It is Remembrance Day here in Canada and I wanted to express my gratitude to Veterans worldwide. I’ve just returned from the ceremony at the Fredericton cenotaph. There was a great turnout — the largest in a long time, according to the radio. The weather cooperated nicely.
I fully realize that I wouldn’t be able to express my opinion on a lot of subjects if you all had not done what you’ve done. Thank you.
I suppose I should at least mention the fact that on this day 20 years ago, the Berlin Wall came down. This is an important event in German and world history, and you might be wondering if there should be some sort of German national holiday to commemorate it. Well, one big problem is that on the same day in 1938, Kristallnacht also happened. A terrible coincidence to say the least. Is it possible to have a single event marking both things? Can they be used as bookends to a period of history when humans did pretty awful things to each other?
On the title again, is being a brick in a wall all that bad? If you’re providing support to other bricks around you, and making the wall stronger, is that not a good thing?
Okay. This is a bit of a mini rant, so forgive, or hit your back button and move on. I was out for a coffee this morning, and someone was selling cheap Christmas wreaths (not the good hand made ones, the plastic ones) at King’s Place. Or, at least I think that’s what they were doing. This lady was holding a wreath in her hands, and her lips were moving, but all I could hear was “Diary of a Madman” blaring from the iPod. It was at that cool point in the track, where there is a chorus and Ozzy does that really forlorn “oooh…” wail, that is both gut wrenching and sends shivers down my spine. It’s creepy. Anyway, it saved me from whatever this lady was pushing. I mean, really — besides it’s not even Remembrance Day. Show a little respect.
Voices in the darkness
Scream away my mental health
Can I ask a question
To help me save me from myself
On the subject of Ozzy, I have finally discovered the perfect walking tune. The drum beat from “The Ultimate Sin” hits my stride, bang-on. I don’t need to adjust it, slow it down, or speed it up. It’s perfect. Ozzy has commented that The Ultimate Sin album, in general, is his least favourite because it was done at that time in his career where he veered dangerously close to the land of the hair band, probably because of Jake E. Lee on lead guitar. I think he brought a lot of his “Ratt” influence with him.
Bury your anger and bury your dead
Or you’ll be left with nothing and no one
There’s no point in screaming ‘cos you won’t be heard
Now that the tables have been turned
it was the Ultimate Sin
Just passing along a link that others may enjoy. For the last week or so, The Strand on BCC World Service has had John Kani, a South African actor and playwright, read bits of George Orwell’s Animal Farm, as a way to commemorate the 20th anniversary of the fall of the Berlin Wall. They’ve put up the 5 segments on the website, in a few different audio formats. If you liked the book, or the ideals of the book, or (like myself) enjoy listening to someone read to you, check it out.
Unlike some other BCC audio content, this doesn’t appear to be limited to people living in the UK.
Robert Frost, in “The Road Not Taken”, discusses taking a path less travelled. Everyone knows this poem. Taking a path that is “less travelled” implies that there is another path which is trod upon more often. How far do these two paths diverge? Can you be on one path and still see the other? Can you communicate with others on the alternate? Or are the two paths so completely divergent that they are obscured from each other by obstacles like hills, trees, or other events in your life? Do they ever converge again?
My new chainrings arrived yesterday. I will probably install them this weekend, provided I can get the old rings off the crank. Those suckers are probably on there pretty good, and badly seized by now. Almost two decades worth of grime, rain, and rust will most likely make their removal difficult. Still, the new rings are pretty sweet. CNC machined aluminum, polished stainless steel, and shiny titanium. No nicks, dents, or dirt. Unsullied by the abuse that I will no doubt inflict on them. Hundreds of thousands of pedal strokes, waiting. Lofty. I’ll be happy if the new rings don’t skip and shift well.
Last night was my shift at the Community Kitchen. I enjoy it and think that it’s a rewarding and worthwhile way to spend an hour or so a week. I must admit, though, that when 3:30 pm rolls around on Wednesday and I start thinking about heading down, I often wish I had some other commitment instead. Momentum and the First Law of Motion, I guess.
After slinging hundreds of ladle fulls of rice and some strange pork concoction (and no, I check my Vegan ideals at the door for this period of time), and having conversations with many of the folk who come through the door looking for a hot meal, I am struck by the distinct change in atmosphere once 6 pm arrives and we close up. The people who talked to me just minutes earlier are suddenly aloof and unapproachable. The sense of me being an outsider with nothing but a guilty conscious to assuage is palatable (palatable, despite their being pork involved). There was a point in my life when I could have just as easily become one of them. That path, although definitely not travelled, was certainly examined, and tentative footsteps were taken down it. I retreated, thankfully.
It saddens me that there are still gaps between the haves and have-nots in our World. We’ve known this for ages, and people have written things about it. Mused about it. Pontificated, even. If history is examined, we’d see that we’ve been repeating and maintaining the status quo for ages. In 1932, there was a massacre in El Savador, due in part to a retaliatory strike by the government against a Communist uprising over wages and poor working conditions for Indian coffee pickers. The Coffee Association of El Salvador wrote that
“There have always been two essential classes in every society: the dominators and the dominated. Today, they are called the rich and the poor. To end class divisions would break the equilibrium and cause the disintegration of human society.”
Harsh stuff. And yet, we seem to still pay lip service to community and charity, especially in Western society. We write thoughtful quotes on white boards, shake our heads about the problems we see on the streets, and then stay in our warm offices and ignore the 5 pm dinner call on Wednesday afternoon.
I made a batch of this tonight, and put the recipe up. It’s quick, healthy, and very fresh and light tasting. Obviously, you need to like broccoli. There are ways to “chef it up”, though, so read the recipe.
This time change back off of DST is really crimping my style. I’m rushing home at night to save daylight, and I’m about an hour late leaving the house in the mornings now for interesting sunrise shots. So, I’ve been concentrating on the obscure and the abstract — taking photos of things I’ve shot before, but trying to push the envelope and experiment. I’ve added another abstract-type photo to the photos page. It was one of those “how do I do something useful and interesting” moments. I sort of salvaged it off of the memory card without thinking too much about it.
I’ve been slack about the recipe section of the site in recent days but I will hopefully have something up soon. Being winter, I think another soup is in order.
