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It’s a regular occurrence that’s become way more regular in recent times. It’s dangerous, not just because of the perpetrators, but also by the reaction of those to whom it occurs.

Earlier this week Russian jets over the Baltic Sea flew close by US warships:

The US military would have been within its rights to shoot down Russian aircraft that flew close to one of its warships in the Baltic Sea, Secretary of State John Kerry says.”^[1]

Really! Has anyone mentioned to the world that Russia and America are at war? Perhaps we missed that news bulletin?

According to the BBC reports of the event, the Russian Sukhoi SU-24 fighters weren’t carrying weaponry. So why the fuss? Could not the crews of the US ships have just given them a friendly wave and carried on with their routine tasks? Both planes and ships were in international waters, so both had a right to be there, though quite why US warships should choose to parade themselves on Russia’s doorstep is open to question.

Righteous indignation flows forth from politicians whenever these events occur, with mild threats of retaliation and much blustering and posturing. Also this week the French and Russians quarreled over a warplane that buzzed an aircraft carrying a Russian politician to a meeting in Geneva. It turned out to be a Swiss aircraft, so the Russians had to apologise for accusing the French of being irresponsible.^[2]

These, oft-occurring, crazy, situations only serve to prove that we’ve never grown up. Adult people, supposedly of sufficient intelligence to run a country, shouldn’t behave in such a way. Squabbles between neighbours should be restricted to the, “you’re playing that music too loud,” or, “your dog keeps crapping on my lawn,” variety.

So why do our politicians continue to indulge in such infantile behaviour? It’s obvious to all thinking people that the way to resolve issues is by friendly consultation and mutually acceptable agreements, taking account of each others needs and fears. The United States, to President Obama’s credit, has proved this with Iran. Why can’t they do the same with Russia?

Ah, I hear you cry, but Russia invaded Ukraine and annexed Crimea! Yes, it did. But only because NATO was threatening it’s doorstep. Besides, the vast majority of Crimeans wanted to be part of Russia. NATO has been creeping ever closer towards the Russian borders since the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991.

We have be adult enough to recognise that we in the West aren’t the ‘good guys’ and Russia the ‘bad guy’. We’re both equally bad and it’s time we both grew up, respected each other’s views and cultures, and became ‘good guys’ together.

If we don’t, one of these days a childish incident such as occurred this week will escalate into something very nasty. And it won’t just be a fist fight over dog shit on our lawn.

^{[1] “Kerry: Shooting down Russia jets ‘would have been justified'”}

^{[2] “France-Russia row over fighter jet ‘near-miss'”}

Do you have a Twitter account? Is Facebook your way of making your mark in the world? Get a life! This writer is happy to state he’s neither a Facebook-er, nor a Tweeter. What’s more, he never will be.

So why, you ask, the antipathy towards these social media sites? Isn’t it good that people can express themselves, reveal their innermost thoughts and prejudices to the world via the internet?

The internet is an incredible tool. These days it’s hard to imagine the world functioning without it. Indeed, economically we’d probably be in a right mess if the WWW was suddenly ‘switched off’. Companies spend trillions each year combating hackers attempting to do exactly that.

Like all amazing inventions it has its drawbacks. Nothing’s perfect. How could it be, we’re human beings, after all. We’re all aware of the dark side to the internet – pornography, crime, predatory sex, etc., but if there’s one thing the internet has achieved it’s to reveal to ourselves what we really are and just how vicious and predatory we can become when others dare to question our views.

Take Andie Pauly, for example. As the BBC reports, she delights in spreading her particular brand of vitriolic poison via her Twitter account. And she’s not alone. It’s impossible to assess how many broken lives, suicides, and heartbreaks have resulted from Twitter and other so-called ‘social media sites’, but there’s surely sufficient to consider them ‘anti-social media sites’, rather than the former.

Her name is Andie Pauly. She’s an illustrated example of America’s deep divisions, and the anger that flares up between left and right.
To her critics, she’s a racist troll who harasses her opponents, and she offers rewards to those who dox – reveal personal information about – her enemies. To her defenders, she’s a proud conservative standing up for free speech, and a victim of online abuse and harassment herself.

She has more than 18,000 followers on Twitter and there’s a constant low-level hum of discussion about her on the network. Tens of thousands of tweets mention her every month.

So what do we know for sure about her – and how did she become such a divisive figure? Pauly tweets as @andieiamwhoiam. She lives in Joliet, a city of 150,000 people in Illinois about an hour’s drive from Chicago, and is married to a Joliet police officer, Michael Pauly. Her Twitter bio describes herself as a: “Happy wife. Homeschool mom. Proud police supporter. Paleoconservative. I block beta males & shrieking Godless harridans as matter of course.” Her positions – as vociferously spelled out on Twitter – are mostly consistent with the culturally conservative American right. She defends gun ownership and the police, and criticises President Obama, abortion and the Black Lives Matter movement. Many of her tweets use blunt or vulgar language.
Among her more extreme messages are ones which call people “ferals” and a series of missives that called for the hanging of the mother of 12-year-old Tamir Rice, who was shot by police in Cleveland while playing with a toy gun….^[1]

Okay, you may think she’s an extremist nutter, just one example from the many that America breeds so prolifically these days, but should these people be allowed to spread such vitriol for all to read?

…there’s an additional dimension to Pauly’s online activities. Her critics say she’s taken her views way too far – that she has crossed the line to harassment…one woman who spoke to BBC Trending claims that she was fired from her job because of Pauly. Tara Dozier, a single mother who lives in Washington state, says she joined Twitter in late 2015. She befriended some Black Lives Matter activists – on the left of the American political spectrum – which led her to Pauly’s tweets, some of which she re-tweeted.
“She believed that meant that I was stalking and harassing her, because I was re-tweeting her, and she blocked me,” Dozier says.
It was an unremarkable internet spat – until people started calling her bosses at a local chocolate company, asking for her to be sacked. Dozier said that at first, the company’s human resources department sided with her, and she deactivated her Twitter account in hopes of ending the online nastiness.
But the calls continued. In November, the company’s Twitter account was bombarded by naked pictures of Dozier, pictures she says she was tricked into sending to another Twitter user. Not long after that, Dozier was sacked from her job. The company declined to comment about the incident, saying that their policy is not to discuss current or former employees. Although there’s no evidence that Pauly was behind the phone calls to her workplace, Dozier believes that she may have encouraged the campaign, and points to tweets where Pauly offers rewards in the form of Starbucks gift cards to people who post information about her enemies online…

This story continues and can be viewed in full at the link bottom of this page. There is, however, an ‘Editor’s note’ at the end of the item:

Editor’s Note: After this story was published at least one fake social media account was set up in Olivia’s name. The fake account looks almost identical to Olivia’s genuine account and has been used to send abusive and misleading tweets to some of the people who have commented on this article on Twitter.”

The internet is a great tool, but then so is a firearm. Both require sane regulation. Sadly, given that the World Wide Web has ruthlessly exposed our inabilities as human beings to behave towards one another in anything resembling a humane manner, one has to doubt if there’s anyone out there – politician or otherwise – capable of doing so.

Please respond to:
@MindYourOwnBusinessAndLetMeDoTheSame

Not that it’ll do you the slightest good.

^{[1] “The woman who shows how toxic America’s culture wars have become” BBC, April 12th 2016}

The battle for the Republican nomination in America grows ever more heated with the unscripted announcement from front runner, Donald Trump, that abortion should be illegal and women who break the law punished severely.^[1]

It’s just the sort of remark that sends establishment Republicans into a spin, and manages to upset even the Pro-Life brigade of anti-abortionists that exist throughout the nation.

The idea of heavily-pregnant, or recently pregnant women, marched off to jail in their hundreds isn’t appealing to the Pro-Life brigade. They prefer the sanitized version: locking up the doctors. Maybe, if they were forced to confront the reality of the whole, unsavoury, situation they might be forced to think again. After all, abortion is illegal in Northern Ireland and women can still end up in prison for life under a law enacted back in 1861.^[2]

The truth, of course, as Britain has discovered, is that while abortion is an emotional issue – often more so for the potential mothers, than the tiresome religious minority who incessantly shout about it – it’s way more humane to keep it within a legal framework with guidelines for doctors, rather than revert to the horrifying, illegal, backstreet abortion system that prevailed into the 1950’s.

The anti-abortion brigade in America might do well to check out history elsewhere than their own country, before next taking to the streets with their placards.

Meanwhile, across the pond from Donald Trump’s America, a war is waging on that tiny, overcrowded, island known as Britain. It’s a war of words that could, according to both sides in the argument, have disastrous consequences if the ‘other side’ wins.

The one word that signifies this volatile division is “Brexit”.

This single, emotive, bastardization of the language is an abbreviation of “Britain’s exit”, coined by the gutter press and now acceptable to all, including the BBC and numerous politicians. It resulted from an election pledge by the now UK Prime Minister, David Cameron, to the effect that if he were elected he’d hold a referendum and let the Great British Public decide whether to remain in the European Community, or leave it.

Like most political pledges, this one was made without thought of the long-term consequences. It’s motive at the time was the procurement of additional votes to win a general election. Rash statements made during political campaigns can usually be expected to evaporate into the mists of time, but this one has refused to do so and is now firmly nipping at Mister Cameron’s bottom.

Cameron, himself, is a staunch ‘stay in the Union’ man. Unfortunately for him many of his political colleagues are not. He has more support from the opposing parties than from his own Tory cabinet, which is not really surprising, given that an “out” vote would certainly mean the demise of Mister Cameron and his replacement as Prime Minister by one of his fellow Tories.

The realization of this has seen an almost wholesale shift of power-hungry wannabes from the “IN” to the “OUT” brigade, notably those with the best chance of winning a party election to the leadership, or a plum seat in the Parliamentary Cabinet should their chum make it to the top spot.

Sympathy for David Cameron is hard to conjure. Not only did he fail to foresee the possible dire consequences to his own position of such rash promises, but he made the unforgivable error of placing the future of the country in the hands of its people.

Democracy is a wonderful thing when it comes to choosing a leader, but the Great British Public have repeatedly displayed a distinct lack of expertise even in matters of somewhat less importance: choosing the right song to win the Eurovision Song Contest, or voting the right person out of the Big Brother house – about which they are reputed to know a great deal. On the finer points of Britain’s future within Europe, or indeed outside it, the GBP are decidedly lacking. Sadly, as in all matters of major importance (football, the quality of beer in the local, etc.) they are convinced they do. One has only to stand at the bar of any pub in the UK, after nine o’clock, for this observation to be confirmed.

David Cameron’s action in handing the reins of Britain’s future over to the masses is akin to Elizabeth I demanding a peasant vote on whether England should attack the Spanish Armada, or Henry V seeking sanction from the ignorant and unwashed before engaging the French at Agincourt.

The future of Britain will be decided in June. To leave the European Union would prove disastrous, both for the UK and the rest of Europe. The world is becoming more dis-united. The most powerful nation, America, is in the throes of a political civil war; North Korea’s nuclear ambitions are proceeding apace; the Middle East has suffered total fragmentation, and the UK hasn’t won the Eurovision Song Contest since 1997.

Do they really believe they’ll ever win it again if they vote to leave?

^{[1] “Donald Trump’s abortion remarks have caused the biggest crisis of his campaign” The Guardian, March 31st 2016}

^{[2] “Abortion law madness: What’s really going on Northern Ireland?” The Telegraph, February 15th 2016}