Friday, December 15, 2006

Holiday Optimism

Sundown today is the first day of Hannukah (Festival of Lights) which celebrates two events. The rededication of the Temple in Jerusalem and The Miracle of the Oil.
A small Jewish army beat the Greek Syrians who had banned Judaism and desecrated the Temple.
There was only enough oil to keep the eternal flame going for one day but it burned for eight. Long enough for more oil to be prepared. So there are eight days to the holiday.
This is when the Menorah is used. (The big candlestick.) A candle is lit each night. The right side is lit on the first night, the left on the second and so on.
Food at this time involves a lot of olive oil, stuff that is deep fried and all sorts of doughnuts!
Hannukah Gelt (money) was given out to kids but nowadays that has changed in to chocolate money and presents so that kids have a kind of ‘Christmas’ gift.
It’s a cool holiday!

While on the subject of cool.
Dr Katherine Zappone and Dr Ann Louise Gilligan were told by the Irish High Court that their marriage would not be recognised in Ireland. They married in Vancouver in 2003 and wanted it recognised for tax purposes and the like.
At the end of the case Dr Zappone thanked the judge and said,

“Ann Louise and I love each other. We have requested that the human right to marry is extended to us. We are the only kind of human beings in Ireland whose right to marry the person they choose to love is not acknowledged, not protected and not respected.
We believe that Ireland will be a land of justice and equality for all human beings… We believe that the Irish Constitution does protect and promote our rights - as it does all others.”

She didn’t freak out and start shouting and bawling. She just stated the facts of the case.
They are discriminated against.
What makes her cool, in my eyes, is her optimism that things WILL change. I pray for that kind of optimism.
Absolutely spot on. Good luck ladies.

Yesterday Crisp-e got stopped by one of the new Community Police Officers for, get this, speeding on his push bike!
He was on a main road and was screamed at to stop. He was then informed there is a law about riding dangerously in a built up area.
Fuck off!
They want to have a look at the bitter and twisted people in the Mong-Mobiles, who drive along the pavement forcing pedestrians into the road just because they have working legs or aren’t too fat to walk.
The ones who have fucking number plates on the back should have their disability benefit to stopped until they get a life.

8 comments:

Schneewittchen said...

I've never heard Hannukah so beautifully and respectfully described. Thank you for that and I hope this time brings you spiritual peace.

That was an amazing response from Katherine Zappone, very dignified and to the point. May they prevail. I'm going to go back and amend my blog to put a link in to this post.

Unbelievable ! - the bike thing. Crisp-e's one of the good guys! What are they putting in the doughnuts there?

Sassygril said...

I've just come home from a conference in London organizsed by Brunel University folk interested in the field of emotion. Your blog was the most insightful piece of writing on the subject I've seen all day.

But the bike thing is wank. What are we coming to as a nation?

Schneewittchen said...

Ah, Crisp-e, you can do that so well:))

Sassy - I thought Brunel was all engineers! They must have widened their game:)

Sleepy said...

Schnee.. Thank you, you are too kind.

Sassy.. I also thought that Brunel was full of engineers! Also, a Hockey team with the 'sturdiest' looking women I've ever seen.

Crisp-e.. Yeah Innit! You'd have thought the 'Bubbles' would have kept the Olive oil supplies going even if they were temple desecrating!

Sassygril said...

Well, Brunel might forever be associated with Isambard Kingdom, but they also possess a uni with a management school which has a segment of staff focused on the area of emotion at work. They also used to have a Prof and Head of Department who did my PhD viva...what a cutie he was. Spent most of the three hours flirting.

Sleepy said...

Sassy... Flirting?... I'd expect nothing less!

Emotion at work sounds interesting.
What is it to do with? I'm assuming keeping the workers happy not how shite management affects the workers.

Sassygril said...

Well, Sleepy, it's kinda both. The whole issue of emotion at work has long been recognised on one level and not taken as seriously as it needs to be on another. The whole field was essentially blown open by a UK academic called Stephen Fineman in the early 1990s and the field has taken off since then. A lot of the stuff at the conference was a bit crap to be honest. But there is a lot of good, interested, empirically based material out there. It's also one of the few fields that doesn't treat psychoanalysis as a pariah. It doesn't necessarily have an easy relationship with it, but at least they're prepared to give it house room.

Sassygril said...

It's Canadian I think. The place where the film is set actually exists and the residents were (unsuprisingly) pissed off at them being portrayed as such hicks from the sticks.

I would start cracking open the vino but I'm working on the book chapter and Everton have just lost to bastard Chelsea. Are you at home, Sleepy or art thou at your country retreat?