Kia ora Comrades, Merry Christmas to you and your whanau.
Good will and peace to all.
Remember- It’s not Christmas until you have a huge argument defending Fairytale of New York, Love Actually and eating anything that casts a shadow.
Today Joseph and Mary would have to pass through 15 checkpoints to get from Nazareth to Bethlehem, but seeing as most of Gaza has been flattened by a war crime level response by Israel, plus the ethnic cleansing, you could make it a round trip within 30 minutes now.
The realistic nativity scene looks like this…
…how soul disturbingly sad.
Radio 1 to air censored version of Pogues’ Fairytale of New York
Offensive words in the Christmas song to be removed or altered for Radio 1, but remain unchanged on Radio 2
For many Christmas is a Season of Good Will, family, friends, whanau. A time to sit in each others company and celebrate the shared harvest of the year. It is joyful, it is welcoming, it is us at our best as a species.
For some however, it is a season of estrangement, a bitter cold loneliness whose each passing hour gnaws relentlessly into bone marrow that never heals. A 24 hour carnival of wounds made mockingly humiliating by the the cheer of the vast majority.
For those some, Christmas is a struggle of bruises with gift wrapped injury. For them, the bitter sweet working class lament ‘Fairytale of New York‘ sums up all the wasted hope of Christmas and allows pain to sit at the table in an exhausted detente with our more damaged angels.
Micro aggression policing Millennials decry this song for its hate speech language of ‘Slut’ and ‘Faggot’ and demand with all the nuance of Mao’s cultural revolution that this relic of pre-woke be burned at the virtual signalling stake.
When those some sing the insults with such ferocious gusto, it’s not aimed at homosexuals or women, those are insults being screamed at themselves once the distance between what was hoped and what was delivered is measured from heaven to the gutter.
Those some will not stop singing this pain, because this pain is the only guest at the table.
Finally, a NZ poem for Christmas.
A Christmas Wish
‘Not mistletoe and holly
To ward off melancholy
Carols in the chapel
Plum pudding and crabapple.
But to camp for a week
By a mountain creek
With fresh taken trout
And tinned pears to eat
With tea boiled in a billy
And the morepork in the gully.’
James K Baxter
A sardonic and depressed festival of late stage capitalism consumerism on a burning planet to you all!
A toast to your good health and peace on earth and good will to all.
Season’s Greetings Comrades!
TDB 2024
Increasingly having independent opinion in a mainstream media environment which mostly echo one another has become more important than ever, so if you value having an independent voice – please donate here.
Hoping TDB readers have a great Christmas and appreciate that New Zealand is a great wee country and it’s now on the up and up.
2024 has been a good year and I have no doubt 2025 will be even better.
CHEERS EVERYONE…..
Bullshit!
https://www.nzherald.co.nz/nz/auckland-city-mission-celebrates-christmas-with-street-market-and-food-stalls/RQ5G5FR3ENALTMGV6MGLGJVQKM/
This CoC is responsible for many without food and clothing, you Bob and Trevor have your head in the blue sand you ignorant wankers!
Were they not there under the Ardern then?
I am still wondering if Labour did such a good job why did they lose first their leader then their power to rule.
But it is xmas so forc48 hrs we should call a truce and enjoy the moment to reflect.
Happy days
Not as many , no.
Nice try though Ann E
But it’s not about then Ann E, it’s about NOW, what are your thoughts about NOW?
Not sure you like that question.
It’s about your churlish reply to I’m Right.
Is it though Ann E? It’s about your own hate of Ardern and I suggest you grow up, that would be good for starters Ann E.
Churlish is becoming involved in a conversation of others.
Thanks for your advice but I’m fully grown and don’t wish to join your puppy dog, tail wagging fanboi club for an authoritarian tyrant just because she is a woman.
amazing how women become so vindictive when another woman is succesful.Just look at the lot in national who are ministers who are nasty toward the population .The 3 big bum blondes .
Two words. Donald Trump. Then watch the beta male invective disgorge.
There always was a snake in the Garden of Eden mythology.
But if that applies to Ann E et Al and hangers-on, there is good news about being redeemed.
Adam and Eve repented and were forgiven, hence they are allowed in heaven. The Lord’s promise of salvation is true, and one should never doubt it, even if he errs recurrently.28 Apr 2023
Did Adam and Eve go to heaven after they were forgiven? –
Raw Christianity – Quora
https://rawchristianity.quora.com
Is that an expression of goodwill Squeak?
@ im right.
Fuck, you’re a horrible, reality twisting fucking ogre. You’re slimier than seymour, greedier than luxon and oilier that peters. Yuk.
Crassmas is for the rich. Thus fuck crassmas. You lot who are struggling without a clue as to what the fuck it is that’s going on? Peace. You must find your peace. How? Unite. Fight back.
Cheer up KillerWhite. You might sit and do something positive once a day and think some nice thoughts or the world will swipe you down. At the moment you would curdle milk at 10 paces. Conserve your mighty brain, we need it against the forces of smirkness.
Watch the Black Knight and have a weak larf.
Monty Python https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4slV0qSgvV4
And then Yanis Varoufakis and DiEM25. A few words for 2025. 5.11
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=30CH-Ouzad0
TDB – All the best…and thank you for all your efforts to make me more educated.
You just complimented someone who describes Gaza as the genocide it is. Either you’re an insincere plant or you are being educated, which is good.
sumsuch – Merry Christmas Hamas Hugger
I think you’ll find those who don’t ‘approve’ of Israel’s Gaza slaughter are inspired by dislike of the Holocaust as their first principle. After all, it was the moral foundation of the post-WW ll world.
To continue your ‘education’ watch the shortest utubes you can find of the great Jewish thinkers on this matter: Chomsky, Chris –, Pappe, Finkelstein, Mate, Peled. The whole Israel scheme was built on clearing off the inhabitants: they all — Weizmann and Gruen — admitted it from the get-go.
But continue to be infantile, bad faith and 2nd rate — I mean that’s Israel’s entire defence.
It reminds me of China’s attacks on the Dalai Lama as being a terrorist after troubles in Tibet just prior to their prized Olympics. 95% of us said you’re making yourselves look silly by saying silly.
sumsuch – Er, slight problem with your recommended reading, and idols…Noam Chomsky supported the Khmer Rouge and never said sorry…the current Dalai Lama is a CIA asset and giant creeper…as for Pappe, Finkelstein, Mate, Peled all are bias against Israel – despite the evidence…
Feeling silly yet?
You pro-genocide folk on here are not ‘winning’, no more than flotsam and jetsam in the path of a boat. Free speech allows you, the content of your speech disproves you.
Chris .. Hitchens. If he had lived I would hope he would have been the ‘only’ ‘New Atheist’ to support the Gazans. Really, an indictment of that crowd. Anti-Muslim above all. Anti-trans and all heading Right. What is there on the Right but extinction of the species within our lifetimes.
“Bigger Economy Everyone”
How many people killed this year due to religion? A million? Two? And now we’re all supposed to come together in love and hope and spirit magic? Please
But which religion? And did the number killed outweigh that of atheist/secularist killings?
All the best to everyone.
Cool! That means you’ll fuck off then?
Boom, well said Killer!
I understand (according to a commenter above) that it’s churlish to become involved in the conversation of others.
Oh gosh Ann E you do harm to women as rational beings to undertake some irrational repartee with, by making inane last remarks. Having to have the last word is a disincentive to engage for males. Now merry New Year and I wonder what you will do with this before going off about your usual pursuits and leaving us all to blunder on in this political dia-tribe.
And yet here you are churlish Ann with an E?
Oh I’m just pointing out your hypocrisy Squeaky. Someone has to.
What and miss your posts Killer,never you are my daily source of amusement.
All the best to you for 2025.
Bah, humbug.
Happy Yulefest.
Didja know Mary was going to call him Basil until she stubbed her toe on the manger?
Thanks for the Year Martyn
Ha. I like that,definitely will be added to my list of quotable qoutes
Wishing all a time of togetherness with people you want to be with, conviviality and food and some home-made cordials, music and singing would be nice . Cheers all.
TDB A very touching post. All the best balance for 2025. The balance between
shock at the evidence of continuing giant strides of technology and armoury and obsessive gathering of assets to one’s chest (Gollum and my precious), plus a wariness of letting the poison of constant negativities and hates etch their way into one’s soul; and a desire to avoid it all with trivialities and self-centredness, having yet a realisation that some trivialities and joy and a bit of naughtiness are essential to balance, along with compassion and amusement at oneself and of others, a will to acquire skills and create, will likely make for a full, vital, enjoyable, lovable and loved human being.
It is a mighty task, and I wish us all well as we try it, comparable to the tightrope feats between buildings high above ground, or across Niagara Falls. Maybe we all need to be Houdinis, slipping out of the wretched ideas of the past, but still wearing tight fitting garments of reason and humanity, crafted over centuries, that never wear away.
Blah blah serious stuff always seems so overblown even turgid. But for Christmas I offer a present of two words – opposites, on google. Each has a trail of other words in different levels of intensity. (It’s amazing how we have all these words and still can’t build the framework of a rational and enjoyable world using them effectively and maturely.) The words are boring and pretentious, with their comet trail of synonyms. I think when these come to mind about someone or thing we need to check what habitual path our minds are taking. We need to go differently now* and examine what is right and best and need a majority of serious thinkers to balance the convention-followers, who Know and are set in their ways and beliefs; more than 51% majority also as this is important stuff. our lives and the future, our humanity, our finer intellectual side.
*‘THE PAST IS A FOREIGN COUNTRY: THEY DO THINGS DIFFERENTLY there. ‘ The immortal first line to L. P. Hartley’s [1953 novel] ‘The Go-Between’ wistfully condenses the problems inherent to memory and history.
The Past is a Foreign Country – The White Review
The White Review
https://www.thewhitereview.org/feature/the-past-is-a-foreign-country/
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Go-Between
Compare with AI overview on google.
The full saying is “The past is a foreign country; they do things differently there,” which is a line from L.P. Hartley’s novel “The Go-Between,” meaning that the past is so different from the present that it feels like a completely different place with different customs and ways of doing things….
That was a nice poem of James K Baxter’s. I was reading about Peter Cape, songwriter and much more who died in 1979. his is something from him that is an indication of how we have to be if we are going to survive the depredations of technology and the destabilisation of the democratic culture when the emphasis is upon acquiring money as riches, instead of seeing each other’s wonderful persona as the true or potential riches shown up in their creativity.
In one of these books, ‘Artists and Craftsmen in NZ’ (1968), he wrote that…
“As we grow from the simplicities of post-pioneer living into a more complex society, and as we grow more aware of our national identity, we will become more willing to accept the expression of these things in the arts.”
Peter was writing about potters and painters, but I think his words apply to us song-writers as well…https://folksong.org.nz/petrcape.html
Try – Taumata,,,https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rQMhmMnZXrs