Post No. 1,392 - Reflections, reading and a cross posting: A plug for the Caspian Report

Well, the household is slowly recovering from a flu that seems to have affected a few people, despite vaccinations. One of the effects of that is that I haven't been able to mow the lawn for a while. It's growing more slowly because we're still in winter (yes, Dear readers in the northern hemisphere, this is being written "Down Under"), but it's showing - a little - how an older paddock would look if undisturbed. Our front yard has been overrun with clover, which is magnificent. Our back yard is still grass (sigh), but there are a few of those pesky weeds giving it colour - and we have some colour out the front as well. I'm tempted to put a garden edge around it, perhaps inside a footpath, and call the whole thing a garden bed ☺

Still, I will do the conventional thing, maybe even today, and mow it all down into suburban subservience - although a little longer than regulation, a bit like a rebellious male in the 60s letting hair reach the ear . . .

Here's to home ownership one day (realistically, probably next life, unless tiny homes become legal here).

Some online articles I recently found interesting are:

• The Big Pagan Umbrella Covers Witchcraft Too, Whether You Like It Or Not; 
• Modern Hekatean Witchcraft: Using Epithets To Take Your Practice Deeper - which applies to other Deities as well; and 
• Spiritual Experiences – Separating Reality From Illusion.

*****

The following was originally posted on my political blog at https://politicalmusingsofkayleen.blogspot.com/2019/08/a-plug-for-caspian-report.html. 

PS - I have also written some thoughts on China at https://politicalmusingsofkayleen.blogspot.com/2019/08/china.html



One of the YouTube channels I follow is the Caspian Report. The posts are objective, well constructed, and seem to me to be very well based and researched.

Last night my notifications included one that the Caspian Report has posted an episode on China's "quest to catch up with the West". In the midst of the growing tensions over Hong Kong, including the major risk of some sort of repeat of the Tiananmen  Square  massacre, and the arguments in the Pacific over the climate crisis and whether Australia and China are doing enough, it is useful to get a reminder of the broader picture that China's leaders are facing.

I still am of the view that China's crackdown is a mistake, and that repression actually slows their attempt to catch up with the West (allowing freedom allows people to contribute their best, as well as motivating them to do so), but I can see the parallels between this and other situations of information overload when mistakes were made - such as the lead up to the Rwandan  genocide, when the UN and the USA were facing man other problems.

I may also watch an older Caspian episode on "the Chinese mindset", but will do so from my position of profound scepticism about communism (which is vastly different to socialism).