The Q Allegory

Even though almost all my commenters yesterday suggested I get a new frame for my grandmother's needlepoint, I must admit that last night I got out the super glue and fixed it. (And of course got the glue on my fingers, which happens EVERY TIME I handle super glue.) I like keeping it in the original frame, the one my grandparents bought for it. I glued the broken hook to the back of the frame and then replaced the twine. We'll see if it lasts or comes crashing down again.

I've been listening to an interesting podcast called "The Coming Storm," from BBC radio. It's all about the rise of Q-Anon and how that led to the Jan. 6 insurrection in Washington, D.C. The podcaster, Gabriel Gatehouse, suggested an interesting interpretation of all the Q-Anon mythology -- the idea that Satanic pedophiles are running the world. He posits that, just like a Biblical allegory, these stories aren't meant to be taken literally. Instead they're representative of a wider truth -- that perhaps the people with money and power today really aren't running the world in the best interests of the rest of us. Then it doesn't sound so crazy, does it?

In other words, the Satanic pedophile stuff, the child-abuse ring in the basement of the pizza parlor, is a way to grab attention and spread that greater message of anger, frustration and disempowerment. Many Q followers do seem to be religious people, and perhaps more likely to be familiar with thinking in allegorical terms. Of course there are people who take it all literally, at their peril and everyone else's, and I think the Q belief in Donald Trump as their chosen messiah is truly puzzling -- except that they see him as a plain-spoken outsider who doesn't talk down to them, and they like that.

And of course the podcast emphasized the fact that the Republicans have been happy to capitalize on the Q movement and turn it into votes and fundraising.

I am forever trying to understand how these people think, so I found it all quite interesting.

A couple of days ago I found some daffodils lying on the sidewalk on my way to work -- probably picked by some child and then abandoned. I took them to the office and put them in a cup on my desk. They brighten the place up!

Oh, and there was some happy news yesterday -- I've written before about Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe, whose family lives near us in West Hampstead and who has been held prisoner by the Iranian government since 2016. Yesterday she was finally released and allowed to leave the country. Olga and I would occasionally see evidence of gatherings in her support at Fortune Green when we took walks there. Maybe now we'll run into her at Waitrose!

And speaking of Olga, here's a picture I took yesterday from our "dog cam" showing how she spends her time while we're at work -- at least until her dog-walker arrives. What a life!

(Top photo: A Royal Mail delivery van outside the gatehouse at a Hampstead property -- a purely inadvertent reference to Gabriel Gatehouse's surname!)