Carnival Saturday in Anton. Photo by Eric Jackson.
Come home alive
Carnival is lots of fun, but also entails plenty of risk. Think of yourself, and think of others.
Don’t get so blasted out our your mind on alcohol or some other psychotropic substance that you do something dangerous, like get behind the wheel of a car in that inebriated state. Or make yourself an obvious target for muggers or others who do not wish you well.
If you go out for daytime revelry, remember that with the big crowds all the spaces in the shade may be taken up. Plus, we are getting some record hot days, with high doses of ultraviolet radiation from the sun. You need to wear a hat. Sunscreen might be a good idea. That little folding umbrella that you can stash in your bag is mainly a dry season implement, but in the tropical sun it can be used as a parasol to give you some protection and avoid some painful burns.
So many people are drunk, and a fair percentage of these are not on their best behavior. They might say things that in other circumstances would amount to fighting words, but it’s better to ignore these things as stupid things that drunk people say. Do your utmost to avoid ending your part of the party with a fight.
Are you SO gringocentric in a certain negative sort of way that you think that you need to bring a gun with you to protect yourself at a Carnival site. Stay home.
Let us consider and thank those working, sometimes overtime, to protect us this Carnival season. Thank the cops at the entrances to the Carnival sites, there most of all to keep weapons out. Thank the Transito cops, and wish them no gruesome emergencies to attend this year. Thank the health inspectors, keeping the food sold at the stands safe and the water sprayed from the culecos clean and pure. Thank the SINAPROC lifeguards at the crowded beaches, and along with the bomberos standing by in case of some disaster. Thank the clean-up crews who will be working after everyone else has gone home.
Have a good time. Have a safe time.
An injured youth in Rafah. Photo from the Times of Gaza Twitter / X feed.
Cut off supplies and funds for this horror
The Netanyahu regime told residents of Gaza City that they were about to attack, that they should go to Rafah for safety. Israeli forces mercilessly bombardeg Gaza City, making health care workers and journalists special targets. With that city now in ruins, some of Netanyahu’s ministers have met with real estate speculators to talk about plans for Gaza.
Now the Netanyahu regime attacks their deceptively labeled “safe refuge.”
No doubt the Israeli forces have killed a lot of Hamas fighters among the many times that number Palestinians whose deaths they have caused. But have they really depleted the ranks of their enemies?
How many boys and girls who survived this massacre will grow up to be implacable enemies of Israel, guerrillas so hardened that the iDF will wish that they had Hamas back?
Israel has lost this war. The United States has lost face supporting it. It’s time to cut losses and rejoin humanity by leaving Netanyahu to swim alone, without American money or weapons.
Alice Walker, speaking at TEDxRamallah in 2011. Photo by Lazar Simeonov.
The most common way people give up their power is by thinking they don’t have any.
Alice Walker
Bear in mind…
One is left with the horrible feeling now that war settles nothing; that to win a war is as disastrous as to lose one.
Agatha Christie
My work is foursquare for chaos. I spend my life personally, and my work professionally, keeping the soup boiling. Gadfly is what they call you when you are no longer dangerous; I much prefer troublemaker, malcontent, desperado. I see myself as a combination of Zorro and Jiminy Cricket. My stories go out from here and raise hell. From time to time some denigrater or critic with umbrage will say of my work, ‘He only wrote that to shock.’ I smile and nod. Precisely.
Harlan Ellison
Let no one be willing to speak ill of the absent.
Sextus Propertius
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