what a waste of time

this little Video starts, runs three seconds, stops for 10 seconds, starts, runs, stops...
what a complete waste of time..

Attempt

Below is just an attempt to post a Video on my Blog.

Crossing the "Runde" in Gonarezhou, Zimbabwe

11th November, at 11.11AM

On the above date, 11.11. at 11.11 Canadians and Americans, and maybe some other countries, commemorate the End of 
World War I.
In Canada it was (is it still?) the custom to cease whatever you were doing and, in silence, commemorate the millions who died during this brutal, insane struggle. On this day, at 11AM all activities would stop, Radio Broadcasts would fall silent, church bells would toll, all for one minute, and people would stop and think.

It was with some surprise that I noticed that Austrians and Germans consider this exact date and time as the beginning of their Carnival Season. (Although the official commencement of "Fasching" is not until 2nd February.)

Austria and Germany, who took the assassination of the Archduke Franz Ferdinand of Austria and his wife, in Sarajevo, as the excuse to start WWI, consider this a fun filled date, while other countries, sorrowfully  think of their dead. 

Go, figure.

Bertstravels
can just shake his head.

An unpleasant surprise

This Penguin couple is anxiously awaiting for the first word its baby will say: "I am certain she will say: 'Mama' " says the female...
The male, with a contented smile, replies "no,no,no, he will say: PaPa."
A few days go by, the parents check out the chick frequently, when all of a sudden, the kid for the first time opens its eyes and says:
"Holy shit! It's frigging cold here"

100th Anniversary of Evil

Although the takeover of Russia by the Bolsheviki took a number of years, it is the 7th day of November on which the beginning of this disaster is commemorated.
The historical events are told in great detail in almost every Newspaper, the number of persons killed during these initial years, including the war between "White" and "Red" is reported to hover between 20 and 100 Million. It is estimated that Lenin and Stalin together with their henchmen have murdered something like 20 Millions and another 80 Millions died during one of the most brutal wars ever .to be fought. 
I don't want to talk about numbers of victims, or historical data and events.
I would prefer to think about the beginnings, which lay in the philosophy of Karl Marx  after which the Bolsheviki fashioned their "new justice."
Karl Marx, I accept, was not an evil man, who knowingly caused the economic and moral decay, of a number of countries.
I am easily convinced that he meant well, but in his ignorance of human nature, and economic verities he missed the mark by a country-mile.

"From each according to his abilities, to each according to his needs."

This little quote incorporates the nucleus of what became of Communist Russia and all other communist countries without exception.
Since it is in human's nature to want to benefit from his/her own efforts, the giving to those who need can only be achieved on a voluntary, humanistic basis, or has to be achieved by brute force, if the demands of those who need, exceed the willingness to give by those who have.
When Marx realized that this homily would not work in the long run, he admitted:

"The Theory of Communism, may be summed up in one sentence: Abolish all Private Property"

This was the starting point of confiscation of all land from farmers. The previous promise that land would be expropriated from the landlords and given to the farmers was soon forgotten by the Leaders of this Communist Paradise. 
Land now belonged to the State and the farmer became a forced laborer, whose production quantity was dictated by edict, and who was allowed to keep only a small percentage of his production for his own needs. Ultimately the farming system broke down and starvation across the land was the inevitable result.
Similarly, all factories, places of production, were expropriated and became the property of the State.
The inevitable result: A slowing down and then grinding to a halt of all production until the State started to use brute force.
Millions of real and perceived enemies of the State were murdered, and the lucky ones were shipped off to the "Gulag" after whose example the National Socialists under Hitler fashioned their Concentration Camps.

Marx then suggested: 
"The last Capitalist we hang, will be the one who sold us the rope,"

openly admitting that brute force, execution and murder will be the methods employed to bring the country to a "Workers' Paradise" . In fact, as History has taught us over and over again, those who followed these ideas of Karl Marx turned their countries not into a Paradise, but into a Hell.

Karl Marx, in my opinion, was totally ignorant of, not only "human nature" but to the same degree of  the workings of economic principles. ( Despite his studies in three Universities )

So, please don't tell me what a Genius Karl Marx was. Despite the blabberings of his "Communist Manifesto" and "Das Kapital"  he was nothing but an ignorant, fundamental rabble rouser.

Had his ideas had any merit, one could assume that they would have worked in at least one or two attempts to incorporate them into a country's modus vivendi.
Sadly, in each instance the application of his economic philosophy brought economic break down of the system, repression of the people, incarceration and murder of all who dared raise questions.

When, in 1991/92 Russia's ideology changed from Communism to a one-party ruled open-economy practicing country, several other Communist-ruled countries abandoned the political philosophy which had placed them at the low end to the bottom of the scale of  "poor countries".
Congo, Albania, Yugoslavia, Angola, are some of the countries who, in 1992, bid the Communist Philosophy a fare-well, while Vietnam, Laos, Cuba, North Korea still adhere to it and are also grouped at the bottom of the scale of "poor countries."

A most interesting case is presented by the super power, China, who had suffered economic disaster and brute repression under its founder Mao Zedong.
In 1972, when it had become increasingly clear and indisputable that Mao's Communist Ideology was effectively destroying China, Open Market Economy was introduced to this country of 1.4 Billion people. Ever since then, China's economy counts among the fastest growing in the world, a lucky benefit of Capitalist reforms having been introduced into a Communist Ideology.

So, Mr. Marx, please let the Universities in which you studied, repay your tuitions, since, what they seem to have taught you there, must have been pure rubbish.

So, for all you critics of Capitalism and praisers of Socialism and/or Communism, please, put that in your pipe and smoke it.

Bertstravels
had to get this off his chest.

Are they really that ultra conservatively stupid ?

Pope Franciscus has enemies?

I promised myself never again to write about Religion, specifically Christianity or certainly not about Roman Catholicism. 

Today's Newspaper front page, makes me break this promise.

There it is reported that the conservative element in the R.C. Church is almost in revolt against the serving Pope.

Now, I ask myself, what has Franciscus done, to energize his opponents anew?

Or are they just awakening a little from their anti-intellectual slumber?

They practically accuse him of heresy, of spreading false teachings, next thing you know they will probably depict him as the “Antichrist.”

Let me summarize his evil deeds: He tries to reform the Vatican Bank. (hitherto with little success)

A financial institution which, by independent analysts has been classified as one of the most corrupt of such institutions, which has been accused of “money laundering”, whose chairman was arrested along with a most unsavory character, arriving per private plane in Rome from Zurich, carrying a suitcase full of 20 Millions of Euros... etc...etc.

What, of course is much much worse, he has asked the church and its servant-masters to consider all circumstances before they condemn a person whom they consider in breach of the rules.

He wrote his famed “Amoris Laetitia” (AL) in which he urges that pastors are to avoid judgments which do not take into account the complexity of various situations.

Every person, the AL stipulates, regardless of sexual orientation ought to be respected in his or her dignity and treated with consideration.

Divorced-remarried persons must be more fully integrated into the Catholic Church, and the degree of participation must be left to a person's conscience.

And to top it all off, Franciscus suggested in this AL that “it can no longer be said that all those living in any “irregular” situation are living in a state of mortal sin.”

“The Church,” he continues, “needs to stop applying moral laws, as if they were stones to throw at a person's life.”

He then accuses his Church often to present marriage in such way, that its unitive meaning, its call to grow in love and its ideal of mutual assistance are overshadowed by an almost exclusive insistence on the duty of procreation.

Here is the church which insists that sex without the sole intention of procreation is sinful, and there is Franciscus, the head of this Church, who now tells us that it is okay to enjoy sex, without procreation being its sole reason.

Are you now surprised that his enemies are blowing the trumpet call to arms, so they may defeat the one man who calls for consideration, and who urges all of his staff to be more tolerant, to examine issues carefully and treat them individually, as the case may demand.

I would think that the Hierarchy of the Roman Catholic Church, would consider that the electors had been God-inspired, or certainly God-assisted in their selection five years ago.

To make matters even worse, this Pope thinks it is a great idea to communicate with other faiths. Just imagine: Franciscus wants to talk to leaders of other faiths. Oh, what heresy.....

It seems that the conservative element of Cardinals and Bishops and Priests would like to prevent any change in the modus operandi of their institution, that they would like to remain in their stiff, unbending position. If it were up to that lot, one might assume that the methods employed during the Counter Reformation were perfectly Okay and should have prevailed to this day.

Bertstravels

shudders at the thought 

of this.