

Some people will be horryfied at the implications of such a statement, but others will nod in agreement. However, as it is, the latter group may be the one which consists of more true believers than the first one. "How come?" you may ask, not believing your own ears. The first group are confirmedcChurch-goers, which the second one isn't, so how are they maybe more true believers than people who attend sermon after sermon? Well, to attend sermons and bleat religious hymns without much understanding of what they are about, is not a religious act, but it certainly is a social one: Religion is a way of bringing "order" to a society in the conformity-manner. "Bend your knees, bleat with me and remember the religious slurs of our community. When doing that, you shall be fine."
Those ardent Church-goers often seem to be beset by thought, ideas and even plans which not exactly equal devotions. The so-called main-religions - and maybe even others - have attained a suppression function in society that has nothing to do with spirituality or a deeply heart-felt wish of "getting close to God, whoever this particular deity is". On the contrary, it's more like a "I shall twist you arm until it breaks if you don't come to see eye to eye with me when it comes to religion". The arm-twister may even see him-/herself as a true believer, a "swordsman" for God which is totally crazy.
In Danish, we have an old saying that goes like this: "Shoemaker, stay with your trade!" If James Gillingham (1839–1924) had done so he would not have been able to help William Singleton when he lost an arm in a weird accident in connection with the celebrations of the wedding of the future King Edward VII and the Danish princess, Alexandra. However, being a shoemaker, must have taught him what he needed to know about this very young art of making prosthetics in leather. It brought him fame, and he and his works is a main subject in the museum of Chad, situated in Somerset, where he lived and worked.
From the Chard Museum
Modern day prosthetics seem to accept that the disfiguring aspects of being an amputee isn't hidden or camouflaged. Actually, nowadays one often sees artificial legs or arms looking like robotic limbs with no skin like coverings. They are all steel-constructions and don't look like natural limbs. To me, it almost looks like as if this kind of artificial limbs have become a trend. Anyway, I doubt it shall go on forever, as I suppose people will want to look as little conspicuous as possible: They will want to blend in, so to speak.
Victorian prosthetic made by James Gillingham (1839–1924). Photos circa 1880s-1900s.
https://www.dearrailway.in/artificial-limbs-center/
https://steelbone.co.uk/types-of-prosthetic-limbs-on-the-nhs-for-amputees/
Wikipedia
This case undoubtedly defies some of the most common beliefs about mothers and children. We wouldn't find it hard to understand a woman who defends her children like a bear mom, risking her life in fightings to hold her cubs safe, but a mom who kills her son "on the spur of the moment", is unfathomable to most of us. The fact that she at one point also "borrowed" his identity, pretending to be him, holds such a lot of "how could she"-moments that it's almost as if this tragedy turns into some kind of sick joke. Almost, that is because all of this is tragic ....
John Gaither: The Victim
According to his mother, her 42 years old son, John, was depressed, and that's the reason why she "put him out of his misery". He was living with her in her house, and he may have had problems of various art, but presumably not something that might call for her kind of euthanasia. Actually, she may have been depressed herself. Anyway, her actions don't strike one as what she called them, namely "a spur of the moment"-killing, as she handled his dead body in an almost professional gangster-manner, by hiding it in the wall. Not until relatives of the mother-son-couple made a report of John's disappearance that started an investigation was he found and retrieved. Before that happened she had sent text messages in his name, as if he were still alive.
The police found out that she had bought 15 bags of sand, straw, tape and dumpster bags at a certain Home Depot. All of it had been for hiding her dead son behind the fake wall she had built. Also, the police found out that she had a prior conviction of killing her drug dealer in 1993 and hiding his body in her car trunk. Strangely enough he wasn't found until several months later, and when he was, she attempted to kill herself. So she did, when her son's body was found, but both times she was saved. Her first murder landed her with a sentence of 17 years, and the second one, namely of her son, lead to a life sentence without any possibility of a parole.
https://www.themirror.com/news/us-news/mississippi-mom-killed-son-hid-1951561
Yup, the figures on the cover of this Norwegian classic are upside-down, which is a feature that goes well with the intent of its creator, Gerd Brantenberg (born in 1941). The book has been translated and published in several countries since first publication in 1977 which is no wonder as it's a very well-designed and funny tale of gender squabbles in the fictive country of Egalia. Here the male sex is suppressed the way the female one is in many of our day Patriarchies. When Gerd Brantenberg tells the tale of Egalia she gives a both lucid and ludicrous portrait of the man-woman-situation in our non-fictive world of today: Look guys, follow the lead of the main character, the teenaged boy Petronius, and get to know much more about the "war of the sexes", and how suppression works when it comes to gender.
Gerd Brantenberg, some time in the 1970ies
She studied philology and became a lecturer at the University of Copenhagen for some years. In the 1970ies she was very active in the women's rights movement. Something which was met with acclaim as she got several honorary offices before turning into a full-time author from 1982. Her first books - which I don't think have been neither translated nor published outside of Norway - were about her life as a young lesbian. However, when she published her dystopian novel "Egalias døtre" ("The Daughters of Egalia") in 1977 she won a well-deserved international fame and recognition, and by now, the novel has turned into a genuine classic.
The novel tells the story of young Petronius who is full of romantic notions and longings. Being lean, tall and starting to grow a beard he is not considered handsome, as the ideal of male beauty in Egalia is plump, no special muscular strength, modest and submissive. Actually, men should be what women are expected to be in modern day Patriarchies. After what to us appears to be a somewhat ludicrous sexual meeting with a true "Alpha woman", Gro Maydaughter, who robs him of his virginity by using him sexually without many thoughts of his sexual gratification, he gets hooked on her emotionally. She - this quite coarse and selfish - woman is what he has been taught to consider the female ideal, and he sort of feels honored by her attention at the "Maidmen's Ball" where many young males lose their virginity to someone like her. These feelings are connected to his general inferiority complex because of his "unmasculine" looks, which are exactly what we consider proper and handsome in men of today.
Being a philologist, Gerd Brantenberg works the language in an expert manner, creating new words or giving old words a new meaning. Also bringing new meanings to well-known objects, as e.g. the brassiere, which, by the way, isn't something the women of Egalia are wearing. Actually, I don't think they have ever heard about something like that, but everyone, male or female, know that boys at a certain age have to wear an attraption on their penis.
What Gerd Brantenberg did in such an expert manner was to develop a new set of words, motifs and ideologies within a traditional form in order to tell us of life in a Patriarchy of today. Logically enough, at a certain point, Petronius takes part in the newly established, and very controversial Men's Movement. I guess that his experiences mirror those of Gerd Brantenberg in the 1970ies. However, the novel doesn't appear to be "time bound", it's scope is much wider than that.
https://nordicwomensliterature.net/writers/brantenberg-gerd/
https://globalis.dk/konflikter/israel-palaestina
https://faktalink.dk/emner/israel-palaestina-konflikten
https://www.dragoerhistorie.dk/livshistorier/baronessen-i-strandstraede/
https://boobytrapec.blogspot.com/2024/01/the-killing-of-god.html
For comprehensive background context, see the Council on Foreign Relations tracker or read the BBC historical overview.
The Israeli–Palestinian conflict
This beautiful and statuesque lady, Raymonde de Laroche, started out as a model, but she ended up becoming a pioner aviator
She was born Elise Deroche in Paris, France, in 1886, but changed her name to the more dramatic Raymonde de Laroche, and at some time in her career she had a "Baroness" added to it, presumably by accident. Being a well-known daredevil she wasn't afraid to go for a joyride with the Wright Brothers in 1908 when she had the offer. It seems that from that moment on she was not only a fan of aviation, but an avid pilot pupil. She wanted to become the first female aviator who took a pilot license, took lessons and had her first solo flight in 1909.
The Dream Scenario of Non-tRumpers
Some want even worse for the 45th and 47th president of the USA than this, whereas others want him declared medically unfit which would excuse him of much of what he has done. That outcome of the two presidencies of tRump I wouldn't be able to accept, no matter what. However, much of the discussion now goes on whether he is medically fit to go on doing what he is supposed to do as the head of the American state or not. Most non-tRumpers seem to admit that there is more than enough to get him jailed, but those who don't want that to happen will stress his not quite unravelled health issues: What's wrong with a man, who not only emits foul smells, suffers from edema, but also poops himself in public, as well as often have strange wounds or blemishes on one of his hands? That's a good question, but we haven't received any medical diagnosis that covers all of it, because there is also the issue of what some see as blatant dementia. Is he demented like his father became when he grew old, or not? He himself often stresses what he sees as the truth: He is a genius, and much smarter than anybody else. That said we get to the personality part of it: What is he when it comes to his ideas, ideologies and politics?
Being a wise woman, Angela Merkel nailed an important part of the issue of the tRumpian personality, but the MAGAs don't believe that she, or others who have said almost the same, are right. They saw tRump as a wonderful man and leader when they voted for him, and many still want to support him, even though his many promises have not been fulfilled; no, on the contrary.
Those who see him as a dementia-patient think that his well-known ramblings prove that he is sick. However, I feel that they shouldn't forget WHOM, tRump is addressing, namely those, who are not kings and queens of neither the vocabulary nor some illustrious brain cells: The Magas. I think that he has adopted a way of speaking that specifically targets these voters. To them, he appears as "one of them" in thoughts and actions, at the same time being a symbol of the riches they themselves are dreaming of.
Non-tRumpers laugh at his illusions about the cognitive test he presumably had to take several times: "He doesn't even know what that test is used for. What an idiot!" Yup, that he is in some respects, but not in everything, and I for one, have come to the conclusion that his so-called "dementia", his blabbering, etc., etc. more or less are part of a fixed strategy, a plan which he follows: It's his tactics for communication with people who are not exactly up to the Einstein-level. These MAGAs like a leader who, seemingly, speaks and thinks as they do. For instance, they wanted to "own the Libs", namely because they felt that this in many ways social elite was lording it over them. Instead of proven knowledge, scientific evidence, etc., etc., which non-MAGAs admire and expect in a politician of a certain standing, they wanted a "I just know it"-man like tRump whom they don't feel is lording it over them.
His niece, Mary Trump, never wavered in her negative presentations of him. She despises everything he is and stands for, and have talked of him as a very sick person psychologically. Both she and others who have said the same may be right, but somehow that makes them forgetful of something just as interesting: He doesn't exhibit any shame when being caught in something that others would make an effort to hide or deny. As more and more has come to lights, it has been wrapped up in his public "persona": "I'm me, I grab women by the pussy and get my way with them. I like gold and "$$$", and I make them mine, whenever I have the chance." Sometimes he tells about shady actions in a presumably innocent manner, as if he is too naive or uninformed to know that it's a crime. That's his way of getting away with a lot of things, like e.g. when he told that his eldest sons, Don Jr and Eric, got inside information for their businesses.
https://boobytrapec.blogspot.com/2024/10/trump-and-strategy-of-bankruptcies.html
https://boobytrapec.blogspot.com/2024/11/shameless-as-don-con.html
Wikipedia