This blog comes courtesy of Douglas’s computer. Mine was brought back yesterday complete with new hard drive but unfortunately it is refusing to have anything to do with the screen or the screen with it as the case may be which remains as black as night and Chris is at a complete loss as to what to do about it. I am a total ignoramus when it comes to computers so am no help whatsoever and the computer genius, Douglas, is of course not here. Evidently some content has been saved but “The Cinelli Vases” has evidently stopped at 31000 words which means I have lost about 9000. It could have been worse I suppose. I could have lost it all but I don’t honestly know if I have the inclination to continue with it despite the other night in bed coming up with all sorts of ideas for the second half of the book.
Mr Frank Mouque has informed us that he has missed my “rants”. Do I rant? I don’t believe I do. In my seventy ninth year I think I have reason to be an angry old man sometimes when I think of the horrors perpetrated by my fellow human beings. Let us take just a few examples: In Tanzania albino children as young as five are being slaughtered like animals and dismembered for body parts to make muti (witch doctor’s medicine) believed to bring good luck or, if raped, thought to be a cure for AIDS. In Afghanistan and Pakistan the Taliban are still continuing their senseless cruelty especially to women. In Iraq gays are abducted tortured and killed for being who they are and in Iran they are executed by law, some being no more than boys. War lords in the horn of Africa are having a field day and refugees flee for their lives into Kenya. Brainwashed youths strap explosives to their bodies and commit murder and mayhem in order to enter paradise and have the luxury of being greeted by seventy-two virgins. Ultra Orthodox Jews cannot see that their stand means peace will never come to Israel. Half the world is starving while footballers’ wives think nothing of owning half a dozen handbags or more at ten thousand pounds or so a throw and bankers and business men, even the failures, walk away with obscene amounts of bonuses. Girls are still being painfully circumcised. Wild animals, if not losing their natural habitat to man, are still being hunted to extinction. Domestic animals who deserve our trust and respect are being cruelly treated to say nothing of cruelty to children and not just those used and abused for pornography. Drugs and crime in parts of the world appear to be an insurmountable problem. The Christian far right in America spit vitriol and hatred at anyone who doesn’t agree with their beliefs, some beliefs being totally ridiculous such as the world being 6000 years old and some, like the pro-lifers taking matters into their own hands, resulting in murder. So much for pro-life! Come now, Frank, is that a rant or merely pointing out the situation as I see it? And how much do you suppose I’ve left out?
Chris, after a quick phone call to Spiros and Andonis has managed to correct the fault and the screen is now live although from the groans I hear coming from my study there are still problems.
Finished reading “The God Delusion” and here is just one quote from it, by a Cardinal on the abduction and forcible conversion of a young Jewish boy who, when ill, had been inadvertently baptized by a hysterical servant. Stating that he was powerless to intervene the Cardinal added. ‘Here it may be opportune to observe that, if the voice of nature is powerful, even more powerful are the sacred duties of religion.’ Speaks for itself doesn’t it?