chat

When I was a young boy, many years ago, the lamps in our street were run on gas. I would enjoy staring out the front window of our house at dusk, watching as the old lamplighter arrived on his bicycle at the street lamp outside our front gate.

I don’t know how old he was, but to me he seemed as ancient as the pyramids. He certainly wasn’t paid very much, for his jacket was dirty and torn and his trousers were held up with string.

He always carried a very long pole, with a hook on the end. At each lamp he’d dismount from his bike, lean it against the lamppost, and with the long pole reach up and pull on a hook just under the lamp glass.

A faint orange glow appeared from the mantle. Then, after a minute or two, it would slowly grow brighter until it shone hot with a yellowy-white light. Once he was satisfied the lamp was properly alight, the old man would climb onto his bike once more and cycle off down the street to the next lamppost.

Technology has advanced enormously since those days, of course. No longer are lamplighters employed to keep our streets illuminated at night. But, for many years after the last lamplighter had retired, it remained common practice to use gas lamps in caravans and mobile homes (trailers or recreational vehicles, in America). There was something very soothing about the soft plop of the gas igniting, the warm orange mantle slowly changing color to a brighter yellow, accompanied by the gentle hissing of the gas. Somehow, it created a sense of wellbeing; a feeling of warm security.

Today, the warm, incandescent electric light bulbs we use in our homes are being replaced. No-one with any sense of responsibility could object to the loss of these energy-guzzling items, but we are utterly complacent in our acceptance of the harsh, ice-cold, deathly blue-white replacements that are being forced upon us.

LCDs, LEDs, curly-wurly monstrosities that resemble the guts of long-dead reptiles glowing with malfluorescence – all designed, it appears, with the intention of turning our once warm and welcoming homes into little better than furnished mortuaries.

Isn’t it time we all made a stand for a better light bulb?

We needed new bulbs in the bathroom. The light fitting is a lovely china antique and housed three ‘candelabra-type’, energy-guzzling, bulbs. While in Lowes Hardware Store recently we saw the ‘latest’ candelabra-type low-energy bulbs. They were quite expensive, but would look good in our bathroom light fitting, so we bought three.

They did look great, but when we flipped the lightswitch they just glowed like anemic fireflies.

At first we thought there must be something wrong with them, but as we stared at these three faint stars in our bathroom heavens they very slowly gained in brightness. Within three minutes the smallest room in our house was ablaze with light.

Unfortunately, unless I’m showering, I rarely spend more than three minutes in the bathroom, and I’d like to see where I’m aiming during that time. The Philips 6TY6s had to go.

But where could they be utilized? No amount of brain-racking could produce a suitable venue for these disparate illuminants…

…unless…a brainwave! We can use them in the bedroom of the trailer, perhaps accompanied by a recorded ‘hiss’ for effect? It may just help to recapture that old gas-light nostalgia of bygone days…

Maybe technology hasn’t advanced so far, after all?

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Recently I wrote of the media indignation when images came to light of US marines urinating on Taliban corpses. US television news channels were aghast at the very idea that this nation’s ‘heroes’ could be capable of such behavior.

Back in 2005, when the horrors of the massacre in the Iraqi town of Haditha finally surfaced, and after official US army sources had tried to save face by blatantly lying, the media appeared less keen to broadcast their disgust and indignation.

The army’s initial report stated:

“A US marine and 15 civilians were killed yesterday from the blast of a roadside bomb in Haditha. Immediately following the bombing, gunmen attacked the convoy with small arms fire. Iraqi army soldiers and marines returned fire, killing eight insurgents and wounding another.”

But then a video was discovered that revealed the truth about Haditha.

It showed:

…the bodies of women and children, still in their nightclothes, apparently shot in their own homes; interior walls and ceilings peppered with bullet holes; bloodstains on the floor…

…Twelve-year-old Safa Younis appears on video saying she was in one of three houses where troops came in and indiscriminately killed family members.

“They knocked at our front door and my father went to open it. They shot him dead from behind the door and then they shot him again,” she says in the video.
“Then one American soldier came in and shot at us all. I pretended to be dead and he didn’t notice me.”

There were eight bodies in the house, including Safa’s five siblings, aged between two and 14.

In another house seven people including a child and his 70-year-old grandfather were killed. Four brothers aged 41 to 24 died in a third house. Eyewitnesses said they were forced into a wardrobe and shot.

In the street, US troops gunned down four students and a taxi driver they had stopped at a roadblock set up after the bombing.
According to a witness, they were shot by the side of the road, as they stood with their hands on their heads…”^[1]

This is Staff Sergeant Frank Wuterich.

He led the marines that day in Haditha. There was no commissioned officer present.

Wuterich and others were charged with murder. But that was years ago. One by one the charges against the other six soldiers were quietly dropped or dismissed. One was acquitted.

Today, Wuterich walked away free after pleading guilty to, not murder, but ‘dereliction of duty’ in a plea deal.

The outcome of this case has caused uproar in Iraq.

Survivor Awis Fahmi Hussein, who had been shot in the back, said: “I was expecting that the American judiciary would sentence this person to life in prison and that he would appear and confess in front of the whole world that he committed this crime, so that America could show itself as democratic and fair.”^[2]

Was Awis Fahmi Hussein right to have faith in American justice?

You decide.

^{[1] “What happened at Haditha?” BBC, March 10th 2008}

^{[2] “US marine in Haditha case ‘should serve no time’” BBC, January 24th 2012}

^{And further reading on this incident with links to press reports of the time:}

^{“Just Obeying The Rules” Sparrow Chat, October 5th 2007}

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You’d not know it from watching the US media, but there’s a presidential election later this year.

Excuse the sarcasm. The US media is, of course, obsessed by the process. It has been for the last six months. To watch any of the news channels one could be forgiven for assuming US politics has only one party.

It’s the Republican primaries – a series of mini-elections to decide who’ll go against Barack Obama in the ‘big one’ next November. Frankly, Obama must be sleeping well at night despite a dismal presidential record during his first term.

Not to put too fine a point on it, all the Republican candidates stink. There’s isn’t one of them fit to govern Robinson Crusoe’s island, let alone the United States of America.

Some of the craziest have fallen at the first fence: the mad woman from Minnesota, Michelle Bachmann, who would turn this country into a Christian Theocracy, failed to achieve support from Republican voters.

Rick Perry succeeded George W Bush as governor of Texas and now hundreds of schools in that state are patrolled by armed police officers.

According to a report in ‘The Guardian” recently:

Each day, hundreds of schoolchildren appear before courts in Texas charged with offences such as swearing, misbehaving on the school bus or getting in to a punch-up in the playground. Children have been arrested for possessing cigarettes, wearing “inappropriate” clothes and being late for school.

In 2010, the police gave close to 300,000 “Class C misdemeanour” tickets to children as young as six in Texas for offences in and out of school, which result in fines, community service and even prison time. What was once handled with a telling-off by the teacher or a call to parents can now result in arrest and a record that may cost a young person a place in college or a job years later.^[1]

Thankfully, Perry has now joined Bachmann in the loser’s enclosure.

Those remaining are a sorry bunch, by any standard short of a gathering of rat-arsed skunks each competing to emit the worst odor. There’s not one redeeming feature between them. The front-runner, Romney, grew stinkingly wealthy by buying up ailing companies and throwing people out of work; Gingrich, who’s chasing Romney’s tail, was forced to resign as House Speaker by his Republican colleagues after eighty-four ethics charges were filed against him. Gingrich later referred to his fellow Republicans as ‘cannibals’.

Third place is presently held by Rick Santorum, another Christian Dominionist, whose best claim to fame was taking his stillborn baby home from hospital so he and his wife could spend the night cuddling the corpse in their bed. It takes a special kind of sickness…

Given the opposition, one can only hope Ron Paul will somehow win the day and become the Republican’s nominee for president, for no other reason than it would set the whole Republican machine into self-destruct. An outspoken Libertarian, much of Paul’s doctrine is in direct conflict with true Republican ideals.

Of course, Americans aren’t so stupid as to vote Paul into the White House, but the resultant furor would at least add some entertainment to what is otherwise likely to prove the greatest media bore of 2012.

^{[1] “The US schools with their own police” Guardian, January 9th 2012}

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The horror and indignation spouted by media, politicians, and those who consider themselves of higher-than-average moral caliber, at the sight of US soldiers urinating on their dead Taliban enemies^[1], is yet another smokescreen cast to hide the real truth of life and death on the battleground.

Politicians and others, who require we lesser mortals carry out their dirty work, have long perpetuated the myths of honor on the battlefield, respect for one’s enemies, and the jolly old ‘derring-do’ so prevalent in 20th century boys’ comics.

The reason is all too obvious. War has to be marketed as glamorous and glorious or no-one would do it. No soldier joins up because he wants to be killed, or even accepts he will be – until, of course, he’s suddenly thrown into a war-zone and the realization dawns that it may become a distinct possibility.

Over the last decade, the internet has revolutionized how the public receives information from a warfront, and the American military has had numerous opportunities to exhibit for us the true horror of war. They’ve succeeded splendidly. The atrocities at Abu Ghraib, Guantanamo Bay, and Falluja, are just a smattering of the many horrific acts they’ve displayed for our attention.

This latest act of inhumanity – urinating on those they’ve killed – seems decidedly trivial when compared to the slaughter of innocents regularly perpetrated on the Afghanistan/Pakistan border by those US officials of much higher authority, who sit comfortably in their air-conditioned offices, sipping pina coladas, while guiding pilotless drones to blow up tiny children, young couples about to marry, or women shopping peaceably at a market. But it’s okay to do that. After all, the innocent victims don’t matter. They’re not Americans, are they?

Let’s not lay all the blame at the door of America, though. It’s unfortunate a century that’ll be remembered for its technological advances in communication occurred just as this nation was reaching its most barbarous. Other nations have had their day, and there has never been any war free of atrocities on either side.

In days gone by, many war crimes passed unnoticed, undocumented, the truth only materializing years later. But those that were publicized never failed to draw forth the self-righteous bluster and hypocrisy of the political elite.

Some may consider it strange that war breeds such inhumanity, expecting the human species capable of rising above base, animalistic, tendencies, and none seem so shocked and outraged as those responsible for perpetuating wars.

Perhaps, instead of focusing our distaste on the soldiers who urinated on their dead enemies, we might do better to turn our disgust towards those in power, they who so quickly utilize the media to publicly display their mock outrage, for it is they, indeed, who are the true perpetrators of all war’s inhumanities.

^{[1] US Marines identify Afghanistan ‘urination’ troops” BBC, January 13th 2012}

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The US ‘War on Christmas’ is rumbling on for yet another year. As in bygone Christmases it’s fueled largely by the media, as though they haven’t enough bad news to bring us in this so-called ‘festive season’, without resorting to the defamation of a great human festival.

Perhaps if everyone accepted that Christmas, despite its name, is not a uniquely religious festival, there’d be less enthusiasm for ditching it in favor of ‘Happy Holidays’.

Ugh! Happy Holidays. How dreadfully ‘American’.

Christmas (December 25th) was a date purloined by early Christians to celebrate the unknown birthdate of Jesus. Prior to that it was a pagan festival.

As a consequence, in nations with large Christian populations, the date has gradually become regarded as an entirely Christian festival. That’s fine, but it’s still perfectly in order for non-Christians, pagans, and atheists to celebrate Christmas in their own way, and for their own reasons.

For the writer, Christmas is the most special time of year. It has nothing whatever to do with a divinity I choose not to believe in. The magic of Christmas stems from childhood, when Christmas ‘Peace and Goodwill’ abounded throughout the world. Even in the Great War, we were told, Christmas Day was respected as a truce, and enemies put up their weapons and played football together.^[1] Whether more than a grain of truth existed within that story is debatable, but it gave hope that what might be achieved on one day of the year could eventually become the norm on the other three hundred and sixty-four.

It has yet to happen, of course. Indeed, we seem to have moved rapidly in the opposite direction. Materialism abounds, ‘Love thy neighbor’ relates only to wife swapping with the couple next door, and in America, at least, there’ll be more shops open on Christmas Day than are closed.

This year will celebrate my sixty-fifth Christmas. I haven’t enjoyed them all equally, but they have all been special to me. No matter where I am, or who I am with, the magic of Christmas refuses to go away. Why? Because the true meaning of Christmas can’t be found at the office party or in the shopping mall. It’s carried in the heart. I discovered many years ago that magic doesn’t emanate from a god, or from a wizard. It comes from within.

We manufacture our own magic. The magic of Christmas is no exception. If we have it in our hearts, then it matters not whether we are Christian, Muslim, Jew, or atheist. The magic of Christmas can be just as wonderful for all.

I hope all Sparrow Chat readers will enjoy that magic this Christmas.

A Very Magical Christmas To You.

^{[1] “The Christmas Truce” FirstWorldWar.com}

Filed under: Merry Christmas

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Pay a visit to the ’100-Acre Wood House’ and savor some more titbits of rural life on Michigan’s Upper Peninsula. It’s only a ‘click’ away.

Winter comes early on the Upper Peninsula of Michigan. This year, ‘early’ meant November 9th! The snow started on Wednesday morning and continued all day. In the space of three hours nature transformed the landscape…

Read more…

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