2017

Cartoon by Matt Davies

Is it in yet?

A cartoon by Gerard Donelan.

I hate this place

No dejes para ...

I've been going to Spanish classes for a while now.  They're great fun.  I'm almost at the stage where I can read Spanish at sight.  But I still struggle with conversation.

This says, "Don't leave for tomorr....".

A great start

Gay Marriage

A Cathy Wilcox cartoon (from The Sydney Morning Herald)

(click to enlarge)

Happy Easter

Linguistics

A  linguistics professor was lecturing his class the other day. “In

English,” he said, “a double negative forms a positive. However, in some

languages, such as Russian, a double negative remains a negative. … But

there isn’t a single language, not one, in which a double positive can

express a negative.” A voice from the back of the room piped up, “Yeah,

right.”

Pizza Boy

By Bjorn

Smartphones

Ian Thorpe is gay

Australia's greatest swimmer, Ian Thorpe has come out as gay.  He's long denied it, and now says he's ashamed he did.  It's a  very hard decision to tell the world you  belong to a despised minority.  I'm sorry he took so long, and I'm glad he has finally been brave enough to tell the world.  Every person who does helps to  break down some more prejudice; helps some kid somewhere feel better about himself; helps show up the ChrisTaliban as loons.

The cartoon is from Peter Broelman, one of Australia's most underrated cartoonists.

Evangelists

Scary undies

Opium of the people

Religion is one of the forms of spiritual oppression which everywhere weighs down heavily upon the masses of the people, over burdened by their perpetual work for others, by want and isolation. Impotence of the exploited classes in their struggle against the exploiters just as inevitably gives rise to the belief in a better life after death as impotence of the savage in his battle with nature gives rise to belief in gods, devils, miracles, and the like. Those who toil and live in want all their lives are taught by religion to be submissive and patient while here on earth, and to take comfort in the hope of a heavenly reward. But those who live by the labour of others are taught by religion to practise charity while on earth, thus offering them a very cheap way of justifying their entire existence as exploiters and selling them at a moderate price tickets to well-being in heaven. Religion is opium for the people. Religion is a sort of spiritual booze, in which the slaves of capital drown their human image, their demand for a life more or less worthy of man.

Lenin, via http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Opium_of_the_people

Saturday night thoughts

On my second glass of Grant Burge champagne.  Not as nice as Charles Heidsieck, but a third of the price.

Thinking about theodicy.   Thinking about a woman we know.  All she wanted all her life was to be loved by her father.  But he never loved her. She never came up to scratch.  His "love" for her was always conditional. So she found someone to love her (a bloke who smokes a lot of dope, is currently in jail for a parole violation) and is now pregnant by said boyfriend.  What can we do to help her?  All we can do is show her we love her and we care, no matter how much we mistrust her new boyfriend.  But she will never fill the black hole inside, and no matter how badly her father treats her, she always goes back to him.

God is good.

[Cartoon from this website]

Is that a real Holbein?

  Dear Old Lady. "You have a picture in the window marked ten-and-six, by a Mr. Holbein. Could you tell me if that is an original painting or merely a print?"

[Punch, 1914, via Gutenberg.org] 

I hate you! God hates you!

From Slap Upside the Head, which is temporarily quiescent.

Bible belt

Theology

Peanuts