I went into a coffee bar and asked for a black coffee.They said I was a racist
They said I was stupid for wanting an irrational number of cakes.
I went to Burnt Oak to register my husband’s death.Then they had the nerve to ask if I wanted him buried or cremated.
I went to the hospital for an X-ray.They said I didn’t look as if I was 18,I should bring my mother.So I said, with or without the coffin
I wanted a Burning Bush at the funeral but God said he don’t come here anymore.
I offered a lamb chop up as a sacrifice.God said, I may be dead but I’ve not shrunk.
I asked for a toasted beef sandwich but they said it takes too long to toast beef.
We went into a car park but it had very few amusements and no grass.No cars either.
We opened the car door with a coat hanger once when we lost the keys.Now with this electronic system, what could we use instead?
I rang my own doorbell last night as I felt so lonesome.Then it fell off the door.So I told myself it was lucky I had come by as I knew how to fix it.It’s just glued on like ethics are on politicians.
I saw a spider in the bath so I told it, it can only have 2 baths a week.
My neighbour gave me a blank look.So I filled it with laughter,

Katherine

ethics, poetry, reflections, Thinkings and poems  December 13, 2019 

Boris Johnson  thrown out by his wife
Now he has a different tole in life
He has a  girlfriend will he have more kids?
Lucian Freud was  surely up for this
They say he might have had perhaps  thirty   two
With all that sperm what is a man to do?
He could take Precautions as they say
I  prefer icecream  but let’s go  stray
Lucian Freud  was not a man to  rule
They say he once burned down his own Art School
He married once, he married twice but no
He would not be captured  in Soho
Beautiful and strange he made his mark
Boris Johnson   has a  nuclear heart
Winter will come down upon us all
Europe we are sad, almost appalled
Sadness for the surgeon who cured me
The cancer  grew  like rampant lush ivy
He is Greek and no-one else was skilled
To leave me looking   better  than God willed
Will he  go back   to where  his grandad  came?
Say a little prayer for my dear face
I don’t want  to suffer but  all will
We’ll die sooner,  sadly Boris kills
The NHS is  going slowly  to its grave
Watched by men who  look  without a face

https://www.nytimes.com/2022/06/28/magazine/secret-wronged-resentment-ethics.html

From… The Cambridge Handbook of irony

The nineteenth-century philosopher Soren Kierkegaard once famously wrote, “no genuinely human life is possible without irony” (Kierkegaard, 1992: 326). Irony may automatically arise in our thoughts and language for many personal and social reasons. As the philosopher Jonathan Lear also observed, irony “opens up opportunities to pierce illusions.”1 One of the main benefits of ironic thinking and expression in both verbal and nonverbal contexts is its capacity to “shake things up,” or to open people to disruption

We are great fools. ‘He has passed over his life in idleness,’ say we: ‘I have done nothing to-day.’ What? Have you not lived? That is not only the fundamental, but the most illustrious of all your occupations. ‘Had I been put to the management of great affairs, I should have made it seen what I could do.’ Have you known how to meditate and manage your life, you have performed the greatest work on all. For a man to show and set out himself, nature has no need of fortune; she equally manifests herself in all stages, and behind a curtain as well as without one. Have you known how to regulate your conduct, you have done a great deal more than he who has composed books. Have you known how to take repose, you have done more than he who has taken cities and empires. Montaign

https://www.themarginalian.org/2024/02/28/the-other-significant-others/?mc_cid=4c7f9cee68&mc_eid=d32e4171d3

https://www.theguardian.com/theguardian/1999/jul/10/weekend7.weekend5

The despised are the black, the mad and the Jew
The  crippled, the blind and the child of such   ones
Worse,  even  more, if you’re female too

When the race started  no whistle blew
The  rich whites were already far,far along
In front of  the black, the mad and the Jew

The rewards are controlled by those of pale hue
When the poor get there the money has gone
Definitely will if you’re female too

Jesus was God but that  was no use
He hung on his Cross and so could not run
With  the black, the mad , the crippled  the Jew

What do we see when we look at the News
Genocide,torture and battles still on
You will be raped if you’re  a female too

Here are the weapons, the rockets that stun
Inventing all these gives the rich men   their fun
The despised are the black, the mad and the Jew
Worse,  even  more, if you’re female too

Like a broken shell, our world  has cracked
Whose the foot  that  heavily did tread?
Now we wander  in  this City sacked

Once worlds break  how can we bring them back?
Must we  mourn  until our hearts are fed?
Like a pretty shell, our world  has cracked

Where once stood towers  the buildings lie down  flat
A jagged silence taunts from overhead
 As we wander  in  this City sacked

What New Messiah can  find  and love the gap?
Who will give the wine and whose the bread?
Like a cockleshell, our world  has cracked

The death of  God in Auschwitz  on the Rack
The torture of  the Arabs, children  bleed
We cry out , the slouching beast is back

Did we ever think of those in need?
The children of the genocide still plead
Like a broken shell, the world   has cracked
Now we stumble,blind to what we lack

Air,bitter they call it,whispers to the sweet planes of my face,
Shrieks shrill to my cavities,ears,mouth and nose;penetrates all that’s open;
Probing like a surgeon’s knife,to see what healing damage it might do.
A frozen finger touches my heart;
Seems like the ice is inside me sending urgent warnings.

The fields in flames, the stubble set alight
The earth herself was burning in our sight
The ancient lands of Essex still grew grain
As hares ran into hedgerows fearing pain

The empty road, the smoke, the land on fire
The ashes left a newer crop would sire
The land to Epping vast and flat was bright
Yet covered in its smoke there was no light

Our little human world is but a skin
Destruction easy with a word or bomb
Dependent on the government, those liars
Weak as watered gruel, they must be fired

Caught inside the symbols of the Earth
From destruction comes a brave new birth

Coniston Owl-Man
Langdale Trick
Coniston Old Pan
Passing Water
Vast Water.
Herd Rot Pass
Amble Sideways.
Glass Mere
Sidle Water
Dare when Water?
Gulls Water.
Bow Less on Windermere.Thank you
Range over Sands
Marrow in Furnace.
Gullivers Stone.
Feet Path
Gentle Home.
Welcome Bay
The Kent Actuary.
Burntside Knot Hair Stylist
Golden Dale
Far Point.
Starry Knight
Date Vale Motel and Best Room for Sin only

People are most susceptible to conspiracy theories when they don’t feel they have any agency or influence over their lives

https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2016/06/theres-no-such-thing-as-free-will/480750/

Note: the author says it’s better for us to believe in free will.

For centuries, philosophers and theologians have almost unanimously held that civilization as we know it depends on a widespread belief in free will—and that losing this belief could be calamitous. Our codes of ethics, for example, assume that we can freely choose between right and wrong. In the Christian tradition, this is known as “moral liberty”—the capacity to discern and pursue the good, instead of merely being compelled by appetites and desires.

https://ndpr.nd.edu/reviews/the-virtue-of-aristotle-s-ethics/

The book is divided into two parts. In the first part, comprising chapters 1-5, Gottlieb presents her own account of how Aristotle’s virtues of character should be understood. She singles out the doctrine of the mean as the key to that understanding. A virtue of character is an action-guiding disposition to hit the mean between two extreme emotions within a certain field. Courage, for instance, is the disposition to hit the mean between cowardice and rashness in the field of danger. The mean is determined not by the extremes alone, but by these in relation to the demands of the particular situation, including facts about the agent herself. She also defends Aristotle against misgivings about the virtues of character …….

I miss you though I’ve never met you yet.

I miss you though we’ve had no tete a tete

I dream of you at night when I’m in bed

I wonder what it is we haven’t said.

imagine I could love you should we meet

I invented you and think you look quite neat.

You must have feelings for what is the good.

Aristotle Plato said we should.

Ethics and the principles of love

Guide us like the stars do from above.

Those who cannot read stars fall to sin.

Sometimes Satan and his forces win.

If I got to see you I would know

The eternal Life is now for those who’re low.

From above I saw the TV set

Our life is just a moment on the net

Katherine ethics, poetry, reflections, Thinkings and poems  December 13, 2019 1 Minute

Boris Johnson  thrown out by his wife
Now he has a different tole in life
He has a  girlfriend will he have more kids?
Lucian Freud was  surely up for this
They say he might have had perhaps  thirty   two
With all that sperm what is a man to do?
He could take Precautions as they say
I  prefer icecream  but let’s go  stray
Lucian Freud  was not a man to  rule
They say he once burned down his own Art School
He married once, he married twice but no
He would not be captured  in Soho
Beautiful and strange he made his mark
Boris Johnson   has a  nuclear heart
Winter will come down upon us all
Europe we are sad, almost appalled
Sadness for the surgeon who cured me
The cancer  grew  like rampant lush ivy
He is Greek and no-one else was skilled
To leave me looking   better  than God willed
Will he  go back   to where  his grandad  came?
Say a little prayer for my dear face
I don’t want  to suffer but  all will
We’ll die sooner,  sadly Boris kills
The NHS is  going slowly  to its grave
Watched by men who  look  without a face

Winter sunshine shows the branches bare

Reveals each shape both elegant and spare

The little birds fly in and out at will

The low sun’s bright, the wind is light as well

What kind of world has human language made?

Evolution does not always pay

For language can speak love but also hate

And brings to some misfortune and black fate

Words can hurt much deeper than a knife

We may be traumatised by our own life

The bitch the witch , the charlatan, the Jew

These categories old, are ever new

Language wrote both Dante and Mein Kampf,

From ecstasy to Concentration Camp

https://www.theguardian.com/society/2021/feb/16/how-to-have-better-arguments-social-media-politics-conflict

When a debate becomes volatile and dysfunctional, it’s often because someone in the conversation feels they are not getting the face they deserve. This helps to explain the pervasiveness of bad temper on social media, which can sometimes feel like a status competition in which the currency is attention. On Twitter, Facebook or Instagram, anyone can get likes, retweets or new followers – in theory. But although there are exceptions, it is actually very hard for people who are not already celebrities to build a following. Gulled by the promise of high status, users then get angry when status is denied. Social media appears to give everyone an equal chance of being heard. In reality, it is geared to reward a tiny minority with massive amounts of attention, while the majority has very little. The system is rigged.

http://jacketmagazine.com/29/north2.html

O

https://victorianweb.org/philosophy/langer1.html

As far as thought is concerned, and at all-levels of thought, it [mental life] is a symbolic process. It is mental not because the symbols are immaterial, for they are often material, perhaps always material, but because they are symbols. . . . The essential act of thought is symbolization. — A. D. Ritchie, The Natural History of the Mind

Symbolization is the essential act of mind

Not higher sensitivity, not longer memory or even quicker association sets man so far above other animals that he can regard them as denizens of a lower world: no, it is the power of using symbols—the power of speech—that makes him lord of the earth. So our interest in the mind has shifted more and more from the acquisition of experience, the domain of sense, to the uses of sense-data, the realm of conception and expression. The importance of symbol-using, once admitted, soon becomes paramount in the study of intelligence. . . . Symbolism is the recognized key to that mental life which is characteristically human and above the level of sheer animality. Symbol and meaning make man’s world, far more than sensation; Miss Helen Keller, bereft of sight and hearing, or even a person like the late Laura Bridgman, with the single sense of touch, is capable of living in a wider and richer World than a dog or an ape with all his senses alert. [33, 35]

Mary goes to the clinic and meets David Cameron

Mary was sitting down feeling quite lonely in the waiting room outside the doctor’s office when she saw Emile hiding under a chair..
What are you doing,she whispered.I’m glad of your company though.
I jumped into your cab, the cheeky cat informed her proudly
I want to be there when he examines you in case he makes vulgar remarks
Don’t worry,she answered,they always have a chaperone nowadays.
Just then a pretty young black nurse took Mary into a room and said to her
Take off your underpants!
I don’t wear underpants,said Mary,but I can go home and get my husband’s if you want me to.
We use underpants as a generic term,the nurse informed her in a kindly yet menacing voice.
Wow,they are so intelligent nowadays,I don’t think I knew what generic meant till recently Mary told herself stupidly
I have no underpants,Emile meowed. crossly
No and I am not making you any.I have quite enough washing to do already.Mary responded like a mother.
It’s not fair, said Emile.All my friends have underpants and T shirts too.
Soon the doctor came in and looked nervously at Mary and then at her female parts.
Mary was used to this but all of a sudden she got a nasty pain
Ow,ow,ow,she shrieked,what is that?
It’s ok,said the nurse,just older ladies are not used to this sort of thing.
I’ll have you know many older ladies are very used to it but not when they are unaroused.Besides men’s organs are kinder than metal or plastic if the lady is willing.Can’t you put more lubricant on the damned thing
The doctor tried to remove the speculum but was clearly somewhat agitated.
Ouch,cried Mary.Ouch.
Thank goodness I didn’t know it would hurt.Do you think we should be shown a romantic mildly arousing film in the waiting room to make it easier?
We can’t do that,said the nurse.We might be accused of running a brothel.Still ,we could use more money in here.
But the doctor is not paying me,said Mary.I am paying him, in a sense,as a taxpayer.And you too,dear.
You are too clever for me,said the nurse sharply as she admired Mary’s tan leather handbag from TKMaxx stuffed with set squares and cameras
I shall bring a vibrator next time,Mary told her,though she had never even seen a vibrator except in a picture.Still.she had to say something.And why should she not benefit from modern science?Boots sell them,she seemed to recall…
You can’t bring a vibrator in here or the doctor will be angry ,as he might be accused of misconduct if you enjoyed yourself, the nurse whispered, though why should you not enjoy it,she said in a puzzled tone ;as if she had never thought like this before.
I thought it was only misconduct if the doctor enjoyed himself,Mary cried loudly.
He has seen so many ladies, it is just like seeing into a mouth for him,said the nurse churlishly thus taking away Mary’s pride in her unique anatomy.
I expect one gets used to anything in time,Mary murmured,but I hope he will not need to do that again to me.
No, you seem ok,the doctor said,but I seem to imagine I can see a cat under the table.What is he doing?
I am just keeping an eye on you,mewed Emile.I live with Mary.
No animals are allowed in here ,the doctor shouted in a paranoid manner.
A bit late now,meowed the cat.Are you sending for the cat police?
Dr.Grey picked up a very large speculum and threatened to strike Emile with it
Now then,said the nurse, he might scratch my legs.Leave him alone.He’s just protecting her.And I had just sterilised that.
Fat lot of good Emile was,Mary thought to herself.
The doctor approached Mary and told her she would be seeing a consultant soon… in the meantime should she do anything to prepare… she asked.
Well, do try to relax if you can, he told her gently.It is trying for ladies of riper years to attend hospitals but we only want to help you.
I’ll have to help myself,Mary thought wryly, laughing inside, as she got down off the table and put on her red and purple knickers or “underpants” as they are now referred to by health professionals
.Thank God,that is over,she whispered to Emile.Let’s run out and get a cab.
She hobbled to the door and phoned the taxi firm with her mobile.I just want to get home she told the driver.
Don’t we all, he said in an Eton accent.Surely it’s not David Cameron in disguise canvassing patients?Thank God he’s not conducting pelvic exams on them!That would lose him the election whether he was any good or not… in my view,but then what do I know about the British electorate?It might be the key to our future as a nation.Think about it!No,stop!

Please pray before leaving the car park.

We have residential Barking in our Street. Wh

The just men come around once a week. But the sun shines on the unjust as well

The Catholic church has a long stay harp park.

The plumber gave me a quotation. He said it’s from the Bible but did they have central heating in the copper age?

The policeman said who do you think you are? So I said well I’m not a murderer. But he was also a psychoanalyst so he arrested me immediately.I said hang on a minute I’ve not done it yet. Time  has become confused around here. Why was relativity special anywhere?

Children go to school without being toilet trained. Does this mean that teachers have to learn how to change nappies. Is this what they call  the missing stink?

Do they read Palms instead of books?

You don’t need to go to university for that!

I just don’t know what to think now but I never did know what to think until I heard myself speaking and then I agreed with it. I didn’t want a civil war in my head. Once they begin,it’s difficult to stop until everybody’s dead and then there’s nobody to declare the end. Maybe a cock would crow

Just a big empty space with a sign saying.. wait here for the 10 commandments. Contactless credit available except on the Sabbath

But there was nobody there when I went and I’m wondering am I the only person left on earth? Because if so I will never know anything without being able to have a conversation unless I can speak to God but can god speak a language or does he speak only in images?

And that was on the news today. Would I tell a lie?

Please play before parking your car
Don’t go home without your dripping
Please use a different credit marred
Please be police to other passengers on this plane
Do as you would be stunned by
Don’t be anti-specific in this Motel
Keep Britain Pernicious
Are you a Fascist? Free tuition in the UK
Please drive your car to the Brexit gate before decaying
Keep your seat polished in Church.Sit and prey.
Don’t leave the IOU today
Johnson said, “what EU” to my cat
The Sermon on our Doubt
Are you racist about God?
What a Gnostic! It’s Greek to me.
The Church of England is praying in Europe this week
Leave the memories be kind
My sister likes to pray on her piano every day
What’s on the TV? Just the cat I’m afraid.
Income Tax goes out but what comes in.. just everything really?

For so long you loved and imitated me

Then we were students at the university

Without you, I won’t feel like anyone

To whom shall I turn when you are gone?

When you’re the one who shared my infant bed

When you’re the one who treasured all I said

When you’re the one I held in the dark night

When you are gone there can be no more light

When the moment comes,I must believe

For trees shall weep their leaves as if bereaved

Then will my sister heart with sadness heave.

Oh do itnot do not ,do not ,do not leave

Is It Time to Cancel Cancel Culture? https://www.nytimes.com/2021/03/24/opinion/the-argument-cancel-culture-media.html?smid=nytcore-android-share

The Middle-Aged Sadness Behind the Cancel Culture Panic https://www.nytimes.com/2021/09/20/opinion/generation-cancel-culture.html?smid=nytcore-android-share