The last one

There is a cartoon on Facebook – two aliens in a flying saucer looking down at earth way beneath them where it would seem all hell has broken out and the one is saying to the other, “As far as I can tell they’re fighting over which religion is the most peaceful.”

 This dear loyal readers and others is my last Blog. I have written almost 800 of them and it seems to me my choice of subjects is extremely limited; limited that is to what, as Frank Moque would say, the subjects that cause me to ‘rant yet again.’ By the way Frank, congratulations on becoming a Chelsea Pensioner.

Chris said to me the other day, why don’t I write about pleasant things, nice things, instead of mounting my soap box and gong on ad nauseum, but life isn’t about all things bright and beautiful as that rather stupid hymn says ignoring, as it does, nature red in tooth and claw and assorted horrors, and every day new stories emerge for me to have another rant over, the things about which I feel so strongly; man’s cupidity, stupidity, cruelty, ignorance and superstition in myth, mystery and magic, and the problem of over population and the destruction of the world’s natural resources. There you go, count them on the fingers of one hand. Looking back I find basically that is it. There are exceptions of course but they would appear to be few and far between. So…

What for example to you make of a fourteen year old girl being shot because she wanted to be educated? What is the religious mind-set behind this viciousness or is it merely a question of power? What do you make of albinos in Africa being murdered for their body parts to make magic muti? What do you make of the slaughter of elephants for their tusks and rhinos for their horns, the first for money, the second in the belief that they have magical medicinal powers? What do you make of the decimation of that wonderful creature the gorilla for bush-meat? What do you make of small children being raped in the belief that it is a cure for AIDS? What do you make of gays being tortured and murdered by vigilantes in places like Iraq and Afghanistan? What do you make of Protestant versus Catholic in Northern Ireland? Or Shia versus Sunni in the Middle East? Or the Israel/Palestinian problem? The hatred that engenders? What d you make of American fundamentalists who believe everything in the Bible and deny evolution despite all the proof to the contrary? What do you make of Islamists in Mali destroying ancient shrines as being idolatrous but, worse, buying young boys to become soldiers and destroying families’ lives? Or extremists in Libya destroying Sufi shrines? Or Coptic Christians in Egypt being attacked for their religion? What do you make of Sharia law with its executions, flaying, amputating, flogging? What do you make of Ghana’s witch-camps were women accused of witchcraft are forced to live the rest of their lives in virtual imprisonment? What do you make of a teenage Maldivian girl being sentenced to a hundred lashes for having sex with an older man?

So it goes on and on and on and (except for the elephants and rhinos) we haven’t even touched on the subject of money or remembered the horrors of the past.

As far as the problem of population is concerned let us consider just one country, Uganda. In 1960 the population stood at 6.8 million. In 2010 it reached 33.4 million and it is estimated that by 2060 it will have exploded to 112.6 million. Can the earth really sustain this kind of growth?

So, as it used to be said in old Hollywood travelogues, “as the sun sinks slowly in the west we say farewell to…” In this instance not a place visited but a Blogger read. There will be no more.

Thank you for being with me so long.    Glyn.