Saturday, April 26, 2008

[thought for the day] saturday evening


Three o'clock is always too late or too early for anything you want to do.

[Jean-Paul Sartre, 1938]


... unless, of course, you want to call the Lizard Queen. If she does not manage the nomination, I feel we should all call her, on successive nights, at 3.a.m., on a roster basis, to offer our condolences.

3 a.m. is also the time my U.S. readers start to overtake the U.K. readers and are roughly equal in proportion:


3 a.m. is also a nice time for cuddling your one and only:


... or when you stare, alone, into the log fire, with that glass of cheer in your hand:


... or when you get over to Grendel's place to watch this classic clip:


... or when the Morlocks come for you:


The possibilities are endless.

[housekeeping] some celebratory notes

There was a Bunny birthday recently and I missed it. Oh woe. There was also a Rob birthday and I missed it. Oh double woe.

I nearly missed my father's day of demise [April 26th] but my header at least is a memorial in itself. Well I didn't miss it but got round to posting about it late. Hope the party was good up there, Dad.

Glimmer of light in that other matter which shall remain cryptic as I don't wish to think of it on this happy occasion.

Which leads to the main dish of the day - Easter and the renewal. This is the day we're now coming into when He rose from the dead and conquered death:

Христос Воскрес. Воистину Воскрес!

People of an Orthodox ilk round this neck of the woods are at the local Khram or Sobor and doing the all-night candle vigil.

Call me a choker but I think I'll just blog on the matter and do my own little vigil.

Missed the whole painted egg show this time round but do have the kulich [pictured below]. This is very light bread with icing on top and yummy with butter.

So young lady and family have gone without me as I crashed six hours ago and just woke up. Let me just check the answer machine - hmmm, nothing. They might have forgotten me. Such is life.

Just check the e-mail. Yo - she wrote. That's nice but it was hours ago.


Orthodox Kulich [below] is pretty yummy but has no preservatives or chemicals of any kind and thus is only good for the one day, after which it dries up very quickly. It's their equivalent of the hot cross bun.

[national identity] time the namby-pambyness stopped


This is not a post about power plugs but power plugs do help us understand national mentalities.

Above is the British standard and the plug itself is a work of art. Huge, square and chunky, with beefy pins set perpendicularly to the long, overkill-design earth pin, the designers would say, "Well, it's electricity, init, mate? Can't muck about with electricity, can we?"

Note the two tone, partly protected live pins as well.

The British mentality is to fret over the least thing, to over-legislate to circumvent the direst imaginngs and to take pleasures tepidly, for fear of exciting the senses. Take something like a political demonstration, for example. The least sign of precipitation, the chance of leaves on the line or heaven forbid, even the wrong leaves and that's it, matey. No demo.

Lord Somber has kindly despatched a copy of a Pajamas article on this matter:

The news this week that authorities in the English city of Bradford had apparently banned a St. George’s Day parade by schoolchildren because it might offend local Muslims appeared at first sight to be yet another example of timid British officialdom caving in to the demands of extremists.

The parade story was reported by several UK newspapers, and picked up by the blogosphere. The response was predictable ... but because Pajamas asked me to write about the story I spent some time reading the various reports in detail, and particularly reports from Bradford’s local media. And a rather different picture of events emerged.

Organizers had been planning the event with a local police team for some months, but last week the city council, citing police advice from higher up, said the event could not go ahead as planned because of “health and safety” concerns. In true Hillary Clinton fashion, they added that the decision had been taken “in the interests of the children.”

What appears far more likely — and what the parade organizers are saying — is that senior police officers failed to communicate with their colleagues who were involved in planning the event, and when they learned of the proposed route they became concerned that troublemakers, whether Muslim extremists or members of far-right groups, might have taken advantage of the parade to stir up trouble.

But if the police really feared violence they should have supervised the parade in sufficient strength to ensure that they were able to deal with it. Instead they gave in — not to extremism, and not even to the threat of extremism, but to the mere notion of extremism

The irony, of course, is that one of the aims of the event was to bring young people from different ethnic and religious backgrounds together, with the aim of eradicating the distrust that leads to the kind of trouble the police apparently feared.

There’s a legitimate debate going on in Britain about the failure of Muslims and other immigrants to assimilate, but it’s not helped by the authorities, or the media, looking for problems where they don’t exist.

At the end of a report on Wednesday’s St. George’s Day celebrations, the BBC News website invited the public to send in photos and video of events — street parties, fancy dress parades, and the like — with the following disclaimer: “Do not endanger yourself or others, take any unnecessary risks or infringe any laws.”

The more gung-ho Americans would raise an eyebrow at this at the very least - at least those of a certain mentality would. However I think the same mollycoddling pc-ishness is at large over there. If you see a potential problem float past on the wind, rush out and nail it down in a plethora of legislation.

You have to wonder about the short-sightedness. Whether or not Muslims have any intention of "assimilating", to include Muslim youth in the 2000 schoolkids marching on St. George's day would have been a filip at the least, for this goal.

But to cancel the march - well that also cancels any possibility of progress, let alone robbing the marchers of the moral high ground where any attack would have been roundly condemned by all communities.

I noticed one of the commenters speak of multi-culturalism but I beg to differ. Take Australia, for example which, despite its claims, is not truly multi-cultural - it is a broadened culture which is still recognizably Australian. Despite British supposed inability to find cultural identity these days, this is surely rubbish. Of course there is a recognizably British tradition and English tradition which transcends the current nationality issue.

It's what parents in the colonies sent their kids to boarding schools to experience and what millions of visitors each year also come to experience. It includes St. George, tea, fish 'n chips and Trafalgar Square, Oxford and Cambridge, to name some things and requires no apology from any Brit of whatever hue.

[assumptions] things are not always as they seem


You know, when I went round the blogs in the last few days, the number of bloggers referring to "posting will be lighter" and who seem to have issues was eyebrow raising.

The bottom line is that we never know what's really going down inside with fellow bloggers or even friends in RL. A glance across at MyBlogLog here and I could name five of those immediately where I suspect things aren't completely happy at that end.

On Friday I had a meeting with a girl who was meant to have phoned the night before and had seemingly ignored my two e-mails. On pure speculation I went along so at least I could say I'd turned up.

Even though it had been arranged, still it was a shock when she actually walked through that door and on time too. I think you can imagine the opening topics after the greeting - what happened? What went wrong and so on. As became apparent - in that I'm helping her sort the trouble out even today - she had some major issues and these aren't just words - I saw the documents.

Ten days ago I got a phone call in the middle of the night from an airport. She assumed I was asleep but actually I was in the little room dealing with a health matter. When I phoned her back, neither number answered so I assumed she was p---ed off by that. Actually she'd had all her documents and phone stolen, had missed the plane and was stuck in the airport. She'd used her last local change to make that call.

Why do we assume that we have the cares of the world on our own shoulders but the other person doesn't? You can never tell from appearances and that's the bottom line here. You can never tell.

Cuts both ways though. Five years ago I assumed all was well when in fact a particular lady was playing me like a violin and getting deeper and deeper into subterfuge. Truth was I never tumbled to it, even when all the signs were there to see.

Three people have e-mailed me personally since yesterday [well actually 47 have but most of these were the usual matters], I've missed two birthdays in the last few days, three people in RL are feeling neglected and there are some health issues which we needn't go into. A friend flew in last week, called twice and has now flown out again. He's not going to understand that the phone had been cut off and then other things hit last week.

I know that each of these feels, maybe not peeved but a bit hurt by what looks like callous disdain, especially as I seem to be blogging jauntily, provoking as usual and visiting the same three or four blogs.

If it looks as if all is well, nothing could be further from the truth.

An inkling of this came out in two posts on Thursday but it was disguised to the point where Wolfie felt it was "overdramatizing". I smiled at that and poured a whisky and toasted him. Without going into detail, as the blog doesn't seem to be the place for that and I'd prefer to do an ostrich, I'm in - excuse the French - deep s-i- on four fronts, to the point where the two choices are to laugh or cry.

Today I'm going to have to call in some favours which I'd prefer not to do.

One of the blogfriends who e-mailed me has real health concerns. Another is at the end of the tether. One feels very hurt and rightly so. All with their own issues and troubles. How to cope with and help these friends? The issue seems to be one of over-extending - trying to take on too much with thin margins for error and when it fouls up, it fouls up big.

I suppose what I'm saying in this post is not to assume things which seem one way but might not be, in point of fact. And that applies to my own assumptions as well.

Personally, I think a combination of prayer, networking and grovelling apology might sort things out in the end. Otherwise I have no idea what to do.

Friday, April 25, 2008

[thought for the day] friday evening


Every time I fill a vacant office, I make ten malcontents and one ingrate.

[Louis Quatorze]

Same with blogrolling and memes.

[nationality] how russian am I?

This quiz is a load of garbage. It's "borsch" and "vam nravitsa" plus America does border Russia at the tip of Alaska. So I put in the wrong answers to get this result:

You are 100% Russian!

Great job!!!!! You did WONDERFULY!!!! Nice try!!! Were you born in Russia? How do you know so much about it??? Well, good job anyway!!!

How Russian are you?
Quizzes for MySpace


[nationality] how american am I?

The first time I did this wasn't gonna go down well with my Anglo or Aussie friends - 100%! So I went back and made some of the answers less American to get the score a bit below England/Oz. Here's how I went:

you are 100% American!!!

congragulations!!! your as American as they come. you fly a flag and support our country in every thing u do. you get upset when were down and rejoice when we win

how American are you?
Take More Quizzes


[nationality] how aussie am I?

OK - here's the second one:

You are 90% Aussie!

Spot on mate! A true blue aussie! Whether plonking down for a bit of telly and enjoying an ice cold vic bitter or singing Happy little Vegamite while chucking another shrimp on the barbie, you are always thinking Aussie Aussie Oi Oi Oi!

How Aussie are you?
Make Your Own Quiz



H/T Nunyaa

[nationality] how english am I?

OK - here's the first one:

You are 90% English.

Congratulations! You may now take your place as a subject of Her Majesty.

"And did those feet
In ancient times,
Walk upon England's mountains green?
And was the holy Lamb of God
In England's pleasant pastures seen?"

Well, no, but it's a cracking good tune.

How English are you?
Create a Quiz


H/T Cherie

[orthodox easter] today is good friday in pascha


So much has been written about the whys and wherefores of the Crucifixion.

The slightly insane Mel Gibson produced a gory film I’m still not sure about. I’ve also thought long and hard whether to run an article by Dr. C. Truman Davis, vice president of the American Association of Ophthalmology, which is also gory in its medical descriptions. It is not for the faint-hearted and if you can’t stomach such things, best to pass this over.

All I can say is, having read it, it wouldn’t have been a whole lot of fun for Him. The main focus of Easter is the resurrection but His death bears thinking about as well. Here is a fragment from the text which you can read the whole of here:

Every ruse imaginable has been used by modern scholars to explain away this description, apparently under the mistaken impression that this just doesn’t happen. A great deal of effort could have been saved had the doubters consulted the medical literature.

Though very rare, the phenomenon of Hematidrosis, or bloody sweat, is well documented. Under great emotional stress of the kind our Lord suffered, tiny capillaries in the sweat glands can break, thus mixing blood with sweat. This process might well have produced marked weakness and possible shock.

After the arrest in the middle of the night, Jesus was next brought before the Sanhedrin and Caiphus, the High Priest; it is here that the first physical trauma was inflicted ...

The symbol that all the fuss and vitriol is all about

I hope we can begin from a position further advanced than questioning whether the crucifixion took place - that much scholars generally concede. The real issue is if the resurrection took place. One such discussion is described here:


A critical debate on the question "Did Jesus rise from the dead?" took place recently between world-renowned atheistic philosopher, Dr. Antony Flew, and New Testament scholar, Dr. Gary Habermas. A panel of five philosophers from leading universities judged the outcome.

What was the conclusion? Four votes for Habermas. None for Flew. And one draw. One respondent to the debate, philosopher Charles Hartshorne, admitted against his own bias:

"I can neither explain away the evidence to which Habermas appeals, nor can I simply agree with Flew’s or Hume’s positions."


Dr. Flew was judged to have retreated into philosophical sophistry while evading a whole host of widely-acknowledged historical facts.

To me, a lot of the claims and counter-claims fall wide of the mark. In this thing you're not going to be able to prove or disprove but a more scientific approach would be to look at the most likely scenario:

The authorities ... to deflate the new religious enthusiasm ... used every expedient in their power. They harassed, arrested, threatened, and flogged the apostles [but] could not produce Jesus' body. Central to the preaching of the early church was the joyous assertion that Jesus had risen from the dead.

To produce the body would have terminated the issue once and for all. True - He could have been taken away and ended his days in Kashmir with Mary Magdalene but there is no sustainable evidence of this. The swoon theory is also a good one.

But there is sound evidence that ordinary jews thereafter turned to belief in this resurrection in the face of great privations and disdain. You don't do that sort of thing for nothing. And why would the authorities retaliate the way they did?

Sociologically, the notion of redemption through resurrection was a highly subversive doctrine in those days and in fact in any age. Metaphysically, if one concedes an evil force, then it's just logical it will throw up a host of counter-theories and the first step is to suppress anything likely to support the contention in the first place.

One of the more powerful supports which the notion of the resurrection enjoys is the attempt to imitate it both through the Moloch ritual "passing through the fire" which world leaders emulate at Bohemian Grove and through occult rituals themselves, particularly on Walpurgis night [coming up soon - keep your eye on your children, parents, around May 1st].

This notion of resurrection and reincarnation is ancient, powerful and persistent. The further notion that it was achieved in those three days of Pascha is not one likely to endear itself to the wider world.




The Pascha Ritual


Wiki gives this explanation:

Preparation for Pascha begins with the season of Great Lent. In addition to fasting, almsgiving, and prayer, Orthodox Christians cut down on all entertainment and non-essential worldly activities, gradually eliminating them until Great and Holy Friday.

Traditionally, on the evening of Great and Holy Saturday, the Midnight Office is celebrated shortly after 11:00 p.m. (see Paschal Vigil). At its completion all light in the church building is extinguished.

A new flame is struck in the altar, or the priest lights his candle from a perpetual lamp kept burning there, and he then lights candles held by deacons or other assistants, who then go to light candles held by the congregation.

Then the priest and congregation process around the church building, holding lit candles, re-entering ideally at the stroke of midnight, whereupon Paschal Matins begins immediately followed by the Paschal Hours and then the Paschal Divine Liturgy.

Immediately after the Liturgy it is customary for the congregation to share a meal, essentially an Agápē dinner (albeit at 2:00 a.m. or later). In Greece the traditional latenight dinner is mageiritsa, a hearty stew of chopped lamb liver and wild greens seasoned with egg-and-lemon sauce.

Traditionally, Easter eggs, hard-boiled eggs dyed bright red to symbolize the spilt Blood of Christ and the promise of eternal life, are cracked together to celebrate the opening of the Tomb of Christ.

Dutch Easter - the persistent notion of "passing through the fire", also much emulated by the other side

The day after, Easter Sunday proper, there is no liturgy, since the liturgy for that day has already been celebrated. Instead, in the afternoon, it is often traditional to celebrate "Agápē Vespers". In this service, it has become customary during the last few centuries for the priest and members of the congregation to read a portion of the Gospel of John (20:19–25 or 19–31) in as many languages as they can manage.

For the remainder of the week (known as "Bright Week"), all fasting is prohibited, and the customary Paschal greeting is "Christ is risen!," to be responded with "Truly He is risen!"


Bit of fun

An article in The New York Times of May 11, 2002, written by Emily Eakin, reviewed a conference on ethics and belief at Yale University in April, 2002:

Eakin said Richard Swinburne, a Greek Orthodox professor of philosophy from Oxford University, used a probability formula known as Bayes's theorem to assign values to factors like the probability that there is a God, the nature of Jesus' behavior during his lifetime, and the quality of witness testimony after his death.

God overrides natural laws

“For someone dead for 36 hours to come to life again is, according to the laws of nature, extremely improbable,” Professor Swinburne said. “But if there is a God of the traditional kind, natural laws only operate because He makes them operate.”

Swinburne gave his notes and calculations to the audience so they could follow while he did the math.

“Given e and k, h is true if and only if c is true,” he said. “The probability of h given e and k is .97”.

In plain English, Professor Swinburne's calculations allegedly show that the probability that the Resurrection really happened is a staggeringly high 97 per cent.

Many other academics have weighed into the defence of the Christian faith, the newspaper said. Brian Leiter, a professor of law and philosophy at the University of Texas at Austin, noted, “It would be accurate to say that it's a growth movement.”

So there you go - ignore it at your peril. :) Finally, to all you good people out there [and bad] :

Христос Воскрес. Воистину Воскрес!