Face to Face with Bertrand Russell

Why waiting another thousand years?

Imagine, already those approximately 6.5 billion human beings living today would behave and act accordingly ...

Crescent Nebula

Please click to enlarge

NGC 6888 (Crescent Nebula)

Dedicated to those (earthlings)
who think they were the cream of all universes
and even those not yet discovered.

*

An ideal couple, the astrophysicist and I,
I watch the wor(l)d, he observes the sky.

No personal note

Days I enjoy

Days I enjoy are days when nothing happens,
When I have no engagements written on my block,
When no one comes to disturb my inward peace,
When no one comes to take me away from myself
And turn me into a patchwork, a jig-saw puzzle.

A broken mirror that once gave a whole reflection,
Being so contrived that it takes too long a time
To get myself back to myself when they have gone.
The years are to strictly measured, and life too short
For me to afford such bits of myself to my friends.

And what have I to give to my friends in the last resort?
An awkwardness, a shyness, and a scrap,
No thing that's truly me, a bootless waste,
A waste of myself and of them, for my life is mine
And theirs presumably theirs, and cannot touch.

Vita Sackville-West (1892-1962)

The leaves are falling

Camouflage perdu.

Winter is in the Air

"See there! See there, Timotheus,
Behold the cranes of Ibycus!"

15 minutes ago:
Those who in February were harbingers of spring,
while passing Seanhenge singing their "Farewell".

Clandestini

Italian is a beautiful language.

Imagine an Italian speaking ...

f.e., the word clandestini.

Clan - des - ti - ni.

Ah, it's music, isn't it?

Well, the right voice, and il - le - gal(e) sounds sweet as well, hm?

Illegal(e) is just another word for clandestino, clandestina, clandestini.

Völkerwanderung (wandering of the people) is a / the German word for migration.

Ever heard about the migration period?

And:

Do you remember what Deng Xiaoping once offered Jimmy Carter when the US-President insisted on speaking about human rights?
Basically:
How many Chinese do you wish me to let accompany you on your return-flight? Ten millions? Fifty millions? 100 millions?
It is said that Mr Carter immediately changed the topic.

Clandestini - illegals.

A very very difficult topic. And very a complex one.

Too complex for me to put all aspects into a short post.

Yesterday I heard a song, though. The CD's title: Clandestini.

Don't know why, but immediately I thought of some posts by Welshcakes Limoncello.
There have been quite a few about this topic in recent years, but when reading this one from April 14th (The sea has no generosity) and this one from June 17th ( (Il silencio del mare), you will almost know what I think about one aspect.

And, although it is / seems nowadays but a platitude, I like it:
Everyone is illegal - almost everywhere.

In this sense: Here's Manu Chao.

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)