Priorities

I told you so.

It’s fascinating to watch the world beyond Iraq prepare for the World Cups...

It was up for nearly two whole days before the problems began. The first hint of a problem came through [defendant]’s neighbor. He stopped by the shop and told [defendant] that a [secret service agent] had been walking past the shop window, when the [bone of contention] attracted his attention. According to the neighbor, the [secret service agent] stopped, gazed at the [bone of contention], took note of the shops name and location and went on his way.

A day later, [defendant] had a visit at noon. A [secret service agent] walked into the shop, and had a brief look around. [defendant] tried to interest him in some [commodities], but he was not to be deterred from his apparent mission. He claimed to be a ‘representative’ from the [rulemaker] press bureau which was a few streets away and he had a message for [defendant]: the people at the abovementioned bureau were not happy with [defendant]’s display. Where was his sense of national pride?

[defendant] wasn’t happy at all. He told the [secret service agent] he would find a ‘solution’ and made a peace offering of some inexpensive [commodities] he sometimes sold. That evening, he conferred with various relatives and friends and although nearly everyone advised him to take down the [bone of contention], he insisted it should remain on display as a matter of principle. His wife even offered to turn it into [something unsuspicious]. He was adamant about keeping it up.

Two days later, he found a rather dramatic warning letter slipped under the large aluminum outer door. In a nutshell, it declared [defendant] and people like him ‘[traitor]’ and demanded he take down the [bone of contention] or he would be exposing himself to danger. It takes quite a bit to shake up a guy like [defendant], but the same day he had the [bone of contention] down and the display was back to normal.

Can’t you see them?

The small general store, the friendly son of long-established jewish family, who “inherited the shop from his father” – and the grim, dark, “black-glad” man, silently gazing, taking notice...

foretelling evil...

I told you so: Riverbend is a second Anne Frank. Reading this story Viva Muqtada... – doesn't this remind you of the stories of Anne Frank, how the SS used just pinpricks, but steadily and unpredictably, to control the people and to force them to obedience – and to betray their friends like Anne Frank?

Priorities....

our priorities: Sports, games, Spam, telling us, that “Life Should be Full of Luxuries....” to make us buy needless stuff...

who cares about others?

“First they came for the Communists, and I didn’t speak up, because I wasn’t a Communist. Then they came for the Jews, and I didn’t speak up, because I wasn’t a Jew. Then they came for the Catholics, and I didn’t speak up, because I was a Protestant. Then they came for me, and by that time there was no one left to speak up for me” - Rev. Martin Niemoller

When the last tree has died and the last river been poisoned and the last fish been caught...

who cares about us?