Brick by brick, fear by fear by Mathew Walls

There is something revealing about the language of demolition. When a government promises to dismantle an international institution "brick by brick," it inadvertently admits that the structure standing before it is solid enough to deserve fear. Secretary of State Marco Rubio's declaration that the United States intends to weaken the International Criminal Court was presented as a display of American strength. Instead, it sounded remarkably like an expression of anxiety. Great powers rarely threaten institutions they truly consider irrelevant.

The International Criminal Court has never been a perfect tribunal. It has been criticised for inconsistency, accused of moving too slowly and often criticised for focusing disproportionately on weaker states while struggling to reach the powerful. Yet none of those imperfections erase the principle at its foundation: that war crimes, crimes against humanity and genocide should not disappear behind the protective curtain of national sovereignty or military might.

That principle has always unsettled governments accustomed to operating without meaningful international scrutiny. Washington has long maintained an uneasy relationship with the court. The United States helped shape many of the legal principles that eventually inspired the ICC, yet refused to become one of its members. It has celebrated international justice when dictators, militia leaders and foreign war criminals stood in the dock, while becoming deeply uncomfortable whenever the possibility arose that American officials or military personnel might themselves face legal examination.

This contradiction has never been about justice. It has always been about exceptionalism. Marco Rubio's latest rhetoric merely strips away the diplomatic polish that previous administrations occasionally preferred. Instead of arguing legal technicalities or jurisdictional disputes, he has embraced the language of destruction. The message is unmistakable: if an institution cannot be controlled, it should be weakened. If it cannot be ignored, it should be attacked.

That is not confidence. It is insecurity dressed as patriotism. The Trump administration has repeatedly portrayed international organisations as obstacles rather than partners. Whether the subject is climate agreements, global trade institutions or international courts, the instinct remains remarkably consistent: sovereignty is interpreted not as independence but as immunity. Accountability becomes an inconvenience rather than a virtue.

But justice was never designed to comfort governments. It exists precisely because governments, left entirely to themselves, have often proved incapable of judging their own actions honestly.

The irony is difficult to ignore. The United States regularly calls upon authoritarian governments to respect international law, human rights and democratic principles. American officials rightly condemn atrocities committed by hostile regimes and insist that those responsible must eventually answer before impartial courts. Such demands carry moral weight only if the same standards are accepted universally. Justice loses credibility the moment it becomes something reserved exclusively for geopolitical rivals.

Perhaps this explains the hostility towards the ICC more than any legal argument ever could.

Institutions devoted to accountability possess an unsettling quality: they recognise no permanent exemptions. Power, wealth and military dominance may delay scrutiny, but they do not invalidate the underlying principle that no individual should stand permanently above the law.

For governments accustomed to defining the rules rather than being judged by them, that principle can feel profoundly threatening.

One does not attempt to dismantle an institution brick by brick because it is powerless. One seeks its destruction because it possesses an authority that cannot easily be dismissed. The International Criminal Court may lack armies, economic sanctions or political muscle, but it possesses something more enduring: the uncomfortable idea that justice should eventually reach everyone.

That idea has survived dictators, wars and political intimidation before. It will likely survive rhetorical sledgehammers as well. History has an inconvenient habit of remembering those who defended accountability far more kindly than those who sought to bury it beneath the rubble. It is the possibility that America itself may cease to distinguish between democracy and leverage.

The Troubled Search #Poem by Jan Sand

 

Like random squares of blank paper
Stolen from a desktop by a wicked breeze,
To fly, windowwise into the blasting discord
Of a traveled street, we each seek our significance
Like a stained glass chip in a mosaic window, convinced
We function to discern, perhaps illuminate a personal contribution
To eternity’s design that speaks of meaning, of intent
To the ways that time is bent to patterns of construction.

Some of us acquire a smudged footprint or a colored smear
That gives little hint of origins, but perhaps, Jackson Pollockly
Disseminates a surprising tricky indication of beautiful design
Where mind inserts qualities of metaphor that resound in reminiscence
To capture echoes of love or catastrophe or strange mysteries unresolved.
Chance can have an elegance and power of a lightning strike or merely
Entangles patterns beyond our ken to leave faint mutterings of distant thunder.

So each of us engages the raucous colored noise, the crush and swirl of reality
To, perhaps, capture a quality appraised unique, or, at end crushed and cleared away
To provide the space for other windblown attempts.

The price of the seat by Kasie Hewitt

The calls for Gianni Infantino's resignation are growing louder with every passing day. The expanded World Cup, the relentless commercialisation of football, the overcrowded calendar, the political controversies, his sinfully closeness to Donald trump and FIFA's increasingly corporate identity have all fuelled criticism of the organisation's president. With another FIFA presidential election approaching next year, many dream of a serious challenger emerging to restore what they believe football has lost.

Dreams, however, have an unfortunate habit of colliding with reality. The uncomfortable truth is that FIFA is not a charity, nor is it a cultural institution preserving football's soul. It is one of the world's most powerful sporting businesses. Its primary currency is not romance but revenue. Every decision, every tournament, every sponsorship deal and every expansion is ultimately measured by one number: how much money it generates.

By that standard, Infantino has been extraordinarily successful. Love him or loathe him, the Swiss administrator has transformed FIFA into an even greater financial powerhouse than it already was. Television rights have expanded. Sponsorships continue to pour in. The World Cup has become bigger, longer and more commercially valuable. New competitions have opened fresh markets. Football has reached audiences and investors who barely featured in FIFA's calculations only two decades ago.

Critics argue that the game's traditions have been sacrificed along the way. They are not entirely wrong. The football calendar resembles an endurance test. Players speak openly about exhaustion. Domestic leagues compete with ever-growing international commitments. Historic competitions risk becoming secondary attractions in an endless carousel of tournaments designed to maximise global broadcasting income. Supporters increasingly feel like consumers rather than custodians of a sport built on local passion.

Yet these complaints rarely threaten Infantino where it truly matters. FIFA's electorate is not made up of television pundits, former players or angry supporters on social media. It consists of national football associations, many of which have benefited enormously from FIFA's financial redistribution programmes. Development grants, infrastructure funding and expanded tournament opportunities create loyalty that often outweighs philosophical objections about football's direction.

Money may not buy affection, but it certainly buys stability. That is why the search for an opponent begins with an impossible question. Who would actually campaign against a president who keeps making the organisation richer? Any challenger would have to persuade member associations that less commercial expansion somehow represents a better future. That is a difficult sales pitch when many federations are receiving more financial support than ever before.

Even the scandals surrounding FIFA's image have gradually lost their political sting. Football has become accustomed to controversy. Human rights debates, questionable partnerships, controversial hosts and governance criticisms create headlines, yet the tournaments continue to attract billions of viewers. Sponsors complain selectively. Broadcasters remain committed. Fans ultimately watch.

The machine keeps moving because the product remains irresistible. Infantino's greatest achievement may not be increasing FIFA's income but convincing the organisation that constant expansion is synonymous with progress. Bigger tournaments, more participants, more matches and more commercial opportunities have become the default solution to every strategic question. Whether that is healthy for football is another matter entirely.

History may judge this era harshly for stretching the game beyond its natural limits. Future generations may conclude that football became too global, too commercial and too detached from the communities that created it.

But history does not cast FIFA presidential votes. As long as Gianni Infantino continues delivering what FIFA values above everything else, growth, influence and extraordinary financial returns, his critics may dominate opinion columns but they are unlikely to dominate the ballot box. In modern football, success is increasingly measured in billions rather than ideals, and that makes the president's chair remarkably secure.

Sceptic feathers #132 #Cartoon by Thanos Kalamidas

 

Cynicism with feathers on thin wires.

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The price of silence by Kingsley Cobb

Outrage does not always arrive with marches, slogans or television spectacles. It settles quietly into kitchens, church halls, factory break rooms and suburban porches. It becomes the uncomfortable pause between neighbours who voted differently but suddenly find themselves asking the same question: how did we get here? Across the United States, that silence is becoming louder.

The latest incidents, in which two immigrant drivers in Texas and Maine were reportedly shot dead during Immigration and Customs Enforcement operations despite not being the intended targets, have reignited a simmering public unease. It is no longer simply another immigration story destined to be swallowed by the relentless news cycle. It has become something more unsettling, a reflection of how easily extraordinary state power can become detached from extraordinary responsibility.

Every government has the right to enforce immigration law. Few serious observers dispute that principle. The real question is not whether laws should exist but how they are enforced, under what restraints, and with what respect for human life. A democracy begins to lose its moral confidence when efficiency becomes more important than accountability, when collateral damage is explained away as unfortunate necessity rather than recognised as a profound institutional failure.

The Trump administration has consistently framed immigration as an existential emergency demanding uncompromising measures. Such rhetoric may energise political rallies, but governing is different from campaigning. Governments do not merely send messages; they establish norms. Every aggressive operation, every heavily armed raid, every mistaken detention, every innocent life caught in the machinery of enforcement gradually reshapes the relationship between citizens and the state.

Perhaps the most revealing shift is not occurring among Trump's critics. It is unfolding among many conservatives who once viewed tougher immigration enforcement as a straightforward expression of law and order. Increasingly, some are asking whether law and order has become law without proportion. They recognise that expanding executive power rarely remains confined to its original target. History has a habit of reminding societies that powers granted during moments of political passion often outlive the passions themselves.

This is where the debate quietly escapes the familiar partisan battlefield. It becomes less about immigration than about the architecture of democracy itself. Americans have always lived with a healthy suspicion of concentrated federal authority. It is woven into the country's constitutional DNA. Conservatives traditionally warned against an overreaching government capable of intruding into everyday life. Liberals warned against unequal application of state power. Now, those two anxieties are beginning to converge.

Fear is an extraordinarily useful political instrument. It simplifies complicated realities into easily identifiable enemies. But fear is also insatiable. Once normalised, it constantly demands larger demonstrations of strength, broader powers and fewer questions. Democracies rarely abandon their principles overnight. They surrender them incrementally, each concession justified as temporary, each excess explained as exceptional.

The quiet outrage spreading across America is therefore not simply grief for lives lost. It is anxiety over what repeated tragedies reveal about the direction of public institutions. Even those who strongly support secure borders are beginning to recognise that no nation strengthens itself by allowing lethal mistakes to become politically inconvenient footnotes.

Perhaps the greatest irony is that this growing discomfort is not being driven by ideological conversion but by constitutional instinct. Americans may disagree fiercely about immigration, yet many still share an older belief that government exists to protect liberty as much as order. When those two values drift apart, democracy itself becomes the unintended target. And unlike a failed enforcement operation, that is a mistake no republic can afford to explain away.

Gentle revolutions by Jiro Lambert

There was a time when video games seemed trapped in an endless arms race. Every sequel promised larger explosions, bigger worlds, deadlier enemies and increasingly apocalyptic stakes. The player was expected to save civilisation before dinner and defeat another cosmic villain before bedtime. Somewhere along the way, however, a quiet rebellion began. It arrived without cinematic trailers or bombastic orchestral scores. It arrived with fishing rods, flower gardens, friendly neighbours and a warm cup of virtual tea.

The rise of the cozy game is not simply another gaming trend. It is a cultural correction. These games reject the exhausting assumption that entertainment must always be stressful. They replace competition with curiosity, conquest with creativity and constant danger with gentle discovery. Their architecture is deliberately designed to comfort rather than overwhelm. Every mechanic whispers that slowing down is not failure but the very point of the experience.

This is more radical than it first appears. Modern life has become an uninterrupted stream of notifications, deadlines, economic uncertainty and political outrage. We measure ourselves by productivity, followers and endless performance metrics. Even leisure has become strangely competitive. Holidays become social media content. Exercise becomes quantified data. Reading becomes annual challenges. Rest itself demands measurable achievement.

Why should games be any different? Cozy games answer that question by refusing the premise altogether. Their worlds often lack villains because they understand that the player has already spent the day wrestling with enough invisible monsters. Anxiety, loneliness, financial pressure and information overload do not disappear when someone picks up a controller. Instead of demanding emotional energy, these games quietly replenish it.

Critics occasionally dismiss cozy gaming as escapism, as though escaping relentless stress were somehow a moral weakness. That criticism misunderstands both art and humanity. Every artistic movement has offered sanctuary during turbulent times. Literature, painting and cinema have long created spaces where audiences could breathe. Interactive entertainment is finally embracing that same responsibility.

What makes these games remarkable is not merely their peaceful settings but their underlying philosophy of design. Success is often impossible to miss. Failure carries little punishment. Progress unfolds through patience rather than perfection. Players are encouraged to nurture relationships, restore forgotten places and create beauty instead of simply consuming it.

That philosophy extends beyond gameplay. It quietly challenges the obsession with optimisation that dominates both technology and modern capitalism. Not every minute must maximise efficiency. Not every task requires a leaderboard. Sometimes planting a digital tree simply because it looks lovely is reason enough.

Ironically, this slower pace often creates far richer memories than another hundred identical battles. Years later, players rarely remember the statistics of a boss fight, but they vividly recall decorating a tiny cottage, watching rain fall across pixelated fields or helping an elderly neighbour recover a treasured keepsake. Emotional resonance outlasts mechanical spectacle.

The architecture of cozy games ultimately reflects a deeper hunger within society. People are not abandoning excitement; they are searching for balance. They still enjoy adventure, but increasingly they value spaces that respect their emotional wellbeing rather than exploiting their adrenaline. In choosing healing over heroics, these games have quietly redefined what success looks like. Perhaps the greatest victory a game can offer today is not saving the world, but allowing its players, for a little while, to feel that the world is gentle again.

#eBook Stuart Semple’s Blackout by Ovi Art eBooks

 

The pigment was called Vantablack. Developed through advanced scientific research, it was originally created for highly specialised purposes, including aerospace technology and optical instruments.

But when the art world discovered its extraordinary visual qualities, the pigment became something else entirely: a dream for artists. It represented the ultimate exploration of shadow, space, and perception. It was the kind of material that seemed destined to transform the way people thought about colour.

Then came the announcement that shocked many within the creative community. The artist Anish Kapoor, one of the most celebrated sculptors of his generation, had obtained exclusive artistic rights to use Vantablack. The agreement meant that, within the world of art, Kapoor would be the only artist able to work with this extraordinary black. A colour that appeared to belong to the future had effectively been placed behind a locked door.

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Ephemera #157 #Cartoon by Thanos Kalamidas

Ephemera: a word with ancient Greek roots meaning:
‘something that is produced or created that
is never meant to last or be remembered’.

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Jul 22, 1963 Sarawak achieves independence from British colonial rule

On 22 July 1963, Sarawak, an island of Borneo achieved independence from British colonial rule, becoming a self-governing state for a brief but profoundly significant moment before joining the newly formed Federation of Malaysia less than two months later, on 16 September.

For decades, that July morning existed in the shadows of the larger Malaysian narrative. Yet history has a way of rediscovering overlooked chapters, and Sarawak's Independence Day has increasingly become recognised not merely as a constitutional milestone but as an affirmation of identity.

The irony is impossible to ignore. Sarawak had long been governed by rulers who themselves were an historical curiosity. Before direct British colonial administration, it was ruled by the White Rajahs, beginning with James Brooke in 1841. An English adventurer, Brooke was rewarded by the Sultan of Brunei after helping suppress a rebellion. His descendants transformed what might have been a temporary appointment into a hereditary monarchy unlike any other in the British Empire.

The Brooke dynasty remains one of history's stranger episodes. Here was a Victorian family ruling an enormous tropical territory through a mixture of diplomacy, military expeditions, paternalism and calculated pragmatism. They outlawed headhunting while simultaneously romanticising the indigenous peoples who had practised it. They resisted plantation capitalism in some regions while encouraging economic development in others. They governed with surprising autonomy from London, often frustrating British officials who preferred cleaner imperial hierarchies.

When the Japanese occupation ended after the Second World War, Charles Vyner Brooke made the deeply controversial decision to cede Sarawak to Britain in 1946. Many Sarawakians regarded the transfer as a betrayal. Anti-cession movements emerged almost immediately, fuelled by local leaders who believed Sarawak deserved self-government rather than another layer of colonial administration. Demonstrations spread across towns, civil servants resigned in protest, and political passions reached such intensity that Governor Duncan Stewart was assassinated in Sibu in 1949 by Rosli Dhobi, a young nationalist whose legacy remains debated but whose sacrifice has become part of Sarawak's national memory.

Britain, however, continued its gradual imperial retreat. By the early 1960s, maintaining distant colonies no longer seemed economically sustainable or politically defensible. Around the globe, the empire was shrinking. Ghana had become independent. Nigeria followed. Tanganyika emerged as a sovereign state. The winds of decolonisation reached Southeast Asia with increasing force.

Sarawak was never simply another colonial possession waiting to be released. It was, and remains, astonishingly diverse. Dozens of ethnic communities, including Iban, Bidayuh, Melanau, Orang Ulu, Chinese, Malay and many smaller indigenous groups, shared forests, rivers and coastal settlements. More than forty languages echoed across its immense landscapes. Unlike many colonial territories where independence became entangled in bitter ethnic conflict, Sarawak's political challenge was how to build a shared future without erasing its extraordinary cultural mosaic.

That diversity became both its greatest strength and its greatest constitutional puzzle.

The independence ceremony on 22 July 1963 lacked the theatrical grandeur associated with other liberation movements. There was no triumphant revolution, no dramatic expulsion of colonial administrators, no victorious army marching through the streets. Instead, constitutional negotiations quietly reached their conclusion. British authority formally ended. Stephen Kalong Ningkan became Sarawak's first Chief Minister. The Union Jack came down, and a new political chapter began.

Some critics argue that because Sarawak entered Malaysia only weeks later, its independence was somehow incomplete or merely symbolic. That interpretation misunderstands constitutional history. Independence, even when brief, fundamentally altered the legal relationship between ruler and ruled. Sarawak joined Malaysia not as a colony but as a self-governing entity negotiating entry into a federation.

That distinction still matters. Modern debates over state rights, federal powers and the Malaysia Agreement of 1963 continue to draw legitimacy from those crucial weeks. Questions surrounding resource management, petroleum revenues, indigenous land rights and political autonomy often return to that foundational constitutional moment. History, once again, refuses to remain safely archived.

Perhaps the most remarkable feature of Sarawak's journey is not simply that independence arrived peacefully but that its society has largely preserved a tradition of coexistence in an era increasingly defined by polarisation. Longhouses remain places where different generations gather under one roof. Mosques, churches and temples often stand within walking distance of one another. Gawai Dayak, Chinese New Year, Hari Raya and Christmas all contribute to a civic rhythm that reflects genuine cultural pluralism rather than official slogans.

This harmony has never been perfect. No diverse society escapes tensions. Yet Sarawak often demonstrates that identity need not be a zero-sum contest.

The forests surrounding many of its rivers remind visitors that history moves much like the Rajang itself: slowly, unpredictably and with countless tributaries feeding the main current. Colonialism, monarchy, occupation, nationalism, federation, each became part of Sarawak's evolving identity rather than replacing what came before.

The significance of 22 July lies precisely in this complexity. It marks neither the end of history nor the beginning of perfection. Instead, it represents the moment when Sarawak ceased to be a possession and began speaking in its own political voice. That voice would soon join a larger federation, but it would never entirely disappear into it.

Independence, after all, is not measured by the number of days a nation stands alone. It is measured by whether its people continue to remember the day they first stood on their own feet. Sarawak's 22 July deserves remembrance not because it lasted only weeks before federation, but because it affirmed a timeless truth: that every people has the right to shape its own destiny, however winding the path that follows.

Good old ghosts by Timothy Davies

Donald Trump has often spoken as though America misplaced its greatness somewhere between the chrome-plated optimism of the 1950s and the televised confidence of the 1960s. Factories hummed, families prospered, the suburbs multiplied and the United States stood, in his telling, as an unquestioned titan. It is a comforting myth because nostalgia usually edits history with a forgiving hand. Yet, if there is one political relic from that era Trump appears genuinely determined to resurrect, it is not industrial prosperity or civic confidence. It is anti-communism.

The irony is almost theatrical. During the Cold War, the Soviet Union was the indispensable villain, the communist empire against which American politics, culture and foreign policy defined themselves. Republicans and Democrats alike measured patriotism against the red menace. Entire careers were built on identifying communist infiltration, whether real or imagined.

Today, however, Russia is no longer communist. Vladimir Putin governs through authoritarian nationalism, oligarchic capitalism and imperial nostalgia rather than Marxist doctrine. The hammer and sickle have long since disappeared from the Kremlin. Yet Trump's often warm rhetoric towards Putin has left him with a peculiar political dilemma. If Russia cannot convincingly play the old communist antagonist, another actor must inherit the role.

So ...China. Unlike the Soviet Union of old, modern China presents a far more complicated picture. Officially communist, economically capitalist in many practical respects, technologically ambitious and globally interconnected, it defies the simple binaries that once dominated Cold War thinking. Yet complexity rarely serves political storytelling. Simplicity does. Declaring China the principal ideological rival neatly revives an old script with updated scenery.

The language is familiar. America is once again portrayed as locked in an existential struggle against a hostile communist power. Manufacturing becomes a patriotic battlefield. Trade disputes transform into moral crusades. Technological competition acquires the emotional intensity once reserved for nuclear arms races. It is less a new foreign policy than an old screenplay with different actors.

What makes this revival fascinating is that it depends less on communism itself than on the political usefulness of having an enemy. The Cold War offered moral clarity, however imperfect. There was a clearly identifiable "other." Domestic disagreements could be folded into larger narratives about national survival. Every generation seems tempted to recreate that emotional certainty, especially when domestic politics become increasingly fractured.

Trump's political instincts have always gravitated towards conflict rather than consensus. Every movement benefits from defining an external adversary. In previous decades that adversary carried Soviet passports. Today it manufactures electric cars, dominates supply chains and develops artificial intelligence in Shenzhen rather than Siberia.

The nostalgia extends beyond economics into psychology. The imagined America of the 1950s was supposedly united because everyone feared the same enemy. History, of course, is less flattering. That era was also marked by McCarthyism, loyalty tests, blacklists and a pervasive suspicion that often damaged innocent lives. Anti-communism became not merely a foreign policy but a domestic political weapon.

That should give us pause whenever old fears return wearing modern clothes. Great powers inevitably compete. China undoubtedly presents serious strategic, economic and military challenges deserving careful attention. But reducing twenty-first-century geopolitics to recycled Cold War slogans risks misunderstanding both today's world and yesterday's lessons.

Perhaps the greatest illusion of political nostalgia is believing that history can simply be replayed. The factories cannot be rebuilt with slogans alone. The international order cannot be understood through fading ideological maps. And communism, once the defining spectre of American politics, survives today more as a rhetorical convenience than as the global force it once was.

If Trump has successfully brought anything back from the America he romanticises, it is not the prosperity people remember. It is the instinct to search for a communist enemy, even if one must first be reinvented to fit the story.

Beautiful Blue Dream #Poem #Painting by Nikos Laios

 

In darkness
I saw the days
Rise and fall,
And the stars
Danced
Around my feet,
And I dreamt of
All my yesterdays
And tomorrows.

I saw desire
Flash in your eyes
And our springtimes
And summertimes
Gently floated
Over sunflowers
And meadows
In a frangipani
Breeze.

The whole
World is
Fragrant
And warm
And alive;
And we are
All part
Of this
Beautiful
Blue dream.

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With a digital painting from Nikos Laios

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