Happy Christmas 2.

Well, the holiday season is over. Three days of celebrating Joshua ben Joseph’s birthday whatever your religion if any, by partying, singing, praying, eating and drinking, wishing everyone happiness, and completely forgetting the poor, the homeless, the lonely, the desperately ill, the starving, the bereaved, especially those who lost a child in a school shootout, a child who will never celebrate Christmas again, the world’s refugees from natural and man made disasters, the tortured and those living in fear and dread in the shadow of the Taliban, Al Qaeda, Boko Haram, Al Shabaab or any other vicious vipers’ nest of crazed fanatics..

 the Coptic Christians in Egypt, the Christians in Pakistan, the fighting in Syria, or Iraq, Iran, Saudi; countries dominated by clerics, religious police, law courts only too happy to dish out death sentences and lashings beyond belief for what in the civilised world would be considered trivial. Raef Badawi, a Blogger who is one of the establishers of the "Liberal Saudi Network", which angered Ultra-orthodox clerics of Saudi Arabia has been sentenced to seven ears in prison and 600 lashes. Think about that for a moment. Are you actually meant to survive 600 lashes or is that simply a way of applying a dreadful death sentence without actually passing one? But it could be worse. It would appear seven years in prison and 600 lashes is not enough to satisfy the crazy clerics. He could be beheaded soon for a claimed "apostasy".

There has evidently been a great deal of news in Arabic about this issue but in English it has not had much attention till now. However this piece has now been published:
“A Saudi court on Monday referred a rights activist to a higher court for alleged apostasy, a charge that could lead to the death penalty in the ultra-conservative kingdom, activists said.”
A judge at a lower court referred Raef Badawi to a higher court, declaring that he "could not give a verdict in a case of apostasy." Badawi, who was arrested in June in the Red Sea city of Jeddah for unknown reasons (?) is a co-founder of the Saudi Liberal Network with female rights activist Saud al-Shammari and others.” And let us not forget the treatment of women and girls abused (acid attacks? Beatings? Rape?) at the hands of their men folk in the lands of the mad mullahs.

Great celebrations huh? Well…why dwell on all the injustices in the world at such a joyous time? You have a warm, snug, happy household, you’re surrounded hopefully by people you love and who love you. There’s a crackling fire in the hearth, cards on the mantelpiece, music, decorations, a tree with presents stacked around it and Christmas lights, a table well laden with food and various delicacies seen only on this special occasion, and plenty to drink.  After lunch if you haven’t over-indulged, you may play boisterous games with merry laughter or, replete, sit back and watch telly, doze off and think of the imminent sales in which, having possibly queued all night outside a large department store, for a few short hours, the doors open and all sense of decorum is consequently thrown to the winds and you can behave like a snatching snaring snarling hooligan grabbing for things you don’t really want and certainly don’t need. I’ve never understood why otherwise ostensibly sane people do it. The answer could be the demon greed. It reminds one of the behaviour of the Gadarene swine inhabited by demons throwing themselves off the cliffs. Poor piggies. Joshua could have got rid of the demons with a click of his mystical fingers instead of which he sent them howling into the bodies of the pigs causing this mass suicide. Evidently this event didn’t actually take place on Jewish soil which answers one question but who in those days could own a herd of 2000 pigs and, more importantly lose them? And was Jesus sued for the loss of these valuable animals?

Well, 2013 is almost over. Soon it will be Christmas time once more, Church bells will ring merrily on high, carols will be sung, greetings sent, and God bless us every one Tiny Tim will say yet again.