Masopher's Mind

Women are such intricate creatures. Their bodies are soft delicate. The most iconic of women seem designed only for sex servitude and bearing young. But at the same time thier minds are sharp and calculating, their ways are opaque and indecipherable.
Man is foolish, his nature is simple his motives plain. Sex and power; power and sex: all things can be reduced to these in the universe that man observes. Not so for woman. She sees more colours feels more feelings comes to more conclusions imagines more solutions. There is no question of superiority but alas man is too idiotic to formulate the query.

Southern Afghanistan is a harsh place. No I lie. Much of Pakistan, much of Afghanistan are harsh places, Southern Afghanistan is a desert that scarcely supports anything larger than insects. Except for one place. There is a sliver of land in Kandahar/Helmand which is a tight fan of green huddled around a river basin. This is where the sparse life manages to grow and this is where a lot of death exists. In this place, death and misery are grown on pretty poppy plants and shipped to Iran and through Turkey into the West. It also finds its way to Karachi and to the East or Dubai. In this place, young men from western nations die for a cause that they barely understand or in fact need to understand. Here young Afghans follow old Afghans and are joined by Pakistanis and Arabs to fight for honour and money. This is the green zone. It is the cradle of life and at the same time the shroud of death.

In this cradle, Brits fight for a young nation, one which will owe its gratitude and its existence to the NATO alliance that has shed so much red blood in the green fields and yellow dust.

I speak on Southern Afghanistan this week because of two significantly linked events:

Case 1: Helmand, Afghanistan 4th of November. A young man from a certain tribe feels bullied and ostrasized  fighting his countrymen for a cause that has yet to be satisfactorily conveyed. He begs to leave and is denied. Brain addled by opiates he picks up a belt fed squad assault AK-47 and opens fire firstly on his chief antagonist, his commander and then the philosophical reasons for his plight, the British troops present.

Case 2: less than a day later, Fort Hood,USA, the 5th of November. A slighly older man, a psychiatrist who happens to counsel the victims/perpetrators of the violence in the same region is feeling conflicted bullied and ostrecized. In a twist of fate the men he councils are at war with members of his religion and heritage. He has requested a transfer but cannot leave because beaurocracy and staff shortages continue to plague the military even in a recession. Brain addled by his opiates (religion, Americanism and sugary snacks) he picks up two field pistols and opens fire on soldiers about to be sent to Afghanistan and government officials.

The strain of the war that Americas troops and Afghans people must live in is great. In the atmosphere of ceaseless violence, radicalization becomes an option and death gives birth to even more killing, more insanity and more death.

Peace.

Voilà! In view, a humble vaudevillian veteran, cast vicariously as both victim and villian by the vicissitudes of Fate. This visage, no mere veneer of vanity, is a vestige of the vox populi, now vacant, vanished. However, this valorous visitation of a by-gone vexation, stands vivified and has vowed to vanquish these venal and virulent vermin vanguarding vice and vouchsafing the violently vicious and voracious violation of volition. The only verdict is vengence; a vendetta, held as a votive, not in vain, for the value and veracity of such shall one day vindicate the vigilant and the virtuous. Verily, this vichyssoise of verbiage veers most verbose, so let me simply add that it is my very good honor to meet you and you may call me V.

V for Vendetta the Cohen Brothers

Masopher has been away for a while. I am sorry about that. He’s been travelling far and wide and I’ve been trying to sort out my personal life.

Iran in the news, german elections, healthcare reform, bin laden in the press and I am too distracted with petty meaningless trivialities to comment on them…

My own insignificance is an amazing thing to me. I am so temporary, so fleeting and yet I cannot let go of things that are even more impermenant. It is nothing but a dream, a whisp of smoke.