Tilda has done it - betrayed the South Asian matriarchs.
Basmati in a microwave.
My mother would die. Her mother would kill.
Soaking the rice; cutting the onions; measuring out the water; getting the golden crunchy bottom - every single step was part of a ritual, passed on from mother to daughter.
To end in the MICROWAVE? Never.
"Sanjay is my only son - handsome, loving. Now, of course, he's brought shame on the family."
"What happened?"
"He cooks his basmati rice in the microwave. 48 hours I was in labour with him - for this? TWO MINUTES IN A MICROWAVE? Can a microwave replace a mother?"
Every South Asian mother would rise up against this sacrilege.
As do I. Mine takes at least 11.
Saturday, 27 October 2007
Tuesday, 23 October 2007
The perfect anthem...
I've been cheated.
I've lived in two countries with completely rubbish national anthems - one about a war, one about a current ruler. Neither is really a paean to the land or the people who make a nation what it is. Each land has better options, but opted for the ones they have now.
Lately, of course, I've been singing this one constantly. I'll write more about why in another entry, but suffice it to say that the anthem is in four languages and ends with "Let us live and strive for freedom..." Absolutely. Those are the sentiments that a national anthem should have: love of country, representation of her peoples and a sense of moving forward together.
This weekend, I was messing around on youtube, and I thought, "Oh, I need to hear that national anthem so I can take the piss out of it." Found it easily enough...
and discovered an anthem that moved me to tears - a perfect blend of music and words. Watch it - the harmony on the first verse is incredible.
Rach will smirk, but I can take it, so here goes:
Australians all let us rejoice
For we are young and free
We've golden soil and wealth for toil,
Our home is girt by sea:
Our land abounds in nature's gifts
Of beauty rich and rare,
In history's page let every stage
Advance Australia fair:
In joyful strains then let us sing
Advance Australia fair.
Beneath our radiant Southern Cross,
We'll toil with hearts and hands,
To make this Commonwealth of ours
Renowned of all the lands,
For those who've come across the seas
We've boundless plains to share,
With courage let us all combine
To advance Australia fair.
In joyful strains then let us sing,
Advance Australia fair.
It brims with love and gratitude to the land, her beauty and the wealth she brings them through their own hard work; a joy in living and sharing that prosperity with those "who've come across the seas"; and a resolve to move forward together to advance Australia fair.
I know no land is perfect, and that in reality, Aus has the toughest immigration rules of them all. But anthems are about ideals: what we're living and striving towards.
And this one should be adapted for and taken up by all humanity - to advance our Terra fair.
I've lived in two countries with completely rubbish national anthems - one about a war, one about a current ruler. Neither is really a paean to the land or the people who make a nation what it is. Each land has better options, but opted for the ones they have now.
Lately, of course, I've been singing this one constantly. I'll write more about why in another entry, but suffice it to say that the anthem is in four languages and ends with "Let us live and strive for freedom..." Absolutely. Those are the sentiments that a national anthem should have: love of country, representation of her peoples and a sense of moving forward together.
This weekend, I was messing around on youtube, and I thought, "Oh, I need to hear that national anthem so I can take the piss out of it." Found it easily enough...
and discovered an anthem that moved me to tears - a perfect blend of music and words. Watch it - the harmony on the first verse is incredible.
Rach will smirk, but I can take it, so here goes:
Australians all let us rejoice
For we are young and free
We've golden soil and wealth for toil,
Our home is girt by sea:
Our land abounds in nature's gifts
Of beauty rich and rare,
In history's page let every stage
Advance Australia fair:
In joyful strains then let us sing
Advance Australia fair.
Beneath our radiant Southern Cross,
We'll toil with hearts and hands,
To make this Commonwealth of ours
Renowned of all the lands,
For those who've come across the seas
We've boundless plains to share,
With courage let us all combine
To advance Australia fair.
In joyful strains then let us sing,
Advance Australia fair.
It brims with love and gratitude to the land, her beauty and the wealth she brings them through their own hard work; a joy in living and sharing that prosperity with those "who've come across the seas"; and a resolve to move forward together to advance Australia fair.
I know no land is perfect, and that in reality, Aus has the toughest immigration rules of them all. But anthems are about ideals: what we're living and striving towards.
And this one should be adapted for and taken up by all humanity - to advance our Terra fair.
Monday, 22 October 2007
Aye ken reed...
"In order for children to read, all the studies show that we need to teach children how the alphabet works..." --Jim Rose, author of the Rose Report on literacy
Makes sense, right? Not if you're the head of a teachers' union, or if you're the children's laureate.
In this country, 20% of children leave primary school at 11 incapable of reading at an 8 year old level. Ten years ago, that figure was 33% - that's ONE CHILD IN THREE. IN ONE OF THE MOST DEVELOPED COUNTRIES IN THE WORLD...AND ONE THAT BITCHES ON ABOUT IMMIGRANTS NOT BEING ABLE TO SPEAK OR READ ENGLISH.
Thank God it's a country that understands irony. Most of the time.
I'm livid. Absolutely furious that a country that claims to put children and education first has schools full of teachers who cannot - or will not - catch students falling through the literacy net.
Why, you ask? Surely, it's simple enough. Teach children what the letters and diphthongs sound like, and they'll learn to string words together- they'll have the tools to attack reading, work out words they don't know, and feel competent, right?
In other words, the way we ALL learned to read - phonics.
Oh NO, says NUT and the children's laureate, couldn't possibly do that. It's BORING. God forbid the children should actually have to do work that isn't fun.
The children's laureate was shown trying to instill a love of literature into students he's working with - and with them stumbling over their reading, with him reading parts for them and them repeating it back, he argues against phonics, claiming it will kill their love of reading.
Erm, and you would be a shining example of that, would you, Michael? Because, my dear, at your age, I'll guarantee you that you learned to read by...phonics. And funnily enough, it's older generations - those who learned by phonics - that seem to enjoy reading most.
To get to the point where you can ENJOY reading, you have to read fluently. You have to feel confident in your ability to face unfamiliar words, sound them out, go "OH! That's e-l-e-ph-a-n-t...elephant," pat yourself on the back and carry on. If you stumble across an unfamiliar word and you use 'context' or 'whole word' methods, you're f***ed. What are you going to do if you can't sound it out, if you don't know blends, dipthongs, phonemes? Guess from the word shape? "Oh, it has a long neck, it must be 'giraffe'?"
You need to understand how the parts work, what their function is, how they fit together before you can understand the whole. Just like nature builds the proteins that give creation its infinite variety from amino acids generated by a nucleic acid code, words are built from letters and sounds. To understand proteins, you need to understand the nucleic acid code, amino acid properties and how they fit together. It's the same with words. Or anything else.
You need to build your foundation on rock, and stop pretending that shifting sand will do as well.
So it takes a bit of drill - make it fun, as some of the teachers on the show did - make a song of it, give them actions to go with the sounds, help them string words together. This isn't a 'right wing agenda' - going back to basics is just common sense. How you TEACH the basics is up to you.
I'm not a phonics dictator - I strongly believe in parental involvement, reading to your child, using context to determine *meaning*, instilling kids with a love of literature. But you need to give them a solid foundation on which to build their infinite variety of houses...and that means giving them the ability to work through reading themselves by teaching them how the alphabet - which makes up their words - works.
Literacy isn't just about reading words on a page - it unlocks worlds of reality and imagination; the ability to express yourself and understand others when they choose to do the same; it gives a child confidence to face the world, because she has the tools to understand what the world is telling her. It makes it possible for her to fly.
So doesn't that make it criminal for us to clip her wings when we refuse to make literacy possible because we're afraid of 'boring' her? After all, once she learns phonics, it's a skill she'll use automatically for the rest of her life. She's not going to be going "B-u-gg-e-r" when she's 12, now, is she?
Quit kvetching because you have to learn a new way of teaching a child to read, or you have to spend a little extra time catching a child in that safety net. Or because YOU found it boring as a child. This isn't about you, it's about our children and their future.
Now let's get reading.
Makes sense, right? Not if you're the head of a teachers' union, or if you're the children's laureate.
In this country, 20% of children leave primary school at 11 incapable of reading at an 8 year old level. Ten years ago, that figure was 33% - that's ONE CHILD IN THREE. IN ONE OF THE MOST DEVELOPED COUNTRIES IN THE WORLD...AND ONE THAT BITCHES ON ABOUT IMMIGRANTS NOT BEING ABLE TO SPEAK OR READ ENGLISH.
Thank God it's a country that understands irony. Most of the time.
I'm livid. Absolutely furious that a country that claims to put children and education first has schools full of teachers who cannot - or will not - catch students falling through the literacy net.
Why, you ask? Surely, it's simple enough. Teach children what the letters and diphthongs sound like, and they'll learn to string words together- they'll have the tools to attack reading, work out words they don't know, and feel competent, right?
In other words, the way we ALL learned to read - phonics.
Oh NO, says NUT and the children's laureate, couldn't possibly do that. It's BORING. God forbid the children should actually have to do work that isn't fun.
The children's laureate was shown trying to instill a love of literature into students he's working with - and with them stumbling over their reading, with him reading parts for them and them repeating it back, he argues against phonics, claiming it will kill their love of reading.
Erm, and you would be a shining example of that, would you, Michael? Because, my dear, at your age, I'll guarantee you that you learned to read by...phonics. And funnily enough, it's older generations - those who learned by phonics - that seem to enjoy reading most.
To get to the point where you can ENJOY reading, you have to read fluently. You have to feel confident in your ability to face unfamiliar words, sound them out, go "OH! That's e-l-e-ph-a-n-t...elephant," pat yourself on the back and carry on. If you stumble across an unfamiliar word and you use 'context' or 'whole word' methods, you're f***ed. What are you going to do if you can't sound it out, if you don't know blends, dipthongs, phonemes? Guess from the word shape? "Oh, it has a long neck, it must be 'giraffe'?"
You need to understand how the parts work, what their function is, how they fit together before you can understand the whole. Just like nature builds the proteins that give creation its infinite variety from amino acids generated by a nucleic acid code, words are built from letters and sounds. To understand proteins, you need to understand the nucleic acid code, amino acid properties and how they fit together. It's the same with words. Or anything else.
You need to build your foundation on rock, and stop pretending that shifting sand will do as well.
So it takes a bit of drill - make it fun, as some of the teachers on the show did - make a song of it, give them actions to go with the sounds, help them string words together. This isn't a 'right wing agenda' - going back to basics is just common sense. How you TEACH the basics is up to you.
I'm not a phonics dictator - I strongly believe in parental involvement, reading to your child, using context to determine *meaning*, instilling kids with a love of literature. But you need to give them a solid foundation on which to build their infinite variety of houses...and that means giving them the ability to work through reading themselves by teaching them how the alphabet - which makes up their words - works.
Literacy isn't just about reading words on a page - it unlocks worlds of reality and imagination; the ability to express yourself and understand others when they choose to do the same; it gives a child confidence to face the world, because she has the tools to understand what the world is telling her. It makes it possible for her to fly.
So doesn't that make it criminal for us to clip her wings when we refuse to make literacy possible because we're afraid of 'boring' her? After all, once she learns phonics, it's a skill she'll use automatically for the rest of her life. She's not going to be going "B-u-gg-e-r" when she's 12, now, is she?
Quit kvetching because you have to learn a new way of teaching a child to read, or you have to spend a little extra time catching a child in that safety net. Or because YOU found it boring as a child. This isn't about you, it's about our children and their future.
Now let's get reading.
Thursday, 11 October 2007
Still being lazy...
I'll be writing a proper blog entry soon, but first, a big thanks to James Buchanan (aka Gary Barlow) for putting this on his Facebook status. I'm actually STILL laughing - again. For those of you who don't know the song or the artist this refers to, please go here first:
Loved it. And to those of you who voted and made me a wolf - an animal I've always been deeply fond of, and would have chosen as a totem - thank you. Of course, I'd have been proud to be a tiger too.
Loved it. And to those of you who voted and made me a wolf - an animal I've always been deeply fond of, and would have chosen as a totem - thank you. Of course, I'd have been proud to be a tiger too.
Saturday, 6 October 2007
Friday, 5 October 2007
Let him offer me a better place...
This is how I came to learn, then, dandled on a former adept's knee, how blessed Elua came to be; how when Yeshua ben Yosef hung dying upon the cross, a soldier of Tiberium pierced his side with the cruel steel of a spearhead. How when Yeshua was lowered, the women grieved, and the Magdalene most of all, letting down the ruddy gold torrent of her hair to clothe his still, naked figure. How the bitter salt tears of the Magdalene fell upon soil ensanguined and moist with the shed blood of the Messiah.
And from this union, the grieving Earth engendered her most precious son; blessed Elua, most cherished of the angels.
I listened with a child's rapt fascination as Brother Louvel told us of the wandering of Elua. Abhorred by the Yeshuites as an abomination, reviled by the empire of Tiberium as the scion of its enemy, Elua wandered the earth across vast deserts and wastelands. Scorned by the one God of whose Son he was begotten, Elua trod with bare feet on the bosom of his mother Earth and wandered singing, and where he went, flowers bloomed in his footprints.
He was captured in Persis, and shook his head smiling when the king put him in chains, and vines grew to wreath his cell. The tale of his wandering had come to reach the ear of Heaven, and when he was imprisoned, there were those who answered. Choosing to flout the will of the One God, they came to Earth...
...It came then to the One God that his persuasion held no sway over Elua, in whose veins ran the red wine of his mother Earth, through the womb she gave him and the tears of the Magdalene...The One God pondered long, and sent not the angel of death, but his arch-herald to Elua and those who followed him. "Do you stay here and love as thou wilt, thy offspring shall overrun the Earth," said the herald of the One God. "And this is a thing which may not be. Come now in peace to the right hand of your God and Lord, and all is forgiven."
Blessed Elua smiled at the arch-herald, and turned to his boon companion Cassiel, holding out his hand for his knife. Taking it, he drew the point across the palm of his hand, scoring it. Bright blood welled from his palm and fell in fat drops to the Earth, and anemones bloomed. 'My Grandfather's heaven is bloodless," Elua told the arch-herald, "and I am not. Let him offer me a better place, where we may love and sing and grow as we are wont, where our children and our children's children may join us, and we will go."
The arch-herald paused, awaiting the One God's response. "There is no such place," he answered.
...Our mother Earth spoke to her once-husband, the One God, and said, "We may create it, you and I."
--Jacqueline Carey, Kushiel's Dart, pp. 12-13, 15-16
Let him offer me a better place - let his religion offer me a better place - one of passion, laughter and sensuality, where we may love and sing and grow as we are wont...and I too, will go. Until then, neither the One God nor any of his self-styled owners of the 'one truth' will persuade me to an eternally bloodless and passionless land.
Love as thou wilt, and the blessed Elua will ever guide thy steps.
And so I shall.
And from this union, the grieving Earth engendered her most precious son; blessed Elua, most cherished of the angels.
I listened with a child's rapt fascination as Brother Louvel told us of the wandering of Elua. Abhorred by the Yeshuites as an abomination, reviled by the empire of Tiberium as the scion of its enemy, Elua wandered the earth across vast deserts and wastelands. Scorned by the one God of whose Son he was begotten, Elua trod with bare feet on the bosom of his mother Earth and wandered singing, and where he went, flowers bloomed in his footprints.
He was captured in Persis, and shook his head smiling when the king put him in chains, and vines grew to wreath his cell. The tale of his wandering had come to reach the ear of Heaven, and when he was imprisoned, there were those who answered. Choosing to flout the will of the One God, they came to Earth...
...It came then to the One God that his persuasion held no sway over Elua, in whose veins ran the red wine of his mother Earth, through the womb she gave him and the tears of the Magdalene...The One God pondered long, and sent not the angel of death, but his arch-herald to Elua and those who followed him. "Do you stay here and love as thou wilt, thy offspring shall overrun the Earth," said the herald of the One God. "And this is a thing which may not be. Come now in peace to the right hand of your God and Lord, and all is forgiven."
Blessed Elua smiled at the arch-herald, and turned to his boon companion Cassiel, holding out his hand for his knife. Taking it, he drew the point across the palm of his hand, scoring it. Bright blood welled from his palm and fell in fat drops to the Earth, and anemones bloomed. 'My Grandfather's heaven is bloodless," Elua told the arch-herald, "and I am not. Let him offer me a better place, where we may love and sing and grow as we are wont, where our children and our children's children may join us, and we will go."
The arch-herald paused, awaiting the One God's response. "There is no such place," he answered.
...Our mother Earth spoke to her once-husband, the One God, and said, "We may create it, you and I."
--Jacqueline Carey, Kushiel's Dart, pp. 12-13, 15-16
Let him offer me a better place - let his religion offer me a better place - one of passion, laughter and sensuality, where we may love and sing and grow as we are wont...and I too, will go. Until then, neither the One God nor any of his self-styled owners of the 'one truth' will persuade me to an eternally bloodless and passionless land.
Love as thou wilt, and the blessed Elua will ever guide thy steps.
And so I shall.
Monday, 24 September 2007
A rare moment...
of schmaltz from me.
I am, as much as it is possible to be, a member of the Jim Henson generation. I was born in the time period that "Sesame Street" was in pre-production, and was a young toddler when it first aired. Some of my favourite early memories revolve around Sesame Street sketches - particularly the somewhat psychedelic "D/Doll" sequence, and Bob McGrath was my very first crush (he was superseded by Harry the Monster and Kermit, then Brendan Pelarski in the first grade).
When I outgrew "Sesame Street", there was "The Muppet Show" at 7.30 pm on Saturday nights, with its array of stars, and the ongoing sagas of "Pigs in Space", "Veterinarian's Hospital" ('the continuuuuuuing story of a quack who's gone to the dogs') and "Muppet Labs" (poor Beaker!).
And just as I grew into them came the richer, magnificent and somewhat darker "Jim Henson Hour" ("The Storyteller" half was some of the best television I have EVER seen), "Labyrinth" and "The Dark Crystal".
I grew up with Jim Henson. He was always there. Until...
I'll never forget my brother ringing me in 1990 to tell me that Jim Henson had died. I told him at least twice that he was kidding and wouldn't believe him. In the end, as we all know, I had no choice. None of us did.
For years, I've been looking for this clip from the show with Bernadette Peters - it made me cry then, though I only understood why when I was much older. The second half is the same song done as a tribute to Jim Henson - watch it the whole way through, even though you have to listen to the song twice.
You might even find yourself shedding a tear.
It has been almost 18 years, Jim, and we miss you still. Thank you for letting me - and so many others - grow up in your world.
Sunday, 23 September 2007
My daemon, pt. 2
I nearly had a heart attack today when I saw my daemon appear as a spider. Then it clicked...there are 12 days before it settles into final form. SO, before it does, please take the test and be *honest* about how you see me. Can't wait to see what it turns into next week.
Enjoy.
Enjoy.
Friday, 21 September 2007
My daemon...
as per Philip Pullman's definition - if I lived in Lyra's world, this would be the representation of my soul. Agree? Disagree? Comment and let me know:
Another quiz says that my daemon is a goose. I was offended until I was reminded that one of my favourite characters had a goose daemon: Serafina Pekkala, the witch queen. As per Wikipedia:
Serafina Pekkala's dæmon is Kaisa, a large grey goose who is capable of being separated from Pekkala by long distances, as is normal with the dæmons of witches... Witches own nothing, and so have no means of exchange save mutual aid.
There are men within the witch society who serve the witches, or who can be taken for lovers or husbands. Witches are said to be capable of appreciating men for their beauty, intelligence, and bravery (we do indeed); but due to the witches' long life-span, the men appear to grow old and die almost at once. This is said to cause the witches great emotional pain.
...
Witches fly on branches of Cloud-Pine, and equate flying to living, as Serafina states: "A witch would no sooner give up flying than give up breathing. To fly is to be perfectly ourselves." Witches see themselves as subject to fate, yet they feel they must act as if they are not, or "die of despair".
...now THAT sounds like me. Wait for me, Serafina, I just remembered where I put my broom...
Another quiz says that my daemon is a goose. I was offended until I was reminded that one of my favourite characters had a goose daemon: Serafina Pekkala, the witch queen. As per Wikipedia:
Serafina Pekkala's dæmon is Kaisa, a large grey goose who is capable of being separated from Pekkala by long distances, as is normal with the dæmons of witches... Witches own nothing, and so have no means of exchange save mutual aid.
There are men within the witch society who serve the witches, or who can be taken for lovers or husbands. Witches are said to be capable of appreciating men for their beauty, intelligence, and bravery (we do indeed); but due to the witches' long life-span, the men appear to grow old and die almost at once. This is said to cause the witches great emotional pain.
...
Witches fly on branches of Cloud-Pine, and equate flying to living, as Serafina states: "A witch would no sooner give up flying than give up breathing. To fly is to be perfectly ourselves." Witches see themselves as subject to fate, yet they feel they must act as if they are not, or "die of despair".
...now THAT sounds like me. Wait for me, Serafina, I just remembered where I put my broom...
Friday, 14 September 2007
Only 493 days, 13 hours and 28 minutes
From the Times - and before any conservative American readers (of which I hope I have exactly ZERO) shoot off, the Times is considered a conservative paper over here, so no "But Europe hates Bush" bull****:
"The 21 nations that make up the Asia- Pacific Economic Co-operation (Apec) forum account for half the world’s trade. They have, however, long suspected that the biggest member, the United States, did not take it seriously.
President Bush did nothing to dispel that impression yesterday when he forgot the name of the event, referred to his Australian hosts as “Austrians”, and engaged in a public spat with the President of South Korea. To make matters worse, the security measures of the Sydney police were breached by a team of comedians, including a man dressed as Osama bin Laden.
Mr Bush flew to Australia via Iraq, and during his keynote speech to businessmen in Sydney he behaved like a man in the throes of jet lag. Many will sympathise with his mispronunciation of the South-East Asian militant organisation Jemaah Islamiyah, and his struggle with the name of the Burmese democracy leader, Aung San Suu Kyi. It was forgivable when he walked the wrong way off the stage and had to be guided by John Howard, the Australian Prime Minister.
But when he referred gratefully to Mr Howard’s forces in Iraq as “Austrian troops”, he had perhaps used up his credit. The worst mistake was made in the third sentence of his speech. “Thank you for being such a fine host for the Opec summit,” he said, confusing the 12-member Organisation of Petroleum Exporting Countries with the 21-member Asia-Pacific Economic Co-operation forum. “Apec summit,” he said quickly in correction. “He [Mr Howard] invited me to Opec next year.” But that wasn’t true either."
Thank GOD I haven't had to live under this idiot, who should have choked on a pretzel years ago - at least his father is an intelligent and gracious man, even if I disagree with him. How he and Barbara could have spawned this creature is beyond me.
But let's leave that aside. I have a question for my countrymen. You watched him for FOUR years. You knew how lacking in intelligence and analytical ability he was, how lacking in integrity (the joke of the decade being that the man who executed more prisoners than anyone else had the NERVE to institute a "Sanctity for Life" day - go join the hypocrite pro-lifers who bomb abortion clinics and shoot doctors in hell, won't you?) he is, how corrupt his cronies are, how this man will lie to do what he wants rather than what is best for the country, how incapable he is of listening to anyone.
So tell me, folks: HOW THE F*** COULD 59,017,382 OF YOU BE SO DUMB? HOW THE HELL COULD YOU ELECT HIM AGAIN? IT WASN'T EVEN LIKE THE ECONOMY WAS IN GOOD SHAPE, FOR F***'S SAKE!
Ah, yes...if we break it down by IQ, it all makes sense:
1 Connecticut 113 John Kerry
2 Massachusetts 111 John Kerry
3 New Jersey 111 John Kerry
4 New York 109 John Kerry
5 Rhode Island 107 John Kerry
6 Hawaii 106 John Kerry
7 Maryland 105 John Kerry
8 New Hampshire 105 John Kerry
9 Illinois 104 John Kerry
10 Delaware 103 John Kerry
11 Minnesota 102 John Kerry
12 Vermont 102 John Kerry
13 Washington 102 John Kerry
14 California 101 John Kerry
15 Pennsylvania 101 John Kerry
16 Maine 100 John Kerry
17 Virginia 100 George Bush
18 Wisconsin 100 John Kerry
19 Colorado 99 George Bush
20 Iowa 99 George Bush
21 Michigan 99 John Kerry
22 Nevada 99 George Bush
23 Ohio 99 George Bush
24 Oregon 99 John Kerry
25 Alaska 98 George Bush
26 Florida 98 George Bush
27 Missouri 98 George Bush
28 Kansas 96 George Bush
29 Nebraska 95 George Bush
30 Arizona 94 George Bush
31 Indiana 94 George Bush
32 Tennessee 94 George Bush
33 North Carolina 93 George Bush
34 West Virginia 93 George Bush
35 Arkansas 92 George Bush
36 Georgia 92 George Bush
37 Kentucky 92 George Bush
38 New Mexico 92 George Bush
39 North Dakota 92 George Bush
40 Texas 92 George Bush
41 Alabama 90 George Bush
42 Louisiana 90 George Bush
43 Montana 90 George Bush
44 Oklahoma 90 George Bush
45 South Dakota 90 George Bush
46 South Carolina 89 George Bush
47 Wyoming 89 George Bush
48 Idaho 87 George Bush
49 Utah 87 George Bush
50 Mississippi 85 George Bush
Jesus wept. And then wanted to come down and kick your apathetic, unthinking asses - after he'd gotten over the fact that he'd wasted his time dying for you.
That's better. I've wanted to say that since 2004. At least you made a start by giving us a Democratically controlled Congress last year.
But for God's sake, people, quit giving the rest of the world reason to see you as an imperialistic, self-absorbed, materialistic nation, who thinks that it owns the entire world and thinks it can do whatever the hell it wants. You don't and you can't. If you have power and resources, you have RESPONSIBILITIES, not just rights.
Stop acting like an adolescent and grow up. Care for your own - money isn't all there is, and socialism isn't necessarily a bad thing. Learn from others. Learn ABOUT others. LISTEN. CARE for others - you're proud of your resources, use them to make the world a better place, not an angrier one. Realise that you're only a thread in the tapestry of this world, not the whole damn thing. Deal with your anger and pain, and become more compassionate. Make those of us who were born of you and are living elsewhere proud - make us want to own you rather than deny you.
Hilary and Barack...we're counting on you. And if you win, don't forget Al Gore.
Wednesday, 5 September 2007
Back...
Oops, it has been more than three weeks...sorry, folks.
Well, the news is that the funding at my last job ran out, which I'm gutted about, because I love my friars.
Since then, I've picked up a job writing educational resources - which is great, but my first assignment is 35 little booklets that - no matter how hard I try - I can't do in an hour each. The deal is that it should take 20 minutes for the mental map (almost there) and 40 minutes for the questions, answers and surfing the web for extra material and further reading. I am SO not there - that's taking well over an hour for me.
Part of it is that I don't know the subject. Part of it is that I'm new at messing around with mind maps.
But most of it is that I am incapable of dashing off anything except notes and things that I don't give a toss about. I'm a TEACHER. These are resources for teachers. They MATTER and I cannot give them less than 100%. The deadline was yesterday, and I'm nowhere near done - I've been at my computer for about 12-14 hours a day since Saturday: by Monday I'd done a full week's hours.
I've finally admitted that I can't do it in time. Even if I were quick, that's 35 hours of work. And I had to start over on Friday because my old computer died. What made me say 'yes' when I knew bloody well the answer was 'no' unless I had supernatural speed bestowed on me from the Charmed Ones' Book of Shadows?
As I'm now blogging, I think you can all guess that I can't do the 12 hour days anymore. I've hit the wall.
I've been listening to 'Au fond du temple saint' and Azam Ali (The cold black key from 'Pan's Labyrinth').
When this lot is done and a couple more things are sorted out, I'm going to Disneyworld.
Well, maybe Wales. But definitely the sea.
And back to a 40 hour week, even if I am working from home...
Well, the news is that the funding at my last job ran out, which I'm gutted about, because I love my friars.
Since then, I've picked up a job writing educational resources - which is great, but my first assignment is 35 little booklets that - no matter how hard I try - I can't do in an hour each. The deal is that it should take 20 minutes for the mental map (almost there) and 40 minutes for the questions, answers and surfing the web for extra material and further reading. I am SO not there - that's taking well over an hour for me.
Part of it is that I don't know the subject. Part of it is that I'm new at messing around with mind maps.
But most of it is that I am incapable of dashing off anything except notes and things that I don't give a toss about. I'm a TEACHER. These are resources for teachers. They MATTER and I cannot give them less than 100%. The deadline was yesterday, and I'm nowhere near done - I've been at my computer for about 12-14 hours a day since Saturday: by Monday I'd done a full week's hours.
I've finally admitted that I can't do it in time. Even if I were quick, that's 35 hours of work. And I had to start over on Friday because my old computer died. What made me say 'yes' when I knew bloody well the answer was 'no' unless I had supernatural speed bestowed on me from the Charmed Ones' Book of Shadows?
As I'm now blogging, I think you can all guess that I can't do the 12 hour days anymore. I've hit the wall.
I've been listening to 'Au fond du temple saint' and Azam Ali (The cold black key from 'Pan's Labyrinth').
When this lot is done and a couple more things are sorted out, I'm going to Disneyworld.
Well, maybe Wales. But definitely the sea.
And back to a 40 hour week, even if I am working from home...
Tuesday, 14 August 2007
A child of Partition on the 60th anniversary
Partition - "a division of property among joint owners or tenants in common or a sale of such property followed by a division of the proceeds." Antonyms: unity, unite.
One word. Not often used in English, and then without emotional charge.
Unless you're from the Indian subcontinent, where the word packs as much power as nuclear fission.
Partition. Always with a capital "P".
"There can be no question of coercing any large areas in which one community has a majority to live against their will under a government in which another community has a majority. And the only alternative to coercion is partition." --Louis Mountbatten
With those words, and with a stroke of the pen from Cyril Radcliffe (a man who had never lived in India, and was thus seen to be 'neutral') the Indian subcontinent was granted its freedom on 14 August 1947 as two separate nations - India and Pakistan, divided along religious lines.
Only once has anyone in my large [5 sibs on dad's side, 8 on mum's] family EVER talked about Partition except to celebrate 14 August, or to say briefly that they left Jalandhar for Lahore/Sahiwal/Hujra etc.
So the first time I really understood what had actually happened was whilst watching a 2005 programme on the series 'Dispatches' called 'Young, Angry and Muslim' about the Pakistani Muslim community here. It was well-done, narrated by a Pakistani Muslim [Navid Akhtar], unsettling, for all the reasons one would expect - radicalisation, the anger of the communities, and so on.
One word. Not often used in English, and then without emotional charge.
Unless you're from the Indian subcontinent, where the word packs as much power as nuclear fission.
Partition. Always with a capital "P".
"There can be no question of coercing any large areas in which one community has a majority to live against their will under a government in which another community has a majority. And the only alternative to coercion is partition." --Louis Mountbatten
With those words, and with a stroke of the pen from Cyril Radcliffe (a man who had never lived in India, and was thus seen to be 'neutral') the Indian subcontinent was granted its freedom on 14 August 1947 as two separate nations - India and Pakistan, divided along religious lines.
"This concept of a divided India was based on the fantastic concept that nationality was based on religion. That made no sense to me." --Nyantara Sanghal, Jahawarlal Nehru's niece
Lines on a map cut right through the middle of people's lives. And nowhere was this truer than in the state of the Punjab, which was split in half, where Muslims, Sikhs and Hindus lived peacefully in integrated communities. Fifteen million people had to move; at least one million died. The Punjab went from a state of tightly knit communities to five rivers running red with blood, all with the stroke of a fountain pen.Only once has anyone in my large [5 sibs on dad's side, 8 on mum's] family EVER talked about Partition except to celebrate 14 August, or to say briefly that they left Jalandhar for Lahore/Sahiwal/Hujra etc.
So the first time I really understood what had actually happened was whilst watching a 2005 programme on the series 'Dispatches' called 'Young, Angry and Muslim' about the Pakistani Muslim community here. It was well-done, narrated by a Pakistani Muslim [Navid Akhtar], unsettling, for all the reasons one would expect - radicalisation, the anger of the communities, and so on.
Then I looked up to see the trains.
Never, ever had I seen any footage of Partition, of the resettling over the border - until that day, when they showed three minutes of footage. The fear on the faces, the sick children, the elderly on the backs of wagons packed with people, or on trains that looked eerily like ones that had left Germany not 10 years before.
But this time, *I* was the one looking for familiar faces. My grandparents, in their 40s. My parents at 10. My uncles, aunts...they all looked like family...
And I heard my father's voice, at a family gathering a few weeks before I left the States to come here, speaking for the first time about Partition in my hearing, about a cousin who had promised to get them out, but took his girlfriend's family instead...and pushed them off as they tried to get on the truck. The fury and bitterness in his voice frightened me even as it made me want to put my arms around him. But our family has never been a close one, and my arms remained by my side.
My father's is only one story amongst millions. There were the trains that crossed the borders full of corpses; the houses that were burned; women who were raped or killed so that they wouldn't be raped; the refugee camps and children dying of disease; neighbours turned to enemies.
"I miss my friends. I didn't understand why they had to go. They didn't want to go. They were pushed away. And I thought "Why?" Sixty years later, I still think, "Why?" What did anyone get out of it?" --A Sikh reflecting on his childhood friendships with his Muslim neighbours
"The girls in the Muslim school [in Amritsar, on the Indian side] were stripped, marched out and systematically raped. I looked in the faces of those watching on to see if there was any compassion. I found none." --a Sikh in Amritsar
Muslim gangs destroying the Hindu quarter in the stunning, cosmopolitan city of Lahore, described by those who lived there then as tolerant, vibrant and the height of fashion; Sikhs attacking Muslim villages; Muslims and Hindus at eachother in the Punjab and Bengal all stand as proof that religion doesn't restrain our animal urges; when used by politicians to create fear, nothing is so effective as religion at unleashing them.
"Lahore used to be such a beautiful city, a tolerant city...there was a saying in the Punjab, 'You haven't lived until you have been to Lahore.' We [Lahore] have become more intolerant, more backward, more pseudo-Islamic." -a Muslim now living in Pakistan
One 80-year-old asked Shobna Gulati, a British Asian star who had gone back to India to trace her roots, "They had one language, one land. How could they do this to eachother?"
One land. Muslim, Hindu and Sikh it may be, but the Punjab is one land. One is Punjabi first, then their religion, and only THEN are they Indian or Pakistani. We farm. We are people of the land.
And so, even amongst this horror, there were stories of hope - Hindus hiding Muslims in their homes when the mobs came; Muslims knocking on their neighbours' doors to tell them the mobs were coming and they needed to leave.
This summer, the BBC has put together an "India-Pakistan 07" series, and the archives, including radio programmes from the past, can be found here. It has provided me with much food for thought, and surprisingly, a great deal of healing.
I've watched stories about schoolchildren in Kalkotta teaching street children how to read and write; I've grinned at the joy of people throwing coloured powder at strangers on the street during the festival of Holi; I've listened as British Asians traced their families' paths through Partition and seen them choke up when they arrived at their parents' childhood homes. I wept when people who had been through unimaginable violence said that they didn't blame those who perpetrated it; that they were only troubled when the memories returned. Watching people who could be my aunts, uncles and grandparents in dusty towns like the ones I used to visit as a child; feeling my shoulders drop the moment someone spoke Punjabi felt like coming home. Something dislocated snapped back into place.
Finally, I understand. I understand why my parents, who left Jalandhar with only the clothes on their back, were so desperate to hoard things and buy a bigger house AFTER I moved out. Why they wanted us to become doctors so we'd always be financially secure, whatever happened. I understand why I could never turn away from the subcontinent and be completely Western, even though I was born and raised in the States. What 'white boy' means when he gives me that half-smile and a twinkle when he says, "You are so Pakistani." And why I could never feel at home in Roman Catholicism.
I am Punjabi. Not Pakistani; Punjabi. And one day, I will make that pilgrimage to Lahore, Hujra, Sahiwal to visit those I love, then cross the 'border' by foot and go to Jalandhar to see the home my ancestors knew.
Partition marked our parents, and it has marked us. We are Midnight's children.
I should have grown up visiting relatives in a Punjab where travel between Lahore and Amritsar was commonplace; where the neighbours I called "auntie" and "uncle" and the children I played with could just as easily have gone to a gurdwara or a Hindu temple to worship. A world in which 14 August 1947 was a cause for unmitigated celebration of freedom and the word partition meant nothing more than a divider between two rooms, or a division into portions and shares.
And was always spelled with a lowercase 'p'.
Wednesday, 25 July 2007
Food for thought
William Lobdell's sojourn on the LA Times religion beat is a fascinating journey. I'm looking forward to thoughtful comments on this, though please remember: his lack of faith is NOT a reflection on or criticism of those of you who are deeply committed to your religion - at one point, he even mentions that he envies a friend of his who has that faith. So don't feel the need to defend your church; he's not attacking you. Just listen to how he got to where he is.
Do follow the link in his article to Amy Welborn's entry on the case concerning Fr Uribe. Be sure to read the comment thread - it's fantastic.
I think he says it all - I'm at about the same place with regard to organised religion, though I still believe in God - so I don't have much to add here except a quote sent in by one of the people commenting on his story at the LA Times site:
"Irrevocable commitment to any religion is not only intellectual suicide; it is positive unfaith because it closes the mind to any new vision of the world. Faith is, above all, openness -- an act of trust in the unknown." --Alan Watts
Amen.
Do follow the link in his article to Amy Welborn's entry on the case concerning Fr Uribe. Be sure to read the comment thread - it's fantastic.
I think he says it all - I'm at about the same place with regard to organised religion, though I still believe in God - so I don't have much to add here except a quote sent in by one of the people commenting on his story at the LA Times site:
"Irrevocable commitment to any religion is not only intellectual suicide; it is positive unfaith because it closes the mind to any new vision of the world. Faith is, above all, openness -- an act of trust in the unknown." --Alan Watts
Amen.
Thursday, 19 July 2007
I've just joined...
a Facebook group called "Petition to revoke the independence of the United States of America".
I don't think reprinting the mission statement/letter to American citizens breaks copyright, as I suspect I've gotten in an email before. My one question is, "Where do I sign?"
To the citizens of the United States of America, in the light of your failure to elect a competent President of the USA and thus to govern yourselves, we hereby give notice of the revocation of your independence, effective today.
Her Sovereign Majesty Queen Elizabeth II will resume monarchical duties over all states, commonwealths and other territories.
Except Utah, which she does not fancy.
Your new Prime Minister (The Right Honourable Gordon Brown MP, for the 97.85% of you who have until now been unaware that there is a world outside your borders) will appoint a Minister for America without the need for further elections.
The House of Representatives and the Senate will be disbanded.
A questionnaire will be circulated next year to determine whether any of you noticed. To aid in the transition to a British Crown Dependency, the following rules are introduced with immediate effect:
1. You should look up "revocation" in the Oxford English Dictionary. Then look up "aluminium." Check the pronunciation guide. You will be amazed at just how wrongly you have been pronouncing it.
The letter 'U' will be reinstated in words such as 'favour' and 'neighbour'; skipping the letter 'U' is nothing more than laziness on your part. Likewise, you will learn to spell 'doughnut' without skipping half the letters.
You will end your love affair with the letter 'Z' (pronounced 'zed' not 'zee') and the suffix "ize" will be replaced by the suffix "ise."
You will learn that the suffix 'burgh' is pronounced 'burra' e.g. Edinburgh. You are welcome to re-spell Pittsburgh as 'Pittsberg' if you can't cope with correct pronunciation.
Generally, you should raise your vocabulary to acceptable levels. Look up “vocabulary." Using the same thirty seven words interspersed with filler noises such as "uhh", "like", and "you know" is an unacceptable and inefficient form of communication.
Look up "interspersed."
There will be no more 'bleeps' in the Jerry Springer show. If you're not old enough to cope with bad language then you shouldn't have chat shows. When you learn to develop your vocabulary, then you won't have to use bad language as often.
2. There is no such thing as "US English." We will let Microsoft know on your behalf. The Microsoft spell-checker will be adjusted to take account of the reinstated letter 'u' and the elimination of "-ize."
3. You should learn to distinguish the English and Australian accents. It really isn't that hard. English accents are not limited to cockney, upper-class twit or Mancunian (Daphne in Frasier).
You will also have to learn how to understand regional accents --- Scottish dramas such as "Taggart" will no longer be broadcast with subtitles.
While we're talking about regions, you must learn that there is no such place as Devonshire in England. The name of the county is "Devon." If you persist in calling it Devonshire, all American States will become "shires" e.g. Texasshire, Floridashire, Louisianashire.
4. Hollywood will be required occasionally to cast English actors as the good guys. Hollywood will be required to cast English actors to play English characters.
British sit-coms such as "Men Behaving Badly" or "Red Dwarf" will not be re-cast and watered down for a wishy-washy American audience who can't cope with the humour of occasional political incorrectness. Popular British films such as the "Italian Job" and the "Wicker Man" should never be remade.
5. You should relearn your original national anthem, "God Save The Queen", but only after fully carrying out task 1. We would not want you to get confused and give up half way through.
6. You should stop playing American "football." There are other types of football such as Rugby, Aussie Rules & Gaelic football. However proper football - which will no longer be known as soccer, is the best known, most loved and most popular. What you refer to as American "football" is not a very good game.
The 2.15% of you who are aware that there is a world outside your borders may have noticed that no one else plays "American" football. You will no longer be allowed to play it, and should instead play proper football.
Initially, it would be best if you played with the girls. It is a difficult game. Those of you brave enough will, in time, be allowed to play rugby (which is similar to American "football", but does not involve stopping for a rest every twenty seconds or wearing full kevlar body armour like nancies).
We are hoping to get together at least a US Rugby sevens side by 2008.
You should stop playing baseball. It is not reasonable to host an event called the 'World Series' for a game which is not played outside of North America. Since only 2.15% of you are aware that there is a world beyond your borders, your error is understandable. Instead of baseball, you will be allowed to play a girls' game called "rounders," which is baseball without fancy team strip, oversized gloves, collector cards or hotdogs.
7. You will no longer be allowed to own or carry guns. You will no longer be allowed to own or carry anything more dangerous in public than a vegetable peeler. Because we don't believe you are sensible enough to handle potentially dangerous items, you will require a permit if you wish to carry a vegetable peeler in public.
8. The 4th of July is no longer a public holiday. The 2nd of November will be a new national holiday, but only in Britain. It will be called "Indecisive Day."
9. All American cars are hereby banned. They are crap, and it is for your own good. When we show you German cars, you will understand what we mean.
All road intersections will be replaced with roundabouts. You will start driving on the left with immediate effect. At the same time, you will go metric with immediate effect and without the benefit of conversion tables. Roundabouts and metrication will help you understand the British sense of humour.
10. You will learn to make real chips. Those things you call 'French fries' are not real chips. Fries aren't even French, they are Belgian though 97.85% of you (including the guy who discovered fries while in Europe) are not aware of a country called Belgium. Those things you insist on calling potato chips are properly called "crisps." Real chips are thick cut and fried in animal fat. The traditional accompaniment to chips is beer which should be served warm and flat.
Waitresses will be trained to be more aggressive with customers.
11. As a sign of penance 5 grams of sea salt per cup will be added to all tea made within the Commonwealth of Massachusetts, this quantity to be doubled for tea made within the city of Boston itself.
12. The cold tasteless stuff you insist on calling "beer" is not actually beer at all, it is lager . From November 1st only proper British Bitter will be referred to as "beer," and European brews of known and accepted provenance will be referred to as "Lager." The substances formerly known as "American Beer" will henceforth be referred to as "Near-Frozen Gnat's Urine," with the exception of the product of the American Budweiser company whose product will be referred to as "Weak Near-Frozen Gnat's Urine." This will allow true Budweiser (as manufactured for the last 1000 years in the Czech Republic) to be sold without risk of confusion.
13. From the 10th of November the UK will harmonise petrol (or "gasoline," as you will be permitted to keep calling it until the 1st of April) prices with the former USA. The UK will harmonise its prices to those of the former USA and the Former USA will, in return, adopt UK petrol prices (roughly $6/US gallon -- get used to it).
14. You will learn to resolve personal issues without using guns, lawyers or therapists. The fact that you need so many lawyers and therapists shows that you're not adult enough to be independent. Guns should only be handled by adults. If you're not adult enough to sort things out without suing someone or speaking to a therapist, then you're not grown up enough to handle a gun.
15. Please tell us who killed JFK. It's been driving us crazy.
16. Tax collectors from Her Majesty's Government will be with you shortly to ensure the acquisition of all revenues due (backdated to 1776).
Thank you for your co-operation.
I don't think reprinting the mission statement/letter to American citizens breaks copyright, as I suspect I've gotten in an email before. My one question is, "Where do I sign?"
To the citizens of the United States of America, in the light of your failure to elect a competent President of the USA and thus to govern yourselves, we hereby give notice of the revocation of your independence, effective today.
Her Sovereign Majesty Queen Elizabeth II will resume monarchical duties over all states, commonwealths and other territories.
Except Utah, which she does not fancy.
Your new Prime Minister (The Right Honourable Gordon Brown MP, for the 97.85% of you who have until now been unaware that there is a world outside your borders) will appoint a Minister for America without the need for further elections.
The House of Representatives and the Senate will be disbanded.
A questionnaire will be circulated next year to determine whether any of you noticed. To aid in the transition to a British Crown Dependency, the following rules are introduced with immediate effect:
1. You should look up "revocation" in the Oxford English Dictionary. Then look up "aluminium." Check the pronunciation guide. You will be amazed at just how wrongly you have been pronouncing it.
The letter 'U' will be reinstated in words such as 'favour' and 'neighbour'; skipping the letter 'U' is nothing more than laziness on your part. Likewise, you will learn to spell 'doughnut' without skipping half the letters.
You will end your love affair with the letter 'Z' (pronounced 'zed' not 'zee') and the suffix "ize" will be replaced by the suffix "ise."
You will learn that the suffix 'burgh' is pronounced 'burra' e.g. Edinburgh. You are welcome to re-spell Pittsburgh as 'Pittsberg' if you can't cope with correct pronunciation.
Generally, you should raise your vocabulary to acceptable levels. Look up “vocabulary." Using the same thirty seven words interspersed with filler noises such as "uhh", "like", and "you know" is an unacceptable and inefficient form of communication.
Look up "interspersed."
There will be no more 'bleeps' in the Jerry Springer show. If you're not old enough to cope with bad language then you shouldn't have chat shows. When you learn to develop your vocabulary, then you won't have to use bad language as often.
2. There is no such thing as "US English." We will let Microsoft know on your behalf. The Microsoft spell-checker will be adjusted to take account of the reinstated letter 'u' and the elimination of "-ize."
3. You should learn to distinguish the English and Australian accents. It really isn't that hard. English accents are not limited to cockney, upper-class twit or Mancunian (Daphne in Frasier).
You will also have to learn how to understand regional accents --- Scottish dramas such as "Taggart" will no longer be broadcast with subtitles.
While we're talking about regions, you must learn that there is no such place as Devonshire in England. The name of the county is "Devon." If you persist in calling it Devonshire, all American States will become "shires" e.g. Texasshire, Floridashire, Louisianashire.
4. Hollywood will be required occasionally to cast English actors as the good guys. Hollywood will be required to cast English actors to play English characters.
British sit-coms such as "Men Behaving Badly" or "Red Dwarf" will not be re-cast and watered down for a wishy-washy American audience who can't cope with the humour of occasional political incorrectness. Popular British films such as the "Italian Job" and the "Wicker Man" should never be remade.
5. You should relearn your original national anthem, "God Save The Queen", but only after fully carrying out task 1. We would not want you to get confused and give up half way through.
6. You should stop playing American "football." There are other types of football such as Rugby, Aussie Rules & Gaelic football. However proper football - which will no longer be known as soccer, is the best known, most loved and most popular. What you refer to as American "football" is not a very good game.
The 2.15% of you who are aware that there is a world outside your borders may have noticed that no one else plays "American" football. You will no longer be allowed to play it, and should instead play proper football.
Initially, it would be best if you played with the girls. It is a difficult game. Those of you brave enough will, in time, be allowed to play rugby (which is similar to American "football", but does not involve stopping for a rest every twenty seconds or wearing full kevlar body armour like nancies).
We are hoping to get together at least a US Rugby sevens side by 2008.
You should stop playing baseball. It is not reasonable to host an event called the 'World Series' for a game which is not played outside of North America. Since only 2.15% of you are aware that there is a world beyond your borders, your error is understandable. Instead of baseball, you will be allowed to play a girls' game called "rounders," which is baseball without fancy team strip, oversized gloves, collector cards or hotdogs.
7. You will no longer be allowed to own or carry guns. You will no longer be allowed to own or carry anything more dangerous in public than a vegetable peeler. Because we don't believe you are sensible enough to handle potentially dangerous items, you will require a permit if you wish to carry a vegetable peeler in public.
8. The 4th of July is no longer a public holiday. The 2nd of November will be a new national holiday, but only in Britain. It will be called "Indecisive Day."
9. All American cars are hereby banned. They are crap, and it is for your own good. When we show you German cars, you will understand what we mean.
All road intersections will be replaced with roundabouts. You will start driving on the left with immediate effect. At the same time, you will go metric with immediate effect and without the benefit of conversion tables. Roundabouts and metrication will help you understand the British sense of humour.
10. You will learn to make real chips. Those things you call 'French fries' are not real chips. Fries aren't even French, they are Belgian though 97.85% of you (including the guy who discovered fries while in Europe) are not aware of a country called Belgium. Those things you insist on calling potato chips are properly called "crisps." Real chips are thick cut and fried in animal fat. The traditional accompaniment to chips is beer which should be served warm and flat.
Waitresses will be trained to be more aggressive with customers.
11. As a sign of penance 5 grams of sea salt per cup will be added to all tea made within the Commonwealth of Massachusetts, this quantity to be doubled for tea made within the city of Boston itself.
12. The cold tasteless stuff you insist on calling "beer" is not actually beer at all, it is lager . From November 1st only proper British Bitter will be referred to as "beer," and European brews of known and accepted provenance will be referred to as "Lager." The substances formerly known as "American Beer" will henceforth be referred to as "Near-Frozen Gnat's Urine," with the exception of the product of the American Budweiser company whose product will be referred to as "Weak Near-Frozen Gnat's Urine." This will allow true Budweiser (as manufactured for the last 1000 years in the Czech Republic) to be sold without risk of confusion.
13. From the 10th of November the UK will harmonise petrol (or "gasoline," as you will be permitted to keep calling it until the 1st of April) prices with the former USA. The UK will harmonise its prices to those of the former USA and the Former USA will, in return, adopt UK petrol prices (roughly $6/US gallon -- get used to it).
14. You will learn to resolve personal issues without using guns, lawyers or therapists. The fact that you need so many lawyers and therapists shows that you're not adult enough to be independent. Guns should only be handled by adults. If you're not adult enough to sort things out without suing someone or speaking to a therapist, then you're not grown up enough to handle a gun.
15. Please tell us who killed JFK. It's been driving us crazy.
16. Tax collectors from Her Majesty's Government will be with you shortly to ensure the acquisition of all revenues due (backdated to 1776).
Thank you for your co-operation.
Wednesday, 18 July 2007
Happy Birthday
Before today ends, I'd like to wish the happiest of birthdays to a man who has been my hero for half my life - since I first heard of him on the news. I wept when he walked out of prison at the age of 71 after 27 years in prison, and his gentleness, integrity and warmth turned him into a worldwide icon, a countersign to the world, an example of what *true* power is. He doesn't speak the familiar rhetoric of threats, war, and 'I have more money/toys' than you have.
But when Nelson Rolihlahla Mandela speaks his truth - our truth - in his quiet, deep voice, asking for peace, reason and human dignity - everyone listens. He is one of the most powerful men on the planet, yet he carries no weapon.
He's my hero, but I know he's human. I'm sure he gets angry, irritable, petulant, and makes mistakes. But I want to be him when I grow up - I want to strive for the authentic power that makes anger merely a tool to galvanise us to strike at injustice, poverty, war. The power that means that you can speak softly and you don't have to carry a big stick.
And so, Madiba, I wish you a very happy 89th birthday, and I wish you many more. God bless and protect you; and thank you for showing us what humanity can truly be and what our leaders should be.
There is no passion to be found playing small - in settling for a life that is less than the one you are capable of living.
As I have said, the first thing is to be honest with yourself. You can never have an impact on society if you have not changed yourself... Great peacemakers are all people of integrity, of honesty, but humility.
We must therefore act together as a united people, for national reconciliation, for nation building, for the birth of a new world.
Let there be justice for all.
Let there be peace for all.
Let there be work, bread, water and salt for all.
Let each know that for each the body, the mind and the soul have been freed to fulfill themselves.
Amen. Stay with us yet a while, Madiba. We need you.
In his honour, I give you the South African anthem so you can learn the words (and the translation), so you can see the country's beauty (it's the first part of the anthem with Tsosholosa), and, of course, it wouldn't be complete without it being sung at a rugby match.
And happy birthday to another favourite South African - Fr Peter Hunter...*mwah*
Nkosi sikelel' iAfrika!
But when Nelson Rolihlahla Mandela speaks his truth - our truth - in his quiet, deep voice, asking for peace, reason and human dignity - everyone listens. He is one of the most powerful men on the planet, yet he carries no weapon.
He's my hero, but I know he's human. I'm sure he gets angry, irritable, petulant, and makes mistakes. But I want to be him when I grow up - I want to strive for the authentic power that makes anger merely a tool to galvanise us to strike at injustice, poverty, war. The power that means that you can speak softly and you don't have to carry a big stick.
And so, Madiba, I wish you a very happy 89th birthday, and I wish you many more. God bless and protect you; and thank you for showing us what humanity can truly be and what our leaders should be.
There is no passion to be found playing small - in settling for a life that is less than the one you are capable of living.
As I have said, the first thing is to be honest with yourself. You can never have an impact on society if you have not changed yourself... Great peacemakers are all people of integrity, of honesty, but humility.
We must therefore act together as a united people, for national reconciliation, for nation building, for the birth of a new world.
Let there be justice for all.
Let there be peace for all.
Let there be work, bread, water and salt for all.
Let each know that for each the body, the mind and the soul have been freed to fulfill themselves.
Amen. Stay with us yet a while, Madiba. We need you.
In his honour, I give you the South African anthem so you can learn the words (and the translation), so you can see the country's beauty (it's the first part of the anthem with Tsosholosa), and, of course, it wouldn't be complete without it being sung at a rugby match.
And happy birthday to another favourite South African - Fr Peter Hunter...*mwah*
Nkosi sikelel' iAfrika!
Saturday, 14 July 2007
Children's theology...
From the blog entry for you to check out, posted earlier today:
"I have a grown daughter that I raised with another woman. When she was four, we left her one afternoon with my parents to go shopping. My Baptist father usually slept afternoons away on the couch while my far more progressive mother delighted in children. Upon our return, I opened the door to hear our daughter saying "Yeah, he only hangs out with guys and wears a dress? Plus that long hair? Never got married? I just figured it out one day: Jesus is a Radical Fairy."
My father was sitting bolt upright, his eyes bulging. My mother was doing her best to keep from collapsing in hysterics. I rushed in to hush my daughter, but my mother said "Don't you dare." She repeated to my daughter, "Radical Fairy?" And the child says "Yeah, not like Bert and Ernie. They're more like preppie gay guys."
Maggie Jochild Homepage 07.01.07 - 5:22 am
It sounds like a Midsummer night's dream...
or a branch of theology worth further exploration.
"I have a grown daughter that I raised with another woman. When she was four, we left her one afternoon with my parents to go shopping. My Baptist father usually slept afternoons away on the couch while my far more progressive mother delighted in children. Upon our return, I opened the door to hear our daughter saying "Yeah, he only hangs out with guys and wears a dress? Plus that long hair? Never got married? I just figured it out one day: Jesus is a Radical Fairy."
My father was sitting bolt upright, his eyes bulging. My mother was doing her best to keep from collapsing in hysterics. I rushed in to hush my daughter, but my mother said "Don't you dare." She repeated to my daughter, "Radical Fairy?" And the child says "Yeah, not like Bert and Ernie. They're more like preppie gay guys."
Maggie Jochild Homepage 07.01.07 - 5:22 am
It sounds like a Midsummer night's dream...
or a branch of theology worth further exploration.
You have to...
...love a blog entry that reads like this:
"It's really a blessing of sorts when your teenagers enter that phase where they're mortified by the very idea of you, preferring to imagine that they were created by pixies and laid under a cabbage patch, to be discovered and raised later on by wolves. It beats the hell out of having to admit the fat, pasty, middle-aged person in the minivan has shown up at school to pick up you.
It's a blessing, of course, because revenge is a dish best served cold, and parents have to exact some sort of punishment for the routine humiliation teenagers doled out to their parents ten years earlier.I have had many such moments, such as the time, and I won't name names here although he deserves it, one of my kids announced to my mother over the phone that "sometimes my penis gets really big! And it feels good!"
For hands-down humiliation, however, I haven't yet been able to top my neighbor's misery, when his three year old daughter interrupted his poker game by running naked into the room and screaming with a joyous voice of discovery, "DADDY! DID YOU KNOW? I COME WITH MY OWN POCKET! AND IT CAN HOLD A PEN! LOOK!"
What did Daddy do? And what stories did people send in? Tolle lege, and don't forget to read all 215 comments - they're well worth it, and there's a vibrator story...
"It's really a blessing of sorts when your teenagers enter that phase where they're mortified by the very idea of you, preferring to imagine that they were created by pixies and laid under a cabbage patch, to be discovered and raised later on by wolves. It beats the hell out of having to admit the fat, pasty, middle-aged person in the minivan has shown up at school to pick up you.
It's a blessing, of course, because revenge is a dish best served cold, and parents have to exact some sort of punishment for the routine humiliation teenagers doled out to their parents ten years earlier.I have had many such moments, such as the time, and I won't name names here although he deserves it, one of my kids announced to my mother over the phone that "sometimes my penis gets really big! And it feels good!"
For hands-down humiliation, however, I haven't yet been able to top my neighbor's misery, when his three year old daughter interrupted his poker game by running naked into the room and screaming with a joyous voice of discovery, "DADDY! DID YOU KNOW? I COME WITH MY OWN POCKET! AND IT CAN HOLD A PEN! LOOK!"
What did Daddy do? And what stories did people send in? Tolle lege, and don't forget to read all 215 comments - they're well worth it, and there's a vibrator story...
Tuesday, 10 July 2007
The final quote in the trilogy...
I really did think it was going to be a duology; I promise it won't turn into Robert Jordan's Wheel of Time...
...and again, from the Catholic Corner:
VATICAN CITY (Reuters) - The Vatican said on Tuesday Christian denominations outside Roman Catholicism were not full churches of Jesus Christ.
Protestant leaders said this was offensive and would hurt inter-denominational dialogue. [Ya think??]
A 16-page document by the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, which Pope Benedict once headed, described Christian Orthodox churches as true churches, but suffering from a "wound" since they do not recognise the primacy of Pope.
But the document said the "wound is still more profound" in Protestant denominations.
"Despite the fact that this teaching has created no little distress ... it is nevertheless difficult to see how the title of 'Church' could possibly be attributed to them," it said.
*A moment of stunned silence followed by hyena-like, hysterical laughter*
I'm sorry, CDF, but are you trying to be hurtful and offensive, or has the Vatican finally crossed the line between narcissism and sociopathy?
If I didn't know any better, I'd think that you are deliberately scattering Christ's flock to weaken it.
Then again, maybe I don't.
...and again, from the Catholic Corner:
VATICAN CITY (Reuters) - The Vatican said on Tuesday Christian denominations outside Roman Catholicism were not full churches of Jesus Christ.
Protestant leaders said this was offensive and would hurt inter-denominational dialogue. [Ya think??]
A 16-page document by the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, which Pope Benedict once headed, described Christian Orthodox churches as true churches, but suffering from a "wound" since they do not recognise the primacy of Pope.
But the document said the "wound is still more profound" in Protestant denominations.
"Despite the fact that this teaching has created no little distress ... it is nevertheless difficult to see how the title of 'Church' could possibly be attributed to them," it said.
*A moment of stunned silence followed by hyena-like, hysterical laughter*
I'm sorry, CDF, but are you trying to be hurtful and offensive, or has the Vatican finally crossed the line between narcissism and sociopathy?
If I didn't know any better, I'd think that you are deliberately scattering Christ's flock to weaken it.
Then again, maybe I don't.
Quote of the weekend, pt. 2
This will mean very little to non-Catholics, I expect, and quite possibly to *most* Catholics.
On Saturday, Pope Benedict XVI delivered a Motu Proprio re-legitimising the Tridentine (pre-1962) mass, and allowing layfolk thus inclined to request it from their parish priest. No more indults needed from bishops, no more fuss, no sense of it being slightly furtive. It's another form of the mass; if you dislike it (or in my case, dislike the self-righteous, narrow types who tend to populate it), don't go. Hopefully, it will mean that a certain group of Catholic individuals can just get on with it sans beating their breasts about how victimised they are and how they'll be martyrs for the faith because they can't have their own special type of mass. Great. May I be excused, O Pontiff?
End of discussion, right? Shouldn't even cause a ripple, except for rejoicing from those who are attached to that form of the mass. The rest of the world will just shrug and carry on, yes?
I'm sorry, but did you, for a fleeting moment, think this was the real world? Please. It's the Catholic Church. And in said Church, an Italian bishop was heard to respond to said Motu Proprio in the following words...
...wait for it
...no, really
...still there?
"This is the worst day of my life as a bishop, priest and as a man."
Over a decision to add the old mass to a long list of already legitimate masses? Oh, sorry, I actually thought the pain or death of those close to you - or of any of those 6 billion for whom Christ died - might be worse for you. Mea culpa.
As if one needed more proof that the Catholic hierarchy is insular, self-absorbed, and out of touch with any kind of reality - physical or spiritual.
Looks like Cardinal Martino should have some company on that plane to Darfur.
On Saturday, Pope Benedict XVI delivered a Motu Proprio re-legitimising the Tridentine (pre-1962) mass, and allowing layfolk thus inclined to request it from their parish priest. No more indults needed from bishops, no more fuss, no sense of it being slightly furtive. It's another form of the mass; if you dislike it (or in my case, dislike the self-righteous, narrow types who tend to populate it), don't go. Hopefully, it will mean that a certain group of Catholic individuals can just get on with it sans beating their breasts about how victimised they are and how they'll be martyrs for the faith because they can't have their own special type of mass. Great. May I be excused, O Pontiff?
End of discussion, right? Shouldn't even cause a ripple, except for rejoicing from those who are attached to that form of the mass. The rest of the world will just shrug and carry on, yes?
I'm sorry, but did you, for a fleeting moment, think this was the real world? Please. It's the Catholic Church. And in said Church, an Italian bishop was heard to respond to said Motu Proprio in the following words...
...wait for it
...no, really
...still there?
"This is the worst day of my life as a bishop, priest and as a man."
Over a decision to add the old mass to a long list of already legitimate masses? Oh, sorry, I actually thought the pain or death of those close to you - or of any of those 6 billion for whom Christ died - might be worse for you. Mea culpa.
As if one needed more proof that the Catholic hierarchy is insular, self-absorbed, and out of touch with any kind of reality - physical or spiritual.
Looks like Cardinal Martino should have some company on that plane to Darfur.
Monday, 9 July 2007
Quote of the weekend
One of my favourite blogs is Pandagon. I was catching up on recent blog posts when I read a comment that made me want to cheer - and it was so pithily put, I laughed out loud, unfortunately snorting Pepsi out my nose (it hurts, ok?):
Jul 7th, 2007 at 9:36 am Amen. Testify, Nothip.
Jul 7th, 2007 at 9:36 am
The very people (white, supposedly Christian, males) who have EVERY BENEFIT of religious freedom and every other kind of freedom abuse the laws which should protect those in danger by claiming they are oppressed. They should be spanked like the small children they are.
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