Monday 1 April 2024

Baltimore Connections


 

Baltimore Connections - a Pamphlet

Both sides having expressed mutual condolences for recent disasters, we segue into The Great Bear pointing to Uncle Sam with a smirk, “Behold the crumbling fortunes of a Rogue state.” Allies to the South and East prick their ears & tune in while The Bear continues, scratching at a scar, “Far from leading the so-called free world, Amerikar is now tumbling down the rabbit-hole of her own lies and self-deceptions.” Like most inveterate mendicants, falling into the error of believing the fibs they have told, Amerikar once again dallies at the brink of Precipice. Not eight years have passed since they elected a Slimy Greaseball formerly known as The Don, and now they stand on the very cusp of repeating that Supreme Error.

And yet, let us not view Baltimore through Slavic eyes, but rather with London’s long-suffering insight. The poor City, in the form of Lloyd’s, is set to fork out some three billions Sterling, as the loses of life and infrastructure are adjusted and settled, putting no small Dent in the Profits of the world’s largest Maritime insurance house. Is the time not nigh, after more than two centuries’ mounting impatience, to cry halt to these Proceedings? These Yankee Rogues – aka Rebs  – have strained at the long leash long enough. Let go, away with them! England shall have their full Brexit now, rejecting this Wishy-Washy half-way house.

Baltimore featured in Madison’s War (the War of 1812). Google the Eponymous battle for proof of Amerikar’s Mendacity, and Madison’s cowardice. Indeed, so brazen are they, it only behoves one to read between the lines & glean yr Actual Truth. The Canadian Mace was held for over a century - just down the coast at Annapolis!

One could neither condone nor defend the British Empire or its Colonial Warts & all, and one will say, by the standards of the day with Hypocrisy e’er the refuge of the Cad, that the 1812 invasion of Canada should live – as does the bombing of Pearl Harbour, in the Urinals of Infamy. The Brits - in their Titanic struggles with Napoleon Bonaparte - Amerikar’s boom chum in Revolutionary Tyranny - were hard pressed to come precipitately to the aid of their Canadian subjects, many of whom French speakers, yet who, for the most part Conspicuously, chose not to embrace the invaders as Liberators and prospective Fellow Citizens. It wasn’t until the Corsican - self-styled - Emperor of the French was temporarily bilked from Power into exile on the isle of Elba, that the Brits were in a position to deal with Americkarn incursions onto Canadian soil. Toronto (then styled York), having twice been sacked in 1813, when huge quantities of booty were lifted and the Legislative Assembly building burnt to the ground, it was decided that Punitive Acts of Retribution were Required. Thus a force of Veterans from the Peninsula War were assembled at the Bahamas prior to sailing for the US coast and disembarkation at various points stateside. First, in revenge for the burning of the Canadian Parliament, President James ("Let's grab Canada for the Union") Madison was chased from Washington; whereupon, after his Evening Meal had been dispatched by a Contingent of British Officers, the presidential mansion (formerly George Washington’s home, and later to be known as The White House) was torched. Thereafter, private and federal storage buildings along the East Coast of Chesapeake Bay were emptied & the goods impounded in Reparation for losses the civilian merchants had sustained at York & elsewhere. Finally a bold attempt was made to overrun and burn the very port of Baltimore, but there the Revengers faced a spirited defence and so retired, the Honours being mostly theirs. Yr Actual Truth - seen by the light of these stars - was a successful punitive raid, not some attempted invasion or landgrab. Also, as a fledgling Rogue State, Amerikar learned its lesson. Time to remember it, eh?

Of footnotes, it is interesting to note the Citizens of Baltimore had rioted in opposition to Madison’s Declaration Of War on the owl Mother Rogue. Though the town was principal base for many of the Privateers that would harass British merchant shipping in the Caribbean and off the Nova Scotian coast, an outrage which would have provided poor London itself with the excuse to Declare War on its former colonies had it not been engaged in more pertinent conflict elsewhere; nevertheless, the folk of Baltimore had little to gain from war with Great Britain - and much to lose - as trade with Liverpool and Bristol was the basis of their Prosperity. Also of note is that the words of the Star Spangled Banner (later to become the National Anthem of the USA) were composed to celebrate the successful defence of that town. A gigantic Stars & Stripes had remained in place throughout the place’s shelling and rocket attacks by the Royal Navy. Incidentally, it is indicative of the Internecine nature of the Wars between these two Rogue States that the music to which Francis Scott Key’s lyrics were sung was composed by an Englishman, John Stafford Smith - having been the Club Song of The Anacreon (a forerunner of London’s Garrick Club for Gentlemen). And so to the Abolition of the Slave Trade and the pursuit of slavers by His Royal Majesty's navy...

Slavery and the Slave Trade, then even hotter potatoes than Human Trafficking and the Sorry Plight of Refugees today, formed the background (or Leitmotif) of early Nineteenth century World Politics. But leaping forward to the Present day, is not the death of six Latino Boys From the Blackstuff on the Francis Scott Key bridge Indicative of the economic State of Affairs? Just as the Economies of Europe and the United States at the turn of the eighteenth century were bound up in the misery of Black African slavery, so is their present day reliance on cheap, often illegally hired Labour from failing states in the Global South.

Amerikar, as the Great Bear will attest, is the Greatest Rogue State in History. Hypocrisy is written into their Constitution. They were founded by a group of scoundrels determined to avoid paying their dues on the French Indian War, and who then Smiled upon those to whom a Frown was Appropriate. To this day their school books make fun of the hero General Braddock, while jealously guarding the sword which he presented to Colonel Washington. Let it, like the Mace of the York Parliament, be returned to its rightful owners. And let the rebuilt Francis Scott Key bridge be renamed Convenience O’er Truth. 

No, not then, nor ever!

Friday 1 March 2024

the intel we know

 

from chicken to egg & back again


Intel - whether intelligent or not - is only one aspect of life: sure, it's crucial to our architecture & an example of what survival takes; like a defence membrane or the digestive tract. And even intelligent intel can be synthesized. Moog wasn't half a clever bastard, right? But it’s only logic, not magic. Life percolates into something more dynamic & ephemeral than boring owl data collection, storage & processing. The wizard ingredient, separating the quick from the dead, fact from fiction, is consciousness - or lack of it. Consciousness: your one-way ticket to the cosmos & pass for oblivion’s gate. Now, you synthesize true consciousness, Herr Doktor Musk, that would be something.

Maybe one day, more progressive forms than ours will exist without combustion engines. God knows what they’ll sport – half-rods of plutonium stuck up their fusion chambers, or solar skin-jobs to recharge batteries, frisking about in the daylight hours then cogitating all night. But whatever & however smart the propulsion system, without consciousness - no matter the size or beauty of them – without true consciousness, they’ll make less sense than a shower of amoebas clubbing it in the primeval soup kitchen.

Yep, intelligence – in the common sense - is a great collection or stored information. Intelligent intel can even select what’s worth garnering & what ain’t worth the candle. In most circumstances, decision making’s only a matter of taking the most logical path. Foresight, then, comes into play. And then again, it’s just a question of processing information. You can’t base consciousness purely on reason.

Take chickens, which anyone who’s kept will tell you are some of the dumbest creatures that ever lived. They evolved in the backwoods of a large island on the edge of the Indian Ocean, thriving without a significant predator, till humanity showed. After which - apart from serving us with food - there was no reason for their continued existence. Yet somehow the jungle they grew up in so completely matches ours, they would be around for as long as eggs is eggs. And never mind trying to puzzle out which came first, chickens keep springing back; no matter how harsh the environment we, in our stupid, selfish cruelty, devise for them. Or the efforts of the vegan police to abolish their existence. The birds go on fitting in, that’s all. We’ll probably take them to Mars & beyond, eventually introducing Andromedans to the magic of the egg.

For some creatures, consciousness is there from Day One. Newborn ruminants, for inst, get to their feet & within the hour are ready to move off with the herd. That’s what it takes to make it as a lamb or a foal. And knowing who Mum is, of course. Thinking outside the brain, parents & young stick together for months or years in an emotional bond.

Imagine a couple of bright robotic sparks attempting to scale the Matterhorn. When the going gets tough, & sheer physical power no longer works - when they’re running low on options for reaching the summit, logic tells them to call the whole thing off & go back down. Or, at a pinch, one might cannibalize the other. Which? Depends how they’re programmed. But those crazy lifeforms – us in this case – take strength from each other’s company. We rally round & somehow find a way to climb up. Or fall in the attempt. Is buddiness just another thing for the so-called intelligent robots to learn? Who we gonna trust on that?

Or take kittens. They won’t open their eyes for a week, during which their hungry owl Dad, or a jealous female with young of her own to feed, would simply gobble them up. No conscience, see. Consciousness takes many creatures no time to develop, unlike humans. It’s years with us. In fact, we can say revelations occur right up till the end - though the final years may see a dimming of awareness that mirrors the growing curve. If the true end is so-called brain death, that locates consciousness somewhere behind the eyes, ears or whichever organs of perception haven’t caved. The corpse, meanwhile, still perfectly capable of life in all other respects, is only rendered non-viable when consciousness has left the building. Call it the spark of life, if you will. Sleep tight.

And is there an afterlife? Of course not. There’s just the pool of human consciousness to which you contribute, be you a socially minded genius, a bored bore, or a demented axe murderer. And to which the spark may return, if you want to think of it like that. The light goes out, but its image may linger on for a greater or a lesser time. To some extent, the Julius Caesars & Cleo Ptolemys of this life remain with us. Though their perceptions ceased long ago, what we keep alive of them is a shared vision of beauty or justice, courage, outrage or defiance, whatever turns us on (or switches us off).

Consciousness springs - maybe subconsciously - from one generation to the next, across the centuries, even from one myth to another, like from Dido & Aeneas to Anthony & Cleopatra. Here we readmit the humble chicken back to the fold. Plain dumb ain’t all it seems.  

Nobody's Bot!


Thursday 1 February 2024

not a verse to many

 


well well well

 

they were treated badly* what

d’you expect from human kind

turn the other cheek no fear

kissing their arse

 

promised landscape take your pick

Armageddon’s puckered lips

strut the catwalk end the world

scapegoat or bust

 

read The Jewish War again

only this time add The Bomb

Dr Strangelove hand in glove

strangling himself

 

time will tell predictions please

on a postcard winner gets

courtesy of Musk a one

way trip to Mars

 

*by-the-bye for badly read

hell on Earth survivors vowed

not to let the empire strike

back on their word

 

 

eh aye rant

 

when the best we’ll ever manage or achieve

can be duplicated then improved by bots

what’s the point of trying shouldn’t people just

give up & sit back

 

shoot the breeze enjoy the view cos what’s the point

been a while since chess for instance ceased to be

dangerous & soon enough a racing car

will drive you to work

 

where the human aspect making money or

getting on shall disappear replaced by what

petty rivalries we’ll all be middle folk

man watched by a clock

 

going into care before our time we sip

lullabies composed in Aeolian mode

mood adjustments made according to the Moon

solar wind or spots

 

yep the music of the spheres is all we’ll hear

drowning out the guns & bombs of mutineers

even those controlled by exoskeletal

forces out of Mars

 

 

iso tropes

 

there’s an eider down

shotgun pellets blood

stains across the bed

last of the few

 

people went to town

traipsing village mud

paved with gold they said

turn of the screw

 

former farmer Brown

navigates the flood

on an upturned shed

animal glue

 

soldier sailor clown

rich man poor man judge

get it in the head

elephants flew

 

well you gotta frown

summat had to budge

giz a crust of bread

shock of the new

 

 

impertinence

 

bodies grow

smarter with

heads

planets get

stuffed without

moons

galaxies

orbit black

holes

universe

says define

goals

verse begins

splutters then

folds

 

 

frog warning

 

safe to stay at home & wait

where the monsters daren’t

go afraid of prowling kids

 

as you know the worst

danger faced by outside foes

trust the family

 

Emily & Uncle Joe

cut a catflap some

slack & give a dog a home

 

long as hump-back toads

don’t get in so mind the cracks

under which they’ll slide

 

reeking of their foreign ways

curse the Normans hand

back the Channel ÃŽles for snide

 

 

not too great now

 

us & them the sworn

enemies of time’s

immemorial

biblical tropes

 

quote unquote the words

coined from melted down

altar plates they’re past

settlement day

 

eager for revenge

both opponents call

in Jehova’s names

hostage to what

 

fear or fortune not

love & peace but zoom

sanctimonious

meaningless guff

 

talking children maimed

babies snuffed & old

folk distraught at what

life was about

 

 

Dr Davos I presume

 

retrograde

conference

handouts

from

twenty-first

century

blood feuds

to

stay-at-home

refugee

food banks

in

climate change

turnaround

Bond films

with

cowboy Jane

hostage swop

shootouts

 

 

a verse to poetry

 

what’s the point of no return

one-way streets or cul-de-sacs

spread a map across the floor

see where it’s at

 

as you know the grid is down

St Domingo Rd & flood

waters won’t recede until

Christ knows the thing

 

is don’t put your act of faith

where the other fella’s been

lamppost wine for instance smells

great to a dog

 

keep your powder dry & wait

till the bogeyperson’s bogged

off or on their morning break

Jekel & Hyde

 

& another thing yer man

wrote a long ekphrastic pome

while they were curating stick

that up your nose


No Fear!