So I’ve got a haunch of venison in my freezer.
It’s about 4lb frozen.
What should I do with it?
I’ve also got a large amount of Wicklow lamb.
I’m open to ideas, you see there are only 2 of us and the bambino and once we thaw it we have to cook it before we can refreeze it (we can refreeze it after it’s cooked, right?)
We’ve considered mincing it with some of the lamb and make meat loaf and/or pies.
Does anyone with any chef type proclivities have any ideas?
Oh those funny Syrians:
The long winter nights must just fly by.
A great many people seem to have adopted a policy of blaming politicians for everything as a means of abdicating personal responsibility for anything.
Given any situation, any discussion, any thing some people will adopt a position of saying “Oh well it’s politicians.” Then they can not do anything themselves to remedy anything because it’s not their fault.
This personal policy of allocating blame and washing hands is used as displacement by many to avoid action. “Why should I do anything? It’s Politicians hand in hand with the bankers who have created this situation, let them sort it out … the bastards.”
A recipe for idleness and inactivity.
But why should we sit around waiting for someone else to sort out the world? Do we not have abilities ourselves? Do we not have capabilities ourselves?
Is it in my interests to sit around while I blame someone else for the situation I’m in? To some that seems to be an ideal situation. Personally I find that to be an awful state of affairs. I could not sit around idle for that length of time, I can sit around idle for a reasonable length of time (ask my wife) but after a while even I would need to get up and do something.
So … as to the politicians … In Ireland we elect our politicians through a process called “democracy”. What happens is every few years we “elect” these politicians from a number of available “candidates”. Who can be a “candidate”? Anyone? Absolutely anyone who is an Irish citizen. So if you’re an Irish citizen and you think that all politicians are corrupt self-interested bastards in the hands of big business and you can convince others who have the same concerns that you are not one of these miscreants then you could be a candidate and maybe even get elected. You could run as an independent and by being willing to work with other such independents you could work together to turn the country around. That’d just be amazing, wouldn’t it? At this point someone will normally say “Oh well, you can’t trust independents, they won’t work together, you’ll end up with lots of people pulling in different directions.” To such people I ask, if it was you would you want to work together for the greater good or would you want to pull in your own direction? If you were electing an independent would you vote for someone who would pull together or pull in their own direction? If you wouldn’t want to work together, don’t stand. If your candidate wouldn’t want to work together, don’t vote for them. Are you, as part of the electorate, incapable of electing representatives of who would serve the greater good?
As to yourself, outside the direct sphere of politics and elections, what can you do? Could you lobby? Could you represent wider interests through activism and engagement? Could you do something, anything? Would you?
And as to the wider economy … Apparently that’s not your fault either. Apparently there’s no point having any sort of idea of any sort of enterprise because no one will ever trust you to do anything with it. No one will ever invest in you and no bank will ever lend you any money. And is that so surprising if you won’t even have the trust in yourself to try because you’re sitting back and waiting for the government and the politicians you don’t trust to do something?
So have an idea, have a dream, write a business plan, go to the banks, go to investors, try something, do something, because they don’t own your ability to achieve. You own your ability to achieve.
Or would you prefer to just sit around and go “Oh well, it’s not my fault.”
To the tune of “To Be A Pilgrim”:
v1. I read a book today
“the God Delusion”
It said that I can say
Religion is illusion
There’s no discouragement
Shall make me once relent
My first avowed Intent
To mock religion.
v2. Who so beset me round
With fairy stories
Do but themselves confound
My obstinacy the more is
No faith shall stay my might
Though I with straw men fight
I’ll tweet all through the night
And mock religion
v3. On Sunday I shall go
To my mum’s for lunch
I shall not mention this
She would not like it
Then Atheism flee away
I’ll fear what she would say
To an avowed intent
To mock religion.
A report today shows that the Traveller community in Ireland has 85% unemployment. Cue a lot of hate and vitriol from the “settled” community about the travellers.
But the report also shows that the Traveller community is only 0.5% of the population. It’s like one person in 200 is fair play for being subject to all the hate for the other 199. How can that ever be acceptable? Say you lived in a village of 200 people and one person there was the subject of constant hate and abuse. Would that be OK? What if you were that person?
But what’s mystifying is this exists within the Irish penchant for taking offence (see various previous blogs.)
the Irish are a people who will on the whole take offence at the drop of a potato … often dragging in this whole “800 years of oppression” nonsense … but given half a chance many of them will turn on the traveller community with a malice that defies understanding … and so the formerly oppressed have become the oppressor… unless …
Unless there’s a reason for this malice.
As travellers this community have avoided the property crash and the extensive negative equity gripping the “settled” community.
Could this be a simple case of jealousy?
Gay Marriage: The Hidden Science Danger
There’s a theoretical and imaginary element called marriagium and there’s only a finite amount in the universe. By allowing more people to get married there is less marriagium per marriage and as such people become “less” married.
That’s right, the more people who are married the less married those people who are married become.
Marriagium is next to Narrativium on your periodic table of the elephants.
Posted by Damocles on February 7, 2013 in Commentariat
Tags: danger, gays, marriagium, science, will robinson