Ben Grib

            

             

He sweetly plays his violin

And taps his feet and grins his grin.

He points to stars and bows to trees

And plays duets with summer's breeze.

He talks to birds and smiles at skies

Where rainbows form through half-closed eyes.

At dusk, just like a gentle rain

He softly taps the window-pane

Then melts into the velvet night,

A silver cloud veiled in moonlight.

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The spirit of optimism.

But how can you think positively when the world you have known all your life has collapsed around you, when you've lost everything including those nearest and dearest, and when all you have left are the torn, dust covered clothes you are still wearing?

Easy for others who have never experienced such an Apocalypse to seemingly brush aside the horror, the irredeemable loss of loved ones and dare to even allude to optimism!

Yet what choice does one have? Especially when, somehow, one has survived. When uncanny circumstances have permitted one to escape from an inconceivable Armageddon.
To have survived is already a miracle. And when days later there are other survivors found and rescued from beneath tons of debris, despite and because of, an enormous death toll, aren't such rare miracles still wonderful?

When you've lost everything you've nothing left to lose other than the most essential. Your survival depends totally on others for as long as necessary. You have no other choice. Sentiments such as pride and presumption have no longer any real place. Everything that you owned, that you identified with, that reinforced your ego, that made you in your mind's eye different from others, has been destroyed.
You then have no other choice but to reconcile with this, as well as with yourself.
Your survival then depends uniquely on the love and care you receive as well as give. And tomorrow is a new day.

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Considering the troubled history of Haiti- especially regarding slavery, (also with France under Napoleon) and the fatidical relationship between this Caribbean country west of the island of Hispaniola, and the USA, it might be hard not to smile ironically at the noble declarations of the US President and his Secretary of State regarding US aid to Haiti. Perhaps it would be wrong to suspect any tendency to monopolise on this catastrophy for political gain, or for eventual geopolitical motives and economical interests.
In this terrible case, results will speak far louder than noble words.

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Text and image © Mirino (PW) January, 2010

Rats

Lorsqu'on devient 'dur de l'oreille', écrire peut devenir plus important. Cela ne veut pas dire nécessairement qu'il faut se balader avec un petit tableau noir ficelé autour du cou, du moins pas encore.
Parmi d'autres choses inappréciées, mon ex-éditrice n'a pas compris cette volonté, ce besoin. Elle préférait que l'on soit restreint dans ce qu'elle jugeait être 'sa propre place'. C'était sa manière myope de garder le contrôle de son 'entourage créatif'.

Donc après avoir consacré beaucoup d'effort à 'raconter de nouveau' un classique de manière parodique, et étant enfin satisfait avec les résultats durement acquis, je lui ai présenté le manuscrit. 'Superbe, vas-y', (à illustrer le texte) elle m'avait rassuré.

Après encore quelque mois de travail je présente les illustrations finales, 'Fabuleuses'! elle me rassure de nouveau, 'maintenant on va mettre à jour le texte'....

Loin de moi de refuser quoi que ce soit si je crois qu'une telle suggestion contribuerait à améliorer le résultat, mais les changements qu'elle estimait tardivement nécessaires, étaient tellement radicaux que c'était évident qu'elle n'avait rien compris de ce que j'avais voulu faire, et ce que j'avais, à mon avis, réussi à faire.
Je ne pouvais pas donc accepter ses exigences et alors très fâché je lui ai dit sans équivoque qu'elle prenne ma ré-interprétation illustrée comme telle ou qu'elle ne la prenne point.

Sa réaction a été fatidique. Celui qui devait faire la mise en page, très compétent, (et aussi très obéissant) n'a plus été accordé assez de temps pour faire un travail correct. Et après peu de semaines de la publication d'un résultat mal fini, on m'annonçait qu'il faut 'brader' le livre. Bref, il était cruellement saboté prématurément. La quantité produite bradée était partie tellement rapidement, que je n'avais même pas pu en acheter, malgré mes maintes requêtes, quelque exemplaires pour moi-même.

Mais parfois dans la vie la justice poétique s'exprime. Parmi mes efforts, y compris celui qui exigeait jusqu'à quatre années de travail, ce petit livre saboté est de loin le plus prêté dans les bibliothèques. Il continue donc à vivre son petit clin d'oeil, ou sa petite mélodie de flûte, et de me faire gagner quelques sous de royalties de bibliothèque, moins que le joueur lui-même aurait du gagner, mais quelque chose au moins..

Le charme de la musique. Elle me manque beaucoup, bien qu'elle résonne toujours trop, et cacophoniquement, dans ma tête. Mais on peut s'en adapter. On peut toujours trouver une sortie pour continuer à avancer, à s'exprimer comme on veut, et ce malgré les jugements des autres, y compris ceux ou celles qui refusent toujours de payer le joueur..

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Italiano
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Text and images © Mirino (PW) January, 2010

A princely announcement..

It could be considered that Prince Charles has started the new year with an untimely and controversial remark. The Corriere della Sera reports him as saying that he was against the Iraqi engagement. If this is true, it's surprising and disappointing- not because of his sharing an old and overexposed, common opinion, but because of publicly expressing it. 

There are other opinions, of course. Is it not, for example, insulting and condescending to suggest that the Iraqis as a people need to be 'stabilised' by a tyrannic regime?

Because the initial engagement -whether 'legally' right or wrong- was so crucial, one followed it from day to day very closely. The war itself was over in a few weeks. The first Iraqi elections underlined this.

It stands to reason that if around twenty million people had no wish to be freed from their regime, it would still exist, and the Americans would never have arrived in Baghdad in two weeks. It also stands to reason that if the people rejected the idea of democracy, they would never have established one.
Not only is it established, but despite the rabid, systematic pressure of die-hards and fanatics conditioned by al-Qaida, the Iraqis are determined to defend their democracy, and rightly so. It's value, after all, is constantly increasing.

Any destabilisation has been cruelly provoked by those who consider democracy to be a threat to their cause and objective. This is why the war in Iraq is exactly the same- in principle- as the war in Afghanistan, where one of Prince Charles' sons also briefly served.

It also seems curious that a man of his stature and supposed intelligence, doesn't seem to appreciate what is becoming increasingly obvious, that the wars, which are basically the defence of democracies that religious fanatics wish to destroy, are not simply national- Iraqi, Afghani, Somali, Pakistani, Yemeni, Nigerian, etc., they are all part of a combined, international effort.

Had Prince Charles sincerely believed that the Iraqi engagement was totally wrong, he has enough clout to have expressed his opinion loudly and clearly enough at the appropriate time, and not seven years too late.

Such a statement now seems more provocative than anything else, but it would be hard to imagine that Prince Charles thinks he needs more public attention.

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Text by Mirino (PW) Modified image (with thanks to Google archives) © January, 2010

The New Year 2010..

Another new year. How many millions of us are already perched in front of the screen, the magic mirror, hoping, perhaps naively, that we can make the world a better place to live in, adding our grains of white sand to the idyllic beach before the next turgid tidal wave? But even if we are deluding ourselves, the hope in itself is positive enough.
Especially for those who are risking everything in order to tell us what's happening. The least we can do is pass their message on, continue to let the world hear their cries of anger and pain.

I had prepared several paragraphs for this post. New year wishes covering almost everything that I consider important. But the beauty and simplicity of what I saw yesterday, persuaded me to condense it to what seems to my mind the most essential.

I would like to think that the new year will inspire and encourage the highest and most respected Muslim authorities to stand up and clearly declare to the world, once and for all- assuming that the following is indeed the case- that there is no justifiable connection between Islam and terrorism or tyranny. That nothing is more blasphemous and false than to use God one claims to worship, as a pretext to practice brutal repression and perpetrate heinous crimes.

Let's wish for greater understanding between all peoples. We already have fabulous means to accomplish this, but time, like natural resources, could become more precious and essential. We need greater understanding and awareness to make the necessary commitments, develop the necessary means and concert our efforts to nurse the world back to good health, in good time.

Yesterday, driving up to a village in the mountains, I passed through a thick layer of cloud to find the sunlit sky. The view of the sea of cloud enveloping the mountains below and making them look like enchanted islands, was a wonderful sight...

Happy New Year to us all!

_____

Buon Anno

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Text & illustration (circa 1985 for Cosmopolitan- 'How to save the world'). Photo- Alpes Maritimes 
© Mirino (PW) January, 2010

Another year to ponder over..

It hasn't been the greatest of years. The whole world has been spanked by the effects of one of the severest, financial crisis ever. Madoff, the ill-famed fraud, was bestowed with Christmas gifts of serious facial injuries, a few broken ribs and a punctured lung, but we are assured by the prison authorities that it was not due to any aggression. It was said that he fell out of bed..

To culminate the Italian Prime Minister's poor year he was hit by the fourth, largest Cathedral in the world. As such it could have been fatal, but he was saved by the grace of God and the art of miniaturisation.
Even the Pope himself wasn't spared from the aggressive effects of the various campaigns of hate that we have been blest with for most of 2009. Yet another excessive surprise for Christmas.

And sadly we lost Michael Jackson. But such is life- and death- for living legends, and more so for those who are determined to never age and live in Never, Never Land.

Rupert Murdoch made poor use of what once was one of the most reputable newspapers in Great Britain, to try to do as much damage as possible to Italian Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi. He may even have fractionally succeeded, but perhaps he has done far more harm to the once reputable newspaper he unfortunately owns, along with several others. As he is one of the richest men in the world however, such trifles are unlikely to have marred his Christmas.
It's to Barack Obama's credit that, so far at least, he has resisted Murdoch's propositions. Whilst this remains to be the status quo, he is unlikely to fair well in Rupert's tabloids despite the temporary 'truce'. One of Fox News' sketches of him was ... 'just short of a terrorist'. Such is the influence of the press and it's illustrious magnates.

And with Internet of course the wealth of information is such that one can find virtually anything to support what one wants to believe. This is beginning to have an adverse effect, 'the boy who cried wolf phenomenon', when one starts to be wary of what one might wrongly believe to be false information or propaganda.
The effect of repetitive coverage of so many suicide attacks incredibly seems to make one virtually immune to them. If this is so, it would mean that their effect no longer has any real, political influence. Futile, blind and brainless assassinations of innocent people.

The crucial elections of Iran and Afghanistan had full coverage this year, both accused to be fraudulent by the losing oppositions. The West accept the results of the latter but not those of the former. A question of choice based on interests. Principle doesn't enter into it, even if that's what Nato is also  supposed to be defending in Afghanistan.
Yet it's probable that the Afghan fraud was far more massive than that of Iran. Both elected Presidents must assume the consequences. Those of Iran are irreversible, but surely this was part of the regime's program- to clear the stage in order to be able to set Ahmadinejad's 'earth shattering scenario'..
It remains to be seen how many more students and supporters of the opposition they will need to kill or imprison to clear the stage.

There was Climategate then the Copenhagen summit. At least a start which is important in itself, even if the results of the latter appear to be as deceiving as the discovery of the former.

In 2005 there was the Danish Cartoon controversy. Not offensive providing one reached the obvious conclusion that they consisted of a legitimate criticism of Islamic terrorism- or trying to justify the unjustifiable. The violence, hate and intolerance practised for so called 'religious motives'. For those who reason, the offenders weren't the critics, the offenders were, and are still, the subject of such criticism.
Four years later the Swiss voted against minarets in Switzerland. Again the Islamic authorities have taken offence. Perhaps it's easier to condemn the decision of a non Muslim, sovereign State exercising its democratic rights, than to condemn those same offenders who have given- and are still giving- Islam such a bad name.
It's not as though there's any lack of media access for the cleric authorities of Islam to establish once and for all- for the sake of the world's populations of Muslims and non Muslims- the difference between good and evil.

The Taliban want the Occident to believe that the war in Afghanistan is another Vietnam Pandora, more because they would like to believe it themselves. But 'once bitten twice shy'. Nato now knows what's at stake. It may have taken a few years, and a few International mass murders, but at last the authorities  seem to have cottoned on.
Obama however has confidently informed our enemies that the war will end in 2013. Nato will pack up then and go home. If one accepts that this war is international and that it's not necessarily for Afghanistan, which only represents the present epicentre of a deformed Jihad, one might question the wisdom of this confident declaration. Hard to imagine Roosevelt and Churchill making a public announcement in 1939 informing the world that the allies will stop fighting the Nazis and go home in 1942, but of course times change. In 2009 we are blest with leaders who have a much greater foresight capacity.
If the Taliban were intelligent however, (which fortunately- at least so far- doesn't seem to be the case) they would pack up, go home and make babies, then come back in 2013, retake Afghanistan, then take Pakistan. They would then have the whole world at their beck and call..
All food for thought for the slow and steady.

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Text and image © Mirino (PW) December, 2009

A seasonal poem

When icicles hang from one's nose,
 And one lies frozen 'tween the sheets,
And you can never warm your toes,
And snow lies deeply in the streets; 
When ice forms solid on windscreens,
 Or to start the car you have no means,
Then you receive the garage bill! 
A merry note from greasy Will.

When all around is grey and bleak,
   And coughing means you've caught pig flu,
And iced up pipes begin to leak,
And for the plumber there's a queue; 
  When lips are sore, chapped and split   
 And ev'n gloved hands become frost-bit
And chilblains then inflict your feet!
You live in hope for global heat.

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Text (with apologies to Shakespeare) and image © Mirino (PW) December, 2009