Words of wisdom and reason. I wish there were many more saying such things.
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/ali-a-rizvi/an-open-letter-to-moderat_b_5930764.html
An unpaid Vat collector or inspector!
You really must be a very popular man!
Thanks Paul, Brian and David. I called the ferry company this morning. They said that the border closure applies to land crossings only and although processing may be more thorough than usual, with more people being taken out at random for security checks, they don't expect the overall delay to be significant.
You should have called Brians electrician !
Possibly like the photos of famous personages with comments supposedly attributed to them superimposed over the top, Some funny some not so.
Véronique Langlands Thanks for that info. At my venerable age I have no links to school children here in France so did not know apart from France being basically a secular country. Sensible, wish it was the same in the UK.
Teaching about the mythic aspect of all religions is fine by me and broadens the viewpoint and provides an insight on different societies and cultures but I do object to the brainwashing of children.
Basically, in my terms, it is nothing more or less than mental abuse with physical abuse thrown in on many occasions and should be treated accordingly. It is bullying at its worst and even more worrying when it is carried out behind closed doors in the home.
I have my own cultural mores and respect those of other cultures, when I visit their countries, but I do not see why I/We should give into a foreign culture when it attempts to impose its values on Mine/Ours. That applies to not just France and the UK but to all of Europe. If I was not open to other cultures I would not have holidayed in France for many years with former wife and children and eventually moved here with wife number two. Also had a French Girlfriend back in the late 60's for quite a while just to show my credentials.lol
I worked with a Latvian who had lived through the war and he hated both Germans and Russians with real and equal fervour because of his experiences at the time. On the other hand I also worked with a German who was bayonetted in Berlin as a lad by a Russian soldier and had no hate for them in his body. His Mother also made fantastic cheesecake, which made us real friends.
Yes, seems it's been wrongly attributed and was in fact written by Canadian Paul Manek (for anyone who doesn't want to read the bumph)
"It is uncertain how Dr. Tanay's name became attached to Internet-circulated versions of this essay. Some versions of the message state Tanay was one of the people (perhaps the first) who forwarded Marek's article to a wider audience, but this explanation does not seem likely and has not been proved."
Good advice and one I can accept with no reservations. On my way to the Think Tank, sorry Drunk Tank perhaps. Who knows. Perhaps I will return now and zen.
Roops the yankee out fit? I think up all of my own rubbish I will have you know.
Er, Ian - we don't have ANY religion in state schools in France.
That reads like one of Roop's finest wrote it for you. Go have a drink.
Persia, as a country name, derived from the city Pars in Iran and naturally means 'of Pars'. All ethnic groups in Iran were collectively referred to as either Iranians or Persians until 1935, when Rezā Shāh formally asked foreign countries to call Persia by its native name, Iran. Khomeini had nothing to do with the name change, that was more a political thing. Some countries kept on calling it by its older name and then chose to call it Iran when it was no longer their 'friend'.
I have a great friend Ziba in London, she is Iranian and a Zoroastrian, she is also an exile from the time of Rezā Shāh who then went on the lists of people who were enemies of the state after the revolution. However, she is one of the experts on her country at SOAS and teaches how the present regime gave both the Jewish and Zoroastrian communities their own representatives in parliament. The point is that there would appear to be as much prejudicial propagandist information put out about Iran as there is actually known. I know very little about the country but my single three day visit to Tehran was very welcoming and generous, but then travelling in a group bearing UN ID cards I concede we may have been treated prejudicially positively.
I have no desire to live under any religious law either. One has a choice. There were relatively large opposition movements in Nazi Germany and throughout the life of the Soviet Union and in other East Bloc countries. Perhaps one of the reasons that is not widespread knowledge is because they were socialists, not Stalinists or any other perversion of so-called communism, but people who actually believed in open, egalitarian societies in which all freedoms such as thought, belief and a reasonable mix of individual enterprise and private ownership alongside strong but universally available state provisions were there for all. Many were caught, enough always survived and new ones found their way to those movements. In the former eastern Europe they still exist. One of my former students is active in one in one of the Baltic states but then back pre-1989 they were considered terrorists, especially the freedom movement between 1933 and 1989 in Germany, and now are ignored.
One thing I am involved in editing at present is a paper on the right of children to religious freedom by my ex-wife who died two years ago but who I continued to work with until the end. We put on a symposium in her memory last year and now the book of the event including two by her are in it. She was a devout Christian but lived in an Islamic country, Malaysia, where she was honoured in life and death by them, including an imam when her ashes were cast out into the sea. She and I never had any religious dispute although she did religion seriously and I do not do religion at all or in any way. Through her I met some wonderful religious people. I also have a friend in India who is an important Swami who would never dream of trying to convert me or talk religion. There are many, many people like that. Perhaps churches are full of bigots and hypocrites who believe a weekly appear will get them a place in paradise, but do not condemn those who are genuine believers.
Sohela and Nasser were friends, he had a drink now and again. If you ever go to Indonesia, the largest Islamic nation of all, then you might find the beer awful but the Balinese palm wine is superb. Many Moslems do drink, but then many secular people do not.
I think you are beginning, as John says, to sow hate.
Nothing to worry about this year though as IDS, bless his little wolly socks and small heart and brain, has deemed, with just a modicum of fiddling the statistics, that we live in a "HOT Country" and will all be running round in our cossies for months yet.
Give me back my Winter Fuel Allowance you little s**t. I paid in for 47 years and for 22 of those on top of Personal PAYE AND NIC also Company NIC and Corporation Tax, when I ran my own business and was also an unpaid VAT collector.
Anyway to get back to the point, yes, if they can hack into their systems it will be great as they will no longer be able to communicte with the "refugees" on their smart phones to give them their instructions to kill us all in our beds. Personnally I love curry, but I am somewhat afraid that the Grand Mufti will issue instruction to put cyanide, or similar, into all the Chicken Tikka Masslas and Kebabs one Friday/Saturday night in the UK and overcome the popuation by this means.
Wont happen here of course as no curry houses for miles and the French Kebabs don't seem to be proper Elephant Legs like in the UK and seem to be made of chicken or something weird and not tasty at all.
Am I paranoid? Of course, it is the only way to go in these times. LOL
Looking at Joan's photo (avatar) she does not appear to be a 'young thing' so we must be gentle with her. What gives you the idea she likes a nip or two, or do you know her well?
I will be off for din dins in a minute or two and my routine intake of vin rouge, which I take for the heart, although it looks like I have been deemed to be a heartless warmonger elsewhere on here. In light of that I might partake in a drop more to help my recovery in which case I might start to question a few things as well. LOL
Oh I sympathise with that - when we first moved in here there was a "glitch" with EDF and we had a few days with no proper heat, light etc. In the last week of February.
Yes, bearing in mind the instructions reportedly went from Syria to Belgium to France it will be interesting to say the least if they can disrupt the communications system as well as glean any other information. Complete mayhem could be caused without a bullet being fired.
Nasser was a neighbour and Sohela was his wife when I lived in the UK.
Crikey Joanie - time for a refill? Chill......
Thought you would like it.
The same is happening in the UK with the clowns of the tory party trying to drive the peasents down to the serf level for the ultimate control by the elite. If this keeps on then I think we will see a 'proper' revolution taking place. Perhaps not in my lifetime but certainly in that of my children and grandchildren.
The dumbing down of the education system and the brainwashing of the populace with sport, soaps, computer games, which I personally think can lead to violent tendancies, celebraty "culture" crap etc. etc. into a comatose life style and a complete and utter apathy mind set is quite deliberate. Educating the Baby Boomers to a high level, only ever seen before in private schools, did not turn out well for the establishment with many articulate people appearing in the unions and the, god forbid, Labour party etc. questioning everything and not just meekly accepting the pap thrown to them.
We are/have moving/moved back to the pre war standards with the likes of the ca-moron calling the shots in a decidly dodgy parliament.
Thanks. I will follow this link, intriguing. Modern warfare, might have more effect than bombing.
Though their methods are precisely what I fear most might happen to us.
I spent 8 days without electricity last year and the dependence I discovered was very frightening.
Caused me to stock up on books, batteries and dried food.
The lack of wifi and phones was very distressing as I was isolated from all my of my support group. Could not even reach emergency services.
Thanks again.
There is so much to learn vis a vis survival
I repeat, Nasser who???
I read what you wrote and having a nominal Muslim neighbor who enjoyed a drink does not tell me to whom you are referring.
Nasser is a very common name.
And again, who is Sohela?