Rudyard Kipling"
āWhen you're left wounded on Afganistan's plains and
the women come out to cut up what remains, Just roll to your rifle
and blow out your brains,
And go to your God like a soldierā
General Douglas MacArthur"
āWe are not retreating. We are advancing in another direction.ā
āIt is fatal to enter any war without the will to win it.ā āOld soldiers never die; they just fade away.
āThe soldier, above all other people, prays for peace, for he must suffer and be the deepest wounds and scars of war.ā
āMay God have mercy upon my enemies, because I won't .ā āThe object of war is not to die for your country but to make the other bastard die for his.
āNobody ever defended, there is only attack and attack and attack some more.
āIt is foolish and wrong to mourn the men who died. Rather we should thank God that such men lived.
The Soldier stood and faced God
Which must always come to pass
He hoped his shoes were shining
Just as bright as his brass
"Step forward you Soldier,
How shall I deal with you?
Have you always turned the other cheek?
To My Church have you been true?"
"No, Lord, I guess I ain't
Because those of us who carry guns
Can't always be a saint."
I've had to work on Sundays
And at times my talk was tough,
And sometimes I've been violent,
Because the world is awfully rough.
But, I never took a penny
That wasn't mine to keep.
Though I worked a lot of overtime
When the bills got just too steep,
The Soldier squared his shoulders and said
And I never passed a cry for help
Though at times I shook with fear,
And sometimes, God forgive me,
I've wept unmanly tears.
I know I don't deserve a place
Among the people here.
They never wanted me around
Except to calm their fears.
If you've a place for me here,
Lord, It needn't be so grand,
I never expected or had too much,
But if you don't, I'll understand."
There was silence all around the throne
Where the saints had often trod
As the Soldier waited quietly,
For the judgment of his God.
"Step forward now, you Soldier,
You've borne your burden well.
Walk peacefully on Heaven's streets,
You've done your time in Hell."
What to make of Parliament of apes, owls and vultures? By R Nadeswaran
Friday, September 22, 2023
Malaysiakini : COMMENT | Records held by the
Corporation of the City of London dating back to the 15th century reveal
the existence of pardoners who were usually friars or priests whom they
said gave them the power to grant absolution - for a fee, naturally.
Parliament of Baboons
Not
surprisingly, the profession attracted many fraudsters armed with fake
papal pardons and bogus relics. The records also revealed several cases
of ālying pardonersā being publicly shamed and named.
The same
book lists the collective noun for birds as a āParliament of owlsā -
which has its origins in the childrenās classic, āThe Chronicles of
Narniaā by CS Lewis and is a reference to Chaucerās allegorical poem
āThe Parliament of Fowlsā.
Although owls are solitary and
nocturnal birds who only pair up to mate, āParliament of owlsā is a
poetic description, perhaps because owls are also symbols of wisdom. A shrewdness of apes originated in the late 1400s, referring to the
mischievous nature of apes, though knowing now how intelligent they are,
the term still works.
In 2009, secretive British street artist
Banksy, painted āDevolved Parliamentā in which chimpanzees replace
politicians, reflecting the brutish exchanges over Brexit. Last
year, Selangor ruler Sultan Sharafuddin Idris Shah purchased a painting
that appears to be a derivative or inspired by a Banksy painting.
Selangor ruler, Sultan Sharafuddin Idris Shah with a painting of primates in Parliament
In
the Malaysian painting, politicians on both sides of the aisle are
illustrated as primates - including chimpanzees, orangutans, mandrills,
proboscis monkeys and macaques - with only the then speaker Azhar Azizan
Harun and two officers depicted as humans.