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[ by Charles Cameron — long a chain smoker, painful on the ear when he attempted the violin, never tried the cello ]
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No, I don’t smoke any more, haven’t for more than a decade. But I still think of cigarettes as potential sacraments, as when a soldier in the trenches at the Somme passes one to his dying mate.. sacramentals, to be precise. So I can take pleasure in this conjunction of violin and cigarette in defiance of the Islamic State:

Islamic State banned music in Mosul, but it didn't silence Ameen Mukdad's violin – The Sydney Morning Herald https://t.co/BRdXVlZeEP pic.twitter.com/coPVNexv7T

— BLACKOPSCyber (@blackopscyber1) April 20, 2017

and:

Good detail here as ever by @alexjrowell The Rebel Who Defied Jihadists By Smoking – The Daily Beast https://t.co/1OM4asCqMG

— Shane Farrell (@Shanekfarrell) May 6, 2017

**

The potential for grace is more easily seen in music than in smoking, to be sure — Ameen Mokdad with his violin in Mosul surely found it, as did Karim Wasfi with his cello in Baghdad. In these times in which the President scatters bombs around the place with one hand while planning to cut funding to the National Endowment for the Arts with the other, you might like to visit the Facebook page of Karim Wasfi Center For Creativity – Peace Through Arts, or listen to one or more of these videos..

Karim Wasfi — Interviewed by NPR’s Renne Montagne:

Iraqi cellist Karim Wasfi plays music on bomb explosion site:

Karim Wasfi, cello sonata and lecture at Geneva Centre for Security Policy during Geneva Peace Week 2016:

Iraqi Violinist Ameen Mokdad Plays Concert In Defiance Of ISIS | NBC News:

Ameen Mokdad, Viaggio:

**

Music as sacrament is nicely illustrated by John Eliot Gardiner‘s quoting Bach immediately after Sara Mingardo sings O selger Tag! in the DVD of Bach Cantata BWV 63, “Christen, ätzet diesen Tag”:

Wherever there’s devotional music, God with his grace is present.

Recitatives — O selger Tag! is an example — are by definition “musical declamation of the kind usual in the narrative and dialogue parts of opera and oratorio, sung in the rhythm of ordinary speech with many words on the same note”. Arias are the stellar “diva” vocal parts for solo, duet etc, and recitatives the mere handmaidens that carry us from one aria or chorus via narrative to another. How extraordinary, then, the devotion Sara Mingardo‘s musicianship manages to pour into this recitative as performed in rehearsal above!

[ by Charles Cameron — grief and chills ]
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Horrific CNN drone footage of the destruction in Mosul:

Weaponized ISIS drone footage, source confirmed as ISIS propaganda footage by Joby Warwick here:

[ by Charles Cameron — getting to know the Koreas North & South, also conflict resolution and a schoolgirl movie ]
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Yoyu may have seen this viral Pikachu video from South Korea, filmed during the Pokémon World Festival:

If you didn’t know better, you might figure those were North Korean security agents hustling that sadly deflating Pikachu dancer offstage, to ensure the appearance of massed conformity to which such parades as this one have accustomed us to:

For a less regimented view of North Korea, consider this example of conflict resolution among schoolgirls:

Fortunately, you can see the whole film:

**

It is known that humans “catch and train to battle each other for sport.”

[ by Charles Cameron — Paul Ryan and friends, plus dogs, pants, tardigrades, and the quantum cat ]
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Kyle Matthews provides his Twitter followers with a fine example of a visual DoubleQuote, which I’m reproducing here with the two images at the best magnification for Zenpundit:

If Paul Ryan and company were performing a re-enactment, they could scarcely have done a better job!

**

On a more serious note.. Paul Ryan gave a presentation of his health care plan, which CNN brings you complete, thus:

**

Less seriously again though, as Time reports, The Internet Is Having a Field Day Turning Paul Ryan’s Health Care PowerPoint Into Hilarious Memes. This one in particular caught my eye:

? pic.twitter.com/se0XRQUKig

— jeff meltz tbh ? (@thecultureofme) March 9, 2017

**

Take a closer look at that slide. It’s amost a koan — do dogs have pant-nature?

Sometimes imagining yourself into the scene helps solve the conundrum:

Or applying it to another koan:

Or applying it to the lovely but somewhat complex tardigrade..

Hey, you could always reduce it to the quantum level..

— probably — but not once the wave-form collapses..

Canadians, however, got all practical and entrepreneurial, with a company called Muddy Mutts:

Oh, and cute:

**

With any luck, I took your mind off politics for a moment there..

[ by Charles Cameron — For what is a man profited, if he shall gain the whole world, and lose his own soul? ]
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Sources:

Lowy Interpreter, Trump’s telephone diplomacy accelerates Southeast Asia’s slide

AP, Tillerson calls for balancing US security interests, values

The quote in brackets at the head of this post, totally impractical as a guide to realpolitik, is from the Gospel according to St Matthew 16.26.