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No, I’ve not been away on vacation, though with the atrocious August weather in northern France one is almost envious of those further south sweating profusely under a mammoth heatwave. Neither have I been ill, nor in any way incapacitated sufficient to prevent me bashing the keyboard. Truth is I can find nothing to write about.

Sparrow Chat isn’t just a repetitive tome mirroring the news. I like to think it comments on topics at least a little outside the mainstream media, but of late the whole world seems to be drowning in the two most obnoxious ‘T’s of the century (so far!) – ‘Trump’ and ‘Terror’.

There’s nothing to be written about either that hasn’t already been said a thousand times by every blog, Facebook page, Twitter account, TV news channel or online news rag. It saturates the mediasphere and hammers away at our grey cells every time the internet, TV, or radio is accessed.

In desperation I turn to the BBC’s “Future” magazine page for inspiration, only to find they’re running “Apocalypse Week”, and the lead image is of a huge atomic explosion, under the heading:

“THE MONSTER ATOMIC BOMB THAT WAS TOO BIG TO USE.”

What the f….!

The story concerns a Russian nuclear test in the 1960’s during the Cold War. The BBC has obviously expended too much time and energy on ‘Trump’ and ‘Terror’, to the point of befuddlement. Apparently, they now believe the 1960’s are in the future? Or, maybe they have no BBC “Past” pages and were just a bit short of content for “Apocalypse Week.”.^[1]

One other story from this doom-ridden BBC page concerns the supervolcano under Yellowstone Park, apparently due to explode any day and probably exterminate the human race, slowly, but inexorably. NASA has plans to prevent it by drilling into the magma chamber and pumping in water which, as it comes back out ‘super-heated’ will provide electricity in the surrounding area for thousands of years.

Hell, that’s great economics – if it works. Why is it that the thought of scientists planning to meddle with nature in such a way always sends a shiver down my spine? Probably because of sentences like these:

But drilling into a supervolcano does not come without certain risks. Namely triggering the eruption you’re intending to prevent.^[2]

At this point I gave up reading “Apocalypse Week”. There was another feature entitled, “Why do eclipses cause apocalypse fears?” I have no idea, but a guess would be because the media instills such ridiculous thoughts into people’s heads. Eclipses are a natural phenomena that occur all the time in the universe. Any fears of such an event are entirely irrational. My apocalyptic fears are far more rational: Trump, terrorism, and a world media obsessed with creating mayhem.

Happy to extract myself from the dark chasms of BBC horror I scroll down to the bottom of the page where those ‘Around The BBC’ features are placed. My eyes are drawn to an image of Scaramucci…

…and the caption, “How to keep a job longer than 10 days.”

Now, that might have been worth reading, had I not become convinced by the BBC’s “Apocalypse Week” that the world will probably have come to an explosive end before I could even get to the interview.

^{[1] “Apocalypse Week – a special series about the end of the world” BBC, sometime in the future (or was it ‘the past’?)}

^{[2] “NASA’s Ambitious plan to save Earth from a supervolcano” BBC, 17th August 2017}

Two men sit at a chess board. Player ‘One’ is quiet and scheming; player ‘Two’, brash, given to occasional ill-thought-out moves. He is the more powerful player of the two. He is very competitive. The word ‘lose’ is not in his dictionary.

Player ‘One’ started from a position of weakness. Some pieces were missing from his side of the board. He’s had to play with a handicap, compared to his opponent, and he knows it. But by carefully calculating his moves, rattling player ‘Two’ into making the occasional error, he’s now been able to call “Check!” on his opponent. A quick glance at the board shows that player ‘One’ has left player ‘Two’ little room for manoeuvre. The most player ‘Two’ can hope for is a draw, but that could mean annihilating much of the human race.

Kim Jong-un has Donald Trump by the ‘short ‘n curlies’, figuratively speaking. Trump’s ego needs him to come out on top, but he sees only two ways to possibly achieve that, and both involve military intervention. If he attacks North Korea with conventional weaponry, Kim will almost certainly retaliate with nuclear weapons likely aimed at the United States. That would mean relying on America’s missile defence systems to take down Kim’s warheads before they reach their target. It would only take one to get through for unimagined devastation to occur. America’s MDS has never been tested against an actual nuclear attack. Dare he take that risk?

The second choice for Trump is an all-out nuclear strike to take out Kim’s nuclear arsenal before he has time to fire it. That option truly doesn’t bear thinking about. With thousands of U.S. citizens stationed just across the border in the South, and China only a whisker away, the aftermath of such a strike would be too horrific to contemplate.

Western media is united in condemning North Korea’s nuclear ambitions, but consider for a moment the position of Kim Jong-un and his country. No-one, apart from the regime, would argue that this isn’t a dastardly dictatorship, but there’s little doubt it deservedly feels threatened. With U.S. military bases in South Korea, Japan, the Philippines, and Guam, half the U.S. navy parked in the East China Sea, and a brand new missile defence system partly installed in South Korea, plus decades of U.S. political rhetoric condemning the regime, and George W Bush labeling it part of the “Axis of Evil”, if Kim and his cohorts are feeling decidedly edgy one can hardly blame them.

Is there another option? Yes, there is, but it’s unlikely Donald Trump will consider it.

Basically, Kim wants the U.S. to back off, get out of his front yard, treat North Korea with a little respect (meaning lift all the sanctions) and stop threatening him. Tillerson keeps telling him the U.S. isn’t interested in ousting him from power, but he’s seen what America has done to Iraq and Libya, and would like to do in Syria, so he’s not too keen to believe all that baloney. He knows he stands between America (in the form of ally, South Korea) and China, and the U.S. government would love to be able to position itself militarily right on Xi Jinping’s border (and, incidentally, next door to Russia).

All of which means America is unlikely to back off, and of course it wants regime change in North Korea, just as badly as China wants to preserve it. Any other U.S. president would have been pushing hard for diplomacy to cool the tensions. Trump is no diplomat. He’s allowing Bannon and his military advisers to call the tune.

Donald Trump is just completing his first six months as president of the United States. In that time he’s brought the world to the brink of nuclear war. What will he achieve in the next six months?

It’s your move – Mister President!

One of the more unusual headlines last week was this from the BBC (and many other news outlets):

“Ohio boa constrictor: Firefighters kill snake ‘stuck to woman’s face'”

Firefighters in the US state of Ohio have rescued a woman who telephoned 911 in terror, pleading, “Oh, please! I have a boa constrictor stuck to my face!”
“Ma’am, you have a what?” the operator replied. “You’re outside with a boa constrictor stuck to your face?”
The terrified woman explained that the 5ft 5in (1.6m) snake had wrapped itself around her and bitten her nose.
She said she had “rescued” the snake and another boa on Wednesday.
An ambulance was swiftly dispatched to the woman, who was found lying in her driveway in the town of Sheffield Lake with the snake around her neck.
“It was wrapped around her neck and biting her nose and wouldn’t let go,” fire chief Tim Card said, according to the local Chronicle-Telegram.
“They had to cut its head off with a knife to get it to let go of her face.” ^[1]

It was an early summer morning in the American Midwest and I was returning to my home after my usual exercise walk before going to work. The street where we lived was a quiet cul-de-sac of wooden houses and open plan lawns. Suddenly, I heard the most dreadful screams behind me. They cut through the misty, dawn air with such intensity I turned sharply, desperate to witness what was the cause.

Even before I could complete the act, I was aware of the beat of heavy wings as a red-tailed hawk passed over my right shoulder, not twelve feet off the ground. It was working hard to gain altitude due to the weight of a creature hanging from its talons. This was the animal, an adult chipmunk, that was emitting those piercing, agonized, screams that had so startled me.

I could only stand helplessly and watch, listen, as the bird gained height, but those cries of terror were still clearly audible as the hawk and its victim rapidly disappeared over the distant trees. I carried that sound in my head for the rest of the day.

A few weeks ago I was driving up a narrow, rural, lane in France. A tight bend to the left, then up a sharp rise before another bend, this time to the right, revealed a field with trees bordering it. A momentary tableau caught my eye through the car windscreen. A black kite, talons outstretched, was taking hold of a house marten, one of a small flock out feeding on flies in the evening sunshine.

Just for one split second the sudden appearance of my car caused the raptor to falter. In that moment, the smaller bird desperately trying to seek the safety of the trees, broke away and darted into the waiting branches. This time the hawk was baulked of its prey.

Most of us would admire a raptor as a magnificent creature, yet the truth is it’s a cold-blooded killer that rips its prey apart while still alive. But then, so is a house marten when it comes to flies. We tend to speak of the ‘wonders of nature’ and are fascinated by the natural world, but in reality it’s an arena of violent death and destruction, devoid of compassion, emotion, or pity. To survive, everything has to feed off something else. Even the poor old chipmunk, while happy with a few nuts and plants, won’t turn its nose up at the occasional beetle, frog, or worm. The majority of life on this planet is intent on killing anything and everything around it in order to survive.

There’s a food chain that stretches from the lowliest bacteria to, at its peak, the mightiest killers – sharks, alligators, lions, tigers and bears from which even we, who consider ourselves kings of the earth, are not immune from falling victim. Every living thing on the planet, and possibly throughout the universe, is engaged in an emotionless, competitive, struggle to be the survivor.

Nature is often touted as a beauteous vista of mountain scenery, azure skies, green forests, and blue seas, all filled with wondrous creatures for our delectation. Our eyes deceive us; our senses hypnotise us to the truth. Nature, and in particular, evolution, is no more than one huge killing machine. The world is a vast amphitheatre of gladiatorial combat…

…and the only spoil for the victor is a longer period of survival than its victim .

We like to bestow our own emotions onto the animals we see, or keep. As babies we’re programmed to cuddle and love certain furry creatures. We even take effigies of them to our beds with us. The Disney Corporation made its fortunes from portraying wild animals as little humans in disguise.

There have been numerous cases of animals failing to return our misplaced affections: dogs trusted to play lovingly with very small children, only to attack and sometimes kill them when the parent’s back is turned, cats that smother babies (albeit unwittingly), humans convinced they’ve befriended animals from the wild, only to find one day the friendship’s not returned.

Then, of course, there is the Ohio woman who ‘rescued’ a boa constrictor and took it out onto her driveway to pet it and show it some kindness after its ordeal. It responded by trying to kill her. Its intention was to eat her.

She ‘rescued’ it. Did she really think, perhaps, it would be grateful?

^{[1] “Ohio boa constrictor: Firefighters kill snake ‘stuck to woman’s face'” BBC, July 29th 2017}