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Hang on to yer hats. We’re off to war with North Korea. Kim Jong-un is yet another lunatic leader threatening the peace-loving United States, and likely to invade our dear allies in the South at any moment.

America’s Seventh Cavalry, in line with the best traditions of the ‘Old West’, will come riding out of the sunset to rescue South Korean maidens from a fate worse than death at the hands of those filthy, North Korean, commies.

It’s just a pity Slim Pickens isn’t still around to see it.

While Dr Strangelove was intended to satirize the nuclear arms race, the ideal of the “all-American-hero” is just the sort of crazy propaganda the US government is feeding – via mass media – to audiences daily, most of whom are happy to lap up such drivel while reclining in their armchairs after a hard day in front of the college football game.

Warmongers invariably have two weaknesses: arrogance and amnesia. It’s not the done thing to tell the peasants the truth. It’s not considered cricket, among the ruling classes, to contemplate the “other fellah’s” point of view. After all, it may have the effect of illuminating our government’s ideals in a slightly less than perfect light.

Not that this is in anyway to condone the craziness and brutality of the North Korean regime. It isn’t. But when Kim Jong-un came to power his country was under serious western sanctions. They successfully launched a rocket that placed a satellite into orbit, (joining the 70,000 or so already up there, belonging to other nations). Western governments publicly denounced the action as a cover-up for testing a long range missile and increased the severity of the sanctions.

Perhaps understandably, this peeved the North Koreans who retaliated by setting off a large underground explosion at one of their (possibly) nuclear test sites. Western governments denounced this as unacceptable behavior, proclaimed it an illegal nuclear test, and turned the thumbscrews on North Korea a little tighter.

The truth is that no-one, apart from the North Koreans, knows for sure whether it was a nuclear test or not. No radiation was detected, and according to William J Broad of the New York Times (among numerous others):

…As is usual with tests by the secretive North, it was not even clear if the underground test was nuclear, rather than conventional bomb blasts meant to mimic an underground nuclear test.”^[1]

Western media, and in particular the US corporate-controlled channels, have no doubt whatever it was nuclear and happily inform their viewers to that effect, making no mention of any possibility of doubt.

The next event to further upset the North Koreans was the sudden arrival of US Stealth bombers over their airspace. Now, forgive any apparent cynicism, but were the bully in the other schoolyard…so to speak, it’s not hard to imagine the political consternation if North Korean bombers were suddenly spotted over Florida, or, Hawaii, Paris, or London. Yet it’s perfectly okay, in the eyes of the arrogant, to not only employ Stealth bombers to give North Koreans the jitters, but a whole army, navy, and airforce right in their backyard.

And, they make it a yearly event.

Which all begs the question as to whether provoking a war with North Korea is someone’s idea of a good idea.

US Imperialism didn’t die after the Iraq war, anymore than the PNAC gave up and went home to grow potatoes. Those guys, Rumsfeld, Kristol, Kagan, and their multifarious hangers-on, are still around and active behind the political scenery.

World domination was not the exclusive obsession of Adolf Hitler or Alexander the Great. Neither is it today confined to a game played on computer screens.

In the next twelve months thousands of the US military will be returning home to the United States from Afghanistan. Soldiers are only productive when they’re fighting wars. To have them sitting around in their bases costs the nation, and Halliburton, Lockheed Martin, Northrop, and others, lots of money.

Such companies had a lot riding on George Bush’s venture to dominate the Middle East. For them it was a bonanza, even though it didn’t quite turn out as expected.

Messrs Kagan, Rumsfeld, Kristol, and Co no doubt hoped that by now a large portion of the US military would be camped on Iran’s border, on the verge of vanquishing the Iranian regime once and for all. It’s not going to happen. Which is why President Obama is in no hurry to further assist the Israelis with their Iran nuclear problem.

Perhaps North Korea will prove more obliging than Iraq?

It won’t. They said Iraq would be a pushover. It wasn’t. They said Iraqis would welcome them with open arms. They didn’t. Do they think North Koreans will throw flowers under the feet of a US military invasion? They certainly will not.

That’s the trouble with arrogance. It blinds to the “other fellah’s” point of view. Throughout North Korea, from peasant to president, America is considered “the enemy”. If necessary, they will fight to the last man. Though, they probably won’t have to. Those huge, televised, military parades aren’t populated with cardboard cutouts, and the terrain in North Korea makes Afghanistan look like a walk in Central Park.

The United States lost 40,000 men the last time it took on North Korea. And it didn’t win. But that was sixty years ago. Politicians and empire builders are arrogant, and arrogance spawns amnesia. Especially when it’s convenient to do so.

^{[1] “A Secretive Country Gives Experts Few Clues to Judge Its Nuclear Program” New York Times, February 12th 2013}

This is madness. What the hell are we becoming? In many walks of life, and in all parts of the world, women are frequently treated abominably. The regularity of gang-rape in India, the violence towards women in certain African nations, these and many other instances are abominations every sane, balanced, individual – whether male or female – should abhor.

But this…this is madness:

“…she is brilliant and she is dedicated and she is tough, and she is exactly what you’d want in anybody who is administering the law and making sure that everybody is getting a fair shake”.

“She also happens to be by far the best-looking attorney general in the country… It’s true. Come on. And she is a great friend and has just been a great supporter for many, many years.”

President Barack Obama is not a favorite at Sparrow Chat. He has, in our opinion, failed miserably to lead this nation where it needs to go. He has many faults. Sexism is not one of them.

The remarks quoted above were made at a fundraising meeting. According to the BBC:

Critics have cited the remark as an example of the ongoing hurdles women face in the workplace…writers and bloggers have commented that although the president is a personal friend of Ms Harris and a strong supporter of women’s rights, his remarks were inappropriate.”^[1]

Well, just for the record, here’s one blogger who believes his remarks were not the least bit inappropriate. Have we truly reached the point in our self-civilizing where we can no longer value true beauty – rather than the pimped-up, photo-shopped, caricatures splattered all too readily over the magazine racks in Walmart and similar two-bit stores – whether that beauty be female or male?

Kamala Harris, California’s attorney general, about whom Obama’s remarks were addressed, is a good-looking woman. I doubt many, whether male or female, would argue with that.

The one thing the US president most certainly didn’t imply was that her career success was, in any way, due to it.

Thankfully, there are a few in the media prepared to stand up and state the obvious. Jennifer Rubin of the Washington Post is one:

…he [Obama] has been bludgeoned into apologizing to California state attorney general Kamala Harris for saying, ”She’s brilliant and she’s dedicated, she’s tough… She also happens to be, by far, the best looking attorney general.” Umm, has everyone gone stark raving mad? We are told his remarks to Harris revive talk about the “old boys club.” Really, among whom? Outside thin-skinned columnists and incessantly nasty twerps, who cares?”^[2]

Who cares? Obviously a great many people. It’s just a pity they’ve nothing better to concern themselves about. Only a few weeks ago a young Indian woman suffered a horrendous gang-rape which resulted in her untimely death. While it was widely reported in the US media, the “thin-skinned columnists and incessantly nasty twerps” were far less vociferous about that than this off-handed compliment from the president of the United States to a close friend of his family.

Isn’t it time you grew up, America? Your immaturity has truly become an embarrassment to the rest of the world.

^{[1] “Obama sorry over Kamala Harris ‘good-looking’ comment” BBC, April 5th 2013}

^{[2] “It’s the media that should apologize” Washington Post, April 5th 2013}

Is there anyone else out there having problems with this Pistorius guy? Six weeks ago he shot and killed his girlfriend. Apparently, she was the love of his life. He broke down and wept in court. We were all told he was bereft.

Now, he says he may well compete in Russia, at the World Athletics Championships, in August.^[1]

It would seem the only love of Oscar Pistorius’s life is Oscar Pistorius. While it’s true we have to move on when adversity and tragedy afflict us, to consider such action after only six weeks, and while a murder charge is hanging over one’s head, smacks of cold-blooded, callous, indifference.

Meanwhile, in Cyprus, the banks have decided to open their doors once more after holding onto their customers’ money for almost two weeks. European finance ministers, led by Germany, apparently saw nothing wrong in demanding a substantial percentage of the money in the bank accounts of ordinary Cypriot citizens, as security for a Euro loan to the Cypriot government.^[2]

Let’s not bandy words. It’s stealing. Anyone else taking money from other people’s bank accounts without permission would be sent to jail for a long time. The money doesn’t belong to the Cypriot government. It belongs to ordinary citizens. They’re not responsible for the collapse of the Cypriot economy.

Is this the thin end of the financial wedge? If they get away with it in the tiny island of Cyprus (and it looks like they will), how long before they come for your money, or mine?

But that’s okay because Easter’s here and it’s a time for forgiveness, repentance, and washing other people’s feet. Our new Pope is no exception.

Today, in the best biblical tradition, he visited a prison in Rome where he washed and kissed the feet of twelve prisoners, representing the twelve apostles of Jesus.^[3]

This, again in the best biblical tradition, has caused discord among certain of the Catholic faithful, as four of the feet belonged to women – one of whom was a Serbian Muslim. We know the twelve apostles were all males. And, definitely, Christian.

And, well, yes…of course, it goes without saying, obviously they were all Catholic.

As a footnote (excuse the pun!) his predecessor, Popey Ratzinger, didn’t lower himself to wash the feet of the peasants. He delegated other priests to do it for him.

^{[1] “Oscar Pistorius to consider World Championships” BBC, March 28th 2013}

^{[2] “Cyprus capital controls ‘may last a month'” BBC, March 28th 2013}

^{[3] “Pope Francis washes prisoners’ feet on Maundy Thursday” BBC, March 28th 2013}