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sister_luckI'm sitting here and pondering what I want to write about in this post.
The world cup is over and I'm stunned that men seem to be incapable of growing up and still stick to the idea that you counter insults with violence. I've had to do the talk with various opponents, but they weren't overpaid football players, but red-faced sniffling boys who lashed out after hearing once too often that their mother is a slut, their sister a whore or some such nonsense. Usually it emerges that they themselves said very much the same things to the other boy. And yes, nipple-pinching is another one of their favourite tactics. Makes it all the easier for the line to blur between victim and villain. 'He provoked me' is not a valid excuse.
It's very humid here which makes breathing difficult and I can feel a headache coming on. In line with the weather things seem rather oppressive at the moment.
There are the bombs in Mumbai which of course don't make the headlines quite in the same way as the London bombings a year ago did. It makes the inner cynic in me bristle with sarcastic remarks about how we Western civilized people only care if we're directly affected. Bombings in Bali? Tsunami? Yep, lots of tourists caught up in it. Earthquake in Pakistan? Why, where is that again? Or maybe we're becoming fatigued with all the carnage and news of bombings - the bloodshed in Iraq with carbombs and shootings every day certainly has become some sort of background din that we are faintly aware of but we don't get outraged about it anymore. I teach several Iraqi refugees and one of them went to Syria this summer with her family where they're going to meet up with the girl's ailing grandparents. The grandparents still live in Baghdad and they were making the dangerous journey to Syria for what's probably their last meeting with their daughter and her family. I hope it all went well.
Yesterday, I watched a depressing film, Young Adam, starring Ewan McGregor and Tilda Swinton. It's set in a very drab 1950s Scotland and even though the characters get to have some sex, it all seems very desperate and joyless. The truth never comes out, no one manages to change and everyone is horribly stuck. It had beautiful photography though and was one of those slow and sad films that stay with you for a while.
The world cup is over and I'm stunned that men seem to be incapable of growing up and still stick to the idea that you counter insults with violence. I've had to do the talk with various opponents, but they weren't overpaid football players, but red-faced sniffling boys who lashed out after hearing once too often that their mother is a slut, their sister a whore or some such nonsense. Usually it emerges that they themselves said very much the same things to the other boy. And yes, nipple-pinching is another one of their favourite tactics. Makes it all the easier for the line to blur between victim and villain. 'He provoked me' is not a valid excuse.
It's very humid here which makes breathing difficult and I can feel a headache coming on. In line with the weather things seem rather oppressive at the moment.
There are the bombs in Mumbai which of course don't make the headlines quite in the same way as the London bombings a year ago did. It makes the inner cynic in me bristle with sarcastic remarks about how we Western civilized people only care if we're directly affected. Bombings in Bali? Tsunami? Yep, lots of tourists caught up in it. Earthquake in Pakistan? Why, where is that again? Or maybe we're becoming fatigued with all the carnage and news of bombings - the bloodshed in Iraq with carbombs and shootings every day certainly has become some sort of background din that we are faintly aware of but we don't get outraged about it anymore. I teach several Iraqi refugees and one of them went to Syria this summer with her family where they're going to meet up with the girl's ailing grandparents. The grandparents still live in Baghdad and they were making the dangerous journey to Syria for what's probably their last meeting with their daughter and her family. I hope it all went well.
Yesterday, I watched a depressing film, Young Adam, starring Ewan McGregor and Tilda Swinton. It's set in a very drab 1950s Scotland and even though the characters get to have some sex, it all seems very desperate and joyless. The truth never comes out, no one manages to change and everyone is horribly stuck. It had beautiful photography though and was one of those slow and sad films that stay with you for a while.
