'a game of musical chairs with 10 players and only eight chairs'

 'we’re playing a game of musical chairs with 10 players and only eight chairs. .. but given that there are only eight chairs, then two people are going to lose out regardless of what their character is. that’s a very powerful analogy to use and it does capture what’s been happening in the united states. we focus on individual characteristics rather than saying, hey, there’s something wrong when we don’t have enough jobs that pay a decent wage.' 

horsemouth watched a few videos on poverty in the USA . then he watched  a video from 9 years ago on attempting to build an afghan police force and to get the villagers to engage in a 'self-defence' campaign against the taliban. seeing that the US is withdrawing (and everybody knows this) nobody wants to side with  the losing side - everyone (at a minimum) is staying sat down until this particular dance is over. 

there is a noble officer like diomedes but he's fucking a dog on this one, he cannot stop the afghani police from fucking small boys, getting stoned and nodding off from opium (and all while on the job). every scumbag is protected from on high by another bribe taking scumbag. 

the 'national' army are the old northern alliance. the taliban - well at least they're local boys.  

and now we know how that all ends. 

the soldiers from that war have come home (we speak of disillusionment as if it were a bad thing). and they have come home to poverty and, in some cases, extremism. 

ok horsemouth has failed to do his reading on blok in ravenna and he has a meeting at 12 that he must do his reading for. he has continued reading claudio magris (he is now up in what will be slovenian forests). 

he has also been reading the daily torygraph (his parents' newspaper) and doing the sudokus and other such puzzles. yesterday he was outside in the sunshine reading (in the end it only rained in the evening).

his mum is off into town (banking business). his dad is not up yet. zoom meeting at 12 for horsemouth.