Dear Mr. Corbyn,
You have made a lot of headline-worthy fuss of trying to make some form of settlement with the extremist group known as ISIL. You have mentioned the progress made with the talks in Vienna for a potential peace in Syria.
This is not peace with ISIL. This is peace with Syria in the face of, as you said in your speech in the Commons on Wednesday 2nd December "the chaos and horror of a multi-front civil war", and nothing more. This peace blooming in Vienna is a fragile flower that ISIL would love nothing more than to crush under boot, and then execute, shoot and bomb that same peace for good measure.
Sir, I am not a woman to condone senseless violence for the sake of it. I have and did have family in Paris at the time of the horrific attacks three weeks ago; thankfully, none of my family were injured. But the same cannot be said for the 130 victims, both of British and international origin who were killed for an extremist, fascist, and intolerable religious point of view.
Granted, ISIL perhaps entirely owes its existence to the invasion of Iraq - a war based almost entirely on mistakes made by both UK and US governments of the day. However, when even Al Qaeda is attacking ISIL, then you know that you cannot necessarily argue for peaceful and fair settlement!
While I know little of their lives before they became infamous leaders, I know that Hitler and Pol Pot, and others like them, were terrible, and true examples of the adage "Power corrupts, and absolute power corrupts absolutely". And yet, it is exactly that kind of absolute power that ISIL is bent on achieving at any cost. And I believe that it is from the bloody crucible of their birth in the Syrian civil war, that ISIL have learned their current means of achieving their ultimate and final goal.
Between them, Hitler and Pol Pot killed over 37 million people - and these numbers are from the time that they came into power. ISIL have yet to achieve any power on the same level as these aforementioned tyrants, and yet besides those killed in their depraved attempts to grab land and power for themselves, they have killed 567 innocent people who had nothing to do with their war or their way of life.
ISIL killed four men for being gay. They killed the Palmyra curator, Professor Halid Al Assad, for being the guardian of, to their mind, heinous and blasphemous relics and ruins. They killed older or elderly Yazidi women for being, in their eyes, too old to be sold for sex. Can you honestly believe that "[Such] a settlement is widely accepted to be the only way to ensure the isolation and defeat of ISIL in the country [Syria]... All our efforts should instead go into bringing the Syrian civil war to an end"?
Hillary Benn described ISIL perfectly in his speech to the Commons: A group of fascists united by "...their belief that they are superior to every single one of us in this Chamber tonight and all of the people that we represent. They hold us... [and] our democracy, the means by which we will make our decision tonight, in contempt."
They will not accept any peace brokered with the West. ISIL will not rest until what happened in Paris happens in London, and Leeds, and Birmingham, and Glasgow and right across the West and they will not rest until the West surrenders to their fascism, their greed, and to their totalitarian control.
And that, Mr. Corbyn, is why we will never achieve any peace with ISIL. We won't even get a table to talk peace at, on, or over.
I rarely tend to quote film characters. However, a quote from Alfred Pennyworth, portrayed brilliantly by Sir Michael Caine in the Dark Knight, sum up the goals and aims of ISIL simply: "Some men aren't looking for something logical, some men just want to watch the world burn."
ISIL is not a logical organisation. If they were, Mr. Corbyn, they would see that peace, in the face of annihilation from 60 different countries, would be an absolute priority to ensure their own survival, let alone the chance to have any country to call their own. Instead, ISIL wants to impose their selfish, brutal ideology and politics on the whole world, or else, much like the Joker, they will want nothing more than to light the match and watch it burn.
I can understand why you want peace in Syria. A lack of it is what gave birth to radicals like ISIL. But some peaces can only be forged in blood, with all the regret and grief that the world can offer. And I believe that, if ISIL can be removed in its entirety, then a peace in Syria, Iraq, Turkey, Lebanon and the entire Middle East can be one of the strongest peaces ever to be forged in blood, and tempered by the grief and regret that ISIL has brought to the world.
Sincerely,
Isabelle
Saturday 5 December 2015
Friday 23 October 2015
Sicilia: Limones and volcanoes for a week
OK, so the title probably doesn't make much sense, but I just spent a week in Sicily and I. Loved. IT!
For those God-Father fans out there, though, it isn't the Sicily that they think they know from the films. Yes, there are olive trees galore, more pomegranate trees than I was expecting and enough lemons for Life to get tired of them, but the Cosa Nostra are busy trying not to be imprisoned into non-existence by the Sicilian government.
Among their many not-so-legal activities, there were a LOT of solar-farms (think an entire hill covered in solar panels) that the Cosa Nostra had built, only to shell it out to other countries at stupid prices, not to mention a lot of illegal building - in every sense of the word, since a lot of the building seems to be on cliffs over motorways that then get buried under landslides thanks to both the building and some torrential rain!
Anyway, Sicily is the largest island in the Mediterranean, making up the 'football' at the toe of mainland Italy's 'boot'. I say mainland because Sicily is actually a part of Italy, having been owned in turn by the Phoenicians, the Greeks, the Romans, the Vandals, the Ostrogoths, the Byzantines, the Arabs, the Normans, the lords or kings of Anjou, then the crowns of Aragon, Spain and the Holy Roman Empire, before being unified with Naples under the Bourbons as the Kingdom of the Two Sicilies.
As a result, there is very little of the natural Sicily to see. A lot of the plants and animals were introduced by its conquerors, namely the Greeks, the Romans, and the Arabs. However, it can boast the oldest chestnut tree in the world - which is unusual considering that this Hundred Horse Chestnut has survived between 2 and 4,000 years on the eastern slope of Mount Etna - which was amazing, but we'll get to that.
One thing that is totally Sicilian is the endangered goats, which are a total mind-mess. For one thing, they are supposedly useless, giving very little milk and icky icky meat. For another, they're endangered, regardless! Also, their horns are epic in the extreme:
But this is all in Agrigento, on the southern coast closest to the coast of Northern Africa. You go up to Monreale, just outside of their capital city of Palermo on the north coast, things get even more mentally messy and cultured, when you find the answer to this question: What do you get when King William the Second (also known as the Good) decides to build a cathedral because he doesn't like the archbishop of Palermo? Apparently, a cathedral with only one painting in the entire building, and mosaics made up of - I'm absolutely not joking - 400 KILOS of GOLD!
And finally we get to the eastern coast, with the most famous of Sicily's landmarks: Mount Etna. For a volcano that went off earlier this year, it is FREEZING at the best of times, thanks to being 3,329 metres high, with a base of 140 square kilometres.
The irony is that it has a skiing resort. Think about it - you can SKI on the most ACTIVE VOLCANO IN EUROPE! And you can go up to the secondary crater (bearing in mind that there are at least 5 non-active craters around Etna's middle, and three closer to its peak. Thanks to its five-day tantrum in May this year, there was a crown of sulphur and a no-access policy to the primary crater, which is a bit counter-intuitive seeing as how even the secondary crater's been active in the past two years:
All in all, Sicily has been an amazing place to visit. I heartily recommend it to everyone, and the Sicilians will honestly not mind the extra people. They have the perfect proverb, after all:
"Unni manciannu dui, manciannu tri (there's always room for one more)'
For those God-Father fans out there, though, it isn't the Sicily that they think they know from the films. Yes, there are olive trees galore, more pomegranate trees than I was expecting and enough lemons for Life to get tired of them, but the Cosa Nostra are busy trying not to be imprisoned into non-existence by the Sicilian government.
Among their many not-so-legal activities, there were a LOT of solar-farms (think an entire hill covered in solar panels) that the Cosa Nostra had built, only to shell it out to other countries at stupid prices, not to mention a lot of illegal building - in every sense of the word, since a lot of the building seems to be on cliffs over motorways that then get buried under landslides thanks to both the building and some torrential rain!
Anyway, Sicily is the largest island in the Mediterranean, making up the 'football' at the toe of mainland Italy's 'boot'. I say mainland because Sicily is actually a part of Italy, having been owned in turn by the Phoenicians, the Greeks, the Romans, the Vandals, the Ostrogoths, the Byzantines, the Arabs, the Normans, the lords or kings of Anjou, then the crowns of Aragon, Spain and the Holy Roman Empire, before being unified with Naples under the Bourbons as the Kingdom of the Two Sicilies.
As a result, there is very little of the natural Sicily to see. A lot of the plants and animals were introduced by its conquerors, namely the Greeks, the Romans, and the Arabs. However, it can boast the oldest chestnut tree in the world - which is unusual considering that this Hundred Horse Chestnut has survived between 2 and 4,000 years on the eastern slope of Mount Etna - which was amazing, but we'll get to that.
One thing that is totally Sicilian is the endangered goats, which are a total mind-mess. For one thing, they are supposedly useless, giving very little milk and icky icky meat. For another, they're endangered, regardless! Also, their horns are epic in the extreme:
But this is all in Agrigento, on the southern coast closest to the coast of Northern Africa. You go up to Monreale, just outside of their capital city of Palermo on the north coast, things get even more mentally messy and cultured, when you find the answer to this question: What do you get when King William the Second (also known as the Good) decides to build a cathedral because he doesn't like the archbishop of Palermo? Apparently, a cathedral with only one painting in the entire building, and mosaics made up of - I'm absolutely not joking - 400 KILOS of GOLD!
And finally we get to the eastern coast, with the most famous of Sicily's landmarks: Mount Etna. For a volcano that went off earlier this year, it is FREEZING at the best of times, thanks to being 3,329 metres high, with a base of 140 square kilometres.
The irony is that it has a skiing resort. Think about it - you can SKI on the most ACTIVE VOLCANO IN EUROPE! And you can go up to the secondary crater (bearing in mind that there are at least 5 non-active craters around Etna's middle, and three closer to its peak. Thanks to its five-day tantrum in May this year, there was a crown of sulphur and a no-access policy to the primary crater, which is a bit counter-intuitive seeing as how even the secondary crater's been active in the past two years:
All in all, Sicily has been an amazing place to visit. I heartily recommend it to everyone, and the Sicilians will honestly not mind the extra people. They have the perfect proverb, after all:
"Unni manciannu dui, manciannu tri (there's always room for one more)'
Wednesday 2 September 2015
Swear Words - We need some new ones.
OK - this is going to be a weird one. But I have a problem with our English swear words; none of them seem to really mean the same things they did. This might just be my education talking, but none of them offend me, because I know what they really mean.
Like, fuck means "sex" and bloody means I need a plaster or a tampon, crap means I pooped myself, and shit is what monkeys tend to throw around.
But the one that everybody shies away from is the other C-word. As in, the C U Next Tuesday word. Granted, it's rarely used in "civilized" society, but it still seems to hold a lot of power.
But not for me. To me, calling someone a cunt is liking calling someone a dick. The only response you'll ever get from me is: "Well, yeah - I have one. So what?"
Because the truest definition of the word is a woman's genitalia, although it can also mean having sex with a woman and today, you could just about have sex with nearly anybody.
The same thing with pussy - although most people use it to refer to "womanlike" qualities, it's really just short for a baby cat or pusillanimous, which means "timid or cowardly", and everybody has a different standard of courage. I just don't find constant swearing as brave - or attractive. It just makes you look uneducated and unopinionated and incapable of proper expression.
And what's wrong with politeness? We're BRITISH, for God's sake - we practically own the market for PC and manners, why don't we damn well act like it? As Rachel Nichols said,
"I simply do not think that yelling, swearing, threatening or belittling will get you to the place you want to be faster than kindness, understanding, patience and a willingness to compromise."
Granted, compromising won't taste as good as total victory, but it's better to have a taste of the cake than stand there with no respect from your peers and the sour taste of a stream of swear words in your mouth.
Like, fuck means "sex" and bloody means I need a plaster or a tampon, crap means I pooped myself, and shit is what monkeys tend to throw around.
But the one that everybody shies away from is the other C-word. As in, the C U Next Tuesday word. Granted, it's rarely used in "civilized" society, but it still seems to hold a lot of power.
But not for me. To me, calling someone a cunt is liking calling someone a dick. The only response you'll ever get from me is: "Well, yeah - I have one. So what?"
Because the truest definition of the word is a woman's genitalia, although it can also mean having sex with a woman and today, you could just about have sex with nearly anybody.
The same thing with pussy - although most people use it to refer to "womanlike" qualities, it's really just short for a baby cat or pusillanimous, which means "timid or cowardly", and everybody has a different standard of courage. I just don't find constant swearing as brave - or attractive. It just makes you look uneducated and unopinionated and incapable of proper expression.
And what's wrong with politeness? We're BRITISH, for God's sake - we practically own the market for PC and manners, why don't we damn well act like it? As Rachel Nichols said,
"I simply do not think that yelling, swearing, threatening or belittling will get you to the place you want to be faster than kindness, understanding, patience and a willingness to compromise."
Granted, compromising won't taste as good as total victory, but it's better to have a taste of the cake than stand there with no respect from your peers and the sour taste of a stream of swear words in your mouth.
Sickness of Sins: Everyone has a bad habit
OK, I have a confession to make, to kick start this post: I am absolutely and totally addicted to Diet Coke and McCoy's Salt and Vinegar crisps. My family can back me up on this.
At worst, I could drink up to 14 litres of Diet coke a week (2 litres a day, mostly made up of 4 500ml bottles), and eat 4 50g packets of crisps a day - two with lunch and two after dinner. I won't even try and think of how many packets that is a week. It'll be enough to say that it's been less than helpful to my waistline.
And while my family - my mum, sister, and father in particular - have been urging me to cut this down (scratch that, cut it out entirely), I can't help wanting to follow a certain train of thought.
Whenever we think about addictions, we think of the following: drink, drugs, cigarettes, sex. And those are the ones that usually blow your life apart in a huge way: rehab, debt, overdoses, the whole kit and caboodle.
But then there are... I don't want to say less harmful addictions, but - let's go with more SUBTLE addictions, like food. And I think it's because of our perception of food; the stuff's essential - no food and you're toast.
Yeah, I know - terrible pun, but I didn't have to fish for it. OK, I'll get back to the point.
The way I can't help seeing it is that food's a carer's drug. It can still make you sick in that you overeat in one sitting and throw up then, but it doesn't incapacitate you straight away. You can eat crisps and some chocolate, and then get up and do something that requires good mobility.
If you're drunk or stoned, the ability to walk a straight line juggling oranges and lemons isn't going to work out well.
But when you overdose on junk food and fizzy drinks, the worse that can happen - or at least the worst that HAS happened to me at least - is that you puke all over the place.
As Caitlin Moran wrote once,
"Overeating is the addiction of choice of carers... Fat people aren't indulging in the "luxury" of their addiction making them useless, chaotic or a burden. Instead, they are self-destructing in a way that doesn't inconvenience anyone."
And we don't entirely realise it. Granted, we realise the dangers of eating too little food - too many girls puking their guts out in primary school, or eating lettuce leaves because Joe Sexy-DooDah says he only likes girls who weigh the same as a bottle of beer.
But practically nobody sees the opposite end of the spectrum - women eating the entire contents of their fridges at midnight because they think that Joe Pecksey would never look at them twice.
But people aren't talking about it unless there's a 2 year old already puking her guts out without enough fat on her.
But then, maybe I'm not having a go at the sins of fat people. I'm fat myself, I can't talk. I'm just having a go at the hypocrisy of society, I guess. There's a quote - I don't know who by - that I found recently, and love:
"I don't have a short temper, I just have a low tolerance for hypocrites and drama."
At worst, I could drink up to 14 litres of Diet coke a week (2 litres a day, mostly made up of 4 500ml bottles), and eat 4 50g packets of crisps a day - two with lunch and two after dinner. I won't even try and think of how many packets that is a week. It'll be enough to say that it's been less than helpful to my waistline.
And while my family - my mum, sister, and father in particular - have been urging me to cut this down (scratch that, cut it out entirely), I can't help wanting to follow a certain train of thought.
Whenever we think about addictions, we think of the following: drink, drugs, cigarettes, sex. And those are the ones that usually blow your life apart in a huge way: rehab, debt, overdoses, the whole kit and caboodle.
But then there are... I don't want to say less harmful addictions, but - let's go with more SUBTLE addictions, like food. And I think it's because of our perception of food; the stuff's essential - no food and you're toast.
Yeah, I know - terrible pun, but I didn't have to fish for it. OK, I'll get back to the point.
The way I can't help seeing it is that food's a carer's drug. It can still make you sick in that you overeat in one sitting and throw up then, but it doesn't incapacitate you straight away. You can eat crisps and some chocolate, and then get up and do something that requires good mobility.
If you're drunk or stoned, the ability to walk a straight line juggling oranges and lemons isn't going to work out well.
But when you overdose on junk food and fizzy drinks, the worse that can happen - or at least the worst that HAS happened to me at least - is that you puke all over the place.
As Caitlin Moran wrote once,
"Overeating is the addiction of choice of carers... Fat people aren't indulging in the "luxury" of their addiction making them useless, chaotic or a burden. Instead, they are self-destructing in a way that doesn't inconvenience anyone."
And we don't entirely realise it. Granted, we realise the dangers of eating too little food - too many girls puking their guts out in primary school, or eating lettuce leaves because Joe Sexy-DooDah says he only likes girls who weigh the same as a bottle of beer.
But practically nobody sees the opposite end of the spectrum - women eating the entire contents of their fridges at midnight because they think that Joe Pecksey would never look at them twice.
But people aren't talking about it unless there's a 2 year old already puking her guts out without enough fat on her.
But then, maybe I'm not having a go at the sins of fat people. I'm fat myself, I can't talk. I'm just having a go at the hypocrisy of society, I guess. There's a quote - I don't know who by - that I found recently, and love:
"I don't have a short temper, I just have a low tolerance for hypocrites and drama."
Thursday 6 August 2015
Say Balls... to myths about men!
OK, I'd have to be dickless before I'd not try to be fair to both sides. So sorry, girls, but the guys are going to get talked up now. Germaine Greer, you'd better look away now. Because just like all women, all men aren't all that bad. And while Prince Charming and Mr Right are all myths I probably can't bust, the following are just a sack of rubbish:
1) Men aren't emotional.
Granted, men aren't about to burst into tears at a Mr Darcy movie. Guys like Sylvester Stallone and Chuck Norris aren't going to tear up at the opening credits to Downton Abbey.
It's not that they aren't emotional, but for men, masculinity is about not emoting on a regular basis - so they might let off steam once a month as opposed to once a day for women, but while women will let off little puffs every day, men will let off a cloud, and then be just fine.
Men are a bit like the internal parts of a car - to people with degrees in Engineering, they're perfectly understandable; to everybody else, they're good to look at, but are so complex under the surface that you'll blow every damn fuse you have, plus the spares.
A word to the wise, though, guys - it takes more balls to admit your feelings than to bottle them up.
2) Men hate commitment
Ding ding - wrong! OK, like with men and their feelings, masculinity is a little to blame for this one, because it's always like "be tough, be strong - put your emotions back in their box!"
Just bear in mind that men, for all their shows of wanting freedom and independence, just might value loyalty most of all. So if your guy's holding off just that little bit, a show of how much you've got his back, might just clinch it for him to open up - and while they won't be the traditional bunch of roses or Mr Darcy declaring his love on bended knee, they will be gestures of feeling nonetheless
3) Men don't communicate
Not true! Men like to talk, and some research shows that men talk a little more than women. It's just a question of men having a built in censor that's wired to how they think a woman will react to a deeper, more genuine honesty. If they don't think it'll slide, men won't bother saying it.
Just because a bloke doesn't mention it, it doesn't mean his internal life isn't interesting. It's a question of suspending judgement that will get him to reveal more of himself.
4) Guys can't or won't take criticism.
OK this one is kind of down to us, girls, because we're kind of wired to talk around the issue. As a result, said criticism is rarely delivered to our guys in a way they'll understand. Just because you get into his face every now and then and actually speak your mind, it doesn't mean he's going to pull a runner! And if he does, then more fool him.
If you're serious about a relationship, then a tough love conversation is worth the risk of seriously offending either or both parties just to clear the air.
5) Men want sex - period.
Yeah, and I want a house built out of dry sand. Just because your boyfriend isn't a sex addict who blows your mind in the bedroom every five seconds, it doesn't make him less of a man.
Frankly, men are just like the rest of us, and it's no less normal for them to choose chilling out over sex than it is for women. And besides - who says it won't spice up the times you do have sex? We all know what they say - less is more!
6) Men only want to date beautiful, dirty idiots.
Yeah, tell that to couples like Pierre and Marie Curie (who both reached fame in scientific circles)! There's different kinds of beauty, and acting stupid just because society infantalizes women is not the way to get a lasting relationship with a genuine man.
Any man worth a damn wants a girlfriend who, yes, looks like she could turn a few heads, but also has a brain she knows how to use, and interests and goals that don't necessarily involve him.
And yeah, OK, sometimes guys are or can be intimidated by smart powerful women - but it's the kind of intimidation that walks hand in hand with respect which, to me, is nothing but all kinds of good. And if you keep asking for his jacket when you're cold or keep forgetting your purse or your underwear, your boyfriend becomes your babysitter, and they won't sit around for something they didn't sign up for!
If you're with a guy who wants his girl to act like that, then he's probably pretty immature himself, and that's not always good for you.
So yeah, there are differences between men and women - there always have been, there always will be. Some are just biological - the rest are only cultural, and can easily be broken by keeping an open mind. I find, much like Oscar Wilde, that the cultural ones stem from both and either side:
"Men always want to be a woman's first love - women like to be a man's last romance."
But to keep a relationship going, and to make your other half into Mr or Mrs Right for You, I think it's worth keeping in mind what Phillip Stanhope, the 4th Earl of Chesterfield, has to say:
"Men as well as women, are more oftener led by their hearts than their understandings."
1) Men aren't emotional.
Granted, men aren't about to burst into tears at a Mr Darcy movie. Guys like Sylvester Stallone and Chuck Norris aren't going to tear up at the opening credits to Downton Abbey.
It's not that they aren't emotional, but for men, masculinity is about not emoting on a regular basis - so they might let off steam once a month as opposed to once a day for women, but while women will let off little puffs every day, men will let off a cloud, and then be just fine.
Men are a bit like the internal parts of a car - to people with degrees in Engineering, they're perfectly understandable; to everybody else, they're good to look at, but are so complex under the surface that you'll blow every damn fuse you have, plus the spares.
A word to the wise, though, guys - it takes more balls to admit your feelings than to bottle them up.
2) Men hate commitment
Ding ding - wrong! OK, like with men and their feelings, masculinity is a little to blame for this one, because it's always like "be tough, be strong - put your emotions back in their box!"
Just bear in mind that men, for all their shows of wanting freedom and independence, just might value loyalty most of all. So if your guy's holding off just that little bit, a show of how much you've got his back, might just clinch it for him to open up - and while they won't be the traditional bunch of roses or Mr Darcy declaring his love on bended knee, they will be gestures of feeling nonetheless
3) Men don't communicate
Not true! Men like to talk, and some research shows that men talk a little more than women. It's just a question of men having a built in censor that's wired to how they think a woman will react to a deeper, more genuine honesty. If they don't think it'll slide, men won't bother saying it.
Just because a bloke doesn't mention it, it doesn't mean his internal life isn't interesting. It's a question of suspending judgement that will get him to reveal more of himself.
4) Guys can't or won't take criticism.
OK this one is kind of down to us, girls, because we're kind of wired to talk around the issue. As a result, said criticism is rarely delivered to our guys in a way they'll understand. Just because you get into his face every now and then and actually speak your mind, it doesn't mean he's going to pull a runner! And if he does, then more fool him.
If you're serious about a relationship, then a tough love conversation is worth the risk of seriously offending either or both parties just to clear the air.
5) Men want sex - period.
Yeah, and I want a house built out of dry sand. Just because your boyfriend isn't a sex addict who blows your mind in the bedroom every five seconds, it doesn't make him less of a man.
Frankly, men are just like the rest of us, and it's no less normal for them to choose chilling out over sex than it is for women. And besides - who says it won't spice up the times you do have sex? We all know what they say - less is more!
6) Men only want to date beautiful, dirty idiots.
Yeah, tell that to couples like Pierre and Marie Curie (who both reached fame in scientific circles)! There's different kinds of beauty, and acting stupid just because society infantalizes women is not the way to get a lasting relationship with a genuine man.
Any man worth a damn wants a girlfriend who, yes, looks like she could turn a few heads, but also has a brain she knows how to use, and interests and goals that don't necessarily involve him.
And yeah, OK, sometimes guys are or can be intimidated by smart powerful women - but it's the kind of intimidation that walks hand in hand with respect which, to me, is nothing but all kinds of good. And if you keep asking for his jacket when you're cold or keep forgetting your purse or your underwear, your boyfriend becomes your babysitter, and they won't sit around for something they didn't sign up for!
If you're with a guy who wants his girl to act like that, then he's probably pretty immature himself, and that's not always good for you.
So yeah, there are differences between men and women - there always have been, there always will be. Some are just biological - the rest are only cultural, and can easily be broken by keeping an open mind. I find, much like Oscar Wilde, that the cultural ones stem from both and either side:
"Men always want to be a woman's first love - women like to be a man's last romance."
But to keep a relationship going, and to make your other half into Mr or Mrs Right for You, I think it's worth keeping in mind what Phillip Stanhope, the 4th Earl of Chesterfield, has to say:
"Men as well as women, are more oftener led by their hearts than their understandings."
Monday 13 July 2015
Call me Arnie Brassiernegger: Terminating myths about women!
OK, so I probably won't kill off ALL of the misconceptions people have about women (and by people, I mean mostly blokes). I just want to bust the balls of a couple, and have a rant about the difference between bikinis and underwear - of which there is zero difference; we just make a difference because of where we want to wear them.
Numero uno misconception is that women are either total whores or more uptight than nuns when it comes to sex. But then, are men so different? The problem here is that men and women are held to two polar opposite standards, when really, we all have the same kind of libido sex drivey thing.
Not all men go out and have sex with every single woman in sight, or everything that has a pulse, and some women are exactly the same. Women are just as happy to be involved in their own seduction, or they wouldn't spend the entire day getting ready for a Friday night out! Plus, the top bestselling genre of books is ROMANCE - yes, that kind with the impossibly good-looking hunk on the front!
Take the hint people - women enjoy sex just as much as men. It's just the perceptions that men have of women who say "yes" as being whores and the ones who say "no" as chastity-belt-wearing prudes, when it's not necessarily vice versa. It's a case of mixed messages and an inability to communicate in the same value way.
Number two: Men can just ask what women want in a relationship or a potential boyfriend. OH DEAR GOD, HOW WRONG COULD YOU BE???????????? Women will almost always give the same laundry list of good looking, funny, super smart, willing to save a puppy here or a kitten there, but this is all off the top of our heads.
Women want this on a conscious level and will spout this until the end of time because WE DON'T KNOW WHAT WE WANT. Besides an entirely new wardrobe, but that's beside the point. You'll know she's considering getting pretty serious when we get to the following...
3: Women always play bitchy mind-games. Nope. Nope. NOPE. On the whole, this is mostly biological hard-wiring. Women are "bio-programmed" to test potential mates, hence the flirting, the mind-games, the boundary pushing. It's the exact same thing when men try flirting, muscle-flexing and basically ogling women with Nicki Minaj's boobs and an arse to do J-Lo proud.
The testing is her way of making sure you're worthy of being with her. Plus, and this is something worth taking note of, women are, out of sheer evolution, determined to find a protector - a man with confidence, assertiveness, and strength. Any man who sets a boundary in a relationship and lets it slide when she breaks it, is doomed to fail at that relationship.
Misconception number 4: Women are to blame for failed relationships. Granted, when she's cheated, lied, or stolen from you or done something equally unforgivable, then it really is her fault. But when a guy talks about himself, escalates the relationship sexually too quickly, or is too scared to do that or approach a girl "out of his league", then it's on you, buster!
Unless she's a lesbian, a 12 year old in love with those horrific beings known as Edward Cullen and Justin Bieber, then the chances are she's got a crush on George Clooney, Brad Pitt or Johnny Depp. I, for one, am mad about Tom Hiddleston, and he shares something in common with all bar Bieber - THEY'RE ALL OLDER!!! Chances are, the girl you're after is younger than all of them except Bieber, and I'd be worried if she was.
Even in realistic relationships, women shack up with older "uglier", broke men all the time. You're just as likely to get the woman as the next Tom, Dick, or Harry! Women just want a guy to make them laugh, make them feel good and get them a pint of ice cream when Mother Nature's being a bitch!
Five: Women eat like rabbits. Shut. Up. There are PLENTY of women out there who can easily pack away a pizza, hot wings, and most of the garlic bread, and I don't just mean the women who are overweight, massively or otherwise. We've got stomachs too, you know, and we're just as likely to crave steak and chips or a kebab as you!
And then there's the famous thing about women: once a month, we WILL pig out on chocolate and junk food. Any man who's up for a junk-food-fest and his lady's favourite movie will keep her around for a long, LONG time.
Six: Women are gold-diggers. True, some women are out to get you to spend your cash on them, or just nick it and run. But most women aren't like that. Sadly, this is just a very poor, and in some cases insulting excuse some, if not most men use to cover up their own incompetence with women.
98% of the time, women are not looking for a man with money dribbling out of his pockets - the other 2% being women who are specifically looking for that out of their own taste or the archetypal gold digger. Most women can actually support themselves, and just find a man with a steady job and the money and means to take care of them as a bonus to a good relationship.
Now, to be absolutely fair, there are misconceptions that women have about men, like how they supposedly think about sex every five nanoseconds, run from commitment like it's the plague, and only want women with the face of an angel and the body of Marilyn Monroe.
But misconceptions can only lead to two things: Failed relationships and broken hearts, and I can't help but think that they're all born from a kind of fear. A fear that Eleanor Roosevelt sums up wonderfully:
"We are afraid to care too much, for fear that the other person does not care at all."
And this is part of the reason I don't really understand flirting. Mostly because I'm a "seduce you with my awkwardness" kind of person, but I also think that flirting's just a nicer way of lying.
Numero uno misconception is that women are either total whores or more uptight than nuns when it comes to sex. But then, are men so different? The problem here is that men and women are held to two polar opposite standards, when really, we all have the same kind of libido sex drivey thing.
Not all men go out and have sex with every single woman in sight, or everything that has a pulse, and some women are exactly the same. Women are just as happy to be involved in their own seduction, or they wouldn't spend the entire day getting ready for a Friday night out! Plus, the top bestselling genre of books is ROMANCE - yes, that kind with the impossibly good-looking hunk on the front!
Take the hint people - women enjoy sex just as much as men. It's just the perceptions that men have of women who say "yes" as being whores and the ones who say "no" as chastity-belt-wearing prudes, when it's not necessarily vice versa. It's a case of mixed messages and an inability to communicate in the same value way.
Number two: Men can just ask what women want in a relationship or a potential boyfriend. OH DEAR GOD, HOW WRONG COULD YOU BE???????????? Women will almost always give the same laundry list of good looking, funny, super smart, willing to save a puppy here or a kitten there, but this is all off the top of our heads.
Women want this on a conscious level and will spout this until the end of time because WE DON'T KNOW WHAT WE WANT. Besides an entirely new wardrobe, but that's beside the point. You'll know she's considering getting pretty serious when we get to the following...
3: Women always play bitchy mind-games. Nope. Nope. NOPE. On the whole, this is mostly biological hard-wiring. Women are "bio-programmed" to test potential mates, hence the flirting, the mind-games, the boundary pushing. It's the exact same thing when men try flirting, muscle-flexing and basically ogling women with Nicki Minaj's boobs and an arse to do J-Lo proud.
The testing is her way of making sure you're worthy of being with her. Plus, and this is something worth taking note of, women are, out of sheer evolution, determined to find a protector - a man with confidence, assertiveness, and strength. Any man who sets a boundary in a relationship and lets it slide when she breaks it, is doomed to fail at that relationship.
Misconception number 4: Women are to blame for failed relationships. Granted, when she's cheated, lied, or stolen from you or done something equally unforgivable, then it really is her fault. But when a guy talks about himself, escalates the relationship sexually too quickly, or is too scared to do that or approach a girl "out of his league", then it's on you, buster!
Unless she's a lesbian, a 12 year old in love with those horrific beings known as Edward Cullen and Justin Bieber, then the chances are she's got a crush on George Clooney, Brad Pitt or Johnny Depp. I, for one, am mad about Tom Hiddleston, and he shares something in common with all bar Bieber - THEY'RE ALL OLDER!!! Chances are, the girl you're after is younger than all of them except Bieber, and I'd be worried if she was.
Even in realistic relationships, women shack up with older "uglier", broke men all the time. You're just as likely to get the woman as the next Tom, Dick, or Harry! Women just want a guy to make them laugh, make them feel good and get them a pint of ice cream when Mother Nature's being a bitch!
Five: Women eat like rabbits. Shut. Up. There are PLENTY of women out there who can easily pack away a pizza, hot wings, and most of the garlic bread, and I don't just mean the women who are overweight, massively or otherwise. We've got stomachs too, you know, and we're just as likely to crave steak and chips or a kebab as you!
And then there's the famous thing about women: once a month, we WILL pig out on chocolate and junk food. Any man who's up for a junk-food-fest and his lady's favourite movie will keep her around for a long, LONG time.
Six: Women are gold-diggers. True, some women are out to get you to spend your cash on them, or just nick it and run. But most women aren't like that. Sadly, this is just a very poor, and in some cases insulting excuse some, if not most men use to cover up their own incompetence with women.
98% of the time, women are not looking for a man with money dribbling out of his pockets - the other 2% being women who are specifically looking for that out of their own taste or the archetypal gold digger. Most women can actually support themselves, and just find a man with a steady job and the money and means to take care of them as a bonus to a good relationship.
Now, to be absolutely fair, there are misconceptions that women have about men, like how they supposedly think about sex every five nanoseconds, run from commitment like it's the plague, and only want women with the face of an angel and the body of Marilyn Monroe.
But misconceptions can only lead to two things: Failed relationships and broken hearts, and I can't help but think that they're all born from a kind of fear. A fear that Eleanor Roosevelt sums up wonderfully:
"We are afraid to care too much, for fear that the other person does not care at all."
And this is part of the reason I don't really understand flirting. Mostly because I'm a "seduce you with my awkwardness" kind of person, but I also think that flirting's just a nicer way of lying.
Thursday 2 July 2015
Pack Mentality: I love my loopy family!
My family's mad. I don't mean the "I just got abducted by aliens" kind of mad (although I'm not sure about my little brother, - joking, Tiddles!), I mean the kind of madness that, every so often, comes out with absolute gems that leave us all choking with laughter.
An up and coming classic is the pigeon story where, travelling down to our grandparents, a pigeon flies up from the middle of the road, and smacks into the windshield. Before anyone else, my little brother comes out with "Ten points to Gryffindor!"
Bear in mind, this is the same little brother who repeatedly has problems with glass of any shape or form - on a holiday to Turkey, he managed to walk into a floor-to-ceiling window, a foot to the left of the actual door. On a trip to France, when asked to pay at the toll-booth, he forgot to roll down the window and smacked his head. Twice.
My sister managed to give the best evils I've ever seen to an elephant rider in India, only for her to turn around and realise, via me, that it wasn't the man who flicked her cap, but actually a monkey pooping on her hat.
My eldest brother is renowned for grumpy, expletive-filled rants against politicians, banks, the BBC, and just about the entire world that leaves us all crying with fits of the giggles, and I, during a discussion about holidays, managed to ask what there is for terrorists to do in Boston. I genuinely meant to say tourists, considering that Boston has like all others, reluctantly joined the list of cities hit by terrorism with its marathon bombings.
But my family's not just amazing for the laugh-out-loud moments it has. There's also all the family jokes, like the chicken noises at stupid moments - my big brother pulled this off in a monumental fashion when, just after I'd said to my sister, "I say this with all of my control and mastery of the English language", he looks at me, cocks his head to one side and clucked. Now, I'd meant to say "Swivel" - again, another family joke - but it still worked!
And then there's the family insult, complete with interchangeable words. The basic form is just "you're an idiot", with the comeback "your face is an idiot", although idiot has gone from... well, idiot, to panini, to fridge, to turd, to melon, and so on.
Granted, my family still has arguments. I managed to argue with my little brother Eduardo* over Jurassic World and whether or not they could actually bring back dinosaurs; I've argued with my sister Flora* countless times about my fashion choices; apparently backpacks aren't always useful.
But families are far more important than most people today realise. Today it's all about kids having kids, as Jeremy Kyle would say, and they think it's meaningless until they get the consequences of kids - no more schooling, no more socialising at all hours. Friends go from hundreds to a few who don't mind that there's a baby.
My point is, we've gone from Medieval family values, where there used to be an entire family plus servants sharing one bedroom to parents becoming grandparents before they've had their first job!
Granted romance has gone forwards and then had a reversal between Medieval times and now - it's gone from political marriages to marriages for love to not even getting married at all. But now, the togetherness of the family is slowly disappearing. There's very little stability for children, if any, when it used to be that families had to stay together, no matter what.
We've lost, as Jodi Picoult points out, the role each family member has:
"I woke up one morning thinking about wolves and realized that wolf packs function as families. Everyone has a role, and if you act within the parameters of your role, the whole pack succeeds, and when that falls apart, so does the pack."
But I think it's not just the role each person has within a family. Strong relationships mean a strong family. Strong families mean a strong society, and that all translates up. It will take strong families to improve this world, and Will Durant has, I think, summed this up brilliantly:
"The family is the nucleus of civilization."
It took one family millions of years ago to lead to over 7 billion people today. So my peers can keep their family values and opinions, thanks. I love my family just the way it is, warts and all, and I couldn't be prouder or happier to be a part of it.
*Names have been changed.
An up and coming classic is the pigeon story where, travelling down to our grandparents, a pigeon flies up from the middle of the road, and smacks into the windshield. Before anyone else, my little brother comes out with "Ten points to Gryffindor!"
Bear in mind, this is the same little brother who repeatedly has problems with glass of any shape or form - on a holiday to Turkey, he managed to walk into a floor-to-ceiling window, a foot to the left of the actual door. On a trip to France, when asked to pay at the toll-booth, he forgot to roll down the window and smacked his head. Twice.
My sister managed to give the best evils I've ever seen to an elephant rider in India, only for her to turn around and realise, via me, that it wasn't the man who flicked her cap, but actually a monkey pooping on her hat.
My eldest brother is renowned for grumpy, expletive-filled rants against politicians, banks, the BBC, and just about the entire world that leaves us all crying with fits of the giggles, and I, during a discussion about holidays, managed to ask what there is for terrorists to do in Boston. I genuinely meant to say tourists, considering that Boston has like all others, reluctantly joined the list of cities hit by terrorism with its marathon bombings.
But my family's not just amazing for the laugh-out-loud moments it has. There's also all the family jokes, like the chicken noises at stupid moments - my big brother pulled this off in a monumental fashion when, just after I'd said to my sister, "I say this with all of my control and mastery of the English language", he looks at me, cocks his head to one side and clucked. Now, I'd meant to say "Swivel" - again, another family joke - but it still worked!
And then there's the family insult, complete with interchangeable words. The basic form is just "you're an idiot", with the comeback "your face is an idiot", although idiot has gone from... well, idiot, to panini, to fridge, to turd, to melon, and so on.
Granted, my family still has arguments. I managed to argue with my little brother Eduardo* over Jurassic World and whether or not they could actually bring back dinosaurs; I've argued with my sister Flora* countless times about my fashion choices; apparently backpacks aren't always useful.
But families are far more important than most people today realise. Today it's all about kids having kids, as Jeremy Kyle would say, and they think it's meaningless until they get the consequences of kids - no more schooling, no more socialising at all hours. Friends go from hundreds to a few who don't mind that there's a baby.
My point is, we've gone from Medieval family values, where there used to be an entire family plus servants sharing one bedroom to parents becoming grandparents before they've had their first job!
Granted romance has gone forwards and then had a reversal between Medieval times and now - it's gone from political marriages to marriages for love to not even getting married at all. But now, the togetherness of the family is slowly disappearing. There's very little stability for children, if any, when it used to be that families had to stay together, no matter what.
We've lost, as Jodi Picoult points out, the role each family member has:
"I woke up one morning thinking about wolves and realized that wolf packs function as families. Everyone has a role, and if you act within the parameters of your role, the whole pack succeeds, and when that falls apart, so does the pack."
But I think it's not just the role each person has within a family. Strong relationships mean a strong family. Strong families mean a strong society, and that all translates up. It will take strong families to improve this world, and Will Durant has, I think, summed this up brilliantly:
"The family is the nucleus of civilization."
It took one family millions of years ago to lead to over 7 billion people today. So my peers can keep their family values and opinions, thanks. I love my family just the way it is, warts and all, and I couldn't be prouder or happier to be a part of it.
*Names have been changed.
Tuesday 30 June 2015
Plague of Violence: I think we're fighting our way to extinction.
I know I promised no more depressing posts, but there's nothing but depressing stuff to talk about. With ISIS determined to blow up everything and everyone from the Middle East to Tunisia and beyond, and mad people cutting off heads in France, I can't help thinking that we're fighting ourselves into extinction.
Religions for the most part haven't been exactly friendly. But then, that's their fault. Apart from Hindus, Jews and Sikhs, religions have always clashed. Christians eradicated "paganism" in France, England, Ireland, and most of western Europe; it's caused the Crusades because it though that was a sure-fire way of winning a one way pass to Heaven, and it has, on occasion, lashed out at Jews, mostly pre-1800 whenever something went wrong and the clever people of the time couldn't explain what it was. Islam, too, has given rise to bullying the Jews, as well as fighting Christianity at every opportunity. Most of this fighting has been over Jerusalem, which holds some or most of the important sites for Christianity, Islam, and - I have to point this out - their ANCESTRAL religion, Judaism. Christianity can certainly be called a descendant of Judaism - Jesus was, after all, a Jew.
But it's not just religion that we're killing each other over. Russia and America have been glaring at each other ever since 1945, both determined to be the biggest power in the world; China is almost certainly the same, North Korea is obviously the exact same, only more brash.
We will use any excuse to seize something we desire, with force if necessary. As Thomas More once said,
"War is an activity fit only for beasts, yet practiced by no beast so constantly as by man."
What exactly are we all fighting for? Survival, religious expression, economical safety? Sure, they might be good reasons, but I'd be more prepared to fight for survival than religion or the economy, since both are defined by the country which we live in. I think we use violence because of a breakdown in communication, and a breakdown in non-violence.
It's also due to a lack of respect - respect for other people, with other cultures, other religions, and other values to ours. As for me, I have always tried to live by this one tenet amongst others: I give the respect I get. Granted, I don't always live up to it, but purely because I'm less aggressive than others, so I tend to let disrespect slide a lot more than I should.
I think all the violence distorts what it's fighting for. Look at ISIS - they're fighting for their religious beliefs, and yet non-Muslims are beginning to view all Muslims as extremists, terrorists and murderers. I do not, of course, condone this view in any way - I try to judge every person I meet based on who they are and how they react to me. I'm simply paraphrasing Pope John-Paul II:
"Social justice cannot be attained by violence. Violence destroys what it intends to create."
What better incentive do we need to stop the damned fighting? Violence doesn't win you what you want, unless you're a psychopath, an extreme loner, or a vampire. It doesn't win you respect, or love, or wealth most of the time.
You earn the respect you give, you earn the freedom you give, and you can do that by being sincere in dealing with others. Bryant H. McGill, the last quote I'm going to give this post, is brilliant for saying this:
"One of the most sincere forms of respect is actually listening to what another [person] has to say."
Friday 26 June 2015
Help! I'm in a modern life.
Modern life is a damned dangerous thing!
We're all getting stupider, teenagers are becoming cyborgs and I have no idea how to do anything modern, like getting a damned date.
Louis CK has said that women are incredibly brave to agree to dating men. It's true when, looking back at history, you realise that ever since the dawn of the human race men have been the number one threat to women.
And yet we still do it, ladies! Knowing that getting into a car, alone, with a man, is willingly knowing that statistically, you go to your death. And yet there's no "Dating for Dummies" handbook, or if there is, I'm desperately in need of one. Plus, there's probably several.
And here's where I have a little beef with magazines like Cosmopolitan, because they've probably misunderstood the question "How do we (women) get their attention?" So I'm going to rephrase this to "How do we get their attention WITHOUT BEING NAKED?" Granted, great looks or a fantastic makeup artist always helps, but I always think that that's not enough.
And so I kindly submit to the world a few ground rules about dating and socialising:
To all the men:
1) CUT OUT THE WOLF-WHISTLING, effective immediately. In case none of you have noticed, we're not birds. As such, whistling isn't going to get us to shed our feathers and flap into a nest with you.
2) Please don't say you're looking at our "necklaces". 9 times out of 10, you don't actually mean it. Women know you most likely don't mean it, but please feel free to take your eyes back!
3) There's no need to have a Chris Pratt or Hugh Jackman-esque body, or chivalry, boys! Chivalry is just a code for medieval bloodthirstiness, and I'd rather you had good manners and some idea of how to treat a woman well, although the whole good-looking body thing would be a bonus as well. Just be at least marginally better than OK in bed, and have that stupid line ready from Dirty Dancing.
To all the women:
1) For everyone looking for their Mr. Right, stop! Consider what his first name is likely to be and let's face it - he's going to be either Mr. Always Right and never shut up, or Mr. Never Right, in which case you'll end up walking all over him.
2) Calling all women who have tried any of the following: Losing a shoe, collecting cutlery underwater, eating poisonous fruit, sleeping for long periods of time, talking with teapots, running away from home only to be chased by men who thought you stole an apple, making friends with trees and raccoons, masquerading as a man in the army, growing your hair out, locking yourself in a tower, and moving to the bayou to start your own restaurant. If you've tried all of this and still aren't having any luck just give up, before you do something really embarrassing.
3) There's no need to have a J-Lo bum or Paris Hilton looks. As long as you're marginally smarter than Hilton, have a few tricks in the bedroom and a quote from your man's favourite TV series, then he will love you forever.
Just General Tips:
1) to every damn "know-it-all" out there - you're only getting on people's nerves. If you say you're a self confessed "know-it-all", then please understand: Unless your name is God or Google, you don't know it all. You're just annoying.
2) Once we hit teenagerhood, we all become fluent in three languages: our native language, sarcasm and innuendo. If a child is asking something you think they shouldn't know just yet, tell them they'll understand when they're a teenager.
3) Never "can" the sarcasm. It's far better when it's served up fresh. If it's stale, then I pity the person you're using it on.
4) Anyone who considers themselves a smartarse needs to consider whether they actually smart or not. Half the time, you're just an arse.
In the end, we need to take life with a large dose of humour. It doesn't matter if we don't meet The One and fall in love; with the number of humans on the planet, we need to dial down the rabbit level of breeding!
We also take life far too seriously. A world where newscasters say "Good Morning" or "Good Evening" and then tell you a million reasons why it isn't is a world where comedians should be worshipped as the Fountains of Happiness and the saviours of souls. But I absolutely agree with Mignon McLaughlin who described the three horrors of life and, I honestly believe that if you spend your life trying to avoid or prevent these three horrors, then yours is a life well lived:
"The three horrors of modern life: talk without meaning, desire without love, and work without satisfaction."
Never say anything you don't mean, never give into desire unless you're certain love isn't a factor, and never settle for a job you don't enjoy. That's just the basic way to survive and enjoy a modern life.
We're all getting stupider, teenagers are becoming cyborgs and I have no idea how to do anything modern, like getting a damned date.
Louis CK has said that women are incredibly brave to agree to dating men. It's true when, looking back at history, you realise that ever since the dawn of the human race men have been the number one threat to women.
And yet we still do it, ladies! Knowing that getting into a car, alone, with a man, is willingly knowing that statistically, you go to your death. And yet there's no "Dating for Dummies" handbook, or if there is, I'm desperately in need of one. Plus, there's probably several.
And here's where I have a little beef with magazines like Cosmopolitan, because they've probably misunderstood the question "How do we (women) get their attention?" So I'm going to rephrase this to "How do we get their attention WITHOUT BEING NAKED?" Granted, great looks or a fantastic makeup artist always helps, but I always think that that's not enough.
And so I kindly submit to the world a few ground rules about dating and socialising:
To all the men:
1) CUT OUT THE WOLF-WHISTLING, effective immediately. In case none of you have noticed, we're not birds. As such, whistling isn't going to get us to shed our feathers and flap into a nest with you.
2) Please don't say you're looking at our "necklaces". 9 times out of 10, you don't actually mean it. Women know you most likely don't mean it, but please feel free to take your eyes back!
3) There's no need to have a Chris Pratt or Hugh Jackman-esque body, or chivalry, boys! Chivalry is just a code for medieval bloodthirstiness, and I'd rather you had good manners and some idea of how to treat a woman well, although the whole good-looking body thing would be a bonus as well. Just be at least marginally better than OK in bed, and have that stupid line ready from Dirty Dancing.
To all the women:
1) For everyone looking for their Mr. Right, stop! Consider what his first name is likely to be and let's face it - he's going to be either Mr. Always Right and never shut up, or Mr. Never Right, in which case you'll end up walking all over him.
2) Calling all women who have tried any of the following: Losing a shoe, collecting cutlery underwater, eating poisonous fruit, sleeping for long periods of time, talking with teapots, running away from home only to be chased by men who thought you stole an apple, making friends with trees and raccoons, masquerading as a man in the army, growing your hair out, locking yourself in a tower, and moving to the bayou to start your own restaurant. If you've tried all of this and still aren't having any luck just give up, before you do something really embarrassing.
3) There's no need to have a J-Lo bum or Paris Hilton looks. As long as you're marginally smarter than Hilton, have a few tricks in the bedroom and a quote from your man's favourite TV series, then he will love you forever.
Just General Tips:
1) to every damn "know-it-all" out there - you're only getting on people's nerves. If you say you're a self confessed "know-it-all", then please understand: Unless your name is God or Google, you don't know it all. You're just annoying.
2) Once we hit teenagerhood, we all become fluent in three languages: our native language, sarcasm and innuendo. If a child is asking something you think they shouldn't know just yet, tell them they'll understand when they're a teenager.
3) Never "can" the sarcasm. It's far better when it's served up fresh. If it's stale, then I pity the person you're using it on.
4) Anyone who considers themselves a smartarse needs to consider whether they actually smart or not. Half the time, you're just an arse.
In the end, we need to take life with a large dose of humour. It doesn't matter if we don't meet The One and fall in love; with the number of humans on the planet, we need to dial down the rabbit level of breeding!
We also take life far too seriously. A world where newscasters say "Good Morning" or "Good Evening" and then tell you a million reasons why it isn't is a world where comedians should be worshipped as the Fountains of Happiness and the saviours of souls. But I absolutely agree with Mignon McLaughlin who described the three horrors of life and, I honestly believe that if you spend your life trying to avoid or prevent these three horrors, then yours is a life well lived:
"The three horrors of modern life: talk without meaning, desire without love, and work without satisfaction."
Never say anything you don't mean, never give into desire unless you're certain love isn't a factor, and never settle for a job you don't enjoy. That's just the basic way to survive and enjoy a modern life.
Thursday 25 June 2015
Mortality Music Part 3: Super Volcanoes
Ah, volcanoes: A cross between nature's spots and Mother Nature on her period. I said in the last post that I would cover volcanoes separately. This is purely because I've got a fair bit to say, and I will no doubt erupt into a particularly fiery rant, but there it is.
The most famous volcanoes all have the same thing in common: Mount St. Helens, Krakatoa, Vesuvius, Mount Tambora.
They were all very, VERY explosive eruptions. Krakatoa wiped itself off the face of the earth with the loudest noise ever heard. The Australians could hear it - from 2,000 miles away.
Mount St. Helens tore itself open in May 1980, killing 57 people and leaving the famous horse-shoe crater it has today.
Vesuvius, as we all know, left Pompeii, Herculaneum, and its peoples buried under ash for centuries.
Mount Tambora, erupting in April 1815, caused enough climactic abnormalities for 1816 to be dubbed the Year Without a Summer.
And yet, these are nothing to the havoc a super-volcano can cause. Far from creating a single year's worth of trouble, super-volcanoes can cause the Decade without a Summer. That's a volcanic winter ten years long!
But what are they exactly? Giant volcanoes, yes, but what makes them different? The technical definition is that a super volcano is any volcano capable of throwing out 1,000 cubic kilometres (240 cubic miles) of stuff in one sitting.
But there aren't just the massive calderas, like Yellowstone. There are also large igneous provinces, such as the Deccan Traps in India, and the Siberian Traps in the north. These are giant areas of basalt rock, laid down usually over millions of years from almost never-ending flood basalt eruptions (basalt is a type of volcanic rock).
But for the sakes of this post, I'll keep to the calderas we're all worried about. And here is where I'll get a bit ranty.
By far the best known super-volcano caldera lies under Yellowstone National Park; although mostly contained in Wyoming, it also stretches into Montana and Idaho. But that is just the park itself - the caldera is 50 miles long and 12 miles wide, or 80 km long and 20 km wide, according to research from 2013.
By the same research, this caldera has the potential to hold 4,000 cubic kilometres/ 940 cubic miles of "melt", although in 2013, this was only between 6 and 8% filled with molten rock. Despite believing that this amount of melt isn't enough to cause a super eruption, the caldera is still 2.5 times larger than scientists had originally believed.
BUT, Yellowstone is NOT the only super-volcano in the entire world. America isn't the only country with a fiery threat of doom grumbling beneath its feet.
There are a grand total of 6 super-volcanoes that are considered dormant or active in the world today, of which Yellowstone is only one. While America can't claim the privilege of having the one and only super-volcano, it DOES have the dubious honour of holding half of the world's super-volcanoes, being also home to the Long Valley caldera in east-central California (because being God's Etch-a-Sketch with the San Andreas just isn't enough) and the Valles caldera in New Mexico.
Elsewhere in the world, there is Lake Toba in Northern Sumatra, the Aira Caldera in Japan, and the Taupo caldera threatens all hobbits in New Zealand.
Of all of these, Aira has exploded most recently, at only 22,000 years ago. And to be fair, Yellowstone is considered to be one of the most dangerous of all super-volcanoes today, purely because it tends to have a cycle of a super-eruption every 600,000 to 800,000 years.
I'm sorry, but to say that just because it's been 640,000 years since the last eruption that Yellowstone is "overdue" is just ridiculous. Plus, super-volcanoes can give off "baby" eruptions. The last lava flow at Yellowstone was only 70,000 years ago! So I'd be more concerned for North America in about 170,000 years.
However, there is a super-volcano that dwarfs even Yellowstone. Lake Toba is the only super-volcano on earth that can not only be described as Yellowstone's big sister, but can also be seen from space.
When it last erupted 74,000 years ago, it ejected 2,800 cubic kilometres of detritus, and is thought to have killed off between 50 and 60% of the human population at the time (although the scientists are still arguing about this today).
To be honest, I'm not entirely worried about Lake Toba, Taupo, or the Aira Caldera. All have erupted within the last 100,000 years, and it takes at least that long for a super-volcano to get its spark back. Taupo last went off 26,500 years ago, and Aira went off much closer to today than that - so these two and Lake Toba are more likely to be sleeping for a few thousand years yet.
Yes Yellowstone is a potential threat today, but just because its alarm usually goes off around this time, it doesn't mean that Yellowstone is such a light sleeper.
Of more concern are Long Valley and the Valles calderas - Long Valley especially. Despite erupting 760,000 years ago, it gave off a swarm of strong earthquakes in the 1980s, as well as lifting 100 square miles of the caldera floor 10 inches. Then, in the 1990s, large amounts of carbon dioxide from magma below the surface began killing off trees in the Mammoth Mountain side of the caldera.
Scientists believe that this means that an eruption of some sort is years away at the very least, but more likely decades or even centuries. Valles Caldera is just as active today as well, heating thermal springs.
But both are still quite small for super-volcanoes. In their last eruptions, both threw out around 600 cubic km of ejecta - just below the 1,000 classification for a super-volcano, but still big enough to cause immediate difficulties for America, and climactic difficulties worldwide.
So as far as our apocalypse is concerned, yes super-volcanoes are a possible source for it to come from. But we have survived volcanism for at least 200,000 years, and our ancestors have survived it for the better part of 5 million years. The fact that we're so preoccupied with how humanity will end, it means that we run the risk of not enjoying our existence while we still can.
I mean, the dinosaurs were the top dogs for 160 million years, so there is absolutely no reason to suppose that we can't expect the same sort of winning streak. I suppose it boils down to something Khalil Gibran said:
"If your heart is a volcano, how shall you expect flowers to bloom?"
If we remain so concerned with how our world will end, by fire, by water, by events that are ultimately beyond our control, then we miss the beauty that is around us right now. This is the last depressing post for some time, I promise. Mount Depressive is dormant as of now!
The most famous volcanoes all have the same thing in common: Mount St. Helens, Krakatoa, Vesuvius, Mount Tambora.
They were all very, VERY explosive eruptions. Krakatoa wiped itself off the face of the earth with the loudest noise ever heard. The Australians could hear it - from 2,000 miles away.
Mount St. Helens tore itself open in May 1980, killing 57 people and leaving the famous horse-shoe crater it has today.
Vesuvius, as we all know, left Pompeii, Herculaneum, and its peoples buried under ash for centuries.
Mount Tambora, erupting in April 1815, caused enough climactic abnormalities for 1816 to be dubbed the Year Without a Summer.
And yet, these are nothing to the havoc a super-volcano can cause. Far from creating a single year's worth of trouble, super-volcanoes can cause the Decade without a Summer. That's a volcanic winter ten years long!
But what are they exactly? Giant volcanoes, yes, but what makes them different? The technical definition is that a super volcano is any volcano capable of throwing out 1,000 cubic kilometres (240 cubic miles) of stuff in one sitting.
But there aren't just the massive calderas, like Yellowstone. There are also large igneous provinces, such as the Deccan Traps in India, and the Siberian Traps in the north. These are giant areas of basalt rock, laid down usually over millions of years from almost never-ending flood basalt eruptions (basalt is a type of volcanic rock).
But for the sakes of this post, I'll keep to the calderas we're all worried about. And here is where I'll get a bit ranty.
By far the best known super-volcano caldera lies under Yellowstone National Park; although mostly contained in Wyoming, it also stretches into Montana and Idaho. But that is just the park itself - the caldera is 50 miles long and 12 miles wide, or 80 km long and 20 km wide, according to research from 2013.
By the same research, this caldera has the potential to hold 4,000 cubic kilometres/ 940 cubic miles of "melt", although in 2013, this was only between 6 and 8% filled with molten rock. Despite believing that this amount of melt isn't enough to cause a super eruption, the caldera is still 2.5 times larger than scientists had originally believed.
BUT, Yellowstone is NOT the only super-volcano in the entire world. America isn't the only country with a fiery threat of doom grumbling beneath its feet.
There are a grand total of 6 super-volcanoes that are considered dormant or active in the world today, of which Yellowstone is only one. While America can't claim the privilege of having the one and only super-volcano, it DOES have the dubious honour of holding half of the world's super-volcanoes, being also home to the Long Valley caldera in east-central California (because being God's Etch-a-Sketch with the San Andreas just isn't enough) and the Valles caldera in New Mexico.
Elsewhere in the world, there is Lake Toba in Northern Sumatra, the Aira Caldera in Japan, and the Taupo caldera threatens all hobbits in New Zealand.
Of all of these, Aira has exploded most recently, at only 22,000 years ago. And to be fair, Yellowstone is considered to be one of the most dangerous of all super-volcanoes today, purely because it tends to have a cycle of a super-eruption every 600,000 to 800,000 years.
I'm sorry, but to say that just because it's been 640,000 years since the last eruption that Yellowstone is "overdue" is just ridiculous. Plus, super-volcanoes can give off "baby" eruptions. The last lava flow at Yellowstone was only 70,000 years ago! So I'd be more concerned for North America in about 170,000 years.
However, there is a super-volcano that dwarfs even Yellowstone. Lake Toba is the only super-volcano on earth that can not only be described as Yellowstone's big sister, but can also be seen from space.
When it last erupted 74,000 years ago, it ejected 2,800 cubic kilometres of detritus, and is thought to have killed off between 50 and 60% of the human population at the time (although the scientists are still arguing about this today).
To be honest, I'm not entirely worried about Lake Toba, Taupo, or the Aira Caldera. All have erupted within the last 100,000 years, and it takes at least that long for a super-volcano to get its spark back. Taupo last went off 26,500 years ago, and Aira went off much closer to today than that - so these two and Lake Toba are more likely to be sleeping for a few thousand years yet.
Yes Yellowstone is a potential threat today, but just because its alarm usually goes off around this time, it doesn't mean that Yellowstone is such a light sleeper.
Of more concern are Long Valley and the Valles calderas - Long Valley especially. Despite erupting 760,000 years ago, it gave off a swarm of strong earthquakes in the 1980s, as well as lifting 100 square miles of the caldera floor 10 inches. Then, in the 1990s, large amounts of carbon dioxide from magma below the surface began killing off trees in the Mammoth Mountain side of the caldera.
Scientists believe that this means that an eruption of some sort is years away at the very least, but more likely decades or even centuries. Valles Caldera is just as active today as well, heating thermal springs.
But both are still quite small for super-volcanoes. In their last eruptions, both threw out around 600 cubic km of ejecta - just below the 1,000 classification for a super-volcano, but still big enough to cause immediate difficulties for America, and climactic difficulties worldwide.
So as far as our apocalypse is concerned, yes super-volcanoes are a possible source for it to come from. But we have survived volcanism for at least 200,000 years, and our ancestors have survived it for the better part of 5 million years. The fact that we're so preoccupied with how humanity will end, it means that we run the risk of not enjoying our existence while we still can.
I mean, the dinosaurs were the top dogs for 160 million years, so there is absolutely no reason to suppose that we can't expect the same sort of winning streak. I suppose it boils down to something Khalil Gibran said:
"If your heart is a volcano, how shall you expect flowers to bloom?"
If we remain so concerned with how our world will end, by fire, by water, by events that are ultimately beyond our control, then we miss the beauty that is around us right now. This is the last depressing post for some time, I promise. Mount Depressive is dormant as of now!
Wednesday 24 June 2015
Mortality Music: Part 2
This is a bit of a carry-on from the last post, and I promise this is as depressing and pessimistic as it will get (most likely.) Because there's been a lot of kerfuffle over how humanity will get snuffed out. Mayan prophecies, Christian prophecies, volcanoes, asteroids, blah blah blah.
But there are, as far I know, only four or so certifiable ways that humanity will end up facing its own demise. Each one is just as likely as the next, although some may be more so than others, and all are probably more realistic than what we see in movies. Frankly, I'd sooner believe the world being killed off by the cast of TOWIE than Arnold Schwarzenegger, but that's just me.
And we start off with the most likely:
1) SUICIDE BY WMD
I wish I was joking. Nuclear bombs are the first technology that could render humanity extinct by choice. In contrast, the dinosaurs had nothing to stop the KT asteroid from crashing into earth like a game of Russian Roulette going horrexifully wrong (well done if you got that).
Granted, the fact that we aren't all radiation-mutated zombies by now means that this isn't as serious a threat as we think, since most governments can be trusted to show some self restraint.
But then there are also bioweapons and nanotechnology. While the latter is still far off, the former is serious enough for agencies like the Dept. of Defence in America to begin investing in vaccines. If and when bioweapons become a reality, anybody with a few million of their chosen currency and some top scientists can create it, and it only takes two ideologues to bio-terrorize the human race into infinity (and beyond!)
2) SUICIDE BY ACCIDENT
Some people might think "Really? Accident?" but then, isn't that what global warming is, really? True, it might not drive us entirely extinct, but we can never fully predict the consequences of a dramatic increase in CO2 in the atmosphere. Either way, global warming will have a big impact whatever it does.
Fuel shortage, economic collapse, massive crop failure, all of these could lead to humanity kicking the proverbial bucket. The economy's failed in the past, and can do so again, fuel shortages means tough luck getting food around the world, and more so when the food isn't even around.
An interesting one for me was "suicide by strangelet". This is basically where the scientist try to create something, and end up creating rabid were-bunnies with chlamydia. Granted, it's most likely where physics gets experimented on, because that could blow the entire universe to shreds, but it's still possible from chemists or biologists.
And then there's technological advancement, to the point where we end up replacing ourselves with computers. Great fun, right?
3) MURDER
Now this one surprised me. The first one, not so much, though, because we could always get bumped off by aliens. We've practically been shouting to the universe where we are with a century's worth of radio signals, we've sent them scraps of a culture from 20 or 30 years ago, and more importantly, we sent bits of DNA up there with it. We've basically handed aliens our weaknesses on a plate.
The alternative scenario in this category is a "Wrath of God" type thing, which can happen in one of two ways. Either God does exist and he throws a Noah's Ark style temper tantrum, or we don't exist except as a virtual existence "game" on a giant computer and the plug gets pulled. Frankly, I'd bet on God's temper.
4) NATURAL DEATH
Of all the ways we could go, some of the ones in this category are by far the most interesting. There are Gamma Rays, caused by gamma ray bursters or supernovae, which puncture the ozone layer and thus kill off a lot of terrestrial species. There's the whole existential "we don't exist" shtick, which I don't buy at all.
The three most likely are asteroids, pandemics or a super volcano, which I will try and cover in another post very, very soon. Asteroids are famous for knocking off the dinosaurs from their proverbial perch, and even though the chances of an asteroid getting us in the near future are incredibly low, we haven't charted many of the comets and asteroids that could hit home.
That said, there's as high a chance as 1/300 of an asteroid large enough for human extinction to hit us in 2880 (good luck being alive to see that!) On top of that, there are many nuclear capable countries who haven't got the tech to tell the difference between a nuclear blast and an intergalactic dump. So the asteroids could spark a nuclear war too.
And then, there are pandemics. I'm not really talking about bird or swine flu, although those could always cross the human barrier at some point; I mean pandemics like the Black Death, the bubonic plague. Since the Black Death killed off over 33% of the European population when it first appeared in 1348, and some strains of the Ebola virus have a mortality rate of 90%. Pandemics are not to be taken lightly, and I say this as a daughter of doctors.
And since I plan on covering volcanoes, super or otherwise, in my next post, I leave you with a Joel C. Rosenberg quote:
"We are living on the brink of the apocalypse, but the world is asleep."
But there are, as far I know, only four or so certifiable ways that humanity will end up facing its own demise. Each one is just as likely as the next, although some may be more so than others, and all are probably more realistic than what we see in movies. Frankly, I'd sooner believe the world being killed off by the cast of TOWIE than Arnold Schwarzenegger, but that's just me.
And we start off with the most likely:
1) SUICIDE BY WMD
I wish I was joking. Nuclear bombs are the first technology that could render humanity extinct by choice. In contrast, the dinosaurs had nothing to stop the KT asteroid from crashing into earth like a game of Russian Roulette going horrexifully wrong (well done if you got that).
Granted, the fact that we aren't all radiation-mutated zombies by now means that this isn't as serious a threat as we think, since most governments can be trusted to show some self restraint.
But then there are also bioweapons and nanotechnology. While the latter is still far off, the former is serious enough for agencies like the Dept. of Defence in America to begin investing in vaccines. If and when bioweapons become a reality, anybody with a few million of their chosen currency and some top scientists can create it, and it only takes two ideologues to bio-terrorize the human race into infinity (and beyond!)
2) SUICIDE BY ACCIDENT
Some people might think "Really? Accident?" but then, isn't that what global warming is, really? True, it might not drive us entirely extinct, but we can never fully predict the consequences of a dramatic increase in CO2 in the atmosphere. Either way, global warming will have a big impact whatever it does.
Fuel shortage, economic collapse, massive crop failure, all of these could lead to humanity kicking the proverbial bucket. The economy's failed in the past, and can do so again, fuel shortages means tough luck getting food around the world, and more so when the food isn't even around.
An interesting one for me was "suicide by strangelet". This is basically where the scientist try to create something, and end up creating rabid were-bunnies with chlamydia. Granted, it's most likely where physics gets experimented on, because that could blow the entire universe to shreds, but it's still possible from chemists or biologists.
And then there's technological advancement, to the point where we end up replacing ourselves with computers. Great fun, right?
3) MURDER
Now this one surprised me. The first one, not so much, though, because we could always get bumped off by aliens. We've practically been shouting to the universe where we are with a century's worth of radio signals, we've sent them scraps of a culture from 20 or 30 years ago, and more importantly, we sent bits of DNA up there with it. We've basically handed aliens our weaknesses on a plate.
The alternative scenario in this category is a "Wrath of God" type thing, which can happen in one of two ways. Either God does exist and he throws a Noah's Ark style temper tantrum, or we don't exist except as a virtual existence "game" on a giant computer and the plug gets pulled. Frankly, I'd bet on God's temper.
4) NATURAL DEATH
Of all the ways we could go, some of the ones in this category are by far the most interesting. There are Gamma Rays, caused by gamma ray bursters or supernovae, which puncture the ozone layer and thus kill off a lot of terrestrial species. There's the whole existential "we don't exist" shtick, which I don't buy at all.
The three most likely are asteroids, pandemics or a super volcano, which I will try and cover in another post very, very soon. Asteroids are famous for knocking off the dinosaurs from their proverbial perch, and even though the chances of an asteroid getting us in the near future are incredibly low, we haven't charted many of the comets and asteroids that could hit home.
That said, there's as high a chance as 1/300 of an asteroid large enough for human extinction to hit us in 2880 (good luck being alive to see that!) On top of that, there are many nuclear capable countries who haven't got the tech to tell the difference between a nuclear blast and an intergalactic dump. So the asteroids could spark a nuclear war too.
And then, there are pandemics. I'm not really talking about bird or swine flu, although those could always cross the human barrier at some point; I mean pandemics like the Black Death, the bubonic plague. Since the Black Death killed off over 33% of the European population when it first appeared in 1348, and some strains of the Ebola virus have a mortality rate of 90%. Pandemics are not to be taken lightly, and I say this as a daughter of doctors.
And since I plan on covering volcanoes, super or otherwise, in my next post, I leave you with a Joel C. Rosenberg quote:
"We are living on the brink of the apocalypse, but the world is asleep."
Tuesday 23 June 2015
Sixth Mass Extinction Event: Time to face the Mortality Music
So, we've entered the sixth mass extinction phase, according to a study by Stanford, Princeton, and Berkeley Universities, all in America.
There have been five so far, including the famous asteroid collision that knocked off the dinosaurs 65 million years ago. While that is the best known, it wasn't the worst, having only killed off 65% of life alive at the time.
The absolute worst extinction event to date came at the end of the Permian era, famous for its Gorgonopsids, with the first sabre teeth; 96% of all life at the time died, leaving us descended from the 4% that survived.
While we can't ever be entirely sure what caused it, the Permian's Great Dying (no kidding - that's what scientists really call it) was, as most people believe, caused in two phases: Firstly, a massive eruption in Siberia, known today as the Siberian Traps. This was one of the biggest eruptions for the last 500 million years, lasting for 1 million years. This raised the land temperature by between 5 and 10 degrees, killing off most of the land animals.
The heat on-land also led to massive amounts of methane bubbles trapped in the oceans to be released, heating up the oceans and pushing global temperatures up even higher, and killing off large amounts of marine life as well.
While the extinction event today probably - hopefully - won't be as bad, it still won't be good by any standards.
400 species have gone extinct since 1900. That sort of disappearing act usually happens within nature over 10,000 years. There's no doubt that this extinction event has been brought on, perhaps sooner than it would have happened, by mankind, what with the Industrial Revolution, global warming and pollution, and climate change. This doesn't mean that we're all going to be dead before fish and chip lunches on Friday, like hell we are.
It just means that if we don't do something very, very soon - as in five minutes ago - then we might find it very difficult to bounce back from this as humanity has done from curve-balls thrown at us in the past. Granted, it will take a tonne of work, and there will be people throwing hissy fits, but it needs to be done. And even if we succeed, we're only putting off the inevitable end of our world. Walter Hagen, I think, gives fantastic advice on living life:
"You're only here for a short visit. Don't hurry, don't worry. And do be sure to smell the flowers along the way."
But Alan Ball sums up our reaction to mortality best:
"As a culture, we are not comfortable with mortality. We do not accept it the way other cultures do. We cling to youth, and we don't want to die. And it's like, 'Well, too bad. We do'"
Some day, humanity will go the way of the dinosaurs, despite our superiority complex. We do have one, thinking that because we're at the top of the food chain, we're invincible. But someday we'll fall off our perch, most likely because we've cut it down ourselves and nature doesn't care, something else will take our place. We can only hope to have a similar run to the dinosaurs, if not longer.
There have been five so far, including the famous asteroid collision that knocked off the dinosaurs 65 million years ago. While that is the best known, it wasn't the worst, having only killed off 65% of life alive at the time.
The absolute worst extinction event to date came at the end of the Permian era, famous for its Gorgonopsids, with the first sabre teeth; 96% of all life at the time died, leaving us descended from the 4% that survived.
While we can't ever be entirely sure what caused it, the Permian's Great Dying (no kidding - that's what scientists really call it) was, as most people believe, caused in two phases: Firstly, a massive eruption in Siberia, known today as the Siberian Traps. This was one of the biggest eruptions for the last 500 million years, lasting for 1 million years. This raised the land temperature by between 5 and 10 degrees, killing off most of the land animals.
The heat on-land also led to massive amounts of methane bubbles trapped in the oceans to be released, heating up the oceans and pushing global temperatures up even higher, and killing off large amounts of marine life as well.
While the extinction event today probably - hopefully - won't be as bad, it still won't be good by any standards.
400 species have gone extinct since 1900. That sort of disappearing act usually happens within nature over 10,000 years. There's no doubt that this extinction event has been brought on, perhaps sooner than it would have happened, by mankind, what with the Industrial Revolution, global warming and pollution, and climate change. This doesn't mean that we're all going to be dead before fish and chip lunches on Friday, like hell we are.
It just means that if we don't do something very, very soon - as in five minutes ago - then we might find it very difficult to bounce back from this as humanity has done from curve-balls thrown at us in the past. Granted, it will take a tonne of work, and there will be people throwing hissy fits, but it needs to be done. And even if we succeed, we're only putting off the inevitable end of our world. Walter Hagen, I think, gives fantastic advice on living life:
"You're only here for a short visit. Don't hurry, don't worry. And do be sure to smell the flowers along the way."
But Alan Ball sums up our reaction to mortality best:
"As a culture, we are not comfortable with mortality. We do not accept it the way other cultures do. We cling to youth, and we don't want to die. And it's like, 'Well, too bad. We do'"
Some day, humanity will go the way of the dinosaurs, despite our superiority complex. We do have one, thinking that because we're at the top of the food chain, we're invincible. But someday we'll fall off our perch, most likely because we've cut it down ourselves and nature doesn't care, something else will take our place. We can only hope to have a similar run to the dinosaurs, if not longer.
Monday 22 June 2015
Stupidity: A great test in self-control
I mentioned a few posts ago that one of the things I hated with a true passion was stupidity.
Before I go any further, though, I have to say to any national security-associated agencies that any murder or serious crimes discussed here are purely theoretical. I am not about to go on any murderous rampage or crime spree.
My problem is that there are a lot of stupid - or at the very least superficial - people who are considered role models.
The cast of shows like TOWIE, MIC, Jersey and Jeordie Shore, are just some of them. How is it that a man who can't even tell the time has become a household name in the UK? This same man should be kept in primary school until he can one, tell the time, and two, talk without an accent that makes me want to stuff my ears with nitroglycerin and a lit match.
My other pet hate is Katie Price, AKA Jordan. This woman is famous for only two things:
A) her unholy obsession with pink.
B) Her tits,
And frankly, I have no interest in either. I've heard people say "Oh, but she's a fantastic businessperson!"
Yeah, well, so is Sir Alan Sugar, and he didn't have to get his dick out to become a fantastic businessman!
Katie Price and the cast of TV shows like the ones I've mentioned above should disappear, because they'll be responsible for a generation of brainless bimbos and whores. They'll spawn a generation who have unhealthy obsessions with big boobs and perverted sex, but think that electricity is caused by fairies farting on the National Grid.
If I were a total pessimist, I'd say they are, single handedly, the most probable cause of the Apocalypse and the extinction of humanity.
But I'm not going to rant only about famous cases of stupidity. I'm also hateful of the everyday kind of stupid people, who turn up on Jeremy Kyle surprised that unprotected sex leads to legions of unwanted, if not only unexpected babies.
Here's where I absolutely WISH, with all my heart, that forced time in a monastery or a nunnery was a compulsory thing, because of the following:
1) Monasteries and nunneries are two ENTIRELY different places. Monasteries are for monks, or male nuns. Nunneries are women only places, but both place equal value on chastity. If anything, these places can teach more self control than health ed teachers screaming "DON'T HAVE SEX! IT'LL TURN YOU INTO THE HULK!" at teenagers through megaphones.
2) They are more than likely to teach respect for other people. I know that the Church has had a lot of stick for paedophilia, and Islam has had a lot more stick because of the nutters known as ISIS, but stupidity makes dicks of us all.
Please, PLEASE don't think I'm mistaking stupidity for ignorance, here. Stupidity is inherent, almost genetic. Ignorance can be fixed by locking the ignorant individual in a half decent, non-fiction library for a week with the relevant amount of food and water, and no access to the internet.
My other category for stupid people is people who take religion as an absolute truth. The kind of people like the Westboro Baptist Church who hate gays, soldiers, and just about everybody.
To these people I have two points to make. Firstly, you can't really hate gays when your Messiah had two dads, and turned out just fine. In fact, it can be said that you've made a bigger fuss of him for the last 2,000 years than you've done for gay people. Secondly, you're stupid if you think that gays, your Son of Man aside, are going to make shit parents simply because they can't have kids.
My evidence: all of the "good couples" who put their kids up for adoption. Let gay couples adopt all of the kids that are put into the system, and we might just prevent some crimes further down the line.
Secondly, if you've got such a big problem with soldiers, then go fight their battles for them. If you come back, and still have a problem with them, then maybe I'll actually stop thinking that your argument's a stupid one.
Because here's a nasty reminder for you: Religion has caused more than its fair share of wars, not to mention persecution. But I've already covered religion, and recently, so stupid religious people can step back out of the spotlight once again.
My point is, looks mean nothing if you have nothing to back them up. Granted, Audrey Hepburn is remembered almost entirely for her looks and her acting career. But I respect her enormously - no, she is my ROLE MODEL because she sacrificed her career for her as yet unborn children, became a UNICEF Goodwill ambassador, all after dancing ballet to collect money for the Dutch resistance during World War II, and even acting as their courier on occasion.
She was never a stupid woman, regardless of how often she was chosen for movie parts due to her looks. She was smart, she was capable, she was big-hearted, she was brave time and again in her life.
As Frank Zappa once pointed out:
"There is more stupidity than hydrogen in the universe, and it has a longer shelf life."
Much as I hope both he and I get proved wrong, I fear all too much that he's right.
Saturday 20 June 2015
Nerd it like You mean it!!
So I've noticed that all my posts have been very serious at best, if not outright depressing. The only remedy is, of course, to talk about something less depressing, so naturally, it's time to talk about getting nerdy.
But I'm not talking about the stereotypes we have of nerdy people: The pasty-faced kid at the back of the class with the glasses, 15 different allergies and a science textbook superglued to his face.
And I'm not talking about the girls who pretend to be nerdy because they're wearing the thick-frame glasses with no glass in the eyes.
Because "nerdisms", as I call them, aren't all about stuffy scientists or fake glasses. Everybody has a thing they go all nerdy about. Take me, for example: A twenty-something woman who's nerdy about dinosaurs, volcanoes, prehistory and the Ancient Egyptians, although dinosaurs are basically prehistory. It's a running joke that I'll be over the moon when they find a dinosaur, in Egypt, next to a volcano.
But they already kind of did that when they found Spinosaurus Aegypticus: a carnivorous dinosaur found in Egypt, only with no volcano in sight (bummer), and yes, it's that dinosaur famous for trashing a T-Rex in Jurassic Park III.
Now, I'll stop myself from going into a lecture about dinosaurs, Egyptian or otherwise, to shout something at all the nerd-haters: It's OK to be a nerd. Calling someone a nerd isn't even an insult, even by today's standards; we just laugh, say "yeah, whatever" and walk away.
But there is this implication of nerds being anti-social at worst, awkward at best, and here is where my two absolute favourite nerds come in: My uncle, and my granddad. Both are somewhat nerds in the more traditional sense: Granddad was a chemistry buff, my uncle's a soon-to-be-retired theoretical physicist. Granddad managed to branch out to being a nerd in mnemonics, the English language, crossword puzzles, Sudoku and jokes, both dirty and clean; uncle worked on the Hadron Collider in Switzerland, and both are as sociable as the proverbial social butterfly.
So here's something for nerds around the globe to hear and remember: You are the coolest people in the world. Whether you're a nerd about physics or photography, sociology or salsa, technology or tequila, you show off your nerdism like you're on a catwalk for the nerding world.
And there is NO SHAME WHATSOEVER in being a nerd. Shout it at your parents - my dad would probably die if I did, but do it - shout it at your friends who fake it, shout it to the whole wide world, and then go back to nerding like you do best.
Granted, there are different kinds of nerds - science nerds, history nerds, fashion nerds, but my point is: Nerds are people who know stuff. Nerds will be in charge one day purely because they possess the know-how.
And it honestly doesn't matter if you end up losing friends over your nerdisms. Hell, I've forgotten almost all my friends from secondary school, mostly because they were evil. But my best friend in the entire world has known me for the better part of 15 years, and despite all my nerdisms, she puts up with it, and even joins in. But nerds are powerful people, as Peter Drucker rightly points out:
"Today, knowledge has power. It controls access to opportunity and advancement."
So nerdy people, rejoice! You've got the knowledge, which means you got the power, with all the Bruce Almighty-ness that that implies! All I ask is that you ignore the people who say nerds aren't cool, and keep at it.
Friday 19 June 2015
Hate Crimes - No place in our society, today or ever.
Dear GOD, America! When will you ever learn that hate crimes aren't cool?
Let's face it, the 2nd Amendment and all the lah-di-dah about Americans having the right to bear arms was always going to be a difficult amendment to control, but this isn't about bearing arms - whether mechanical or regular arms.
With the guy in Charleston, South Carolina, we see yet again that humans can be absolute shit-heads. I know I probably should watch my language, but I hate three things with a total and pure passion:
1) Racism
2) Hypocrisy
3) Stupidity
But for now, I'll only rant about racism. We're all the same red blood and white bone underneath, HELLO!!!! And when you consider that we all live or "originated" in different climates - dark skinned people from warm climates ergo they have dark skin so they lose the heat quickly - the only problem we have with each other is a cultural thing.
And here's the real kick in the teeth to all the racists out there - WE ALL CAME FROM AFRICA ORIGINALLY!!!!!!
Yep, you read me right - your ancestors from 200,000 generations ago (yeah, I counted, boohoo) were living in the Great African Rift Valley running from Asia, right down into South-Eastern Africa.
Granted, it could have been anywhere else: Africa was only a lucky winner in a game of continental chance. Even we as a species only got lucky because of India sailing north, crashing into the notch between the Middle East and Asia and creating the Himalayas.
This in turn caused some pretty wet weather called the monsoons, which stripped Africa, a pretty swampy jungle-y country at the time, of all the moisture in the air, and dried it out. Which mean most of the trees disappeared, and our tree-climbing ancestors had to come down to earth.
My point is, we all called Africa home for a period of time before anywhere else in the entire world.
And no doubt I'm not the first to say this, but African-American people, African-British people, African-whatever people, wherever they hail from - THEY AREN'T ALL BAD. And white people are just as capable of evil as anybody else. How do I know this? Well, if any racists out there have heard of Hitler, Stalin, Mussolini, Elizabeth Bathory, Vlad Dracula (No, not the fanged guy), then they know, like the rest of us, exactly what they did: They killed millions of their own people, WHITE people as well as black.
And here's the kicker, racists: All of the above were... WHITE!!! Shocker.
Even Dylann Roof Storm, the would-be mass murderer (I'm not trying to insult anyone, but mass murder to me is 20 dead people and above), admitted that he "almost didn't go through with" a planned rampage six months in the making because "everyone was so nice to him."
If anything, a racist murdering twat saying that about his victims should absolutely make any racist think twice about their perceptions of the human race, especially of those they are determined to hate.
I absolutely admit that I have been somewhat racist in thought. But racists are perhaps the existing proof of what Albert Camus once said:
"The evil that is in the world almost always comes of ignorance. Good intentions may do as much harm as malevolence if they lack understanding."
I hope the victims of the massacre at the historic Emanuel African Methodist Episcopal Church in Charleston, South Carolina will rest in peace, and I am sure that the prayers and condolences of the enormous majority of the human race go out to their families, friends, and the members of their community.
Monday 15 June 2015
Jurassic World - Dinosaurs are never coming back!
That's right, we may all be dino-demented, but I very highly seriously doubt Velociraptor Vacations are going to come to an island near you.
I will be the first to admit that I don't know much about palaeontology, and less about genetics (having the birds and bees talk was bad enough, OK), but I know enough to have an opinion.
SO, let's give the basics of how we get fossils today. Giant comet smashes into the Yucatan Peninsula off the coast of Mexico, and all the plants go "nope, can't take this shit" and spontaneously combust. No kidding, that's genuinely what scientists think happen because of the shock wave coming out of the impact site.
All the herbivores slowly die of starvation, and the carnivores live it up for a few months, maybe a few years, only they end up dying too. So all the dinosaurs end up in the ground, and the calcium, the stuff that makes up their bones, gets slowly replaced by rock. The dinosaurs, in essence, get stoned.
But what happens to the DNA? Well, as the bones become rock, the DNA gets eroded. It becomes as extinct as the dinosaurs it made. In all the time we've known about dinosaurs which is about 100 or 200 years, I've only ever heard of one example of dino DNA actually being found, and even that couldn't make more than Terry the friendly T-Rex dino ghost.
So, dinosaurs unfortunately or otherwise, are dead. For good. At least in my lifetime; Mother Nature may end up pulling a Lazarus the dead man on them.
But what about what came after the dinosaurs? It took about 10 or 15 million years for the dust to settle and by then, the mammals had taken over except for a brief period of man-sized birds ruling the proverbial roost.
But even those early mammals we can't bring back. Scientists reckon that the earliest animals we could conceivably bring back would be from between 10,000 and 15,000 years ago at the absolute farthest, and from 6,000 years ago at the absolute closest.
Which means all of the following are up for coming back: the dodos, mammoths, sabre tooth cats, ptero-birds, cave lions, woolly rhino, the giant elk Megaceros or Megaloceros, the giant ground sloths, and even our own ancestors from the earliest, the Australopithecus, right down to the Neanderthals.
Naturally, I'm as excited as anybody about this. But I think there are some we shouldn't really bring back. The mammoths I think shouldn't come back, because their history is so close to ours. They lived and died alongside us - hell, they were still alive when the Egyptians were building the pyramids (no, I'm not joking!).
I also think we shouldn't try bringing back any of our ancestors, simply because it'd be too confusing: modern humans living alongside the first noticeably human like apes? Gads, it's a headache in the making.
That being said, I can understand bringing back a few of each hominid species for research purposes. Call it cruel, but then curiosity often is. I suppose this is basically summed up by Toba Beta's warning:
"[The] Prehistory of mankind is way too horrible to be remembered. But if we choose to ignore it, then we'll be doomed to repeat it."
And that is basically why I'm a fan of prehistory. At some point, we're doomed to drop a few notches on the food chain. Like we were in prehistory.
I will be the first to admit that I don't know much about palaeontology, and less about genetics (having the birds and bees talk was bad enough, OK), but I know enough to have an opinion.
SO, let's give the basics of how we get fossils today. Giant comet smashes into the Yucatan Peninsula off the coast of Mexico, and all the plants go "nope, can't take this shit" and spontaneously combust. No kidding, that's genuinely what scientists think happen because of the shock wave coming out of the impact site.
All the herbivores slowly die of starvation, and the carnivores live it up for a few months, maybe a few years, only they end up dying too. So all the dinosaurs end up in the ground, and the calcium, the stuff that makes up their bones, gets slowly replaced by rock. The dinosaurs, in essence, get stoned.
But what happens to the DNA? Well, as the bones become rock, the DNA gets eroded. It becomes as extinct as the dinosaurs it made. In all the time we've known about dinosaurs which is about 100 or 200 years, I've only ever heard of one example of dino DNA actually being found, and even that couldn't make more than Terry the friendly T-Rex dino ghost.
So, dinosaurs unfortunately or otherwise, are dead. For good. At least in my lifetime; Mother Nature may end up pulling a Lazarus the dead man on them.
But what about what came after the dinosaurs? It took about 10 or 15 million years for the dust to settle and by then, the mammals had taken over except for a brief period of man-sized birds ruling the proverbial roost.
But even those early mammals we can't bring back. Scientists reckon that the earliest animals we could conceivably bring back would be from between 10,000 and 15,000 years ago at the absolute farthest, and from 6,000 years ago at the absolute closest.
Which means all of the following are up for coming back: the dodos, mammoths, sabre tooth cats, ptero-birds, cave lions, woolly rhino, the giant elk Megaceros or Megaloceros, the giant ground sloths, and even our own ancestors from the earliest, the Australopithecus, right down to the Neanderthals.
Naturally, I'm as excited as anybody about this. But I think there are some we shouldn't really bring back. The mammoths I think shouldn't come back, because their history is so close to ours. They lived and died alongside us - hell, they were still alive when the Egyptians were building the pyramids (no, I'm not joking!).
I also think we shouldn't try bringing back any of our ancestors, simply because it'd be too confusing: modern humans living alongside the first noticeably human like apes? Gads, it's a headache in the making.
That being said, I can understand bringing back a few of each hominid species for research purposes. Call it cruel, but then curiosity often is. I suppose this is basically summed up by Toba Beta's warning:
"[The] Prehistory of mankind is way too horrible to be remembered. But if we choose to ignore it, then we'll be doomed to repeat it."
And that is basically why I'm a fan of prehistory. At some point, we're doomed to drop a few notches on the food chain. Like we were in prehistory.
Thursday 11 June 2015
ISIS - Why religion has gone wrong
OK, first things first - I in no way hate religion, or religious people. Yes, I am an atheist, but because I always felt like I had religion, particularly Christianity, forced down my throat. But this is not why I hate ISIS or, as it's known now, Islamic State.
Before I go on, I have to say that just because I hate ISIS, doesn't mean I hate Islam as a whole. There are many people that I have met over my life, plenty of whom have been, openly or otherwise, Muslim, and have never given me offence, given any reason for me to be offended, or had cause to be offended by me while we knew each other.
In fact, it would probably be better for me to say I hate the extremism PORTRAYED for the moment by ISIS. Before ISIS, it was Al-Qaeda, but now it's ISIS.
Now, as usual, I will try and define ISIS in basic terms. Within Islam, to my knowledge, there are two faction that are more often than not at loggerheads with each other: Sunni Islam, which is the main branch of Islam, and Shia Islam.
Shia Muslims believe that Mohammed's cousin and son-in-law Ali became his successor in the Caliphate, or Islamic government when Mohammed died, whereas Sunni Muslims accepted Mohammed's father-in-law , Abu Bakr as the first Muslim Caliph, or President/ Prime Minister. Now of the two, Sunni Islam is the more "popular", with Sunni Muslims making up 87-90% of the world's Muslim population in 2009.
ISIS is part of what's known as the Salafi movement, which is part of Sunni Islam, and is, as far as I can tell, has a strict and puritanical approach to Islam. At the risk of being totally ignorant, it's a bit like the beef between Catholics and Protestants during the reign of Henry the 8th, only for Islam. They just don't like all the fancy frou-frou bells and whistles of worship.
But I don't have a problem with what Islam and ISIS stand for. After all, they're going through a difference of opinions; nothing that Christianity hasn't done before.
What I DO have a problem with, though, is that ISIS is trying to force their religion on anybody and everybody they come across, and anyone who tells them to feck off and do one is immediately branded an infidel and bumped off.
My even bigger problem with ISIS is their determination to destroy anything and everything that is pre-Islamic in the Middle East and the entire world, like their threat to destroy the Tower of Pisa.
I loathe anyone who denies any part of history. People who say the Holocaust didn't happen, I loathe. Idiots who believe the world is only 2,015 years old, I loathe, although I'll admit that idiocy happens. I'll have to live with that. What I really struggle with is why ISIS has to destroy history because it doesn't fit with religion.
And the reason I struggle with it is, ironically, because of the odd bits of history that I do know. Like the fact that, despite the bloody history between Christianity and Islam, the Ottoman Turks managed to conquer parts of Eastern Europe up to Transylvania (where they had their plans buggered by a particularly bloodthirsty prince Dracula - can't think who he is!).
Besides conquering Christian territory, they didn't give a damn about religion. All they really asked for was taxes, tributes, and soldiers for more wars. At a time when violence was a more visceral and up-close part of life than it is today, they afforded as much religious tolerance as they could give, and that was that.
I highly doubt that ISIS will stop destroying their own history. I have no doubt, though, that they will eventually regret it, and I dare to hope that they will pay the price for it. After all, in the last 10,000 years or so, we've gone through countless religions, from believing there are gods in all forms of nature, to believing in gods with animal heads, to monotheism.
Only whatever gods are out there know what we'll be believing and worshipping 10,000 years from now. But 10,000 years from now, history will be just as priceless as it is now. Because it makes sense of the world we have now. Religion is just a security blanket for what may or may not come after we close our eyes for the final time.
With all the religious disturbance going on today, I'm put in mind of something wonderful that H.L. Mencken said, and something that I try to live by now that I'm non-religious. I'm not religious because of two reasons:
1) I refuse to believe, or continue to believe, in any and all religions that ask us to kill each other for their own gain. Granted, this is exactly what ISIS is guilty of today, but Christianity has been just as guilty of it in the past, in the Crusades, and in its persecution of the Druids and the "pagans" of Ireland and Britain.
2) For centuries, religion has tried to pigeon-hole the population into its own definitions of how to live a "good life". For me, that is basically intrinsic in have a sense of morality. I have my own moral code, thanks, and that is summed up in three words: Compassion, Tolerance, Empathy.
I will give the respect that I get, and it is that sentiment that H.L. Mencken expressed so wonderfully for me:
"Morality is doing right, no matter what you are told. Religion is doing what you are told, no matter what is right."
Yes, there might be a God waiting for me when I die. And I will more than happily tell him as much to explain why I haven't believed in him. But the chances are he doesn't exist, or he isn't alone. Either way, more than one someone is going to lose out on that bet. And where religion has gone wrong is living up to Jesus Christ's basic tenet: Do unto others as you would be done by.
So I have no love of ISIS because, despite fighting and killing and committing war crimes in the name of Islam and Mohammed, they aren't really fighting for his principles, as he said in his final sermon:
"All mankind is from Adam and Eve; an Arab has no superiority over a non-Arab nor a non-Arab has any superiority over an Arab; also a white has no superiority over black nor a black has any superiority over white except by piety and good action."
So ISIS can call me an infidel and a non believer and an apostate all they want. Until they live up to their own Prophet's principles and words, I can only respect the Muslims that live up to Mohammed's request for "piety and good action".
Before I go on, I have to say that just because I hate ISIS, doesn't mean I hate Islam as a whole. There are many people that I have met over my life, plenty of whom have been, openly or otherwise, Muslim, and have never given me offence, given any reason for me to be offended, or had cause to be offended by me while we knew each other.
In fact, it would probably be better for me to say I hate the extremism PORTRAYED for the moment by ISIS. Before ISIS, it was Al-Qaeda, but now it's ISIS.
Now, as usual, I will try and define ISIS in basic terms. Within Islam, to my knowledge, there are two faction that are more often than not at loggerheads with each other: Sunni Islam, which is the main branch of Islam, and Shia Islam.
Shia Muslims believe that Mohammed's cousin and son-in-law Ali became his successor in the Caliphate, or Islamic government when Mohammed died, whereas Sunni Muslims accepted Mohammed's father-in-law , Abu Bakr as the first Muslim Caliph, or President/ Prime Minister. Now of the two, Sunni Islam is the more "popular", with Sunni Muslims making up 87-90% of the world's Muslim population in 2009.
ISIS is part of what's known as the Salafi movement, which is part of Sunni Islam, and is, as far as I can tell, has a strict and puritanical approach to Islam. At the risk of being totally ignorant, it's a bit like the beef between Catholics and Protestants during the reign of Henry the 8th, only for Islam. They just don't like all the fancy frou-frou bells and whistles of worship.
But I don't have a problem with what Islam and ISIS stand for. After all, they're going through a difference of opinions; nothing that Christianity hasn't done before.
What I DO have a problem with, though, is that ISIS is trying to force their religion on anybody and everybody they come across, and anyone who tells them to feck off and do one is immediately branded an infidel and bumped off.
My even bigger problem with ISIS is their determination to destroy anything and everything that is pre-Islamic in the Middle East and the entire world, like their threat to destroy the Tower of Pisa.
I loathe anyone who denies any part of history. People who say the Holocaust didn't happen, I loathe. Idiots who believe the world is only 2,015 years old, I loathe, although I'll admit that idiocy happens. I'll have to live with that. What I really struggle with is why ISIS has to destroy history because it doesn't fit with religion.
And the reason I struggle with it is, ironically, because of the odd bits of history that I do know. Like the fact that, despite the bloody history between Christianity and Islam, the Ottoman Turks managed to conquer parts of Eastern Europe up to Transylvania (where they had their plans buggered by a particularly bloodthirsty prince Dracula - can't think who he is!).
Besides conquering Christian territory, they didn't give a damn about religion. All they really asked for was taxes, tributes, and soldiers for more wars. At a time when violence was a more visceral and up-close part of life than it is today, they afforded as much religious tolerance as they could give, and that was that.
I highly doubt that ISIS will stop destroying their own history. I have no doubt, though, that they will eventually regret it, and I dare to hope that they will pay the price for it. After all, in the last 10,000 years or so, we've gone through countless religions, from believing there are gods in all forms of nature, to believing in gods with animal heads, to monotheism.
Only whatever gods are out there know what we'll be believing and worshipping 10,000 years from now. But 10,000 years from now, history will be just as priceless as it is now. Because it makes sense of the world we have now. Religion is just a security blanket for what may or may not come after we close our eyes for the final time.
With all the religious disturbance going on today, I'm put in mind of something wonderful that H.L. Mencken said, and something that I try to live by now that I'm non-religious. I'm not religious because of two reasons:
1) I refuse to believe, or continue to believe, in any and all religions that ask us to kill each other for their own gain. Granted, this is exactly what ISIS is guilty of today, but Christianity has been just as guilty of it in the past, in the Crusades, and in its persecution of the Druids and the "pagans" of Ireland and Britain.
2) For centuries, religion has tried to pigeon-hole the population into its own definitions of how to live a "good life". For me, that is basically intrinsic in have a sense of morality. I have my own moral code, thanks, and that is summed up in three words: Compassion, Tolerance, Empathy.
I will give the respect that I get, and it is that sentiment that H.L. Mencken expressed so wonderfully for me:
"Morality is doing right, no matter what you are told. Religion is doing what you are told, no matter what is right."
Yes, there might be a God waiting for me when I die. And I will more than happily tell him as much to explain why I haven't believed in him. But the chances are he doesn't exist, or he isn't alone. Either way, more than one someone is going to lose out on that bet. And where religion has gone wrong is living up to Jesus Christ's basic tenet: Do unto others as you would be done by.
So I have no love of ISIS because, despite fighting and killing and committing war crimes in the name of Islam and Mohammed, they aren't really fighting for his principles, as he said in his final sermon:
"All mankind is from Adam and Eve; an Arab has no superiority over a non-Arab nor a non-Arab has any superiority over an Arab; also a white has no superiority over black nor a black has any superiority over white except by piety and good action."
So ISIS can call me an infidel and a non believer and an apostate all they want. Until they live up to their own Prophet's principles and words, I can only respect the Muslims that live up to Mohammed's request for "piety and good action".
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