I haven’t seriously looked at the news in over a week and a half. Is it true that burnout is directly correlated to intent? I don’t know. It’s probably correlated more to duration, which involves prolonged intent. At any rate, I know I didn’t view the general, erstwhile-worthwhile news as anathema before I began to look at it with any kind of real purpose, i.e., to have to discuss it with others. Reading it over every day, assuming you trust your sources, can be great. Fulfilling. Informative, even. I could avoid the silly clickbait, yellow journalism bullsh–, and know what was happening in the world to people like me, regardless of religious belief, skin color, gender or location. Basically, if they weren’t well-to-do, I was them, and they were I. Or something like that.
I still believe that, but now I have to care for other reasons that aren’t necessarily my own. And I don’t have nearly as much fun with it. Ah, such is life in the material world.
I’ve been meaning to do this for a while. I’m going to show where people in the world are fighting one another. And, instead of just putting a link to the information, which I still will do, I’m going to actually insert a big ass graphic directly into this article. Like I already did. That thing taking up half the page? That’s it. It’s courtesy of a website called visualcapitalist.com, which turns many of the world’s forgotten, lost, glossed-over, foreboding or just not-that-important contemporary marketplace facts and/or factoids into various types of graphs and graphics, and, thus, (maybe) makes them easier to comprehend. Just click on the picture to take you to the website.
Now, along with this, I wanted to provide news links from the last week or two to all that the graphic illustrates, if I can. It won’t be everything, but I’ll try. All right, let’s take it from the top.
• Russia and Ukraine? Forget it. Here, here’s a link about Ukraine pulling the hair and stomping the skull of its own bully, making him eat grass and get all pink-faced and sh–, while Russia engages in remorseless, classic, post-bully behavior. But you should definitely be on top of that yourself.
• What’s happening lately in the Nagorno-Karabakh region? Just ask Nancy Pelosi. (You don’t have to ask Nancy Pelosi.)
• The Kurdish-Turkish Conflict? This one’s about two months old, but that’s all right. No shelf life on this bit of ethnic silliness.
• Israel’s illegal occupation of Palestinian territory? You should really be on top of that one, too, but in case you’re not, here’s the latest: Israel killing a journalist while covering the conflict, then not taking the blame; Israeli military strikes against Palestinian targets after two missiles were launched into Israel in July; and from a year ago: the toll of 13 years of wars on Gaza, alone. Oh, and a story about this a–hole politician, whose type is becoming more of the face of Israeli politics.
• Afghanistan’s been all over the news since U.S. forces withdrew in August of last year, but this came out recently: a story about top U.S. brass saying months before that the country would go to hell after they did. Which it did.
• Here’s a recent piece from Al Jazeera News about the fighting in Syria, all of which stems from the endless civil war that started over ten years ago to stop Bashar al-Assad from being a spoiled, greedy despot. He’s still there, though.
• Instability in Iraq? You betcha.
• Here’s something about the Libyan Civil War, from just a couple days ago.
• Horrendous things in a part of the world most Americans never even think about: South Sudan.
• And Iran’s another place you may have been hearing more about than other areas similarly located on a map. Here’s some of the latest. And this is the latest about the former nuclear deal nullified by the Trump administration, that most of the rest of the world would like Iran to join again. Which makes the Trump administration look so stupid. If that’s even possible anymore.
• There’s nothing really too recent about the conflict between India and Pakistan, so I thought I’d just take the space to list something regarding the massive f—ing flood that just hit the region.
• Here’s a great little bit about Egypt and America’s hypocrisy in standing by one authoritarian regime (which would be Egypt), and pointing their finger at others, particularly those in Nicaragua and Venezuela. Israel’s a great example of that, too.
• A bit about Lebanon’s serious f—ing economic troubles.
• Here’s a great article about the atrocities happening in northern Ethiopia. The Tigray region, to be more specific.
• Here’s a great bit from Al Jazeera about the Democratic Republic of Congo.
• Here’s your Mali. I got your Mali, right here. Who wants some Mali? Ehhhh, Mali here. We got your Mali.
• The Al-Shabaab Islamic militant group doing dumb, extremist sh— in Somalia.
• Boko Haram and Nigeria (or Nigeria and Boko Haram), back in May.
• A good one about the Central African Republic.
• And one final thing about the entirety of the continent of Africa and the monkeypox epidemic.
• Got a lot of stuff about China, like always. Here’s a dump: China and new COVID-19 outbreaks, and people starving because of them. And then China engaging in more classic bully behavior.
• And the North Korean government? Always good for a few laughs. Too bad it’s not funny to nearly everyone else living there.
• Here’s the latest from the fascists in Myanmar who’ve taken over the country.
• And a great opportunity to talk about gang activity and the corruption of the government and local police forces, and how they’re all intertwined down in Mexico.
• And I’m just going to drop this on you about Venezuela, Nicaragua and Cuba. There’s far more to the story than just COMMUNISM!, as most people may want to indignantly shout and simplify it, especially when the U.S. is involved, but for now, I’m just going to leave it at that.
• And, finally, the longstanding queen of England, Elizabeth II, died on September 8th. Amid all the pointless tweets and stories about how she led a “Commonwealth” of nations (with little equity among them) for over seventy years, here’s a worthwhile story about British rule in the 20th century, and the hand she played in it. Old news, by now (even though it took like two weeks to bury her). But not old news to the people who lived through it, whose lives were altered by the intrusion, as much for the worse as for the better.
