Of people and clerics

Egypt has a new (interim) president. Good.
Good riddance of those two-faced Islamic Jesuits who ruled the country for more than a year!
Their legacy: disenchantment and alienation from all major segments of the population.
It is a good thing that the opposition managed to overthrow the Islamists before they had the time to completely stifle dissent and enslave the entire country.

Most politicians are demagogues… that is the only way they can get elected.
Always talking out of both sides of their mouths… telling people what they long to hear.
They will advocate different agendas when addressing different audiences.
Soothing when talking to Jews, rabidly anti-Semitic when talking to Muslims, enthusiastically Buddhist when addressing Buddha’s devotees, etc.
Politicians let’s face it, are nothing but a whoring lot!

Mohamed Morsi was no exception. Sounding conciliatory when talking to some and rabidly intolerant when talking to others.
And one more time, as it is common in Muslim countries, Morsi had religion infringe on the life of its people.
Religion’s motto is and has always been: If you are not with us, you are against us, and if you are against us you don’t deserve to live!
What kind of insanity is this?

But we might have seen the dawn of a new era in Egypt where common sense is finally starting to prevail over religion.
Young men and young women are rebelling against backward traditions and calling for secularism and fairness in government.
No more arbitrary fatwas by out-of-touch clerics!

Any kind of dictatorship (religious or otherwise) will eventually fail, and when this happens the end is often gruesome (see Mussolini, Ceausescu, Khadafi or Saddam Hussein).

But revolutions can be notoriously fickle and unpredictable and nobody knows how it will end.
In order to prevail, the Egyptian “Bolsheviks” (“majority”) need to be fair and pragmatic, but it is always difficult for the victors to be moderate.

The Muslim Brothers had their chance. They blew it.
Time to go! Period!

May Egyptians never let any “pious” bigots ever rule their country again, and may they finally enjoy the proven virtues of secularism.

Amen!

Alain

 

Body conditioning

A few days ago I watched a video-clip featuring a woman gymnast. She was pretty good.
But what impressed me the most was the fact that Johanna Quaas was 86 years old. She did things at the parallel bars that I probably couldn’t have done when I was 30.

Johanna-Quaas-1

But Johanna is no ordinary person. In 1954 she was a member of the handball team that took the Eastern German championship and in her advanced years she collected 11 medals in senior gymnastic.

So basically she never stopped pumping iron and that’s why she is in such a great shape.
And that’s my point. If you keep exercising regularly throughout your life, you will be able to still tie your shoelaces when you are 90, and beyond.

Many people exercise when single, but it seems that they stop when they tie the knot. Maybe it is the ensuing amount of sex that leaves them exhausted and unable to pursue the Holy Grail of body conditioning.
But I doubt it. After many years at the Playboy Mansion Hugh Hefner is still pumping.

“If I’d known I was going to live this long, I would have taken better care of myself.”
So said Eubie Blake (1887-1983).

The old dude was right!

Body maintenance should start at an early age and never cease.
Most of us stop exercising when we become “responsible” adults with a demanding job and a wife and children to feed.
We stop doing regular body maintenance and we treat our cars more lovingly than our own human machine. We start by skipping an oil change, neglecting the air conditioning and not replacing the tires when we should.

I have always been in awe of old Asian people would can squat like babies even in their eighties.
They can do this, because they practiced all their lives and never stopped doing it. If we never stopped exercising we would all look like Sarafian and hit “carreaux” at least once a week.

Popular wisdom says it plainly “don’t use it, lose it”.

If you want your children to be in great shape in their eighties (it is too late for most of us) tell them to never stop exercising, even when the wife nags them to spend more time taking care of the children.
Because who will take care of the children when like Tony Soprano you get whacked by a heart attack at the age of fifty-one?

Be selfish, it is good for you!

Alain

 

On n’attrape pas les mouches…

Il y a beaucoup de gens qui pensent que la pétanque est un sport de « vieux », de croulants… Et quelques-uns (comme RDM), affirment crûment qu’ils « n’aiment pas jouer avec des vieux ».

Et bien je dis non ! La pétanque n’est pas nécessairement un sport de vieux !
C’est un sport universel qui s’adresse à toutes les générations.

Le problème c’est que, comme le dit le proverbe « qui se ressemble s’assemble ».
Autrement dit, si une jeune personne voit des joueurs âgés pratiquer ce sport, elle en déduira qu’effectivement la pétanque est un sport de barbons et elle n’aura que très peu d’inclination de se joindre eux.

Si par contre, cette même personne voit des jeunes gens s’adonner a ce même sport, elle pensera qu’il serait peut-être avantageux de s’immiscer dans ce milieu, pour entre autres (on ne sait jamais) rencontrer l’âme-sœur.

C’est aussi simple que cela. L’argent attire l’argent, les jeunes attirent les jeunes et les demoiselles attirent les damoiseaux.

Pour revitaliser un club il faut donc attirer les jeunes, et pour ce faire il suffit simplement d’inviter des jeunes filles raisonnablement attrayantes a jouer avec nous pour quelques heures.
Les jeunes messieurs suivront naturellement.

femme-et-ombrelleMais dans la vie, tout a un prix.
Pour rendre cette proposition plus séduisante, il faut offrir aux demoiselles un petit cachet, un gage de notre appréciation.
Tant de pépètes pour une apparence de temps déterminé. Montrez votre joli minois et gagnez un peu d’argent de poche.
C’est un commerce agréable et facile et c’est une idée vieille comme le monde.

De nos jours, tous les évènements sportifs sont truffés de Miss de tout acabit.
Nous pourrions même avoir éventuellement une Miss Pétanque Marinière… Pourquoi pas?

Je propose donc qu’a chaque évènement majeur (piquenique ou concours ouvert a tous par exemple) notre club assigne une partie de ses bénéfices a financer les cachets de ces charmantes demoiselles.
Qui dit jeunes filles, dit jeunes hommes, et qui dit jeunes gens dit nouveau souffle.

On n’attrape pas les mouches avec du vinaigre, mais on fait beaucoup mieux avec du miel (et quelques dollars), et avec l’attraction des jeunes hommes pour les jeunes filles (ou les autres jeunes hommes).

C’est une idée comme une autre et mieux vaut essayer quelque chose que de ne rien essayer du tout.

Alain