Category: Fourre-tout

A little bit of everything

A wolf in sheep’s clothing

“ … Beware of false prophets, who come to you in sheep’s clothing but inwardly are ravenous wolves.”  Mathew 7:15

You don’t have to look very far to find such wolves. They are everywhere, but right now the eyes of the world are sharply focused on one these hypocrites.

Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, the current Prime Minister of “mildly Islamic” Turkey has shown his true colors.

Rather than listening to reason and seeking to compromise, the autocratic prime minister recently responded to protest demonstrations with hubris, water canons, rubber bullets and tear gas.
Did I also mention Police brutality?

Caught in a bind, the wolf reluctantly shed his sheep’s clothing and revealed his fangs. And there is nothing “mild” about this would-be sultan. He is a bully and a retrograde tyrant.

ataturk3He is bent on re-islamizing” Ataturk’s secular legacy who, almost a century ago, instituted the separation of the State and the Church.
Erdogan is fighting a shadowy war against Turkey’s secular lifestyle and trying to bring the country under the control of backward mullahs.

But in the age of the Internet, there is only so much that a young, worldly population will accept.
Young women refuse to be veiled again and be subservient to old men, and young men demand the right to think for themselves (and to drink liquor if they so desire).
And there is not much, short of very serious troubles, that the Islamists and their followers can do.

Religion should never control a country. It is up to the country to control religion.

In France, the young republic of 1790 understood this and took control of the Church’s affairs. The church balked, but since that time it is not up to the church to dictate but to follow the Republic’s edicts, and that’s the way it should be.

Erdogan, you sneaky Islamist, beware:

Arx tarpeia Capitoli proxima  (The Tarpeian Rock is close to the Capitol).

In other words, one’s fall from grace can come swiftly.

Alain

 

The man who talked to dogs

It’s me, I confess.
I cannot see a dog without having the irresistible urge to engage in a little “tête-à-tête ».
I walk almost daily through the woods near my house and I almost invariably bump into one of my four-legged acquaintances.

You can gauge a dog’s intentions by calmly looking at him and calling him.
Some, like inhibited women, will come running and throw themselves at you.

Some are more reserved (probably English dogs) and will take a wait-and-see attitude.
I then extend my hand and repeat my invitation again.
They will sniff it (their way of checking me out) and when satisfied, they signal that they are ready to have a little chat.

IMG_1692Some snobs will ignore me but some will want to play right away. They deposit a tennis ball or a stick  in front of me and invite me to play catch. I always oblige.
Some older dogs will just ask you to scratch or pet them. Not there… On the left… Under the belly… Yeah… That’s good!

I ask “how are you doing?”.
-Not bad, what about you?
-Not bad either, but it could be better.
-What’s the matter? Is you wife bugging you?
-Sometimes…
-Well, let me tell you what I do.
-Please do.
-When my keeper bugs me, I pee on the rug.
-I cannot do that!
-And when they really piss me off I chew on everything in sight.
-Does it work?
-I am not sure, but they pay more attention to me. I also get more treats. By the way, do have any munchies on you?
-I am afraid not.
-If you are coming tomorrow, don’t forget to bring me some Chew Sticks. I am trying to quit, but it is difficult…
-I understand.
-Say hello to the missus!
-I will.

That’s it.
Buddies don’t need to say much. They understand each other without having to spell things out.

A few drops on a tree to respond to a previous message and they are on their way.

-Hasta la vista!
-Vaya con dios amigo!
(Some of my friends are Hispanics)

I always feel better after such a meaningful exchange and I am pretty sure that they do too.

Alain

 

Vulgarity

In daily life I speak English ninety-five percent of the time, and if it wouldn’t be for French television, I would have probably forgotten my mother tongue a long time ago.
It is for that reason (and a few more) that I subscribe to TV5MONDE, a French television channel.

It is the paucity of intelligent programs that prompted me in the first place to find an alternative to American networks offerings.
The second reason for my alienation from American television is the brutish, unrelenting force-feeding of commercial messages. Gag me with a spoon!
On TV5MONDE, praise the Lord, they have the good sense to totally exclude that advertising rubbish.

But there are some drawbacks.

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On overly puritanical American television, someone will occasionally drops the F-bomb, but on some French programs we are often subjected to non-stop carpet-bombing.

Some so-called entertainers seem to equate humor with vulgarity.
Short of vocabulary, culture or wit, they manage to extract embarrassed giggles from captive audiences by lacing their monologues with smut.
They compensate their obvious lack of talent with crude references to sex or bodily functions.
Queen Victoria and I are definitely not amused!

I have never been prudish and I am not easily offended, but I strenuously object to vulgarity, especially in a public context.

You don’t need to be vulgar to be amusing and Vulgarians are seldom amusing.
They are like homeless people masking offensive bodily odors with lewd oral pyrotechnics.
Nudity is not offensive, gutter utterances are.

Young children are often listening to those programs and as everybody knows “monkey sees, monkey does”.
The little brats will soon be walking around spewing four-letter words, obscenities and expletives.
Is it what you expect from television?

You don’t have to go to church to be a well-mannered human being. Just keep rinsing your mouth (and especially your children’s) with soap and replacing your obscenity filters as often as you replace your furnace filters.

Free speech yes, vulgarity NO!

Alain