Wisdom by Hindsight
My friend Hywel does believe that I need something to give hope! He has sent me a link to an amazing story in the Sun.
My readers may remember my obsession with bananas.
After reading about Gerry Burks, and what Gaelikaa has written in her blog gaelikaa’s diary, I have suddenly perked up. I suspect however that Ranjan is likely to be a little worried!
Mayo are you reading this? Eat lots of bananas. Can’t let someone else have all the glory now can you?
It surprised me no end to discover that I have posted five hundred posts in my blog and have already started the second millennium of posts.
It has been quite a journey notable for the innumerable friends that I have made and some remarkable comments and responses that my posts have generated.
I thank all my readers for having put up with me for all this while.
The purpose of this post is very simple. My earlier post on ‘Hell’, has taken a life of its own and the comments and responses are showing no signs of abating.
At last count, there were fifty five comments on the post and it is still counting. I recommend that, those readers who have not subscribed to the comments by mail, go back to the post and catch up with the very lively debate that has started there.
Welcome to another post of the Friday Loose Bloggers’ Consortium when eleven of us post on the same topic chosen by one of us. Today’s topic has been chosen by Grannymar. Quite why, I will never be able to figure out.
Please do visit Ashok, Conrad, Grannymar, Magpie11, Maria, Gaelikaa, Helen, Judy, Anu and Ginger to see ten other views on the same topic. Some of these bloggers may be preoccupied with vacations, examinations, family problems and/or romance, so be a little indulgent in case they do not post or post late.
“What is hell? I maintain that it is the suffering of being unable to love.”
– Fyodor Dostoyevsky
My idea of hell is what Europe, particularly the UK will be like, if the messages in these nine photographs taken in London, of British citizens achieve what they propose. These photographs were taken during a “Religion of peace demonstration” taken out by British citizens.
That is why, before what I love becomes hell, I want to visit.
To me, many of these citizens of a country on whose model our own democracy is built, seem already to be in hell. I wonder if they are dreaming of the time that they can go to that heaven that they are promised by their religious teachers.
Providence? Serendipity? After I wrote the post and before it could be published, I came across this article in the Independent. My best wishes to the UK in their endeavours to protect themselves from terrorists,
To change the mood somewhat after that rant, here is a true story that snopes says appeared in ‘The People’ paper, that should cheer my readers up a bit.
Iraqi terrorist, Khay Rahnajet, didn’t pay enough postage on a letter bomb. It came back with “return to sender” stamped on it. Forgetting it was the bomb, he opened it and was blown to bits.
I cannot figure out why Google decided to withdraw from mailand China, but what amazes me is the reaction of the Chinese government to this development.
The Washington Post has a very interesting article on the Chinese Government’s instructions to its media after Google announced its exit from mainland China.
I am glad that I am not Chinese.
In India, during the dark days of the National Emergency declared by Indira Gandhi about which I had written in my post “Hope And Renewal”, there was press censorship and one brave national chain of newspapers used to publish their paper with the space censored left blank leaving no one in doubt about what had happened. Apart from that one blot on our media being censored, we have had a free media which keeps throwing up scandals and mobilises public opinion.
We do not have any kind of Internet censorship. And am I grateful for that! Just imagine otherwise, I would keep disappointing Mayo all the time!
The Indian political class also apparently has learnt not to interfere with the freedom of the media as more and more unsavoury news keeps getting published/aired much to the chagrin of the class.
I cannot but feel sorry for Tiger Woods. Just read this story about his own feelings of remorse. I personlly wish that I had been a close friend of his to advise him when the s*** hit the fan, with him ramming his SUV into a few trees. Had I advised him, he would not perhaps, be in the predicament that he is in today.
Just Swing it!
Just Swing it!
With Sania’s tennis career at an all-time low, golf may be the way to go for a reasonable afterlife. With Kapil Dev as coach, prospects couldn’t be brighter. Of course, Tiger Woods will only be too glad to help if Sania is serious. At a recent cancer awareness event, the tennis sensation did exhibit a penchant for swinging the club.
The above news item is from the “Gliterati” page of one of India’s popular weekly magazines. Kapil Dev is an icon in India’s cricket loving world as a great cricketer who after retirement has become a scratch golf player. Sania Mirza is a tennis icon whose looks and tennis have floored India completely.
The point of this post is not about Kapil Dev or Sania Mirza, but the quip about Tiger Woods in the story. Tiger Woods is also an icon in India among the golfing fraternity and the sports crazy Indians who follow all global sportsmen.
I think that Tiger has completely mishandled the situation.
Had I been Tiger Woods, this is what I would have done.
1. Hold a press conference immediately after the discharge from the hospital to admit to whatever had happened to give me the bruised lips and cuts.
2. Explain the reason behind the happening.
3. Admit to women voluntarily chasing me to have affairs with me whenever the opportunity offered and my agreeing to have such affairs whenever the opportunity arose.
4. Advise all concerned that I would sort out the differences between me and my wife in my way and no one need to be concerned about it.
5. Be out on the links practicing or playing tournament golf without any further ado,
Why would I have done that?
1. The media actually envies me for my peccadilloes. To maintain otherwise is hypocrisy.
2. Most men, given the chance would do precisely what I did.
3. Most women of the type that follow celebrities around would want to have affairs with those celebrities.
4. Item 2 and 3 is natural and part of our deepest instincts. Women will go after alpha males and males will go after attractive women. I am of course talking about heterosexual people here.
As long as I am willing to own up publicly to what had happened and openly inform all concerned that I shall handle the fall out with my wife and sort out the matter to her complete satisfaction the matter should be treated as closed. I am entitled to my privacy and if any one did not like that aspect of my personality, he can stop being a fan.
Had Tiger Woods done what I would have done in his place, I think that he would have come out of the whole affair better than he has. His sponsors might have hemmed and hawed for a while but no major hiccups would have taken place. His male followers and admirers would have adjusted their admiration a couple of notches up. His female fans would have decided to take their chances too whenever the opportunity arose.
That leaves the wife. Not being a woman, I am unable to figure out what she should have done. I of course admire her for going after him with a niblick. Should she do something like what Heather Mills did with Sir Paul McCartney? Unlike Heather Mills, Elin Nordegren dropped out of public sight after their much publicized marriage. Perhaps one of my lady readers would like to offer some ideas!