This week we look at Belarus, Peru, Iran, Christians at the Olympics; YouTube bans Sky News; Indonesian Covid deaths; Australian lockdowns; Bagpipe torture; Masks in Scottish clubs and churches; Auschwitz guard; BBC Womens Hour; ZZ Top; Kenneth Ferguson and the Robertson Trust; Brian Houston Charged; Tasmania and the End of the World; The Rise and Fall of Mars Hill; Alison Krauss.
You can listen to it here – or here
Here are the lyrics from the Alison Krauss song –
There isn’t any wonder that I fall
Why do we suffer, crossing off the years
There must be a reason for it all
I’ve trusted in You, Jesus, to save me from my sin
Heaven is the place I call my home
But I keep on getting caught up in this world I’m living in
And Your voice it sometimes fades before I know
Hurtin’ brings my heart to You, crying with my need
Depending on Your love to carry me
The love that shed His blood for all the world to see
This must be the reason for it all
Hurtin’ brings my heart to You, a fortress in the storm
When what I wrap my heart around is gone
I give my heart so easily to the ruler of this world
When the one who loves me most will give me all
In all the things that cause me pain You give me eyes to see
I do believe but help my unbelief
I’ve seen hard times and I’ve been told
There is a reason for it all
Thanks, as ever, David. On the point about face masks in clubs etc, the Scottish Government has clearly shifted from basing its policies on science to what is not ‘strange’. Shortly after the FM said face coverings would remain required as at present, the National Clinical Director, a Christian man, said that it would be “strange” to expect drinkers and bight club goers to wear a face mask so they would be exempt. I contacted him pointing out that there was nothing more strange than worshipping God in church and singing his praise while wearing a face mask so looked forward to a statement to that effect in the media. However, I also said that I wouldn’t hold my breath! The Scottish government is holding on to the one covid restriction which has possibly the least scientific basis to justify it, demonstrating that this is more about control than prevention of disease.
Once again John, you hit the nail on the head. Face masks are a joke. They are in my humble opinion a placebo for the masses. They are something akin to a dummy tit for children, a comforter if you will. All face masks do is demonstrate that the wearer is trying to do their bit to stop the spread of this boogieman/virus. The arrogance of man thinks we can achieve an aim only God has the power to accomplish, namely stopping the spread of this virus.
As I understand it, the virus is around 125 Nanometers or 0.125 Micrometers in size. The average face masks has at best a filtering capacity of around 5 Micrometers or Microns for short. In effect the virus is around 5000 times smaller than the smallest openings in the face mask!
To help people understand what this means, simply think of a doorway 5000 times bigger than yourself, then imagine cartwheeling through the opening with a wee backflip thrown in for good measure and you begin to realise the stupidity of wearing face masks!!!
Or think of yourself as the virus and an American football field as the size of the smallest holes in your mask, and you now realise that respective governments all over the world have been treating people like fools by imposing the mandatory wearing of masks.
I ask myself why is all this happening? And more importantly what is to be gained?
And pray tell what all this fuss is about? This virus is quite simply not the killer it is purported to be. Where are the mass graves and funeral pires? Where is the lack of coffins as people die in their droves?
No no, this is not a pandemic but rather a totalitarian on slot with the removal of everything western liberal democracies once stood for.
We have become everything we once despised in other totalitarian states, where we condem the repression of the people by authoritarian governments. Yet now we don’t ever recognise that we are that people. In Scotland the people even realected their new masters!!! Oh ho quickly we forget that Hitler was democratically elected.
Please wake up, speak up & stand up, or else would the last one out, please turn out the lights.
Re ZZ Top , a politically incorrect Billy Gibbons story goes thus :
A rock journalist asked BG where his rock/blues roots were and, confidently expecting ” Oh the Black Blues clubs of late 60’s Houston “, was surprised by : ” Well , I was brought up in River Oaks ( Houston’s poshest suburb ) and we had a Black live – in maid and I listened to her singing .”
Thank you for the pibroch .
The martial and terpsichorean music of the highland bagpipe has enthralled me since boyhood but I have never learned to appreciate the classical music of the instrument.
In that superb Scottish film , ‘ Tunes of Glory’ , a heartfelt compliment paid to the outgoing Commanding Officer was paid by a regimental piper : ” Jock Sinclair is a great man , he played the Pibroch on the wireless. ”
Hi David……’Reason for it all’ was penned by Ron Block, Union Station banjoist!!!/guitarist. He has many solo albums filled with great songs like this including ‘Faraway Land’, ‘Doorway’ and ‘Walking Song. Greatly influenced by the likes of CS Lewis and George McDonald. Well worth a listen if you can find them…..