Happy Ben-day

Every Picture tells a story and that is certainly true for this card. But I will cut to the chase. One way or another it got posted without a stamp. I received an apologetic e-mail from my sister warning me that I could expect a demand for money from the postie. But friends here said,
'Oh no, they'll just send it back.' Unbelievably, it arrived, just as it was sent and I haven't been asked to pay any excess. Mind you, it may be that my sister confounded Canada Post by not putting a return address on it, clever, very clever, but who knows.

So...... Happy Birthday to the Benjamin of the tribe of Schnee. He will be able to celebrate later, after he gets back from work. His demands have been reasonable this year, unlike last when his aim was to lie around all day eating himself sick. And he did. Still, I guess that's what birthdays are about, growing older and hopefully wiser.

Kevin unfortunately is proper poorly. He has sensibly taken a second day off work and I think his doing so may mean the difference between whatever he has tipping over into pneumonia and recovery.

Stereotypes - interesting things. In today's Guardian, Miss England, a Muslim, has been criticising the government for negatively stereotyping the Muslim community. She is also annoyed that when she does interviews, instead of being asked about her favourite food etc, she is asked about her experience of being a Muslim in a Christian country. Now it seems to me is that what she is saying is that she would prefer to be stereotyped as an airheaded woman than a person with interesting views. Hmmm.... Still, let's run with that,
"Ms Kohistani said: "Tony Blair addressed Muslims in particular, telling them that they need to sort out the problem within. That was a huge stereotype of the Islamic community." " Er....excusez-moi? What? No it isn't.

Let's say for the sake of argument that a rogue element of the Labour Party were running around making bombs and trying to blow up planes IN THE NAME OF THE LABOUR PARTY. Now let's say that Tony Blair, as leader of that same Labour Party, instead of saying,
'Oi, dissidents, No!!! This isn't what the LP is about, don't go doing that or you're out. You want to be socialists, go and play with someone else, because this isn't what socialism is about,' he in fact went and whined at, for the sake of argument, Jacques Chirac,
'No fair Jackie, people are saying rotten things about my party, make them stop!' I think he'd get a bit of a flea in his ear.
I rest my case.
Except, to even things up, there was a superbly written, very funny article entitled 'How to be an ordinary, decent Muslim' in the same issue. The writer, Urmee Khan pokes fun at us, gently and as with all the best satire, there's a serious message in there. Nice one.

I have a way that the Middle East could help us out, maybe sell us something.* One of the areas of great natural beauty on the west coast of Vancouver Island, Tofino, has run out of water. They are having to send tourists home and generally call off the end of the summer season. They are on the coast, so a case of
'Water, water everywhere but not a drop to drink nor spare,' I may have misquoted that.
Perhaps we could buy emergency desalination plants from the land-locked desert nations. Seems logical, if global warming is going to make sea-levels rise, we might as well use the extra sea, or the warmer sea or whatever is causing it to produce drinking water. Ah the Star Trek solution, it always pleases because it is so neat, although generally dependent on replicator technology.

In an attempt to thwart the stereotype of rockstars as being a bunch of rich people who couldn't care less about the fans, Dave Grohl has announced that he will be going on a bender with the Aussie miners who were trapped underground for two months not so long ago.
""I'm not just having one beer with those dudes: we're going for it," "said Mr Grohl.
He was impressed that they had requested an i-pod with Foo Fighters' music on it while they were trapped. I can understand them wanting the Foo Fighters, but going on the experience of quite a number of people, asking for an i-pod was a bit of an act of faith.
Nonetheless, good on yer Dave.

* Yes I know they sell us oil, but I live in hope that we will develop ways to use less and use alternatives.