Child Nutrition Renewal Agreement & Policy Statement Checklist: Fill & Download for Free

The next President of USA will not be able to Stop Free Trade agreements without the constituents, communities, and masses standing for democracy, sovereignty, and the rights of all.It will be us, all of us, that make the changes necessary for survival for the generations.Our next President must realize that the people have connected the dots and revolution is in the air. Our next President must go to extremes to protect Air, Soil, Water, Food, Seeds, Bees & Butterflies, and Trade. Much of the rogue regulatory mechanisms must be dimantled to uphold the fifth amendment.No more free trade, establish fair tradeD minus Infrastructure UPGRADE to 100% renewable MOBILIZATION LIKE WW2 -new economy of smart growth and green jobs must be established and all D minus Infrastructure must be grandfathered out quickly.Jail overhaulMilitary overhaulThe massive number of bases around the world must be either purchased or abandoned. A number equal to the largest number of another county's bases can bring conflict to a steady equilibrium. Those coming home can upgrade the renewable infrastructure of the armed forces, they must (and have been) lead along with citizen activists, organizations. If corporations chose to operate in a 'danger zone' they can hire their own 'security', but by no means should you M.President allow them to act outside of that country's laws as well as our own.A new supreme law that if harardous waste is by product, or the actual product, or practice - unless it is utilizing some type of remediation, recycle, reuse- THEN IT IS ILLEGAL. A fair commission should be appointed bi-yearly to excelerate goals of decreasing carbon and methane.Shut down and clean up all pollution through bioenergy practices. Create the fuel from our accumlated waste around the planet until we are 100% renewable, keeping all fossil fuels in the ground. Support technolgy to find better practices for all other mining practices utilizing the regenerative process, creating a social and cultural standard.If/when facts are presented concerning illegal betrayals of either corporations, politicians, bankers, or citizens - take action and ENFORCE IT with enormous fines to replenish the people's tax money and programs that have been cut in the last two decades.A mobilization of planting carbon absorbtion crops, and seeds, flowers for bees and butterflies. Require all utility and eminent domain parcels to seed native flowers and in marshy areas things such as mushrooms. Fields owned or leased by townships all should be planted with hemp. Remember it is carbon AND methane we must lower to dafe levels for the generations.An end to patenting 'life' and 'nature'. Big Pharma must fall.All the Bigs' must be dismantled.New jail system. Punishment fits the crime. Murderers, rapists, child harmers, and those who steal people's retirement funds - WORK program in the landfills remediating our trash into biofuel. Next tier- compost layering with brush and animal manure farms with traditional indigenous methods to start to put nutrition back into the soil on a massive scale. Many tiers, one to include self-reliant food system of gardens in the jails...and large multicrop fields worked, and products produced for their community. HEMP planted everywhere.LISTEN. THINK with common sense, not other people's pockets. Fire everyone immediately and replace with only your team, chosen from community front lines too.Just a start for today! Remember how Roosevelt saved capitalism? It is your turn.

As much as people love to lament that collectively, humans are the cruellest creatures on earth, it turns out that out of all the mammals meerkats make the highest murder rate.Keeping secrets can be expensive: inner conflict, resultant stress, identity issues and relation-formation nodus. It is a variant of lying, and when in too deep one can convince them-selves of things that may not be true, which may have far-flung consequences — simply: secrets hurt.In contradiction to popular notions it seems that deception could actually increase trust, and perhaps this has something to do with deception being ‘bundled’ with enhancement and maintenance of social structures — simply: what researchers found is that “prosocial lies increase benevolence-based trust, but harm integrity-based trust”.Stop. Run. Extricate—Fighting self in machine: Fears around technological advancements have a constant background presence, with recent political developments raising concern that deepfakes will be used to manipulate political conversations. But, aside from a few initial early examples of this occurring, the threat has not yet manifested. Nevertheless, deepfake porn, where the technology originates, has proliferated, yet porn-sites are continuing to not take them down, leaving many celebrities feeling exploited.Paedophile rings seem to be infiltrating politics in many countries — suppose they have the motivation and the need for protection (???).Catch-me (if-you-can): how the “network-of-networks” is seeing the rise of criminal minds, tech-savvy and anonymous, solely committing evil for ‘socio-cred’.In a game of cat-and-mouse, paedophiles have learned to develop code to build and maintain paedophile-networks in plain sight.The words used by paedophiles to classify, share and find abuse images are varied.However a cause of concern is that the more sophisticated criminals are co-opting words used in every day language to indicate types of abuse — words which fly under the radar …“We’re doing everything we can to eliminate this.” [on “Cracking the Paedophile Code”.]Medicine, Psychology and Neuroscience, and our Internet may have advanced this far due to military interest, research and funding.A British public intellectual has argued that out of modern society, two tribes have emerged:“the “anywheres”, and “somewheres”, suggesting that this distinction, arising from a melange of social and cultural views together with life experiences, matters more than old distinctions of right and left, or social class.”like: “nomads”, and “nesters”? Mars, and Venus? Elon Musk, and Greta Thunberg? Or between branding and, culture; networking and, community? — Noble Hearts and, Encroaching Certainties? — Truth and, Beauty? Refuge and, Sanctum? Mission and, Home?D. Goodhart reveals why he broke up with the metropolitan elite.For more discussion: Why the left is wrong about immigration |Caught between circumstance and fate, choice and destiny — cowering in fear, darting from stealth shadows — Spinning nets: a final destination, and the origin of mankind.In the latter decades of life people tend to watch more telly than at any other point in life, yet it seems that they find much less joy in it. To speculate, it may in part have something to do with the role stories and narratives play in reinforcing our identity, the function of “escapism” or the reflexive relationship with the ‘collective unconscious’.An area twice the size of the UK is used each year to produce pet food.Ever feel unattractive? It turns out, that we may have admirers who we would not have even dreamt of being in the mere possession of the capacity to consider us as mates, let alone actively lust after us. Such as:Parrots;Ostriches;aaaand Dolphins.Isolation coupled with mental illness or unhappy, incompatible or parasitic relations can tear the veneer apart:Single persons are doing much better than unhappy couples during this pandemic.Revenge-porn and domestic abuse situations have increased drastically during this pandemic.Animal abuse and abandonment have increased, in part owing to angst over contagion and spread, or fears over financial instability.‘Eternity beckons’ — The unravelling of prisoners in super-max prisons highlight the necessity of feedback from other human beings for reality-testing and self-containment — at least with those who grew up in human societies (… otherwise you may find yourself endlessly searching, tailing breadcrumbs to … ).Yet, weirdly enough, terror and counter-terror efforts have been oddly silent — has there been a change of strategies?There's also been a 120 per cent increase in child sexual abuse material, 87 per cent jump in cyber bullying among young people and a 63 per cent rise in reports of adult cyber abuse. .. "We will always probably be playing a game of whack-a-mole in terms of taking content down.” Platforms have 'lost control'Four cloaked figures came riding on a Zebra, a Horse, a Donkey and a Unicornkinquin' a-head: the modern horsemen of conspiracy-pandemics, cultured-wars of cyber-space, populus-regulating disordered eating, and the jaundice inducing snowflake epidemic?serpentine: superstition, winding conspiracies and the spiral into deathdigitized found-at-I-on: me-me tag-a-long, a-political incantation, put-down a-ppoint sacrificial crux, and the dark arts of informating, as clock's tickin', wheels and reinventions, a makeshift fly?Pirates Scurvy, Barbies Glow, and the all-abiding curse: from anorexia to orthorexia and the obesity epidemicprayer in the nude, marionette free-falling in abyss: ghosting, emotivism, and the fragile emergence of high-strung cult-ure orient-at-i-on[First come the silent cry of a golden-haired babe in a crib; then come the gaze of the coal-eyed shadow with curved fangs; then the sealed-lips with a ruler each in a pocket, and then come the twins with the scales.][Wikimedia: Gustav Klimt — The-Beethoven Frieze: The Hostile Powers—Far Wall.]Women of age speak of grand balls and latch-key kids, of diamond studded gowns and soiled pants, of open books and riddled shoes, of mellowed wine and trembling hands[unsees, the remainder, like a trap-door, an inordinate wish, the uncleared alley, in the realm where unlit shapes and judgement reigns, the resting place of old-aged hope like cotton candy clouds descending into cryptic swamps, the icing that masquerades as cake, where corrosion rains and the dead lie awake, conspiring whispers where solely shadows lever, amid a thousand-and one orbs, at the edge, in clover, unaware of dreams underneath frozen slumber, where a week goes by before sunrise greets, reaching ice-covered peaks of lights of sublimation — charming, though not enough gravitaswhere lightning strikes, arrows arch bare sagacious sprites of the deep-sea vapours, alight travelling bodies nearing close, as time's a capricious urn, bestowing water.]Swords cut, air corrupts, blood flows, minds exert, words impair, intent matters, ink stains, fabric absorbs, gauze dresses — and love sees, of integrity the body heals.[Venus’ smoulder leaves Forget-me-nots — Is love the expression of intelligence? Ever Since hope is the only thing remaining. — Remind me, aren't tears made of water? … Confluent effusion, Container of its own.]Hymns of Ash and FireVolcanoes are intriguing, even if it is only due to us simply knowing the mass-destruction potential these giant formations possess.They are classified as either active, dormant or ‘extinct’.For example, only extinct volcanoes are thought to exist in the British countries (the country of countries)— with Scotland being home to an (extinct) super-volcano.At any given time, at least 20 volcanoes are erupting around the world. But there are many more that can potentially be active—the problem is figuring out which ones.Volcanoes like Ciomadul that haven’t erupted in the last 10,000 years or so are often called inactive. However, this dividing line is somewhat arbitrary, Krippner says.When it comes to volcanoes, “‘extinct’ is a very iffy word,” she says. Some volcanoes, like the infamous Yellowstone supervolcano, may lie dormant for hundreds of thousands of years between eruptions. Source: NationalGeo[Mount Sinabung, Indonesia, Volcano ash cloud, by @yoshginsu via Unsplash.]One of the largest fields of volcanoes on earth is on the main Ethiopian Rift Valley.Here, Africa has been slowly pulling apart for millions of years.As the continent pulls apart, the crust extends and thins, promoting the rise of magma from the depths of the Earth's mantle.This "Great Rift Valley System" stretches from the Middle East in the North to Mozambique in the South. The area is geologically active, and features volcanoes, hot springs, geysers, and frequent earthquakes.Since some of these volcanoes are believed to have had two colossal eruptions in time-past, and “this pulse in volcanic activity” seemingly coincides with the arrival of our species in that region, it seems possible that the resultant changes in the landscape and environments occupied by our earliest human ancestors might have influenced human evolution and migration.The great Rift Valley is both the location of the earliest fossils of anatomically modern humans and, later, become an important route for human migrations 'out of Africa'. Source: OXSCIBLOGEruptions like these may have, together with other factors, helped along crop failures, famines and disease pandemics — all of which are deeply embedded in human history.Furthermore, eruptions of giant volcanoes that cover vast areas with lava, have been implicated in the major mass-extinctions of earth — which have occurred more times than previously thought.These mass-extinctions seem to be cyclical, affecting both the seas and the land, occurring every twenty-something millions of years. Other possible causes include flood-basalt eruptions, and asteroid and comet showers, which also happen to be periodic — probably due the Sun and planets cycling through the crowded mid-plane of the Milky Way Galaxy around every 30 million years.[Image of the night sky above Paranal, Chile on 21 July 2007, taken by ESO astronomer Yuri Beletsky. Taken from: Wikimedia Commons.]Our Galaxy is best understood as an enormous disc.Our solar system revolves around the circumference of the disc every 250 million years. But the path is not smooth, it's wavy. The Earth passes through the mid-plane of the disc once every 30 million years.I believe that the cycle of extinctions and impacts is related to times when the Sun and planets plunge through the crowded disc of our Galaxy. Normally, comets orbit the Sun at the edge of the solar system, very far from the Earth. But when the solar system passes through the crowded disc, the combined gravitational pull of visible stars, interstellar clouds and invisible dark matter disturbs the comets and sends some of them on alternate paths, sometimes crossing the Earth's orbit, where they can collide with the planet.Recognition of this 30-million-year galactic cycle is the key to understanding why extinctions happen on a regular schedule. But it may also explain other geologic phenomena as well. In further studies, we found that a number of geological events, including pulses of volcanic eruptions, mountain building, magnetic field reversals, climate and major changes in sea level show a similar 30 million year cycle. [Source: Dark matter causes chaos on Earth … ?]These rocky giants impact global warming:Overall, volcanoes release less than 2% of the equivalent amount of CO released by human activities. Quite small.However, about once every 20 years there is a volcanic eruption (e.g., El Chichon) that throws out a tremendous amount of particles and other gases.These will effectively shield us enough from the Sun to lead to a period of global cooling. The particles and gases typically dissipate after about 2 years, but the effect is nearly global. —Nasa: Vital Signs of the PlanetEruptions release aerosols which can effectuate a global cooling which lasts for a short period of time, around a couple of years, whereas the greenhouse gases released take a much longer period of time to be pulled from the atmosphere.So whilst this does not seem worrying, it looks as if the reverse might just be — namely, climate change triggering volcanic eruptions across the world.This coupled with the other possible consequences of climate change could explain why our ancestors might have revered (un-probe-able) nature to the extent they did:Anderson says the first route is the most direct: higher temperatures increase irritability and hostility, which can lead to violence.The other two are more indirect and stem from the effects of climate change on natural disasters, failing crops and economic instability.One indirect way natural disasters increase violence is through the development of babies, children and adolescents into violence-prone adults, he said. For example, poor living conditions, disrupted families and inadequate prenatal and child nutrition are risk factors for creating violence-prone adults.A natural disaster, such as a hurricane or wildfire, does not directly increase violence, but the economic disruption, displacement of families and strain on natural resources that result are what Anderson finds problematic.Another indirect effect: Some natural disasters are so extensive and long term that large groups of people are forced to migrate from their homeland. Anderson says this “eco-migration” creates intergroup conflicts over resources, which may result in political violence, civil wars or wars between nations.Curiously, scientists are now considering attempting ‘solar-engineering’ by blocking out sun-light — dubbed the sun-dimming experiment — sort of mimicking volcanic-eruptions — in an effort to reduce global warming.Dr. Keith believes if the world ever does have to resort to using it, people should know what they’re doing – and what the effects of blotting out the sun might be.And interest in the concept is growing.Over the past decade, solar geoengineering has moved from the cubicles of a few ridiculed researchers to the broader halls of scientific inquiry. Several countries now have research programs. In the United States most inquiries are privately funded, though in late December Congress approved $4 million to assess potential “solar climate interventions.”Dr. Keith’s program at Harvard is supported by Bill Gates and philanthropic foundations. A committee of the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine is due to release a two-year study in June into solar geoengineering and how it should be governed, which could unlock new federal research dollars. — [Source: Should we fiddle with Earth’s Thermostat?][Mount Bromo, is an active volcano and part of the Tengger massif, in East Java, Indonesia. — Photo by Purnomo Capunk @capunk77 via Unsplash.][Cont.] On July 20, 1816, The Morning Post in London informed its readers that they were not alone in experiencing a chilly, damp summer.“We continue to receive the most melancholy news from Germany on the extraordinary weather that afflicts nearly the whole of Europe.”That month, Mary and Percy Shelley arrived in Geneva after crossing a wintry France. “Never was a scene more awfully desperate,” she wrote. The weather kept them indoors and inspired a candlelit evening of writing ghost stories at the villa of fellow poet Lord Byron. That night, Ms. Shelley conjured up a Gothic tale about a scientist whose creation escapes his control: “Frankenstein.”The “year without summer” was a global weather event triggered by the eruption a year earlier of Mount Tambora in Indonesia.It burped clouds of volcanic ash into the upper atmosphere that over the next year would dim the skies over Europe, Asia, and the Americas.Spiralling through Ancient WrathInterest in natural phenomena, ancient humanity and contemporary society, including religion and culture, have led many to draw connections that may or may not matter, and with some of these cases, surely this would be originating from misguided psycho-political motives.Some rather curious and down-right offensive or even dangerous ideas (with some discussion) have made their way to reddit:The Das_Mime of Bad History: all kooks will at some point reveal that their ramblings are motivated at least partly by racism or racial supremacy …“I don't know you and you don't know me. I'm just an ordinary woman burdened by knowledge and I feel obliged to pass it on. I'm looking forward to the day when other people latch on because maybe then I can get back to normal life. This is not my normal way of using my time. Anyone who criticises me for what I'm doing is an assh*** for doing so. There have been hundreds like you. It is wearing.” — "I am the leading authority on Volcanos Gods"Though, it seems that some serious thought has been given to the connection between devastating natural disasters and their consequences on the socio-political structures and collective psyche of the young settlers of medieval time.Vǫluspǫ́ — icelandic poem heralded as ‘The prophecy of the seeress’The sun turns black, | earth sinks in the sea,The hot stars down | from heaven are whirled;Fierce grows the steam | and the life-feeding flame,Till fire leaps high | about heaven itself.Wikimedia-Commons: Thor und die Midgardsschlange. A scene from Ragnarök, the final battle between Thor and Jörmungandr. Date, Published ca. 1905.Sheer Terror from volcanic explosion a Millennia ago slayed the Icelandic Deities*"[The wolf] is filled with the life-blood of doomed men, reddens the powers' dwellings with ruddy gore; the sun-beams turn black the following summers, weather all woeful: do you know yet, or what?" — “the sun starts to turn black, land sinks into sea, the bright stars scatter from the sky. Steam spurts up with what nourishes life, flame flies high against heaven itself.”*Identity PoliticsThe “Black is Beautiful” and natural hair movement emerged in the 1960s.In the past, emerging factors led to colonial Louisiana passing a series of laws that went as far as banning Creole women from displaying their hair in public — presumably as an effort to stifle their increasing social mobility.The most resilient of these women took this in stride, opting to adorn their hair-coverings with ribbons and jewels:Becoming a form of sartorial protest and empowerment, “instead of being considered a badge of dishonor,” notes historian Carolyn Long, “the tignon … became a fashion statement”.It’s thought that Black women adjusting to those Tignon Laws also paved the way for the colourful and elaborate hats worn by African American women to church today.Unfortunately, it seems that afro-centric hair still relates to penalty in some form: with the owners of afro-hair being deemed less professional, possibly stemming from the dissonance between stereotyped attributes that a woman should possess versus the actual attributes necessary to be efficient at work — considering that time and resources including decisions spend fretting over image and projection may arguably make for less effective employees.So far, only one state of the USA has made it illegal for companies to enforce policies surrounding natural hair: “The CROWN (Create a Respectful and Open Workplace for Natural Hair) Act (SB 188) is a California law which prohibits discrimination based on hair style and hair texture by extending protection for both categories under the FEHA and the California Education Code.” [2019]However, this does not have to be. … “Where you are is not who you are.”Wikimedia Commons: Ursula Burns, “I am part of the 1%, and I still worry when I'm approached by a police person.” ¯\_(ツ)_/¯A somewhat interesting tidbit relates how through a silly turn of events a woman named Susanna M. Salter from Argonia got elected as the Mayor and so is one of the first-ever women to be elected in any political office in the States.Her election was a surprise because her name had been placed on a slate of candidates as a prank by a group of men against women in politics hoping to secure a loss that would humiliate women and discourage them from running.Because candidates did not have to be made public before election day, Salter herself did not know she was on the ballot before the polls opened.When, on election day itself, she agreed to accept office if elected, the Women's Christian Temperance Union abandoned its own preferred candidate and voted for Salter en masse.… publicity extended to newspapers as far away as Sweden and South Africa.As compensation for her year's service, she was paid one dollar (equivalent to $28 in 2019). After a year in office, she declined to seek reelection. [Wikipedia]She lived to be a 101 years old.A hundred-something years after the ‘year without a summer’Whilst many cultural events that are strange, gruesome or otherwise shake up the society at large tend to leave a deep imprint on the ‘collective consciousness’, somehow many others are unable find a way to become part of the larger narratives.One of them is cannibalism — which does crop up from time to time, and when it does, it has the tendency to make waves in news — like say the Japanese (murder-cannibal) Issei Sagawa who due to a series of legal loophole (i.e. was not tried in his homeland), eventually declared “sane but evil” in his homeland and released to then somehow translated his fame into books, talk show appearances, and even soft-core porn films in which he bites his co-stars, and the German (lust-cannibal) Armin Meiwes (with his willing victim) or Detlev Guenzel, a Police Forensic Specialist, initially charged for the death of a (willing) Polish-born Politician (and later found guilty of murder and disturbing a corpse).Interestingly, cannibalism is not actually illegal in many countries including Germany, however laws against murder (or in Armin Meiwes’ case, laws against euthanasia and assisted suicide) had sufficed to cover cannibalism — which could be appreciated by those who practice eating the placenta from childbirth.Armin Meiwes’ case however caused disturbances which ended up exerting its effects on the court.Armin Meiwes was originally sentenced to a seemingly paltry 8 years due to the consensual nature of the crime, however widespread public uproar led to a subsequent retrial where Meiwes was found guilty of killing for sexual pleasure.He will likely spend the rest of his life in jail.Considering the waves of the Armin Meiwes case, it seems rather fitting that an area roughly between one to two thousand kilometres away from Germany, is where, from within the receding shadows, the dubious legends around Vlad the Impaler orchestrated the introduction of a form that prevails through our bloody history and its ever-enlivening myths, marked only by the borrowed name Dracula, as the vicious Prince was known upon initiation … [meaning “son of Dracul”, which means “dragon” in Romanian — or in modern times, "the devil”].It is almost as if the thirst for blood or cannibalism is an entity that wants or needs to be known, perhaps not unlike how unending waves of Zombies — the victims of war, disease, famine and abandonment, will not bear to rest in their graves.Still, something that can not be widely knowable is that famines, such as after the fall of Leningrad (Russia), can sway inhabitants into cannibalism. In one particular case, which follows the German blockade, the slow spiral into starvation took the lives of more than 800,000 people. Diary entries paint a grisly image:One of the earliest signs of starvation was that both boys and girls started growing facial hair. Adults suffered physiological changes too, with men becoming impotent and women’s menstrual cycles either becoming irregular or stopping altogether.Ration cards, given by the struggling Soviet government offered only meagre supplies, forcing many parents to abandon their children and others to steal from the dead.It is extremely frightening to consider just how dependent we are on everything else:One young girl wrote that her father was so hungry he ate their dog. And it wasn’t just animals. Approximately 1,500 Leningraders were arrested for cannibalism during this time.According to historian Guy Walters, the Russian language distinguishes between two types: the first type refers to eating the flesh of a corpse – someone already dead. The second type refers to eating a human being one has killed for the express purpose of nourishment. Not only did both occur in Leningrad, but there were parents who fed their children human flesh.A diary entry by Alexandra Mironova tells of a family called the Kaganovs, who engaged in cannibalism. Though she tried to take the children to an orphanage, they “did not want to leave their uncooked meat”.Dr Petri found that, despite people being malnourished, both men and women engaged in prostitution, selling themselves for food.— The secret diaries: Under Nazi SiegeHmm … thinking about it maybe it was the sheer amount of dead bodies and what it signified: the end-of-suffering and self-death (nourishment and renewal; survival and hunting; resource and trading, and so on.).However, not many thoughts might have been spared on how some of the “fodder” for the war-machine could not have managed to heal their wounds:Suicide offered another way out.It was much under-reported, as at least 3,828 German soldiers killed themselves; a figure that does not reflect the numbers who simply walked into enemy fire or whose death was ambiguous. — [The Aftermath]Plutonia sings of strolls through the little-deaths to someplace far with eat-me cakes and drink-me bottles where when signal’s low … corporeality.Love is a Drug, or drugs that induce love, the love of drugs, and “Love drugs”? — Drugs for War, or the war on drugs, the Drug Wars, and … the full Cost of War.Just like hate: drugs and the-‘above-all’ — purification, righteousness, goal-directed, visualisation of ones muted glory from present piteous state, where abrogation of responsibility - as one is (realistically) - expected to ignore others’ plight (in their day-to-day, and in person-to-person), entering a different ‘plane’ arising from fluctuations of ‘mood-scape’, justly preserved with sugar, and ‘leaving the horizon’ variant of conversion, corruption or collaring, through mental-reorganisation — are potent methods for lowering the conscience in committing atrocities."For murderers, there is no good or evil.I know that."— Yagami Light, Death Note [and the inability of incorporating shame?]Fact X: Nature of the BeastOnly rigid-tradition, religion, institution or any mission can seem to supersede the time-honoured humane agreement amongst people that suffering is not something to be wished for, that suffering is not good, deserved or wanted — yet, that it may have meaning, and that there may be a better way … marching through mundanities as opposed to moving mountains?Perhaps in as much suffering is a teacher it is also the student.And just as one may grow … to suddenly find oneself with a tender heart, a light, continual, renewing source which seeks to soothe the beast within — one may need to — for reasons unknown again — entice the human, revere the warrior, encourage the child, acknowledge the aged, and, be receptive to the creature.And perhaps meaning is not to be found in a book, but in experiencing, within growth, by engaging, through witnessing, and with discernment??And perhaps rhythm is not found in performance, but rather established through: curiosity about the arbiter, protection of the message-bearer, cross-talk with the ghoul, confronting the systemiser and, divulging to the ghost.Madam Mim: “Did I say no purple dragons? DID I?!” — Courtesy: Disney.

The association of the relatively small cost with the larger and long term issue of joining the EU is an indicatior of the probable origin of the issue in a Brexit/British- nationalist trolling brief.Ignoring the false association as an Oxbridge and public school debating gambit, of no relevance in the real world, there are two distinct answers to two unrelated issues.Child HealthThe Scottish Government regards expenditure on child health and nutrition as an investment, with a return 20 to 60 years later in crime, education and health outcomes.Thus the Finnish Baby Box should not be seen as a benefit for the undeserving poor and not-so-poor. It is an inducement to attend ante-natal sessions and an educational tool for training both parents. Unlike the simplest kitchen gadget, babies come without a user manual or at the least, with safety and maintenece instructions on the packaging,DeficitYes, the SNP wants to be in the EU, and it clearly also thewillofthepeople in Scotland. It can’t happen till after independence, and indyref2 won’t be happening this week will it?A further referendum to support the application is an EU requirement, though the result is not in doubt. That too will take elapsed time to organise. There will be other more urgent - not necessarily more important - priorities immediately after independence.Then we have “events, dear boy,” not least Covid.Altogether, I don’t see an application to join the EU being made before 2025–26 at the very earliest. By then we should know the reality of the alleged Barnett subsidy and begun to get the benefit of new renewable energy infrastructure.The transition will begin even before independence on reciprocal agreements with things like EHIC and Erasmus in devolved areas. Expect to see things like that announced during indyref2.There is nothing that iScotland could do to win sympathetic concessions from EU half as effective as what the UK government is doing now. The proposal that UK could at this point in time ‘put pressure’ on the EU to tell Scotland that it will not become a Member State anytime soon after independence, is beyond risible.That anyone in, or close to, government might be so stupid and ignorant as to give credit to that notion, and pay out good money for the idea, is a sign that there are some really stupid people around.In anticipation of claims of partisan omission, may I say that they aren’t all in the Conservative party. The SNP have just rejected an MP who not only travelled nearly 1,000 miles on public transport but took part in a church service, as it would seem projecting her voice, (and no doubt her germs) over the front rows of the congregation.Maybe high standards of self-distancing have become routine in churches since I was last in one.