I just can't give a hoot

A well dressed, somewhat distinguished gentleman walks into an UNICEF office.  He approaches the young woman at the front desk with a “Good morning, I would like to buy a fuck.”  The young woman is, as you might expect, shocked and somewhat offended.  She snaps at him “Excuse-me? How rude!” She eyes her phone and tries to remember the extension for security.  “Not at all!” the man says in a defensive tone. “You’ve been asking me to give a fuck for years, and I have! Now I’m all out of fucks to give and it’s ruining my life.”  The woman pulls out a laminated phone list and confirms that security is extension 155, she then looks at the man, “Sir, I’m going to have to ask you to leave.”   “You don’t understand,” says the man.  His tone becomes depressed as he continues,  “I gave a fuck about global warming and now politicians tell me it’s a hoax.  I gave a fuck about education and now schools refuse to teach evolution.  I gave a fuck about the overpopulation problem and the church proclaims contraceptives as the work of the devil.  I gave a fuck about world peace and they elected GWB twice! I’m just out of fucks to give.”  The woman is a little more sympathetic now, but her hand remains on the receiver. The man continues with a tear in his eye “The other day my son brought home a lousy report card and I just didn’t give a fuck. My boss told me I had to take a pay cut and I just couldn’t give a fuck.  My wife said she’s sleeping with the pool boy… you see what I’m getting at.  They think I don’t care, but the problem is that I’m all out of fucks.”

“Sir, I don’t think I can help you.  Have you tried giving a hoot?” His exasperated look told her she’s stating the obvious. “Of course I have, but it’s just not the same. Once you’ve given a fuck, a hoot is just so understated. You feel like you’re not doing enough”.  She tries again, “Well, sir, that’s not really our core business, we mostly sell Christmas cards,” she points to a lovely display of cards in a corner.  “I know,” says the man with a sigh “I tried Greenpeace before I came here, they gave me a t-shirt”.  The man looks defeated as he walks toward the door.  The receptionist hears him mutter “I’ll try Washington, they sell so much bullshit, someone is bound to have a fuck or two for sale.”

from great to pathetic in a single statement

I voted for Obama and I’m going to vote for him again, not because he’s doing a stellar job, but because president Romney would be disastrous.   It’s a sad state of affairs when in an election in the most powerful military power in the world, the strongest economy in the world, the greatest advocate for democracy in the world, the choice for president is between mediocre and incompetent evil.

You might jump to Obama’s defense at this moment (‘cause if you’re jumping to Romney’s defense, stop reading and go away), saying that I’m being unfair, that his presidency has been marked by major positive accomplishments, that he has improved America's standing around the world, passed a healthcare act that aims at providing all Americans with adequate care, improved veteran benefits, ended the Iraqi war, stopped US torture of prisoners and, at the very least, scratched his head over the Guantanamo conundrum.  Yes he did all of those things and what’s more, he got his daughters a puppy! 

So why is it that during a recent interview with Brian Williams (see it here) he described the Bin Laden raid as the ‘most important single day of my presidency’?   Was Bin Laden evil? Absolutely!  Did Bin Laden need to be brought to justice? A resounding ‘yes’!  Did Bin Laden deserve to die? I’d have to go with ‘probably’ since he seemed to be an overall waste of oxygen. However, if ‘the single most important day’ in the presidency of the most powerful military power in the world, the greatest advocate of democracy in the world, the strongest economy in the world is the murder of one sickly evil man, then it’s not a really a great world power, it’s just pathetic.

Stuck in a rut

Little Red Riding Hood is startled by the little girl who just materialized in front of her.  She stumbles a few steps back on the road to grandma’s house and asks: “Who are you? Where did you come from?”  Lily can’t believe her own eyes and is just as startled as her hooded page mate.  “My name is Lily, my mother was reading me this story for the millionth time, she reads it every night, and my eyelids got heavy and I shut them…” she looks around at the damp forest, “suddenly I was here talking to you.”   

Once the original fright wears off  Ridding Hood relaxes, dusts her hooded cape and picks up her basket.  “Well I suppose it is a road, I should expect other travelers occasionally.”   Lily, who knew the story by heart, was quick to correct her erroneous assumption.  “It’s not a real road, it’s just a, a story, and aside from the wolf there really shouldn’t be anyone else here.   I’m not supposed to be here.”   Hood looks startled again, “did you say ‘wolf’?”  Lily is irritated with Hood’s ignorance of the plot, “yes I said wolf, what’s the matter with you? Everyone knows about the wolf eating the grandmother,  ‘what large eyes you have my dear’ and all that stuff.”   Hood seems surprised “a wolf eats my granny? How’s that supposed to happen? she’s safe at home.”  Lily explains, “he pretends he’s you and she lets him in the house…” but as she hears the words she finds her explanation somewhat farfetched, as does Hood who retorts “a wolf fools my grandmother into thinking he’s me and she lets him in, that’s fresh.”   “Well, it’s true!!” protests Lily.

At that moment a vivacious figure emerges from the trees,  “Hi there youngsters”  chirps the wolf.   Hood looks his way and comments on how busy the road is today and Lily again informs her that it’s a story, not a road and that this is the wolf not a passerby.  “Me a wolf? Nonsense,” cries the wolf in a self righteous tone, “I’m a traveling salesman.”  Lily cannot stand his smug lies and cuts him down immediately “a salesman you say?  Where are your products? What’s with that snout and that tail?”  Hood studies the wolf and agrees with Lily “you don’t look like a salesman.”  The wolf realizes he has hit a snag, but he’s been stickier situations, “Did I say salesman?  Yes, er… I meant I’m a er… well, you startled me and I was scared… yes, that’s it!”  He stands taller and continues “I’m the cowardly lion from the Wizard of Oz and I was wondering if you had any courage in that basket of yours.”   Lily is incensed at that bold lie “No he’s not, he’s the wolf, look at him!”  Hood examines the wolf carefully and finds his explanation plausible, “what with the snout and the tail, you could be the cowardly lion.”   Lily is almost screaming now “ There’s no lion in this story! That’s the wolf!”

The wolf continues his lion-in-need spiel  as Lily considers the entire situation.  She concludes that deception is part of his nature, a survival mechanism.  No matter what she says to him, he will not deviate from his crooked path, so she turns her attention to Hood who is about to give the wolf directions to grandma’s house: “If you tell him where you’re going he will eat your grandmother and get killed by a lumberjack, who I suspect is a operative for the logging industry; he shows up out of nowhere and makes  logging seem downright heroic. But I digress… stop talking to the wolf and let’s go back to your house. ”  Hood ignores Lily’s warnings and continues her conversation with the wolf.  A few seconds later the wolf is racing through the forest, Hood turns, waves goodbye to Lily and continues down the road to grandma’s house.

Lily sighs her frustration as she watches Hood disappear in a bend.  But she learns a valuable lesson: some people are just stuck in a rut and can’t get out, even with the help of others. Tomorrow night when she asks her mom read the story again she’ll try to talk some sense into the grandmother instead.

10,000 spoons when all you need is a knife

Nothing ever makes me laugh anymore, sad but true, but this did. True story.  Our employees work mostly from home, but the company has an office in the boondocks of the outskirts of Tinytown  in São Paulo.  I’ve never seen the office, but I imagine it to be bare bones, a couple of desks, a couple of outdated computers and a couple of dedicated people.  On a good day there’s toilet paper in the bathroom.  

One of the decrepit computers has a loose wireless card. You remember the old desktop computers with card slots and one or two tiny screws that hold the card in place. Yes, one of those.  Anyway the wireless card on one of the computers was loose and Ada used every utensil in the office on the loose screw in various failed attempts to secure the card in place.  Whether the intermittent wireless service was more annoying than the taunting she received for her inability to tighten a screw is something you are going to have to ask her.  After much taunting from her fellow workers she decided what she needed was a knife.  A butter knife, a pocket knife, a letter opener any sort of knife would do. She ransacked the office from top to bottom.  No knife. She then had the idea to go to the corner bakery where she is a regular customer, they couldn’t begrudge her a knife.  She walked to the counter and had the following exchange:

Ada: “Hi, could I borrow a knife, I’ll bring it right back.”

Baker: “Sure, why do you need a knife?”

Ada: “To tighten a screw on a computer.”

Baker: “…Why didn’t you ask for a screwdriver then?”

Ada: “…Years of female stereotype social conditioning force me to request a kitchen utensil to do manly work…?”

vicious cycle

There are those who argue that a murder must be tried where it was committed by the people who suffered the injury. So the 911 terrorists must be tried in the US by Americans. That makes sense, it is almost irrefutable.  Then there is Robert Bales who murdered 16 innocent Afghans, mostly children.  Shouldn’t he then be tried in Afghanistan by the Afghan people? If it’s good for the goose, it should be good for the gander.  But instead he was quickly whisked back to the US to face possible charges in an American court. The victims in the case have no say.  You walk away with the sense of double standards that if a crime is committed against Americans, it is tried by the US and if a crime is committed by Americans it too is tried by the US.

I understand the difference in both those cases and the flaw in the reasoning of that argument.   The difference is that the soldier was placed in that situation by his government, in the service of that same government, and is therefore owed some sort of government protection. While the terrorists were acting of their own volition, not backed by any official government and therefore not entitled to any such protection.  The government is in the situation to protect the country’s interests, the terrorist is just a murderer with no higher ideal.   I understand it, but I wonder if the Afghan father who had to bury his children does.  I wonder if he is now so incensed that he would be willing to fly an airplane into a building, but mostly I wonder where it ends.

An unnamed teenage ability

Ok, when I was a teenager I had a thing for Neil Diamond. [Waits for the laughter to subside before continuing.] There is a sort of fanaticism, a sort of compulsion, a radical attraction that you only experience as a teenager.  It’s short lived, by the time you’re in your twenties it’s faded, by the time you’re thirty it’s just a memory, and by the time you’re forty it’s a youthful folly that you can’t really explain. For my cousin it was Elvis, for my mother it was Rock Hudson, for you it was someone else.  But for me it was Neil Diamond, he could do no wrong, in my mind he was perfect. When his album Primitive came out in 1984 I cried myself to sleep because it was obvious in that album he had lost his rather fragile voice and adapted his songwriting to suit his new diminished vocal abilities.  And I still loved him.  Why? Because I was a child and in my mind he was perfect.

What is that? Where does that come from? What is that ability to worship we have when we are very young and why do we lose it over time? I would have had words with anyone who questioned his unquestionable talent, or found fault in his flawless character.  What ability did my brain posses then to completely deceive itself, and why do I lack that same ability now?  Today, of course, I question his very questionable talent and I fault his very faulty character. But where did that unreasonable fanaticism go? How did that overwhelming talent for blind adoration simply dissolve into air? It was real, of that I am certain, and it was mine. 

Think of the hoards of teenage fans trampling each other for a glimpse of the airplane that brought the Beatles to America. The unexplainable phenomenon of teen idols like Bieber and David Cassidy, they are not talented people, they are a product of this unnamed ability of the teenage brain.  And their careers often fade in the time it takes our brains to lose that same ability.   Teen idols owe their stardom to a talent our brains possess for a very short time: the power of voluntary self delusion culminating in blind adoration.  It’s a condition that generates billions of dollars in profits every year, it launches questionable talents into stardom every decade.  Shouldn’t it have a name? Shouldn’t music executives be able to measure it? Chart it on a graph? Determine how much it’s worth each year?

And there is one more aspect of this unnamed ability that should be widely discussed and is not:  is it a good thing or a bad thing?

What name would you give it?

How would your dog introduce you?

When I had to board my dog I used to call up my vet and say to the receptionist “Hi, this is Titus’ human, he was wondering if he could stay with you a few days next week.”  She thought I was silly. But think about it, how would your dog introduce you to another dog? Wouldn't you be his human?  Titus was a min-pin, so he was 10 pounds of fierce independence with a Rottweiler glint in his eye.  He would have said “Hi, my name is Titus.  This is MY human, you may sniff her but none of that tail wagging, ‘pet me I’m so cute’ act ‘cause I will bite you! She’s mine.”  He was 18 when his body finally gave out, and I miss him everyday.


Now, Saskia is a mutt.  She was destined for a miserable, very short life in the streets of São Paulo, except that she was much too nice and friendly when I said hi to her.  So, now I'm her human.  Living in the streets made her afraid of other dogs.  If she had to introduce me she would say. “Hi, please don’t bite me.  I have a human, and I’m hiding behind her because she’ll bite you if you try to bite me. You can act all cute if you want, and she can pet you if she likes, ‘cause I’m the one going home with her, so there!”
 
If you think you ‘own’ your dog, if your dog is your property, you shouldn’t have a dog.

I'll have the gnocchi please

Low season, after lunch and before dinner, in modern Pompeii is characterized by deserted streets and closed restaurants. Two disheartened, wet, tired and frozen people wandered out of the scavi in search of food and warmth. We were desperate as we felt life drain from our cold, wet bodies. When we thought we couldn’t take another step we came across a McDonald's. The outrage and the subsequent vociferous and vigorous bitching about the fact that there was a McDonald's in front of the ruins revitalized us and we were able to continue.

Everything looked closed, except for one tavern next to the church, the door was half open and there were people sitting at a table having a meal. We tentatively pushed our way into the darkened space and out of the rain, fully expecting to be chased back outside by someone gesturing wildly and announcing loudly ‘Chiuso! Chiuso!’ We looked around for a host or waiter and saw that the only people in the place were sitting around a table next to an area heater having a meal. An old Italian woman left the table and came to greet us with a smile, while at the same time indicating a table near the wall. I couldn’t determine her age, she could have been forty or perhaps ninety five. As we gratefully settled into our seats the woman dragged the area heater away from the group’s table and placed it next to us. I looked over my shoulder expecting the other patrons to complain and gesture half obscenities toward the woman for removing the heater. Nothing! They continued their conversations and meals as if the only source of life giving heat in the world hadn’t just been snatched away from them. I was in awe of the woman’s power, from my perspective she had just snatched a prime rib out of the snarling teeth of a hungry lion and walked away unscathed. She wore her power with ease, she was accustomed to great power, to telling people what to do and never be questioned. A creature of such power could only be an Italian mother, and a progenitor of the other patrons in the restaurant.

 I perused the menu, found a gnocchi dish and was happy. My mother, knowing that I would order the gnocchi, focused on a lasagna. The matron came to take our order and smiled at my choice, informing me in Italian that the gnocchi is very good today and that I had made a good choice. She turned to my mom and tisked her tongue and shook her head from side to side at her choice informing her that the lasagna is not good today. Mom selected a string of different dishes while the matron shook her head at the selections and informed her, one by one, that those dishes weren’t any good today either. Mom gathered up some of her Italian and asked the woman what she would recommend today. She was told "Gli gnocchi, signora, è buono oggi."

We were already enjoying our gnocchi when another patron arrived at the door. The new arrival was seated at a table on the opposite side of the restaurant. My first concern was that the old woman would take the heater away from us and give it to the new arrival and that I would be powerless to object. She didn’t, because we were cold and she was an Italian mother. Instead she stood next to the young woman to take her order. We watched as the young arrival made her first selection from the menu and recognized the familiar head shaking and tongue tisking. We both agreed that though we couldn’t hear the details of the conversation, the new arrival would eventually get the gnocchi. The young woman made several other selections, each was politely declined by the proprietress. We couldn’t hear the final arrangement, but a few minutes later the young woman was served a lovely plate of gnocchi.

When we were all happily eating our gnocchi, the old woman sat down in a chair next to the half open door looking outside at the dismal, cold, gloomy rain and started to talk. She wasn’t talking to us directly because she was still gazing out of the door, but we were the only ones able to hear her. “February.” She said in Italian. “February is always like this… March is better.” She kept looking out of the half open wooden door. “You should come back in March, it’s much better then.” My guess was that in March the other choices on the menu were available too.

I just love Italy.

The hand that rocks the cradle

There seems to be an ever increasing number of Muslim countries and communities favoring the implementation of Sharia law. I’m not going to judge any religious aspect of people’s choices, but I think no good has ever come out of mixing church and state.  However, there is something particularly nefarious about implementing Sharia in these places where social inequality is ramped and the poverty of the lower classes seems endemic and perpetual; where poverty is a legacy of despair from generation to generation.

It is a proven fact that the most effective method of pulling a community out of poverty is to empower women.  Women who have a minimum education, the power to make choices, earn a living, value her children’s education and to decide how many children she will bear, raise healthier children, who grow up to be better educated and more able to rise out of poverty. The hand that rocks the cradle rules the world! And when that hand is empowered to plan for her children’s future, there is nothing that can hold it back. However when that hand is restricted by law, there is little hope for the future of her children.

That Sharia law divests women of all power, education and choice is a fact. That communities whose women are divested of power, education and choice are less likely to rise out of poverty is a fact.  

Draw whatever conclusions you like.

Brazil: the emerging economy! (unless it rains)

 Rain has fallen from the sky since before human beings evolved on the planet.  Rain has always been there, in any given day in human history it has rained somewhere on the planet.  You may argue that human activity on the planet has changed rain patterns and that it now rains more or less in specific regions. But the fact remains that it rains, and that it has always rained, and that it will always rain.  We have built our civilization around the fact that it rains, no one ever designed a building around the notion that henceforth it shall never rain again.  That would be stupid.

Every year in the rainy season the states of Rio de Janeiro and São Paulo experience floods, landslides, death and destruction, massive power outages, disease riddled drinking water, overcrowded hospitals and shelters, and general despair.  Everyone is quick to point out that the catastrophe is caused by the rain, or the excessive rain, or the continuous rain.  All of the victims interviewed say that god willing, the rains will stop and they will be able to return home.  To this I would like to say one word: Bullshit!

It’s not the rain people!!! The rain has always been there.  The rain will always be there!!  It’s the complete lack of remotely adequate infrastructure that is to blame! Not the rain!  The government spends no money on infrastructure maintenance.  Construction on hillsides is unregulated.  Massive amounts of trash clog the sewer and runoff systems, in those few instances where a runoff system is in place. The rivers and waterways are completely stagnant from tons of debris that are freely dumped by the population whose government offers no other alternative for trash disposal.  No sewer or runoff system is ever cleared before the rains come.

If you force a person into a vacuum chamber and he dies, you might say that the cause of death was ‘lack of oxygen to the brain’.  You would be right.  However, any court of law would argue that the cause of death was the placement of the person inside a vacuum chamber in the first place, and that it was in fact murder.  The corrupt city, state and federal governments pocket public funds and force people to live with completely inadequate, life threatening infrastructure.  The cause of death in this case is not the excessive rain, it’s the subjugation of people to inadequate living conditions by a corrupt and broken system of government.

An astounding, shameful 49.1% of the Brazilian population has no access to a sewer system and the evening news on Globo television has the unmitigated temerity of blaming the problem on the ‘rain’ and then turn around and call itself ‘unbiased’.  A people who demands no accountability from its government, who believes the news when told that the rain is the problem and is happy to leave the solution in the hands of god, deserves next year’s rain.  Harsh? Perhaps, but I’m sick and tired of all of the hype and advertising around Brazil as the country to watch, the emerging power of today, the economic powerhouse in a dwindling world economy, while all of the very real problems are swept under the rug.  Stop advertizing and start solving the problems.   But by all means world, come to Brazil, come for the Olympics, come for the World Cup, come see all of the splendors of this magnificent country. Unless it rains.

an innocuous decision by an unimportant individual

An unsung, unknown art professor at the Vienna Academy of Fine Arts was given the thankless task of grading entrance exams.  Hopeful students had sat for the two day examination for a chance to change their lives and prospects, for the chance of becoming a great artist and being remembered for their art.  The unknown professor was having a bad day, perhaps he had had a fight with his wife, perhaps he himself was a frustrated artist and longed for the opportunity that only youth provides, the sort of opportunity that was being wasted on these students.  Whatever the reason, he denied admission to several students that day.  Perhaps some were better than others, perhaps some came from better families who were able to afford tuition and support a struggling artist, perhaps some had families that would contribute to the school’s coffers.  There were countless reasons for his decisions that day, most seem insignificant now. An insignificant decision by an insignificant man.  The year was 1907 and the professor’s decision to deny a life-altering admission to the prestigious school determined the fate and direction of none other than Adolf Hitler.  Hitler never made it into the Vienna Academy of Fine Arts because a person made the decision to turn down his application.  An innocuous decision by an unimportant individual…

you in oil

Look around yourself.  If you live in a city and are currently sitting in a man-made structure, there is nothing around you that did not profit an oil company. Not the clothes you are wearing or any item inside your house, nothing. Select an item in your environment.  From the power used to run the equipment to manufacture that item, to the plastic used in its components there is oil.  What, there is no plastic in the item you selected? How rare.  How was it transported from the place of manufacture to the store where you bought it? Did the store put it in a plastic bag for you? Did the store clerk ring up the item on a heavy duty plastic cash register while wearing a plastic name tag saying “Hi, my name is Underpaid"? Did you put the item in your gas powered car and drive it to your house?  Or did you bypass the store entirely and have the item delivered to you by a UPS truck? Was it packaged when you got it, what sort of packaging and where did it come from? Was it or any of its components made in, and shipped from, another country?  I defy you to find a single item in your house that did not directly or indirectly generate profit for an oil company. If you find one, let me know. And if you find one think about this:  have you ever moved and carried the item to your new house in a moving van?

So you tell me “I went to the cherry orchard on Sunnyvale-Saratoga road and walked home with – not a plastic bag of cherries, not a crate of cherries that would have used power saws and logging trucks, but a hand full of cherries! There!”  And I’ll ask you did you pay cash with manufactured currency or did you charge them to your plastic credit card?  You might tell me they were free, and I would then ask you how the workers who tended to the orchard get to work each day and what tools did they use? Hoses, water pumps, shears, fertilizer?

So you tell me that you picked them off a wild cherry tree in a vacant lot, and I will ask you - did you walk home on your tennis shoes on a paved road?  So you tell me you walked home on homemade shoes on a dirt road your grandfather cleared with his bare hands. And I will ask you – did you wash the cherries under some PVC piped tap water when you got home? Well water you tell me.  Did you draw the water in a plastic bucket from the well using a nylon rope or was it pumped by a power pump? Did you dry them on a manufactured paper towel? Did you put them in a manufactured bowl? On your linoleum counter-top?  There is nothing, not-a-thing, zip, zilch, nada, in your life that did not profit an oil company. Not your hair, freshly washed in plastic bottled shampoo, not your teeth, recently bushed with a plastic tooth brush, and certainly not your recently polished nails.

That’s not the scary part.  The scary part is that 100 years ago you would have been hard pressed to find an item in your house that did profit an oil company. You know, back when there was no hole in the ozone layer, the oceans weren’t dying out and every other species on the planet wasn’t going extinct… but I’m sure that’s just a coincidence.

don't flatter yourself, you're not that great, or that stupid

Vincent Van Gogh stumbled back to the Auberge Rvoux clutching his stomach and when asked if he had tried to commit suicide he said "I believe so" and then requested that no one be charged in the incident. The theory presented in the video below is that he was shot, intentionally or accidentally, by some neighborhood kids who were in the habit of taunting him. Why would Van Gogh protect his murderers? Simply because he thought the world would be a better place without him and that these kids were doing him a favor by killing him.




So on one hand we have Van Gogh, arguably the greatest artist of modern times, whose self worth was so low that he regarded his own murder as a favor to himself, his family and the world. In his mind his existence was a waste of resources, there was no lower creature on the face of the earth and he welcomed death. On the other hand we have George W. Bush, arguably the worst president in the history of the world, who single handedly destroyed the world economy and hundreds of thousands of lives in two wars based on lies. A below average student who was never able to construct a coherent sentence or formulate an intelligent thought. His self worth, on the other hand, is estimated in the highest possible terms. This incoherent moron feels so superior to the rest of humanity that, when forced to touch an inferior being, he feels the need to wipe his hand on the shirt of another inferior being.


Bush regards himself as god’s gift to humanity.

So the next time you are feeling completely worthless or perhaps like god's gift to humanity, don’t flatter yourself, you are not that great, or that stupid. No-one is.

No tea then, dears?

Mark sat across the table as she began to talk. Her speech was paused, but there was kindness in her voice. “I’ve lived in this house my entire life and I’ve never strayed far, this is my place in the world. I belong here. My parents were the first to go, then my husband and since we never had any children, I’ve been left alone to tend to the place. Well, not completely alone, there are the ghosts too. But they are harmless enough. I wouldn’t mind them as much if they would at least help with some of the chores.” There was amusement in her voice at the idea of having ghosts help with the daily chores. Mark narrows his eyes and tilts his head as if physically straining to hear her.

She continues “My name is Agatha and I’m an old woman now, too old to mind these ghosts and things that go bump in the night. When I was younger I would have called in a priest to get rid of these ghosts, but at my age I just can’t be bothered. They talk and they move things around, but they don’t bother me none. Some years ago they wanted to turn my house into a bed and breakfast, the notion of these young people, can you imagine guests in a hose where the curtain won’t stay open and you hear voices in the hallway? It’s my house and these are my ghosts, we are happy here.” She looks directly at Mark and adds “Aren’t we dear?”

Agatha hadn’t noticed the young woman sitting next to Mark until she said “I smell bread baking.” Agatha looked over her shoulder into the kitchen and said “yes, dear, I’m baking some bread. I like fresh bread, my late husband, God rest his soul, couldn’t get enough of my banana bread. I bake every day. You young ghosts can always smell the bread.” The young woman looks around a bit startled and says “did I hear her say she bakes every day?” Mark takes a hold of the young woman’s hand and soothes her with some words of reassurance. Agatha is a bit annoyed, the ghosts are getting younger and younger, these two couldn’t be more than 20.

Suddenly the drapes fly open and daylight streams into the room. Agatha looks over and there is no one by the window. The curtain had been flung open so violently that they were left swinging in place and one of the hooks came loose. Slowly Agatha stands up and continues her story as she walks towards the window. “These ghosts, I don’t really mind you, but if I open the curtains you close them, if I close the curtains, you open them. It never ends, you need an old woman’s patience to put up with you. When I was a young woman ghosts never came around, now they never go away. Like you young man, I haven’t seen you before” Agatha glances at Mark, tisks her tongue a few times, reaches for the drapes and closes them, slowly because of her rheumatism.

As Agatha closes the second drape the young woman next to Mark runs out of the room screaming. Mark raises his voice, there is urgency in his tone “Mother get away from the window! Come here with me!” Agatha looks back at her young ghost and there is a frightened middle aged woman standing next to him. She hadn’t been there before. Agatha is encouraged by the new presence, someone closer to her own age. Agatha likes this new ghost “Will you stay for some warm bread and tea dears?” As she offers her guests tea, Agatha moves the tea-set from one end of the table to the other so it's closer to the kitchen door, walks into the kitchen and opens the tap to fill the kettle for the tea.

When she returns to the drawing room the middle aged woman is screaming something about refusing to stay in this house another minute; the young man is screaming something about wanting his money back and having this abomination of a hotel shut down by the authorities.

Agatha stands in the doorway watching them and sweetly asks “No tea then, dears?”

Sex object or hormone addled morons?

On Tuesday September 27 the Secretariat for Women’s Policies of the Brazilian government requested the censorship of a lingerie commercial staring world famous super model Gisele Bundchen. The claim is that the commercial portrays women as sex objects. I’m usually very sensitive, and easily angered by the portrayal of women as sex objects, and yet this commercial didn’t raise any red flags until the news came out today. You see, instead I had always assumed the commercial portrayed men as brain damaged, hormone addled morons. Here is the commercial, you decide. And if you have an opinion, leave a comment.