Electronic Scribblings

FGM

Parents fly in African village elders to circumcise their young daughters  - African immigrants are clubbing together to pay for practitioners to fly to Britain and circumcise their daughters in highly secretive rituals.

Sigh. I have come across this practice before - not in an actual sense, but in the sense of knowing about it. I am, however, greateful that it is illegal in the UK not only to perform it, but also to send a child to have it performed upon them in their home country.

This is the classic example for me - I am liberal in many senses and often the issue of whether or not it is wrong to interfere with other cultures practices or not.

I think it is wrong to in general, but in this case not - I have worked out that what I actually believe is that while we should be accepting of cultural differences that those people wish to practice that this tolerance should not extend to those forced upon the unwilling.

And in similar, but vastly different, news there is the story of the Italian MP who felt that meeting a Transexual (Pre-op) in the ladies felt like Sexual Violence.... buh? (Transgender MP in toilet fracas)

QotD: It's All In The Stars

What's your sign?  What do you think of astrology and horoscopes?

Pisces. I think astrology can be an interesting and useful tool, but I think birth charts and full spectrum (planets etc) mean more than just 1/12th of the population sharing one part of your horoscope.

Presenting the news

Photos go with the news like butter on toast, pumpkins with halloween. But what makes the difference between a good photo and an iconic photo?

The Aberfan disaster  has been in the news in the UK this week, along with the photo that everyone remembers:

 

Aberfan 2

The little girl, one of the few to be saved, carried by a police man. But it was taken by a photographer who saw a glint (it was the badge on the bobbies helmet) and just took a photo. It was the dark room assistant who cropped it to the above image that everyone recognises. The original? Well, it was clearer what was happening, what the disaster was all about, but it wasn't iconic.

 

Aberfan 1

How much of our understanding of the news is based on the images we see and remember?

QotD: My Earliest Memory

What is your earliest memory? 
Submitted by Megan.

The one I am sure of? My 4th birthday party at the Repulse Bay Hotel, Hong Kong. We were staying there just after moving to HK from Sydney, Australia, so Dad could work for Pfizer.

Autumn 04:05 GMT 23 Sept 2006

Autumn is here. The solstice has been and gone, we are heading to Samhain / Halloween and to the old celtic new year. That was the old point of the day of the Dead - it was the death of the old year, the start of the silent time, the quiet.

The old day started at dusk, that is why officially the Jewish sabath (Satuday) starts on Friday night, ending Saturday night.

The idea of the pregnancy being the start - nothing to show the world but a waiting.

In between Halloween and Christmas is, for me, the hardest part of the year - my Mother died 18-Nov-1987.

I have to run around and sort out Christmas and what is supposed to be a time of year looking forward to happy family get togethers and in the middle is a time of rememberence. I suppose it suits. Samhain the day of the dead, 11-Nov Rememberence sunday/Poppy day and then Mom. Then Christmas.

That year we all had presents from her. She made sure to organise that.

Mel Gibson?

Anyone else think he needs to STFU?  His rants on Jews, ok, the actions of a drunk man, but still - and him saying that stemmed from resentment over the criticism levelled at The Passion of the Christ - er, Puh-lease!

Am I being too hard on him? Maybe. He is known to be from a Traditional Catholic background, his father has been reported as disputing the Holocast (he better not ever go to Germany, where that is illegal) and he probably is basically racist & homophobic, but able to curb it most of the time.

Still - what a f-k wit.

 

Hollywood reacts to Gibson furore  - Producer Peter Bart, meanwhile, said Mr Gibson had "seriously compromised" his career.  The critics will forever kill him," he wrote in industry newspaper Variety. "Sectors of the audience will shun his work. Through his incoherent tirade, he has betrayed his friends and colleagues."

opikj

Growing up alien

Golds from the stone

Golds from the stone
Oils from the earth
I yearned for my home
From the time of my birth

Strength of a mother's whisper
Shall carry me until
The hand of my lost sister
Joins onto my will

Root to the earth
Blood from the heart
Could never from earth
Be broken apart

Food from the platter
Water from the rain
The subject and the matter
I'm going home again

~

lemn Sissay, PoetGrowing up alien

Old e-mails

I am at work, and deleting old messages. This means I have found a load of old jokes, pithy sayings and random stuff that I have sent to people, people have sent to me or I have sent to myself as aide memoires.

So, here are a couple of amusing things that I wanted to keep:

The famous Olympic skier Picabo Street (pronounced Peek-A-Boo)is not just an athlete....she is now a nurse currently working at the Intensive Care Unit of a large metropolitan hospital.

She is not permitted to answer the hospital telephones. It caused too much confusion when she would answer the phone and saying,

Picabo, ICU.

Sour Apple - AKA Bad Celebrity Baby names! and another couple of links:

http://www.babynamesworld.com/forum/topic1048.html

http://www.ivillage.co.uk/pregnancyandbaby/pregnancy/newborn/articles/0,,18_631916,00.html