The Song of Wandering Aengus ...
By William Butler Yeats (1865-1939)

I went out to the hazel wood,
Because a fire was in my head,
And cut and peeled a hazel wand,
And hooked a berry to a thread;
And when white moths were on the wing,
And moth-like stars were flickering out,
I dropped the berry in a stream
And caught a little silver trout.

When I had laid it on the floor
I went to blow the fire a-flame,
But something rustled on the floor,
And someone called me by my name:
It had become a glimmering girl
With apple blossom in her hair
Who called me by my name and ran
And faded through the brightening air.

Though I am old with wandering
Through hollow lands and hilly lands,
I will find out where she has gone,
And kiss her lips and take her hands;
And walk among long dappled grass,
And pluck till time and times are done,
The silver apples of the moon,
The golden apples of the sun.

Everlasting love ,,,
Two 1,600-year-old skeletons holding hands, discovered in the Ciro Menotti cemetery in Modena, Italy in 2009, and known as the “Lovers of Modena”, were widely assumed to be a man and a woman, but the poor preservation of the remains made it impossible for scientists to perform any genetic analysis to establish the sex of the corpses at the time.

However, according to a study from the Universities of Bologna and Modena, researchers were able to extract proteins from the dental enamel of both skeletons. The proteins from the teeth contained a peptide found only in men.

The “Lovers” were initially found with 11 other skeletons, some of which showed signs of trauma, likely connected to a violent death during war, according to the study.

The study suggests the unusual burial, found in a what is assumed to be a war cemetery, represents a voluntary expression of commitment between two individuals, rather than a recurring cult practice of the Late Antiquity.

Scientists have previously unearthed embracing couples. The “Lovers of Valdaro”, a male-female couple, were discovered in Italy’s northern province of Mantua, and other male-female couples have been found in Turkey, Greece and Siberia.

Researchers speculate in the study that the two men intentionally buried hand-in-hand could have been fellow soldiers, friends, or relatives - possibly brothers or cousins, given the proximity of their ages.

The men are unlikely to have been gay. Social attitudes and Christian beliefs meant that the deliberate manifestation of a homosexual relationship would have been severely frowned on during the era in which the men died.

From the third century onwards, homosexuality came to be seen as a mortal sin which could lead to excommunication from the Church and eventually became a crime during the reign of Theodosius I (375-392 AD). During the rule of the Emperor Justinian (527-565 AD) sex between adult males was punishable by death or castration.

Whilst it cannot be ascertained whether or not the “Lovers of Modena” were actually lovers, the pair were united in death and travelled together into eternity.

“Curiouser and curiouser,” cried Alice ...
Abdullah Morsi,the youngest son of late Egyptian President Mohamed Morsi has died of an alleged heart attack at the Oasis hospital in Giza, southwest of the capital, Cairo. A Morsi family source confirmed his death to Anadolu Agency without giving further details.

Abdullah Morsi, who was in his mid-twenties, had been imprisoned several times in recent years. He had been accused and acquitted of drug use, in a case involving allegations that he and legal observers said were fabricated.

Among Morsi’s children, Abdullah was the most outspoken critic of the Egyptian government. He was also the most supportive of his father and his defence during his trial and his imprisonment.

In a Twitter post after his father’s death, Abdullah accused a number of Egyptian officials whom he called “partners”of el-Sisi“ in “killing the martyr president.” He particularly accused incumbent and former interior ministers Mahmoud Tawfiq and Magdy Abdel Ghaffar, respectively.

Mohamed Morsi PhD, engineer and politician and Egypt’s first democratically elected president, collapsed at a court session on 17 June 2019 while standing trial for charges that he and legal observers said were politically motivated. He had suffered six years in prison in solitary confinement where he was consistently denied access to medical care for his diabetes, hypertension and liver and kidney conditions. Morsi was elected president after the 25 January 2012 Revolution toppled Hosni Mubarak, but he was deposed in 2013 in a military coup carried out by the current President Abdel-Fattah el-Sisi following a year in power.

There are currently 20 Americans in Egyptian jails, but there are as many as 60,000 political prisoners in detention across Egypt, according to a Human Rights Watch report in 2017.

Egypt’s health ministry has yet to comment on Abdullah Morsi’s death.

Farewell Easy Rider ...
Peter Fonda, star of the ‘60s film “Easy Rider” has died. He was 79.

“Easy Rider” was released fifty years ago within a year of - Woodstock, two tragic assassinations (Robert Kennedy and Martin Luther King), the build-up to the Vietnam War and Nixon’s election. The film is undoubtedly a product of the sixties - celebrating sex, drugs and rock 'n' roll. - a counter-culture film that defined a generation.

Screenplay was co-written by Peter Fonda, Denis Hopper and Terry Southern; Fonda was producer/actor, Hopper was director/actor. The underlying message is of the search for individual freedom in a corrupt and conformist America. An America overwhelmed by bigotry and violence, reflecting the collapse of the idealistic ‘60s.

The ground-breaking soundtrack for the film is notable. Classic rock plays throughout, performed by The Band, The Byrds, Jimi Hendrix and Steppenwolf - the Ballad of Easy Rider was co-written by Bob Dylan and Byrds’ frontman Roger McGuinn and performed by McGuinn himself.

An all-time classic, the film was added to the Library of Congress National Film Registry’s archive of “culturally, historically, or aesthetically significant” films in 1998.

Ebb Tide ...
Athens, Greece - Exit Alexis Tsipras ...... In 2015 his party (Syriza) was swept to power on the back of populist promises that could not be kept. Riding a wave of sympathy in a continent tired with austerity, they were embraced by progressives around the world. But in their time in power, they have exhibited the worst clientelist behaviour, punished entrepreneurship, attempted to muzzle the press, and threatened openly all those who dared to disagree with them.

On the 25th June 2015 a referendum took place to decide whether Greece should accept the bailout conditions in the country’s government-debt crisis proposed jointly by the European Commission (EC), the International Monetary Fund (IMF) and the European Central Bank (ECB).

The referendum was supposed to bolster the government’s negotiating position. Instead, after an astounding 61 per cent vote against accepting the proposal offered by European partners, Tsipras caved, and on 13th July 2015 reached an agreement with the European authorities for a three-year-bailout with even harsher austerity conditions than the ones already rejected by voters.

As a result Mr Tsipras found himself with an economy under capital controls, and a state unable to pay wages and salaries.

There are two things all governments must do to remain in power: provide security for their citizens and an economy that offers jobs and opportunities. Syriza has done neither.

We won’t pay it again Uncle Sam ...
Corporations continue to avoid paying tax - thanks to a cocktail of tax credits, loopholes, and exemptions.

According to a report from the Institute on Taxation and Economic Policy (ITEP), Amazon (AMZN) will pay nothing in federal income taxes for the second year in a row.

Thanks to the new Tax Cuts and Jobs Act (TCJA), Amazon’s federal tax responsibility is 21% (down from 35% in previous years). But with the help of tax breaks, according to corporate filings, Amazon won’t be paying a dime to Uncle Sam despite posting more than $11.2 billion in profits in 2018.

Amazon might have taken advantage of new breaks and loopholes available under TCJA, but this isn’t the first year that Amazon has avoided paying federal tax. The company reported $5.6 billion in U.S. profits in 2017 and paid $0 last year as well.

Amazon’s tax liability has come under close scrutiny after President Trump promised his new tax law would end special interest breaks and close loopholes for big corporations. Corporate tax revenue was a big loser. We aren’t going to see corporations suddenly paying more and we see that in the case of Amazon.

Declining tax revenue has only widened deficits, as national debt has ballooned up and over $22 trillion.

The art of the deal ...
French-Israeli telecoms and media mogul Patrick Drahi is acquiring Sotheby’s auction house, one of the world’s biggest art brokers, in a $3.7 billion deal, the British-founded company announced June 17.

Drahi, the billionaire head of the Altice empire which owns Virgin Mobile and several French media houses including BFM news channel and Liberation newspaper, is paying $57 per share to acquire Sotheby’s through his company BidFair USA.

The deal sees Sotheby’s return to private ownership after 31 years as a publicly traded company on the New York Stock Exchange.

Drahi’s offer represents a 61 percent increase over Sotheby’s closing price on 14th Friday 2019 and a 56.3% premium to the company’s 30 trading-day volume weighted average share price.

Drahi founded and leads some of the most successful telecommunications, media and digital companies in the world and is known for its commitment to inovation and ingenuity.

A grave undertaking ...
New York City has some of the most famous parks in the world, from Central Park to the High Line.

Now city lawmakers have proposed creating a park in a most unlikely place: the island where the city has been burying its indigent in mass graves since the 1800s

It’s called Hart Island: 100 acres of greenery off the coast of the Bronx, with views of Long Island Sound. It is better known as “Potter’s Field”

Roughly one million people have been buried on Hart Island since 1869. It is still a burial ground for roughly 1,100 unclaimed bodies per year that arrive by ferry for burial in bare wooden coffins and are stacked three high in rows of six, in trenches as long as a football field.

But there are complications in adapting an island that has served as the city’s public cemetery, or potter’s field, where homeless, poor, stillborn and other unclaimed bodies are buried in mostly mass, unmarked graves, dug by inmates from Rikers Island working for $1 an hour. The island is only accessible by boat, has crumbling buildings, wild landscape and a lack of infrastructure, city officials have testified.

At a hearing, city officials said they would begin exploring alternative burial sites, as Hart Island has space to accommodate only up to 10 more years of burials. Any development passed by the Council, would need to be signed into law by Mayor Bill de Blasio, who said in a statement that it was “now time to chart a new course forward for the island.”

Guess who’s coming to dinner? ...
In a scene reminiscent of "The Beverly Hillbillies, the Trump family descended on Buckingham Palace last evening to have dinner with Queen Elizabeth II.

As Mark Weinberg of CNN reports, “such antics may have been amusing on television, but are hardly appropriate for a President of the United States.

It's one thing for the President to want to share his extraordinary experiences with his family -- and he does that in spades every day by having his daughter and son-in-law on his senior staff -- but piling all the grown Trump kids onto the taxpayer-funded plane so they can have their picture taken with the Queen is simply bad form.”

Sheriff Crozier and the Dolly Mixture Case ...
Sheriff George Crozier (1926 - 2007) was one of Scotland’s best known legal practitioners for more than half a century. He became renowned both as an eloquent pleader and a feared prosecutor in the criminal courts, working mainly in Glasgow and West Dunbartonshire.

A skilled advocate in civil matters, an astute judge and a powerful political lobbyist, he served in courts throughout Scotland dispensing wise and weighty, and sometimes controversial, judgments until his retirement from the Bench.

During his pleading days Crozier’s sharp legal mind and courtroom eloquence were much sought-after by criminals at Dumbarton Sheriff Court. A colourful figure in the courts, his company was also much celebrated socially as a humorous raconteur and after-dinner speaker.

One of the many memorable and highly publicised cases he defended successfully was the “dolly mixture case” where his client was charged with drink-driving.

With his usual diligence, the Sheriff examined the client’s activities prior to him being stopped and charged with the offence and produced evidence which showed the man’s condition was not due to drink but to the fact that he had been eating “dolly mixtures”, a popular confection in Scotland.

The sweets had become mixed up with medication which had fallen from a woman’s pocket on the packaging line of the factory where the sweets were made. Sheriff Crozier produced a letter from the manufacturer proving this, along with a substantial cheque, by way of compensation, or should we say “sweetener”, for his client.

The wrath of a nobody ...
The United States announced on April 22 it will no longer grant oil waivers to eight countries, including Turkey.

Secretary of State Mike Pompeo said there will be no grace period for those economies to comply and there would be no (oil) waivers beyond that point, full stop.

To ensure that global markets are not rocked, Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates will work together to make up the shortfall. The decision reflects Trump’s hawkish stance againt regional rival Iran in an attempt to bring Iran's oil exports to zero, thereby denying that country of its principal source of revenue.

On 2nd November 2018 Trump withdrew the United States from an accord negotiated by his predecessor, Barack Obama, under which Iran drastically scaled back its nuclear program in return for promises of sanctions relief.

The Trump administration, backed by Saudi Arabia and Israel, has instead unilaterally imposed sanctions and demanded that other countries follow suit.

India and China are Iran's biggest markets. China alone imports 500,000 barrels a day of Iranian crude, and Beijing has repeatedly objected to American sanctions.

Now is the winter of our discontent, made glorious summer by ...
The European parliament has voted to scrap the twice-a-year custom of changing the clocks by an hour in spring and autumn by 2021, leaving only national governments to now give their assent.

Member states would be able to choose whether to remain on “permanent summertime” or “permanent wintertime” under the draft directive, which passed by 410 votes to 192.

Countries that wanted to be permanently on summertime would adjust their clocks for the final time on the last Sunday in March 2021. Those that opt for permanent wintertime would change their clocks for the final time on the last Sunday of October 2021.

Remembering the White Rose ...
Today marks the 76th anniversary of the death of Sophie Scholl. An anti-Nazi political activist, she was convicted of high treason after having been found distributing anti-war leaflets at the LMU with her brother, Hans.

On 18 February 1943 Hans Scholl and his sister Sophie were arrested in the Atrium of the Main Building at LMU (Ludwig Maximillian University, Munich), as they were dispersing copies of the sixth and last of the leaflets protesting against the Nazi regime that they had clandestinely printed. On the following day their friend Christoph Probst was arrested in Innsbruck. All three were convicted of treason by the Volksgerichtshof, and executed by guillotine on 22 February 1943.

Subsequently other members of the White Rose were arrested and put on trial. On 19 April, the Volksgerichtshof sentenced Alexander Schmorell, Willi Graf and Professor Kurt Huber to death - Alexander Schmorell and Kurt Huber were executed on 13 July, Willi Graf on 12 October 1943. Eleven others were incarcerated.

Tarot ...
Born on this day in 1878, Pamela ‘Pixie’ Colman Smith, illustrator, writer, occultist, traditional storyteller and magician who designed the Rider-Waite tarot, 1st edition (1909).

Anyone with even the slightest familiarity with the tarocci or ‘tarot’ cards will be acquainted with the work of Miss Colman Smith, although they may be excused for not knowing her name.

In her early years, Miss Smith, an Anglo-American illustrator, was commissioned by the Masonic occultist Mr Arthur Waite to design a complete set of all seventy-eight cards of the traditional tarot deck. She completed this work in a remarkably short period of time between April and October 1909 and some time after this the cards were published by William Rider & Sons of London. They have thereafter been known as the ‘Rider-Waite’ tarot - the most popular tarot deck of the twentieth century.

It is a great pity then that the illustrator, the person most responsible for the indelible images of the cards, is not better known. She was paid only a token fee for her work and she received no royalties from sales.

She died in 1951 in Bude, Cornwall, but lives on through the magic and mysticism of the Tarot.

Nuclear and present danger ...
The U.S. announced it is pulling out of a major treaty with Russia that’s been a key part of arms control since the Cold War.

The announcement by Secretary of State Michael R. Pompeo had been expected for months and follows years of unresolved dispute over Russian compliance with the 1987 Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces, or INF, treaty, which bans certain ground-launched cruise missiles.

Following in the footsteps of the US, Russia said it will abandon the centerpiece nuclear arms treaty but will only deploy intermediate-range nuclear missiles if Washington does