The Biden government get basketball player Britney Griner out of Russia and they get lampooned with abuse! Yes, it would have been great to get both Griner and Paul Whelan the other American out, but for goodness sake! Some gratitude first!
Yes Griner was caught with a tiny bottle of cannabis oil – and she has most likely now learnt her lesson – but she could very easily have been stopped for any other reason (given everyone says she was just a convenient pawn right?).
The argument that the Russian released in exchange (Victor Bout) was a lopsided deal is dumb. Do people think Bout is the only arms dealer out there? Has his incarceration ended the illegal arms trade?
He’s already been in an American jail for 12 years and using him as a trade to bring Griner or anyone else home, was good value, if as it were, it was the only available deal to be done. Hopefully they will soon find a deal to get Whelan out too – and hopefully, like Griner, he would have also learnt his lesson and spend his next holiday in Paris or Florida instead?!
I was reading statements such as “the maths just wasn’t right”. Maths? What is wrong with people these days??? We are talking about human beings here! Who gives a deuce about the maths adding up!? A young woman who should have at worst, received a small fine for being silly, got caught up in politics and a hostage situation, ending up in a penal colony. Getting her out by trading a spent arms dealer who has already been locked up for 14 or so years. Sod the maths!
In the past week the Royal family in the UK have been set upon by a number of issues that have all been taken out of context and probably deliberately. The first involved an aggressive questioning of the head of a charity at an event, by a royal household lady. The episode is bizarre because we are a country where we accused former boxer Amir Khan of divided patriotism when his camp carried a British flag alongside a Pakistani flag (even though he wears the Union Jack all the time), but when Ngozi Fulani (the head of the said charity) stated she is British and the conversation should have been left at that (especially as she was born & raised in London), she is accused of lacking pride in her roots for not wishing to agree that she is not British and must dig up where her ancestors hail from and provide that response whenever asked. Essentially, she is expected to say: I was born & raised in Britain, but my parents were from xxxx. That is supposed to be the only acceptable answer because she doesn’t fit the description? However, if Helen Mirenovski (or Helen Miren) was stood in her place, nobody would ask her where she’s from right? (Helen’s awesome by the way; excellent lady). Why? we all know why. So, yes, it was an issue. However, there was absolutely no need for the melodrama. There was no need for the lady in question, Lady Hussey I think, to quit her position. There must be consequences for such behaviour and hers is the outing of the matter. If we are ever to get to the end of such sagas, it will take someone like Lady Hussey coming out with a statement condemning those who have, in her name, made Ngozi’s life hell since the matter was exposed. Lady Hussey should come out and publicly state that what she did was awful and made Ngozi feel inferior in her own country, but perhaps it was unintentional (I doubt Lady Hussey set out to be horrible), but the effect remain as it usually is. If we’re going to be asking where people are from, and they confirm but we want it to be where we think it is, then why not just say so. Then, ask the same question of everyone regardless of what they look like. And volunteer the same detail for yourself first, as I am sure Lady Hussey herself could claim her roots are from the Middle East, if the Bible is correct, we’re all from Adam & Eve right? And if it is Darwin who is correct, then we are all from Africa?
The notion that a Brit can be the daughter of a Russian immigrant called Mirenovski or whatever, drop some bit of it and be Miren, play the Queen on telly etc., but the daughter of a Caribbean immigrant who arrived here well before Mirenovski must forever have to explain why she surely must be from someplace else, is the exact definition of the ‘ism’ that people have been having major issues with recently. As for the Harry and Megan stuff, the royal family is smart enough to know that Harry will never reveal anything major – he may be a unhappy with how he feels he’s been treated, but he will never really do anything to seriously damage his family – and in fact, all the storytelling is keeping a once almost forgotten institution constantly in the press. And given the seeming overwhelming public negativity towards Megan for whatever reason people wish to hate her, this is not doing anything other than helping the royal family. There’s nothing Harry and Megan can put out there that’s really going to cause much damage to the royal family – the reasons they have survived has little to do with lack of scandals, they will be just fine. So, people can stop hating on Harry and Megan, there’s no need to hate them. They have their reason for being unhappy, those who wish to listen to them should, and those who do not want to, do not have to. I haven’t seen nor listened to any of their stuff and do not intend to, but I also do not have any reason to hate on them – they are human beings too. It is very possible that Harry should have done more to put Megan in the picture; Harry is the junior brother and the one who was always going to have to be happy with second place – which will be 3rd, 4th etc, depending on how many kids William has – and Harry would have been groomed to understand that all his life and accepted it (and let’s be honest, he isn’t the first to find himself in that number two spot is he? It is what it is. It is still not a bad place to be is it?). Till he met a spirited American woman who couldn’t understand that and should have been made to understand it, but perhaps nobody tried to – she couldn’t understand why her man has to stand behind in line etc. Now they are intent on being number 1 on the internet if they can’t be in lineage. It will all blow over son enough. I hope they stay together as they clearly like each other and their kids need them. I also hope that after they have exhausted their stories and made enough from Netflix, they will just let go. Yes, we get it, they perceive ill-treatment etc. And I do hope everyone else have also learnt something from this saga and can all be better. As for the public, and the online trolls and abusers, no hope there; that’s never going to change. You give people an uncensored channel, and that is what you will always get. It’s their chance to lash out and be horrible – we are very horrible beings in general..
This morning I read some articles attacking Canada’s Prime Minister of being a woke lefty and all sorts. When you read the accusations levelled against him, you see issues common with most leaders: a bit of arrogance, a bit of “I know what’s best for you”, but all in all, he is a million miles better than the last Prime Minister Canada had (Stephen Harper), but it doesn’t matter what Trudeau does, the fact that he appointed a handful of different-looking individuals in his cabinet was the woke tab firmly affixed and he will forever be hounded by a certain kind of folk, who will never really state why they hate him so much. They will pileup all sorts or reasons – but never state that real reason – which when examined, amount to much less than the past several Canadian Prime Ministers have done.
Many want a return to how things were in the 70s? Clean streets, few people all looking the same, turn the telly on and everyone’s the same, including all the commercials etc., say anything about anyone and you’re fine, only hire people who look exactly like you without any challenge etc. But the reality is simple: the time we are wasting trying to force a return to the 70s could have been spent getting new plans in place, to get our streets clean again, get people integrated and accepting our way of life, getting used to seeing a variety of different-looking people in our TV shows and commercials and getting on with today’s reality.
We lost to France at the World Cup yesterday via a missed penalty and in contract to our recent European Championship loss also via penalties albeit following extra time, the reaction is that England fans say they are heartbroken for Harry Kane who missed the penalty. Few months ago at the European Championship it was horrible, hateful emojis barely minutes after. Need one explain the difference? No. We all get it. It’s all about what the folks who missed the penalty look like. But if you watched yesterday’s match, why should anyone receive abuse? They played their heats out and Kane was brilliant. Same as the European Championship match with the 3 missed penalties – they tried their best and didn’t deserve any abuse. But we live in a sick, pathetic world!
By this morning, people want the manages, Gareth Southgate, replaced! Seriously? It beggars belief! It’s like we’ve been winning these major tournaments left, right and centre over the years and Southgate failed to?
Southgate is the best we have. Yes, he is more defensive than attacking, but would we rather have attacked and lost to the US instead of the dour draw that got us through to the next stage?
Can Southgate change a little, to be less conservative in the bigger games? I don’t see why not. Instead, we just want to dump him??!
World’s in an absolute mess!
Knowledge can improve the world we live in 