In a public place, yesterday, the relentless TV coverage of the Christmas Fair Massacre in Berlin. A flashing red URGENT scroll at the bottom of the screen pounding away the message about the assailant being a refugee. Over and over and over again.

Will today’s URGENT scroll loop  the fact the suspect was released for lack of evidence? (Don’t hold your breath.) Will the fear and hatred brigades spew venom over every stranger in town and half-way across the globe? (Don’t bother checking.)

In emails this morning: can the boy’s convocation at the  local gendarmerie mean he’ll receive a deportation order? Should someone go with him? I answer yes to both queries, and pass the message to others. What? Not jumping into my clothes to do the work myself? No. I could list good reasons for not taking on the responsibility this time. Is there any really good reason for not helping someone in need? No. Do I realize the irony in helping this one but not that other? Yes. Do I realize even Herakles handled twelve messes, but not thirteen? Yes. Do I realize I’m not Herakles and never claimed to be? Also.

Back to Asli Erdogan and what few commentators seem to mention about her work: the self-derision, always on call when everything gets too much to take. I don’t know if she’s still managing self-derision after four months in Bakirkoy prison and a looming life sentence on December 29. I hope so, for her sake. Even if the ironies would call for a rewrite of The Book of Job. With Job seeing the dumb humor in worshiping a God who’s willing to play his life, his health and that of his wives, kids, slaves and cattle in a crap shoot with the Devil. I’d see it as a monolog. On a small stage and with lots of wisecracks.

On to my daily appeal: since yesterday, 580 more signatures have appeared on the petition demanding Asli Erdogan’s release. That still leaves the petition short of 5 204 signatures to reach the 50 000 signature mark. No need to tell me Asli Erdogan*, Necmiye Alpay and all the other jailed ones weren’t part of the discussion at yesterday’s Russia/Iran/Turkey get-together.

No need to tell me anything much  about this or anything else you read here – except maybe a Hi, here and there. The world doesn’t make much sense, and I doubt it ever did.

As I say in my profile: I read, write and try to make some sense out of life from somewhere in southwestern France. Most of the time, the making sense part doesn’t work, so I concentrate on reading, writing and sorting through the nonsense as it shows up.

*I see one of her novels has been translated into English: The City in Crimson Cloak, republished in 2007 in a translation by Amy Spangler. I haven’t read it in French yet and I don’t know if the English version is still in print.