Politics Plus

Yesterday, I watched the Theater of War “The Nurse Antigone,” in which Margaret Atwood played Tiresias. Tiresias was blind, and she chose to present blindness with a hoodie covering a lot of her face, including her eyes – but oh, what a voice! All the actors were powerful certainly. And the discussion at the end raised issues which I didn’t realize that I didn’t realize, and not just pertinent to nurses. It was taped, which I hope means it will be available to re-watch – I will be looking for it. But a moral here is, don’t dismiss presentations for military because you’re not military (or have never been in compat), don’t dismiss presentations for medical professionals because you’re not one, and so on .. you could learn something, or hear something that really speaks to you, from any group in this web of projects.

Cartoon

Short Takes –

The New Yorker – How Putin’s Oligarchs Bought London
Quote – Invoking Dean Acheson’s famous observation, in 1962, that Britain had “lost an empire but not yet found a role,” [Oliver] Bullough[, a former Russia correspondent,] suggests that it did find a role, as a no-questions-asked service provider to the crooked élite, offering access to capital markets, prime real estate, shopping at Harrods, and illustrious private schools, along with accountants for tax tricks, attorneys for legal squabbles, and “reputation managers” for inconvenient backstories. It starts with visas; any foreigner with adequate funds can buy one, by investing two million pounds in the U.K. (Ten million can buy you permanent residency.)
Click through.  It certainly gives me no pleasure to share this information. However … it is what it is.

The Daily Beast – ‘Many’ Spy Agency Staffers Think Capitol Riot Was ‘Justified,’ Ex-NSA Veteran Says
Quote – An internal U.S. intelligence messaging system became a “dumpster fire” of hate speech during the Trump administration…. Dan Gilmore, who was in charge of overseeing internal chat rooms for the Intelink system for over a decade starting in 2011, says that by late 2020 the system was afire with incendiary hate-filled commentary, especially on “eChirp,” the intelligence community’s clone of Twitter…. “Hate speech was running rampant on our applications… I’m not being hyperbolic. Racist, homophobic, transphobic, Islamaphobic [sic], and misogynistic speech was being posted in many of our applications.”
Click through for detail.  I’m not naive enough to think the it would ever be possible to eliminate all of them (and I realize I am inviting the question “How many traitors would be about right?”), but before I would believe that so many of our intel agents knowingly and delberately lied under oath about their intentions, I would believe that so many of them simply do not know what the Constitution is and says. And that would be a failure of education.

Women’s History – Wikipedia – Enheduanna (23rd century BCE)
Enheduanna … was the EN priestess of the moon god Nanna (Sīn) in the Sumerian city-state of Ur in the reign of her father, Sargon of Akkad. She was likely appointed by her father as the leader of the religious cult at Ur to cement ties between the Akkadian religion of her father and the native Sumerian religion. Enheduanna has been celebrated as the earliest known named author in world history, as a number of works in Sumerian literature, such as the Exaltation of Inanna feature her as the first person narrator, and other works, such as the Sumerian Temple Hymns may identify her as their author.
Click through for more. Sure, we can’t prove she did write everything attributed to her – but they also can’t prove she didn’t. But ar least she got recognition for the work. We do know for sure that she did not have to write under a male pen name to be piblished, like Amantine Dupin and Mary Ann Evans, to name just two. That is an accomplishment in itself.

Food For Thought: