. . .And here is a picture of me and my dæmon. . .
She is a lot better looking than me and is the same sex for reasons I won’t go into.
(In the background, you can see where I’ve taped pictures of my babies to the wall and the two model birds that were never taken down after Christmas because they looked so sweet I didn’t want to disturb them.)
HARMLESS FANTASY + REALITY
KARMA DRAMA
Sharon Stone caused a bit of a flurry when she stated in a TV interview that the Chinese earthquake from 12th May could have been caused by karma. If people aren’t nice to people then bad things happen to them.
Right. . .
The earthquake was nothing to do with the plate tectonics, the shifting of the earth brought about by natural causes that set off a seismic wave. No. It was karma that did it. If you’re bad with people you get it back. Which you don’t. You can be a total rotter your whole life and die with your feet up on the desk looking out onto an empire you built on the blood and sweat and agony of others, quickly and painlessly, well loved and admired.
But to be fair the actual idea of karma is that if you’re a complete bastard in this life, next time around you are forced to suffer in some way to work off the debt you built up in the previous life or lives. Say you’re a businessperson who is ruthless and works with the Firm to wipe out opposition and sacks people into helplessness and poverty just to get more money for yourself, or you’re a serial killer who slaughters people because it makes you feel good, well you might get away with it in this life, but you built up a store of debt and then in the next life you are going to get yours. Maybe you’re born in a poverty stricken area in some ghetto or maybe your previous incarnation killed by strangling and you’re born with a tendency to asthma or throat complaints or something. The fact that you can’t recall your previous life and you’re absolutely miserable in this one and don’t know why is neither here nor there.
So Ms Stone and her other Eastern religion Hollywood fans should get their facts straight. The children who were wiped out in the earthquake died because of whatever they did in a previous life, not this one. Most of them were too young to have done much at all. But hey ho, that’s how karma works.
I know our Western based beliefs are bloody silly, but come on, can anyone serious believe in the Eastern based idea that you are born in all innocence in a body and have complete amnesia as to what you did before and you end up having to drag about some rotten circumstance beyond your control? That you’re punished for something you can’t recall doing? In a completely different body?
Also, can you honestly believe you go round again? That this life you’re living now is just one of many? And you just have no memory of living before? That you might have a vivid, powerful dream in which you’re a Mongol king or a warrior princess from Britannica, and you read into it that you have lived before? Some people do believe this. A dream in which they are some powerful figure turns into a memory of a previous life and they then go to a hypnotist and recall more deep thoughts and half recalled readings and patch it together. Maybe they have a birthmark or a scar from a childhood accident their conscious memory has put aside as unimportant. This turns into the physical imprinted memory of a wound that ended their previous earthly existence.
But it’s all fantasy. The human brain, if fed in the right way, can conjure up all matter of events and notions that seem real. But they are not objectively true. It’s like waking up with blood streaming from your nose and reckoning it’s due to alien abduction, or reading visions of the virgin Mary in certain shapes and light angles and spending the rest of your life living this trick of the light.
The fact is, you don’t go around again. You’re born and you live and you die. Some people are successful others suffer. Some die without seeing the light outside the womb. Some live eighty years of being a total rogue and die peacefully in their beds. Some live a life of victory others of pain. It’s not fair, but that’s the way it in. You live on in the memory of those who love you.
Now I think of it, I do hope this is all there is. By reason, whoever is in charge of in universe can’t be that sadistic that they make me go around again.
STRANGE CONUNDRUM+
What is it when your weight is less than your IQ.
Nine stone is approximately 125 pounds. My IQ according to my self testing on the BBC website, is 126.
Wow, or what?
Hayley Sweet has been booked in for an operation on Monday 2nd June. The vet says it’s a growth and it should be cut out. I do hope it’s nothing deadly. Might be benign. I hope so. I’m trying not to think of it. (Can’t you tell?).
CONCERNS
I was stroking Hayley Sweet when I uncovered a swelling on her side.
HAYLEY SWEET
I rang the vets and anyhow, I’ve got an appointment tomorrow at 12:45 for the vet to check her over to see it’s nothing serious.
SONG TO END THE WEEKEND ON : ‘SLEIGH RIDE’
This weekend’s song to end the weekend on is a particular favourite of mine. It’s fun without any deep, dark meanings to it. It’s also out of season, but sod it. It’s winter in Australia, although I don’t think they get in many sleigh rides in the Antipodes.
It’s ‘Sleighride’ by Johnny Mathis and this offering was discovered on YouTube. Don’t forget to sing along ‘ring a ling a ling a ding dong ding’.
Oh yes, and I’ve got a chance of a job.
So as always, enjoy and,
a good week, whether you manage to get in a sleigh ride or not.
MYANMAR TELLS IT LIKE IT IS
Myanmar (formally Burma) fell under the hand of nature when a cyclone struck the south of the country on 3rd May. It caused a lot of watery devastation and death. And when it whirled back from whence it came it left the country in a state.
And then the foreign aid workers had to get involved.
Myanmar is run by what we might call a military dictatorship. The army are in charge and there is no room for dissent. I’ve no time for dictatorships, and I’ve no time for authorities in general but that’s just me, but if Myanmar needed outside help, it would have asked for it. What right have foreign aid workers got in standing on the border and shouting insults, insults that spread across the world, because they aren’t allowed in to work their aid-y magic, interfering and telling the locals ‘don’t do it that way, it’s for your own good’.
I don’t like interfering charity workers when it comes to humans. I don’t like humans much, but again that’s another issue altogether. I’m sure that if the government of Myanmar is genuinely suffering at the hands of the aftermath of this cyclone, then they would reach out. I mean, some weeks I am desperately short of money, but I can manage. It’s a terrible struggle, but I can survive. And I know that if I really was short of money and short of food, I could ask relatives to assist me. I would not like it for people to stand outside my front door and knock and insist on being allowed in to provide me with food and open my fridge door and cupboards and wash up for me and tut and mutter and masturbate into my sock drawer. And if they tried, I would say, I don’t need you, go away. I can manage alone.* And then, unsatisfied, they looked through my windows and rattled my letter box and shoved packets through and then called me names and said I was selfish, they were needed and I were interfering with their work, and they went to the police and social services and insisted on being let in.
Change it around slightly so all references to ‘me’ are Myanmar and all references to ‘others’ are interfering charity aid workers.
It’s the bloody idea of the people of Myanmar being pitied and helpless, and needing assistance, when they are free thinking adults who have been through a rotten time and need the chance to get back on their feet and do not need help from pitying sods, like the kind who pat the heads of people in wheelchairs and call people with learning difficulties ’stars’ and when confronted with someone with a visible condition say ‘ahhh, int it sad?’ loud enough to be heard.
*I don’t like people coming into my house unless anyway, unless they have a damn good reason.
MANCHESTER UNITED : THE RANTING OF A HATER
I possibly hate Manchester United more than I’ve ever hated anyone, ever.
Manchester United won the European cup six five against Chelsea on a penalty shoot-out. I know this. I am fully, sickeningly in full colour with the volume up aware of this. I do not want to keep being reminded by people driving past my window in cars and honking their car horns and blaring their air horns and shouting their slogans. I don’t need fireworks being ignited somewhere in the distance pop popping and disturbing my watching ‘Columbo’. I don’t need people phoning me up and telling me United won, like it’s new news every bleeding time.
The next person who informs me, either on purpose or because I am within hearing distance, that United won, I am going to crack their skull and spill their brains for everyone to stare and marvel at.
I am absolutely bloody sick of the whole Manchester United business.
THE END, THE END. . .(REALLY.)
The world is going to change beyond recognition, i.e. end, on 21st December 2012.
No, no, this time it is, really. I know in the past people have been 100% no doubts it’ll definitely happen make no plans for after (insert date of choice) sell everything and sit about praying till the space ships/alien beings (there is a difference) comet, deity avatar of choice comes back and whisks you off and out of it, and they have been mostly 100% wrong, but this time it really is going to happen.
After midnight on the 21st December 2012, well, there will be no 22nd of December.
(I wonder how that’ll work, with the world being a sphere and all that? I mean, it’s midnight in the Pacific Islands while it’s still dinner time in the good old British Isles. Will everything end like peeling an orange as it reaches the appointed time at the appointed place on the globe?)
No, it really is going to end because the Mayans said so.
These people, representatives who are still fully function today, lived on the area we call Central America, and their most famous period lasted from around 250 to the coming of the Spanish. They were very sophisticated at building, and writing, and doing calenders et al, that is working out the exact time when doings in the sky like eclipses would come off and they did a lot of sums and worked out that everything would end on the date that corresponds with what we now call 21st December 2012.*
Again, I’ve said it before, and I’ll say it again, everyone else who prophesied the end of the world was wrong (obviously) but these December 2012′res are right. Because the Maya stopped their writings on the date that would, again, correspond with 21st December. And the Maya knew.
Please forgive me for inserting a small Scotch shaped like scepticism in the closing door of this prophesy, I mean, I know how eager a lot of you are to contemplate the end of the world in fifty-six months, but could it just be that the Maya came to the end of a certain epoch and for whatever reason didn’t bother to start again, like the end of a year and not bothering to make any more calenders? Maybe they had other things to think about, like two hundred years worth of drought or other climatic changes, and by the time everything settled, they realised other things were more important than predicting the future?
No? All right. The world is coming to an end on 21st December 2012. Are you happy now? Good.
*The joke is, we are being advised, from various angles, to stock up on candles and food for after that date. Isn’t that just a bit cruel? If everything is going to end, what on earth would be the point of carrying on? Wait till the last candle fades and the final baked bean is scraped into a hungry mouth and you’re in the same condition as those who didn’t prepare.
MORE WAYS TO GET TO HELL
From the Vatican, comes more ways to get to hell.
Before, there were the acknowledged, recognised seven deadly sins, the mortal sins which according to the Catholic catechism; “immediately after death the souls of those who die in a state of mortal sin descend into Hell” In other words, if you die without repenting of them actively you end up in hell.
I think we all know the original ones, but I’ll run through them just in case.
Pride
Envy
Gluttony
Lust
Anger
Greed
Sloth
And, now her come the latest ones(copied from the BBC site);
Environmental pollution
Genetic manipulation
Accumulating excessive wealth
Inflicting poverty
Drug trafficking and consumption
Morally debatable experiments
Violation of fundamental rights of human nature
If I wanted to be bolshie and childish, I’d say there is quite an overlap there. Ie, greed is the same as accumulating excessive wealth. Gluttony is similiar to inflicting poverty, taking what someone else needs. Which isn’t the same as envy, which is just obsessively making yourself ill through wanting what someone else has. But, putting that to one side, let’s have a closer look at the second and the last two in the latest list as they’re written.
Genetic manipulation. Which means, don’t mess about with the genes of a person. Even if it means resulting in healing or curing conditions or even getting deep inside a person and working out into the light of science the desire to kill, and taking it away or muting it due to surgery or medication.
Morally debatable experiments. What the heck is that. . .? Who decides what is morally debatable. The only one I can think of is the life saving stem cell research. Stems cells are the cells that are the basics of what makes us human. So if you work on the stem cell it’s possible to form and grow cells that can replace that in people with conditions like Parkinson’s or Alzheimer’s disease, or curing paralysis like Christopher Reeve had. But that is morally debatable and if you do it, and don’t repent, you’re off to hell.
My favourite is the last one; Violation of fundemental rights of human nature. You know, like not persecuting homosexuals and never ever refusing to allow a woman the right not to get pregnant and give birth if she doesn’t want. If you treat a gay as a friend and accept him for what he is and don’t hassle him into changing his nature, or if you even sell a chap a packet of condoms, well it’s off to hell for you.
As for the others, what on earth has it got to do with being a believer? Surely anyone with half a brain would know, polluting the environment, making yourself better off by taking of those who haven’t enough already, and purposefully performing actions that see to it people are no longer able to survive, they’re just obvious. You shouldn’t have to be afraid of burning for all eternity to avoid doing such things.
The one about trafficking and taking drugs I am rather ambivalent about. My Dad was an alcoholic, which is taking a drug in the way you might mean it. I loved my Dad (I think about him, with affection, with respect, daily, and he will live so long as he is remembered) and the drink almost destroyed him. I hate the drink, this legal drug is filthy stuff and causing terrible hurt. I should imagine other of the more potent drugs envoke the same feelings in those more familiar with them. But if you want a puff of wacky backy, or bake the weed into a cake and eat it, if it mellows you, and eases your pain, well I don’t see anything wrong with it. As far as I can see it, mind-altering chemicals are only drugs if they cause hurt and if that case they should not be banned but the youngest children possible should be taught to avoid them, educate not legislate in this case. But again, surely you shouldn’t have to be threaten with eternal punishment if you get involved with such stuff.
Because you don’t need it, the threat of hell, to not cause harm. You should be taught that harming anything is wrong, because it’s a life, like you are, and to cause it hurt is like causing yourself hurt. Or, it’s all right to go around shoving people over, but you can’t complain if someone does it back to you, so you should avoid doing it, and if everyone avoids it, you can’t go far wrong because you’ll never be harmed. Like Mutually Assured Destruction on a smaller, more personal scale.
And now the final point to this mumbling on;
You get believers saying, ‘there are no morals without god’ or ‘if you don’t have an almighty being watching you, you could go about causing all sorts of problems’. But, as far as I know, these new deadly sins are created by men on watching the way that the world is going.
I mean, god, or one of his reps, has not whispered in the ears of the Bishop of Rome (NOT the Pope, not to us in the British Isles, he’s the Bishop of Rome, Henry VIII saw to that), and told him that this is wrong, and if you do this you’ll go to hell. Because when the first seven were man-made there was no such thing as genetic engineering and people were so afraid of being physically burned alive in the auto de fe they wouldn’t dare traffic drugs or pollute the enviroment. So they have been updated, on the words of men, for today’s world. See? All made up. Because god isn’t involved and he can’t be referred to or consulted when it comes to morals, so it’s down to men to invent what’s best, and then say god doesn’t like it.
You see what I’m getting at? Human beings made laws and said ‘don’t do this because you’ll cause a lot of harm’. Human beings made laws, exactly the same, and labelled them sins and said ‘don’t do this or you’ll suffer for all eternity if you do’.
So where does the need for a god come in?There’s no hell, and no way to get there. You shouldn’t pollute the enviroment or steal from others because others could do it back to your enviroment or your stuff. That’s all.
End of discussion.
