Monday, 29 March 2021

Pistis reclaims the news BC (Before Covid) (weekending March 27th 2021)

 

‽istis reclaims the news from before… (weekending March 27th 2021)

This week ‽istis wonders what on earth was being reported in previous this weekendings… and ponders some internet search results across the past few years:

‽ Democrats Pivot Hard to Health Care After Trump Moves to Strike Down Affordable Care Act (2019) [i]

‽ Learning languages: Why bilingual kids are smarter (2018)[ii]

‽ Russian opposition leader Alexei Navalny jailed after protests (2017)[iii]

‽ Descendants of the Sun: the Korean military romance sweeping Asia (2016)[iv]

‽ Vladimir Putin’s formative German years (2015)[v]

          ‽ Councils in England are using public health budgets to fund other services (2014)[vi]

          ‽ The astonishing speed of Chinese censorship (2013)[vii]

          ‽ Egypt elections: On a mission to rebuild Egypt (2012)[viii]

          ‽ New protests flare in Syria towns (2011)[ix]

          ‽ Israeli tanks ‘advance into Gaza’ (2010)[x]

          ‽ UN urges Sudanese rethink on aid (2009)[xi]  

          ‽ Colombia blames rebels for raids (2008)[xii]

          ‽ UN eyes Kosovo independence (2007)[xiii]

          ‽ …and back and back and back…

But, perhaps giving greater food for thought, ‽istis is led to ponder:

·        what is reported

·        processes of iteration

·        what is recorded

·        what is filtered, edited in or edited out

·        what is presented

·        whether there can ever be ‘the news’ or always just ‘some news’

·        the power of search engines and the power of those who own and manage the search engines (see Maplandia cited here, for example and the BBC news archives that are linked)

·        accessibility, paywalls, cookies, advertising and subscriptions

·        the potential limits of digital storage and future readership

·        what becomes tomorrows' fish and chip wrappings and what sticks in any collective consciousness

·        what might be missed now and under-reported or unreported 'DC' (During Covid)

·        what ‘lessons of history’ might be learned lest we are doomed to repeat them - and whose histories are perhaps never written and never learned from

·        whether there is anything new under the sun

…and how much a sense of ‘it was as it was’ then, might explain a sense of ‘it is what it is’ now and a sense as to whether - just perhaps, possibly, maybe – things could be different?

© Pistis                                                                                                                        

NB: further reflections and comments linked to this week’s theme and past blog
entries to be found on Twitter: replies, retweets (which don’t necessarily indicate approval, sometimes the very opposite!) and ‘likes’: @Pistis_wonders  



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Saturday, 20 March 2021

Pistis reclaims carrots (weekending March 20th 2021)

 

‽istis reclaims (and defends) carrots (weekending March 20th 2021)

In a week when perhaps the headline takeaway from the extensive UK’s Integrated Review of Security, Defence, Development and foreign Policy[i] was that the UK would apparently be lifting the cap on its nuclear arsenal by 40 per cent, increasing to 260 warheads,[ii] ‽istis takes a first short, shallow dive into the acrimony/acronymy of defence: from MAD to NPT to TPNW; from 1ACC to ZZ (in the extraordinary 2014, 402 page document: Ministry of Defence acronyms and abbreviations[iii]) and ponders carrots and sticks – yet feels constantly at sea… 

Perhaps the title of the UK’s March 2021 Integrated Defence Review document might provide a clue to two constructs that possibly drive the narrative, that finds the money, that supports the research, that builds the production facilities, that even may (fossil)fuel the prospect of potential mutually assured destruction – sooner or later – from many threats including terrorism, nuclear explosion, mutating viruses, a collapsing complex life-sustaining eco-system: ‘Global Britain in a Competitive Age…’[iv]: nation states[v] and competition…?

So ‽istis wonders what and how and wherein lies security?

And for perhaps, possibly, maybe a ridiculously naïve moment ‽istis tries to imagine what other ‘extraordinary things’ could be achieved to keep us all safe:

‽ by those billions and billions of pounds (some perhaps even effectively trackable and traceable in their public good/private profit spending model)

‽ those thousands of ‘remarkable people’ developing ‘exceptional technologies, facilities and projects’[vi]

‽ if possibly the allocation of 2.2% of GDP[vii] - and - under 0.7% of GDP[viii] were swapped

‽ if we perhaps pursued co-operation more than competition, globalism more than nationalism

…if maybe, together, we really sought to grow and prepare and cook and share the carrots more than upgrading and hiding a larger number of threatening sticks‽   

© Pistis                                                                                                                        

NB: further reflections and comments linked to this week’s theme and past blog
entries to be found on Twitter: replies, retweets (which don’t necessarily indicate approval, sometimes the very opposite!) and ‘likes’: @Pistis_wonders  


[v] An anthem-soothed, flag-bedecked acceptable face – un-naturally constructed or imposed - of sectarianism and tribalism?

[vi] From the website of the AWE (UK’s ‘Atomic Weapons Establishment’) which with BAE Systems, Rolls Royce and Babcock is a key player in ‘designing, building, maintaining and operating’ the UK’ independent nuclear deterrent.

[vii] Ibid: ‘We will increase our defence budget by over £24 billion over the next four years and remain the largest European spender on defence in NATO, with our expenditure now standing at 2.2% of GDP.’

[viii] https://commonslibrary.parliament.uk/spending-review-reducing-the-aid-commitment/


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Friday, 12 March 2021

Pistis reclaims questions (weekending 13th March 2021)

 

‽istis reclaims questions (weekending March 13th 2021)

This week, ‽istis (perhaps in a self-deconstructing gesture, divesting the ! from the ‽)  reclaims the power of asking questions and wonders whether the question mark is perhaps, possibly, maybe the most powerful of all symbols…?

‽ questions that perhaps challenge: can a family be racist?, can a criticiser take criticism? what does it take to go from cock of the walk to feather duster? is freedom of speech a hill that one would be prepared to die on?

‽ questions that are possibly the biggest: what is reality?, what is life?, do we have free will?, is the universe deterministic?, what is consciousness?, will we ever have a theory of everything?, what happens after you die?, what comes after homo sapiens?[i], what is a ‘good life’?, am I responsible and do I have agency?

‽ questions that maybe test the omnipotence of a parent: where does the wind come from?, where is it low tide so that it can be high tide here?, why should anyone be frightened by a hat? (with thanks to Antoine de Saint-Exupery ‘The Little Prince’, Ch.1)

‽ questions that perhaps open up definitional debates about naming and identity: is is, is?[ii], what is gender?, is science a social construct?[iii], is ‘history’ fixed?, who am I?, is there more that unites us than divides us?

‽ questions that possibly condemn or exonerate: where were you on the evening of…?. do you find the defendant guilty or not guilty?

‽ questions (possibly Socratic[iv]) that may inspire exploration: why did that apple fall?, are we alone?, can you tell if I am a robot?, what are the similarities in the differences and the differences in the similarities?, are there any non-white swans?, could there be the remains of an infinite number of monkeys buried somewhere near Stratford-upon-Avon?[v] - or questions that may give cause to pause: just because we could, does it mean we should?

‽ questions that are perhaps, possibly rooted in confusion but that just may get to the heart of essential things at the end of a long life: where am I?, what am I meant to be doing?, am I dead yet?

And so ‽istis wonders what are the questions in search of answers that come to mind for you…?

On and on we might ask - and sometimes even think that we have an answer, well at least until that answer is questioned!?

 © Pistis                                                                                                                        

NB: further reflections and comments linked to this week’s theme and past blog
entries to be found on Twitter: replies, retweets (which don’t necessarily indicate approval, sometimes the very opposite!) and ‘likes’: @Pistis_wonders  


[ii] Well it might if might be might…? Discuss… ad infinitum?

[iii] With thanks to Richard Dawkins and respondents (5.59 March 6th 2021 and on, Twitter)

[v] With thanks to Émile Borel’s 1913 essay ‘Mécanique Statistique et Irréversibilité’ and with grateful reference to Douglas Adams ‘The Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy’ https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Infinite_monkey_theorem_in_popular_culture


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Saturday, 6 March 2021

Pistis (re)claims world-enabling (weekending March 6th 2021)


 ‽istis (re)claims world-enabling (weekending March 6th 2021)

This week, ‽istis - with a great sense of gratitude, privilege and some embarrassment - joins the ranks of the ‘doubly-dosed’…  two jabs of BNT162B2, a shot in the arm, a shot across the bows of COVID-19.

‽ gratitude for the amazing work of human hand and brain: researchers, developers, testers, regulators, deliverers, financiers – a mighty inter-disciplinary, inter-connected web leading to this point…  quite literally, the point of  needle entering an arm.

 ‽ privilege – of being in a particular place and in a particular job to be eligible, to fit the criteria for access and enhanced protection and an apparent reduction in the risk that I might endanger others.

‽ embarrassment:

·        at that same eligibility criteria that brings the needle to my arm rather than the arm of someone else

·        at the language of ‘world-beating’, of competition and possibly hubristic pride seemingly being harnessed for promotion of country or government

·        at talk of stocks that seem to outstrip population – perhaps at others’ expense, the risk of ‘vaccine nationalism’

·        at the possibility that those who have more will continue to have more – those who are more usually immune in the world through its ideologies, distribution of power and resources, its social and political and economic institutions, organisation and arrangements, in its dominant ‘stories’ of who and how we are and histories of how we have come to be - will find a way to restore their more usual immunity, first…

So, as the administering nurse and I reflected this week, this moment (and again, here is a vital point – approaching a receptive and welcoming arm) perhaps shows that if we will, we can; that the money can be found and that it is possibly always a matter of priority; that we have the natural resources and the human resources of brain and body, of scientific and regulatory and manufacturing and distributive processes…  

And then, maybe, what other diseases and afflictions could be tackled – for all individuals in mind and body; for all groups and all communities in the delicately balanced, precious sacredly-webbed interconnected environment we all share - with pride and gratitude.  

 © Pistis                                                                                                                       

NB: further reflections and comments linked to this week’s theme and past blog
entries to be found on Twitter: replies, retweets (which don’t necessarily indicate approval, sometimes the very opposite!) and ‘likes’: @Pistis_wonders  

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