Bound by thousands Suns

Score thousands suns bound my time.
Mark my beginning
and will mark my demise.

The count of them braced round my neck,
Ere I was born.
Into these wild lands.

From before I was with the father of man.
Shaded below his tall frame.
Tutted or smiled at?

I cannot know
Can never know.

From before even that
More ancient than that
I took an oath

A binding oath
That I forgot
Except in my bones.

Except in my blood.
Except in my being
The very centre of what it means to be me.

They remember it now and then
At those times when they bruise and bleed
Or when the very fear of life goes out of them.

But I do not.
And I cannot.

At those times what my mouth says astonishes me;
"Does it know more than I what know?"
Does it call that which I hope for,
Or that which I dread.

Do I try to stop it.
Smother and choke it.
Or have I heard those words before?

Will my hands be made to speak.
And my lips be made dumb.
Wouldst that they plead my foolishness,
Whilst my hands would prove my guilt.

Am I alone with no helper who would intercede for me?
No action or intention made whole and real that would free me?
No good deed that could come to my aid?

At the ending the sun might set,
And I yet live.
Believing that I make who I am.
And I will good, and help not for myself.

But for the pleasure of my LORD, most gracious.
That HE might bind me with robes of gold and silver.
That HE might love to forgive me all my sins
.
That HE might cause me to enter through the intercession of HIS Messenger.
The greatest of Men,
The blessed of Men,

Due abundance and excellence manifold.
Peace and Salutations upon you, O Messenger of God.
Who taught so well.

END
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Is News fit for Purpose?

Is the current news (print, TV and radio) of sufficiently high quality to warrant it's continued consumption? Is the news unbiased?

Really this question boils down to: "is the news fit for purpose?"

And this begs the question of what that purpose is for us, and we as a people strive towards different ends.

Some people consume news for its entertainment value, even if we discount celebrity, it becomes quite clear that for these people politics is a show. After all everybody enjoys holding an opinion and seeking to justify it. For such people the news as it stands is fit for purpose.

But there are other people for whom this news is just not enough.

I for one use Facebook as my alternative and daily stream of news. I do this by having politically active friends. I also at times read the guardian but that is for more joined up intelligence, which is not the same as knowledge, rather than the daily intelligence of fact.

I stay away from broadcast news. And I am not an isolated case, increasingly young people also look upon news with disdain.

Why do I do that?
Because I suppose I just don't trust it.

If I look back on my time line I can prove to myself the lies and hypocrisy of today's news from Yassar Arafat's sudden death by poisoning which came to light and then was denied, to the Gaza lies, all tell a woeful story that our news is in the hands of the powerful.

Whilst once it might have been taught that news is one of the great bastions of democracy, the holding in check of the powerful.

That talk has turned to that of curbing the power of the press, but this belies that fact that the only press left is of the entertainment kind. The press of critical examination of the powers that be has moved on to the retirement fields. Not least because our politicians have become clowns.

Seriously funny clowns if it weren't for the implications of their actions.


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