A gem for Joyceans ...

... and those (perhaps / hopefully) to come.
Praised be Chris god-free Morals for sending me the link(s) to following gem(s), taken from a series called "Great Modern Writers".
Enjoy!

Wordy Wednesday VII

Hm. Those who decided to bear me for the past two years will remember.
After a long interval - and lots of drafts ha ha ha ha - I think it's time for a revival of what once I decided to call Wordy Wednesday.

What's different? The blogger being less "wordy". :)

So:

- a bit of poetry for the beginning. Ahh! And by no means let make yourself angry.

- what's to be said about Mr Polanski's supporters?

- in case you did not ever hear about (literally) fucking priests.

- in case you are not sure what's lynching.

- You don't have a Law Breakers Union, yet?

A wonder! A wonder!

02:55 a.m. - burglar enters a house.

02:57 a.m.- police gets an alarm call.

19 minutes later the burglar is caught.

Policeman: You have been identified at 02:56 a.m. burg....

Burglar [interruping]: Impossible.

Policeman: ?

Burglar [showing his watch]: It's 02:16 a.m.

Policeman (if clever): Well, rather I'd say we caught a thief 39 minutes before he committed his crime.

- - -

Clocked back? :)

Have a nice winter-time.

Honoris causa

Trying to not manipulate visitors who are just stumbling upon Omnium, I do - for the beginning - but ask to read this post and the comments, and afterwards let the author, his commenters and me know your thoughts, your opinion.

After having slept thrice, I shall let you know my thoughts.
Until then,
the peace of three nights.

Four days later (October 23rd)

Why would I wait even four days?
Well, once again in the deepest den of my heart suddenly the snakes Irony and Sarcasm woke up - or rather were awaken* - and since they were darting, trying to lure my fingers to squirt their venom via keyboard into the blogosphere. And no one and nothing able to becalm these creatures.

* Honestly I am against honor crimes but this time I really don’t feel sorry for her I agree with u Nas ….. allah gave us brain to think and consider our actions ….. but I just don’t understand why the boy friend don’t get the same punishment …. Why it’s always the girl ?

My quest to withstand the tempters seemed almost lost, when fortunately I heard Karl Popper whispering:

To attack a man for talking nonsense
is like finding your mortal enemy
drowning in a swamp and
jumping in after him with a knife.

And although Sir Karl - out of sheer politeness, or did he think a man would for no reason think of stabbing a woman with a knife, let alone with a sword? - did not speak of utterly stupid women talking nonsense, - both snakes cuddled close, coiled up, fell smilingly asleep, and I knew: It's over - for this time.
Well, and apart from this, it was not my intention to write about certain mathematics teachers' wealth of mental poverty. The more as some commenters did it, and ... the mathematics teacher proved she could at least put two and two together and decided to not post a fifth comment.
Still, I ask you to keep above's quotation in your mind.

End of the beforegoing.

Learning his unwed daughter is pregnant, a father takes his sword and kills her and the unborn creature.
It happens every day. Those who know me a little, know what I think and thus would not expect me to post about such a singular case. And right they are. Rather I found interesting that a blogger would focus and repeatedly insist on the victim's stupidity / ignorance.

And as I am part of "anyone else" (#27):

this is not being used to justify anything. my opinion is simple on this matter and it is outlined in comment #5. you dont run in to a burning building without the knowledge that there is a high chance of getting burnt, even if your purpose is a noble one.

What an interesting mindset.
Translating it:
I don't support honour-killings - actually, I really don't like honour-killings, but in this very case the victim should have known better. Thus, it's (also) her fault.

Quite! And cynism is the intellectual cripple's substitute for intelligence.

Following this kind of logic, the Anna Politkovskayas, Hrant Dinks and José Carrascos on this planet ought not to complain in their coffins, hm? They should have known better, hm?

And the barber in Pakistan whose throat has been cut about two years ago was an absolutely silly sod to open a shop in an area where quite a few men consider the shaving of beards a sacrileg, hm?

And those women (gang-)raped in Kongo and elsewhere: If they don't consider sweet and honourable to getting (gang-)raped for their country*,why would they not take a plane and leave the war area, those unpatriotic bitches, hm? They should (have) know(n) both that (gang-)raping is part of war culture, and that it is part of our culture to consider a woman who would allow one, five or twenty heroes to rape her disgustingly befouling the honour of her family and their honourable neighbours, hm?

Do I hear a mother sadly nod and murmur? "Praised be our culture. Imagine I had not circumcised her. She might have wished the pleasure to never end."

End of the beforegoing.

And herewith I am approaching the essential interior inherent essence which - as is well known - is hidden in the roots of the kernel of everything, and thus in this blogpost, too.

1. Murder is murder is murder ...

2. Traditions are not good, per se.

How to overcome traditions which rather than being good are harmful?

[...] fighting honor crimes is to identify why people believe what they do, and those beliefs are inherently attached to locations, origins and local culture. [...]

Hört, hört! Who would have thought this?

1. Honour crimes (would honourable people commit a crime?) are no cultural accomplishment.
2. Neither they belong to those traditions (like f.e. hospitality) which are worth to be conserved, and where (almost) lost worth to be revived.

Ergo: When people claim killing in order to revive (sic!) what they call their honour to be a cultural accomplishment, a tradition, at best it is a harmful cultural accomplishment, a harmful tradition; a tradition that like FGM (Female Genital Mutilation) once upon a time has been conceived by men to demonstrate and assure their superiority.
Literally - and I hope you will not mind the following aprosdoketon - we thus are talking about fucking machos.

Well, how to overcome harmful traditions? À la General Napier?

"You say that it is your custom to burn widows. Very well. We also have a custom: when men burn a woman alive, we tie a rope around their necks and we hang them. Build your funeral pyre; beside it, my carpenters will build gallows. You may follow your custom. And then we will follow ours."

Well, as long as such a threat is not empty, is able to convince.

Rather I'd prefer to positively convince.
It is possible.
I remember Rupert Neudeck telling about a project in Ethiopia. It took years of burning patience. At the end the men decided that from now on (in their tribe) no girl, no woman should get circumcised, anymore.
And there had no gallows been erected to convince them.
It is possible!

So why should not be possible to convince at least the vast majority of those who think it's a matter of honour to kill ones daughter, sister, niece for this and that reason?

As for the rest: They should be given the chance to contemplate - in prison. For a couple of years. And if then they are still convinced it was their legitimate right to kill, well, then they may stay where they are. And I wish them a long life, and both slowly and painfully rotting testicles.

Oh dear, whereto has my taciturnity disappeared?

And who am I to globally criticise certain local cultures? A bloody degenerated Westerner who would let his opinion build by all those liars of the mainstream media?

Oh, yes! It's my own fault. Didn't I know the risk? Didn't I know what might happen when writing such a blogpost? :)

Yes, I know ... but ...

A beautiful rhetorical gem, isn't it? And certainly not a local one. You would find it in any language. Correct me if I am wrong.

I have nothing, absolutely nothing against foreigners, but ...
Nothing against education, but ... it's nothing for women.
Honestly I am against honor crimes but ...
What you say sounds plausible, but ...
I see your point, but ... you are comparing apples with oranges.

Ha ha ha, just coming to think of what my dear Turkish seanachie once wrote - fully aware, by the way, of the risk that he might go to hell when defending the bikini:

why does that preacher think that a bikini is a more serious challange against Allah rather than taking the life of another living creature? why just cant he simply preach that a true muslim should not stare at those women who wear bikini instead of totally trying to curse the bikini.

Such a lovely end, would you agree?

Thus I shall stop - not end - here, smilingly retreat under the rocks of Seanhenge and silently ponder about ... this and that.

But :) a final remark:
Those who feel offended, are meant.

And for connoisseurs an old Chinese saying:
"Those who feel insulted by others confess to their mental / intellectual inferiority."

The peace of the night.

Cecilia senza coltellino

The fundamental evil ...

... of the world arose from the fact
that the good Lord has not created enough money.

Heinrich Heine (1797-1856)

Foil vs. Sabre

[Contemporaries who are not fond of language: Please skip this post.]

Don't we all think we know quite a few contemporaries who have a great deal of sense outside their head?
Do I see you nodding?
And smiling?
Well, most of you will be smiling at the picture this phrase is painting in - not outside :) - their head. Right?
And most of us - yes! Me too. - tend to use rather the sabre than the foil when it comes to praise ... let's say the lack of certain contemporaries' intelligence, or those whose richness of mental poverty is enormous.
The more delighted I was when yesterday reading this very post of my dearest English teacher, Stan (Carey).
If there was any need, it strengthened my conviction that Them bleedin' cuss words are not the non plus ultra of swearing.

I know that Stan when reading this does feel good and at the same time somehow embarrassed, and who would not, but: I do mean it.

I love the idea that those of my readers who love the English language would not only read the blog post commended above but, after reading it, feel the wish to discover the whole blog. It is worthwhile!

Ha ha ha ... and I like thinking of all the big and tiny mistakes Stan will discover while reading this.

Head over then, and one day - perhaps :) - I'll be able to tell what (deep) impact on my way of thinking had books like this ...

... and this

Anything to declare?

Nothing but my genius. Oscar Wilde,*October 16th, 1854

This is just "Adios"

Al Martino, October 7th, 1927 - October 13th, 2009

Riposa in Pace!

Anchors aweigh!

Memento mori*

* and sometimes it would sound like Carpe diem - which is about quite the same.

It's done

My long two-pointed ladder's sticking through a tree
Toward heaven still,
And there's a barrel that I didn't fill
Beside it, and there may be two or three
Apples I didn't pick upon some bough.
But I am done with apple-picking now.
Essence of winter sleep is on the night,
The scent of apples: I am drowsing off.
I cannot rub the strangeness from my sight
I got from looking through a pane of glass
I skimmed this morning from the drinking trough
And held against the world of hoary grass.
It melted, and I let it fall and break.
But I was well
Upon my way to sleep before it fell,
And I could tell
What form my dreaming was about to take.
Magnified apples appear and disappear,
Stem end and blossom end,
And every fleck of russet showing clear.
My instep arch not only keeps the ache,
It keeps the pressure of a ladder-round.
I feel the ladder sway as the boughs bend.

And I keep hearing from the cellar bin
The rumbling sound
Of load on load of apples coming in.
For I have had too much
Of apple-picking: I am overtired
Of the great harvest I myself desired.
There were ten thousand thousand fruit to touch,
Cherish in hand, lift down, and not let fall.
For all
That struck the earth,
No matter if not bruised or spiked with stubble,
Went surely to the cider-apple heap
As of no worth.
One can see what will trouble
This sleep of mine, whatever sleep it is.
Were he not gone,
The woodchuck could say whether it's like his
Long sleep, as I describe its coming on,
Or just some human sleep
Robert Frost, 1914

If - not the song, but ...

About three weeks ago Nevin posted a poem her father had send to her: Rudyard Kipling's "If".

In the comment section Webwisewoman mentioned that once she had heard the poem put in music, but could not remember by whom; whereupon Nevin wrote: "If anyone else does, please let us know..."

Well, Myladies, I tried but did not succeed.

However, I stumbled upon ... the poet's voice.

Enjoy.





With thanks to Jim Clark (poetryanimations).