Look out for me

Not sure whether womazzle will continue.  Google seems bent on making access to it difficult.  

I will try to keep the site open, but this might just be my last post for now.   

I will be around though.  Somewhere.  

Look out for far out bits and pieces about this world and the one to come...

... IF.

Teen Mind

The collective mental state of the US populace does not exceed the tender age of fourteen, I swear.  What is that constant fear of state involvement in private matters? 

Whether healthcare, pensions or redistribution, the hysterics are always the same.   Fear sets in when it comes to the spectre of the all powerful parent…uh, state, which threatens to take away decision making powers, curtail painfully obtained freedoms, and generally stifle individuality.

NOT FAIR UGH !!!

The impression of dealing with an immature collective further solidifies when one considers that state involvement in health care (most recently through the introduction of “Obamacare”), redistribution of wealth through taxation, and pensions as currently suggested by Teresa Ghilarducci does exactly that:  provide freedom (from hardship) by providing basic services to allow individuals to focus on the more meaningful aspects of their lives.

The incensed vitriolic launched at anyone suggesting that opportunities may need to be created in the first place so that a greater number of players can participate in the creation and enjoyment of wealth appears truly irrational and bare of any empathetic notion. 

May I suggest that not only are we dealing with an adolescent collective mentality, but actually with that of a bully – most likely male.

For further readings, I strongly recommend Teresa Ghilarducci’s blog:

http://teresaghilarducci.org

So Lost

If you come to think about it, it is a strange thing to know that in the moment of one’s birth the life of at least one person was permanently changed. 

That’s a big impact for a first time entrance.

Whether she had been pining for the day to arrive or dreading it, that day would have had the greatest impact on her future life.  

The mere fact that one enters the scene so completely oblivious of that is almost comical.  

I am here.  Take care of me.

When will we ever assert our needs with such irreproachable forcefulness?  When will we ever care so little about who is providing us with food and protection? 

We don’t choose our parents and they don’t choose us – often they don’t really choose whether to have us either.  The family unit usually is an arrangement forged entirely by chance.

Growing up, we may come to realize the many challenges our arrival once posed on our parent(s).  We may also eventually come to see our once almighty life givers in a more realistic light as we come to resemble them if only by entering adulthood.

Usually we end up loving them for all their humanity, their flaws, ticks, and annoying antics and for how hard they tried, being just that human and yet, so lost. 

It

Ultimately I think that men are rather one dimensional.  They get stuck with one idea, one thing that drives them, and that’s it.  If you are planning to spend a life-time together, it’s best to find out what that one thing is.  Baseball?  Trains  ?   Or possibly their job ?

With women it’s different.  They only seem truly happy, if everyone around them is happy.  “Happy” means different things for different people and what it is that makes people happy is basically impossibe to know.  Food is usually a good guess, but then, I know quite a few people, who get annoyed with that kind of nurturing over-mother thing.  End result:  Everyone is unhappy.  

Seems to me, that we really should start cracking on that third gender, that perfect balance...it would make a lot of things a whole lot easier!

Christos Anesti

On a recent trip to Ephesus, the ancient capital of the Roman province Asia Minor (nowadays Turkey), it dawned on me that right there, in the Church of Mary, at the Council of Ephesus in 425AD, patriarchy put down its leaden food and declared its ultimate and indisputable  superiority because it was there and then that Mary was dethroned and declared a mere human, albeit mother of the Son of God (thereby himself a God).

For centuries before that, Ephesus had been the centre of worship of the Goddess Kybele and later, under Greek rule, the Goddess Artemis - the Virgin Goddess and sister of Apollo.  

Mary, too, was worshipped in the founding years of Christianity.  But the Pope and his regional bishops decreed that while de facto worshipping three entities, Father, Son and the Holy Spirit, it was inadmissible to worship a woman.

  

In fact, in the years to come they would burn thousands of women at the stake.

Welcome to Christianity!  But then, under Hinduism women continue to be burned, raped and beaten...and let me not start with Islam.  

Welcome to Patriarchy then.

Who Cares...?

Usually it is women who for one reason or another end up with the care for young and old - be it in remunerated positions such as schools, childcare facilities and nursing homes or sadly underpaid (...) at home.

Given that a high percentage of any given population is either quite young or old, one would think that that type of work is regarded a) highly and 2) well paid in order to recruit enough qualified personnel…

The fact, however, is that it is neither. 

Societies generally reward people who work on technology higher than those working with people, disregarding the fact that both may be equally talented and able - just in different areas. 

Why is it that societies value work with objects more than work with people.  It is somewhat of a male domaine, so that may explain it.  Mostly anything men are good at and therefore like to do from running after a ball to reducing the world to a 2D screen - tends to get more attention (and pay) than what women do (so they often try to copy the guys for a share of the pie).

In my years as a mother, raising children of both sexes, and observing both, girls and boys, in their daily interaction, I often wondered how boys - being less verbally gifted and often struck with significant problems adapting to social situations in addition to obvious lacks in attention and concentration - continue to set social agendas.

What makes them so convincing…???

On Any Given Day...

Curtain opens:

Two guys, middle-aged, slim, engrossed in a conversation.  They are sitting on a big, white sofa at the far end of an open-floor house.  The table is set for breakfast.  It’s 9 o’clock.  

Enter two women.  They are back from buying bread and rolls for breakfast and immediately busy themselves in the kitchen, making coffee, heating milk, getting juice, arranging the cold cuts on a plate, opening jam jars and glasses with yoghurt. 
 
Two girls enter, the younger one joins the women in the kitchen, the older ambles over to the guys on the sofa.  One of them is her father.

“Are you comfortable there?”
“Why?”
“Just wondering.  Mom and Ay sure are working their buts off to get breakfast going.”
“Don’t talk to us like that, Zee.”

Mom sticks her head out of the corner of the kitchen.  It IS an open-floor house and anything going on in the kitchen OR living room is public.

M. “You know Zee is right.  You could join in a bit.”
“We set the table!”
“Well we didn’t spend the morning at the spa either.  What are you...seven?!”

What follows is as sobering as it is normal.  The guys stay seated and pretend nothing happened.  They continue talking and when they finally get up they remain close to the breakfast table.  Awkward but uncompromising.

The women exchange looks and continue their work in the kitchen and around the breakfast table.  After all life must go on.  And it seems to be their job to make it happen.

Funny thing:  This happened on International Woman’s Day .
Fact: It will happen on every other day. 


Curtain opens:

Two women, middle-aged, slim, engrossed in a conversation.  They are sitting on a big, white sofa at the far end of an open-floor house.  The table is set for breakfast.  It’s 9 o’clock.  

Enter two men.  They are back from buying bread and rolls for breakfast and immediately busy themselves in the kitchen, making coffee, heating milk, getting juice, arranging the cold cuts on a plate, opening jam jars and glasses with yoghurt. 
 
Two girls enter, the younger one joins the men in the kitchen, the older ambles over to the women on the sofa.  One of them is her mother

“Are you comfortable there?”
“Why?”
“Just wondering.  Dad and Em sure are working their buts off to get breakfast going.”


You continue....I am sure you have read the script before!

Follow Me !

One would think that I have said it all...I mean the stuff about why I truly believe that women are the better humans.

But last year I got joined by an equally vociferous fellow femme who does not mince her words either and greatly bolstered my list of arguments.  

Clearly everyone is aware that 95% of prison inmates are male (and that’s a worldwide average!!), which alone should suffice... And, hey, who invented the atomic bomb and dropped it (ooops), who reaps havoc on civilians whenever they feel justified (Eritrea, Syria, Iraq, Rwanda, Congo, Sebrenica, Vietnam, and the list goes on and on and on....)?!    

In her most recent book (Berlin 2014), “Warum die Sache schief geht” (Why it’ll all go down the drain), the author, Karen Duve, summarizes research from forensics to psychology that reveals that the same qualities, which catapult a human into the upper echelons of power and status, are usually the same ones that get them to be locked away: a charming (often mistakenly taken as “charismatic”) self-presentation that serves as a cover-up for ruthless, selfish actions.  

The clinical term for this type of personality is “psychopath” - someone who fools others into believing that they are superior and therefore entitled to anything they want.  

1% of human beings show distinct psychopathic traits - over 90% of them are male.  Very tellingly, according to Karen Duve’s research, the proportion of psychopathic personality types is disproportionately high among business and government leaders - leaving you to wonder, whom are the rest of us following?  

The class bully!

Charline

The shock waves from the attacks in Paris earlier this month can still be felt.  Clamorous demonstrations have yet to abate, meandering TV debates continue to befuddle a confused audience and a tsunami of cartoons has yet to recede behind the flood barriers of either good taste or necessity.

More important than whether we are Charlie or not, however, is to understand what emotional hurricane has been unleashed in us that continues to churn up so much activism.  

Is it that we really care about free speech?  Do we truly appreciate what it took to have this right be enshrined in our western constitutions?  Is all of this really about a principle?

I am wondering because where is Europe and all its loud-mouths, when women become the target of a heinous attack, and when the hard fought for right to fair and equal treatment regardless of ones gender is trashed, because some guy had a bad day?

Or is that too close for comfort?

Of course, it is always easier to look for the evil asshole across the fence of religion or ethnicity instead of in one’s own backyard.   

I am Charline and I am looking at you!

Not Yours...not really

Sometimes, I think, it is a really good idea to take a break from the buzzing vibes of family life and to find that single frequency that is ours.  The same is true with friends. 

While it is great to find compare notes, the constant hum of opinions and moods that enter into each encounter can blotch out any thoughts or ideas oneself might have. 

Sometimes it can take only a split second, a look, a tone of voice that sends a message to occupy our mind completely for the rest of the day.  We try to sort and analyse  what just happened and might push any more meaningful thoughts aside.  

But then, maybe we are more afraid of looking for any original ideas in ourselves than constantly picking up outside inputs – however meaningless they may be…