Winds of Change.
Strong wind destroy our home
Many dead, tonight it could be you
Strong wind, strong wind
Many dead, tonight it could be you
Ah, if only! But, but! Hope springs eternal.
https://www.urdupoint.com/en/world/croatia-to-withdraw-its-forces-from-nato-in-e-1455572.html
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-60099924
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2022/jan/26/nato-allies-policy-russia-ukraine-analysis
Take Two. And here be another, slightly less gloomy version. You may vote if you have nothing better to do.
The Navigators. aka A Shot in the Dark. You know what it’s like. You’re plodding along the selva oscura that your life has become, the via diritta having been blurred out of the picture some time back. But you don’t mind. You’re still able to hack a trail through it and deal with the ambushes and the attacks by the marauders and strike the odd alliance with the occasional fellow traveller, few and far between though they may be. So all in all the journey, if not exactly tickety-boo, is at least bearable. And suddenly you find yourself in a pitch-black spot. No prelude. No warning. You know that it’s not a black hole because you still have your integrity (both physical and metaphysical), but you simply can’t see shit-on-a-stick ahead of you. Dearie me! What a bummer. Well let’s hope that it’s only a temporary aberration, a passing stupid state state or a random psychic storm soon to subside. Quite often these things sort themselves out, especially with a little help from friends, allies and the odd accomplice. Have a resplendent weekend. May the light of luminous dissent shine upon you and yours.
Leeee & Leeloo. (For domestic consumption and selected friends only). Here be Leelee and Leeloo, the dancing Voodoo Poppets. They bring you the Sacred Crikkitt Bat for to smite the miasmas of End Days Crapitalism and clobber in the bud any attempts by the Forces of Pap to discourage you from your task of rebelling. And resisting and biting and generally making a nuisance of yourself. Enjoy!
Ranting Bear. In these dreams, I would always be in what I can only describe as a multi-level bazaar, a marketplace without borders that was filled with what seemed an infinite number of crumbling structures of all shapes, many of them with odd, unnamable objects arranged behind warped windowpanes.”contorted blobs and twisted figurines contrived and aligned to forbidding effect. And everywhere there were carts with grotesque merchandise dangling from canopies with a leathery appearance, a dried and cracked material that I knew to be human flesh. Both above and below me were dark expanses of jagged stairways and corridors, fragile walkways between tilting towers, and undulating ramps that spiraled down into shadowy depths and upwards into shadowy heights.
Thomas Ligotti. The Spectral Link
Bearing Gifts. As usual, I prefer to start a new year on a nice Sweetness & Light note. That leaves me with 360-odd days for the rants and the cursing. (In fact, there is one of those in the oven as we speak -so to speak). In any case, especially in these crappy end-days, love is always something to be pushed and promoted and spread and, if at all possible, practiced. Not easy, I know; almost everything else tends to make it challenging. The trends are towards hate and division, and quarrelling and emphasizing the differences. The Masters of the Universe become increasingly repulsive and their doctrines progressively more unacceptable. Let us combat them best we can. Have a good year. May a thousand little fishes fall in love with you.
