13 Tuesday Mar 2007
Posted in blogging, health & happiness, life stuff, musings
Yet another entry for engtech’s 5 things contest.
How about you?
11 Sunday Mar 2007
Posted in life stuff, politics, rants
Clearly aren’t as important as bombs at home. Check these out…
A small sampling of almost daily news reports about innocent civilians being killed by suicide bomb attacks in Iraq.
Are Londoners, New Yorkers, Madrileños somehow more important than Iraqi civilians?
Where are the protests, the displays of public mourning and moral outrage … even the public debate?
50-something Londoners were killed on July 7, 2005 … almost a daily average in Baghdad. How is that we westerners feel comfortable maintaining this obvious double standard?
UPDATE 16 July: major attacks in 2007
An Iraqi girl walks past glass shattered during overnight clashes
between US forces and militants in Baghdad.
09 Friday Mar 2007
Posted in life stuff, musings
Should we ever tolerate intolerance?
This subject came up elsewhere the other day, about how elderly parents sometimes come out with embarrassing bigoted comments yet it’s somehow ‘okay’ because they are not actually bigots. 😕
Anyhow, this got me to wondering – why do we do this? Why are people exempt from being tolerant and rational just because of their age? It’s as if every generation excuses the previous one for being less enlightened simply because they were born and grew up in a different time. As if after you hit a certain age you are no longer expected to develop as a person and adapt to changes in social mores. I find this rather sad.
Is there really a cut-off point after which people cannot change and grow? Meanwhile, the 80-year-old dyed-in-the-wool bigot only got to be that age while maintaining their prejudices because these were either condoned or left unchallenged.
Is it really ever too late to unlock a closed mind? Or is it just that people would rather turn a blind eye to prejudice in order to avoid an unpleasant confrontation?
04 Sunday Mar 2007
Posted in animals & pets, fun stuff, life stuff, miscellany, retail therapy
Worth about three thousand words … I honestly never thought they’d take to it,
but I couldn’t help myself as I’ve always collected fish-shaped things. 
04 Sunday Mar 2007
Posted in life stuff, retail therapy
Our possible new sofa bed thingy.
We’ll be checking it out tomorrow morning. With a storage drawer option that fits underneath it (for blankets, bedding, etc).
Really quite excited about finally getting a new sofa, since my dear departed Lua totally ripped the old one to smithereens so that it is now just shreds of upholstery barely holding in the stuffing (cleverly hidden under cotton throw). And although I’m not really pleased about the new sofa not having any arms, I think the advantage of having a futon-like sofa bed with storage space at a very reasonable price (about 250€) makes up for that.
So now gearing up for that Total IKEA Experience … and seriously not looking forward to it. In part because I almost never make it through the kitchen section without buying loads of stuff I never knew I needed, but mostly because IKEA stores are not at all user-friendly for people who don’t own cars. And that half the time you go there for something specific it’s out of stock. So, fingers crossed …
casa azahar 