What is a King?
So What IS a King?
What makes a king?
What makes a king real?
What does she do?
How does she live?
Does a king have a palace? One that is bigger than mine?
With servants to dress him, and chefs for his food.
Does she sit on a throne encrusted with jewels,
Raised up on dais with symbols of old?
Was his mother a king, and her father before her?
A dynasty born in trouble and strife.
A throne that was stolen by invasion and war,
Or simply invited to preserve an elite.
Does he care for the people, and when did we choose him?
To father our nation and be closer to god?
Do we make a divide between royal and common?
Is this how we tell what it is to be king?
No. That is not kingship. Not for my world.
A true king has nothing, he gives all he gets.
He provides us with succour for body and mind.
Her throne is a tree, his sceptre a flower.
He stewards the realm, and all life that is lived here.
He enables all people to flourish and thrive.
Her power is immense, but her touch it is light.
She heals and she nurtures, and pays us with love.
She is king for a season, but he's one of us.
For we are the people who consent to her kingship.
A debt that has to be royally repaid.
The people empowered live lives that are free.
So NO to hereditary, and NO to your power trip.
If I did not choose you, you can't be my king.
Let royalty wither,
let courtiers fall,
let palaces crumble and old kings be no more.
Arise the republic with fair shares for all.
Following on from yesterday's post about the falllacy of believing that simply replacing petrol cars with EVs will help "solve" the (climate) crisis, I dug out an article that I wrote 17 years ago when I was editing the quarterly SW Green Party newsletter.
Here 'tis:
For the past year and a half I have been driving an EV and it is a great pleasure. It is very smooth to drive, no gear changing and always plenty of power available instantly. It also promotes a gentler style of driving - partly because the accurate information about fuel consumption rate and remaining range makes you more aware of the impact both of changing conditions and of the way you are driving. Thus I find I now tend to drive a good 10mph slower on dual carriageways - seldom exceeding 65mph and often dropping to 55 or less on hills whereas in a petrol car I would put my foot down to keep my speed up. You drive more efficiently in an EV because you have better information.
Following on from from the last post on the things that happened in '72, there is another thing worth noting about 1972 that has become topical this weekend; and that is the Grateful Dead finally making it to Europe for a tour. You probably had to have discovered their music (and its usual accessories) before then to appreciate the significance - or maybe you got turned on at one of the gigs, or saw them somewhere else. In the UK. In '72 that meant the Empire Pool, Wembley for the opening two nights, the Bickershaw (rain and mud) "Festival" (where they magicked up the sunshine), and the final 4 nights of the tour at the Lyceum Ballroom in London.
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