Tuesday, May 18, 2004
I was in a bad mood but Patrick has cheered me right up, first with his hilarious love letter to Ronnie Reagan and then with his description of the BBC as only slightly more biased than most media outlets. Bless.
And just think somewhere tonight Ronnie Reagan and Maggie Thatcher are both still alive. If it's really true that those whom God loves die young I suppose we can't be expecting to see the back of those two any time soon.
Nina has some interesting ideas about the United States here. I have to agree about the self-delusion of moral superiority that some Americans have but then the expectation of Empire seems to be bred into some of them at an early age, as long as they're white, male, straight-acting... We had the same of course, when we ruled the waves, we were the masters at stealing from other cultures and convincing ourselves that it was our right. Once God blessed Britain. It's interesting that you can have someone like Bush say that they want to legislate to make homphobic prejudice legal at the same time as gay marriages happen, but do we really need a vile piece of shit like Bush to remind us that the battles aren't one, that nowhere, not the UK, the US, or anywhere in the world, has equality for all it's citizens.
Is it morally defensible to follow organised religion? All churches seem to have skeletons in their closets and half the battle is getting them to admit to it. So can you really be a Christian if you go to church?
Does anyone know any decent science-fiction books that attack religion? I'm getting near to the end of my science-fiction purchasing for The Closed Library and rapidly running out of alternatives, so I might have to buy those awful Left Behind books. If anyone knows any current sci-fi available in Britain that I can use as an alternative that would be gratefully received. Or indeed, Muslim sci-fi.
I'm starting to warm to this new Blogger design a bit. My favourite thing is definitely the switch between the typing pane and the preview. But I do find the moving of the recent entries on to another page annoying, as well as the limited space each entry has, which is pish when you're searching for something and you're not exactly sure where it is. A bit more flexibility there wouldn't go amiss.
And just think somewhere tonight Ronnie Reagan and Maggie Thatcher are both still alive. If it's really true that those whom God loves die young I suppose we can't be expecting to see the back of those two any time soon.
Nina has some interesting ideas about the United States here. I have to agree about the self-delusion of moral superiority that some Americans have but then the expectation of Empire seems to be bred into some of them at an early age, as long as they're white, male, straight-acting... We had the same of course, when we ruled the waves, we were the masters at stealing from other cultures and convincing ourselves that it was our right. Once God blessed Britain. It's interesting that you can have someone like Bush say that they want to legislate to make homphobic prejudice legal at the same time as gay marriages happen, but do we really need a vile piece of shit like Bush to remind us that the battles aren't one, that nowhere, not the UK, the US, or anywhere in the world, has equality for all it's citizens.
Is it morally defensible to follow organised religion? All churches seem to have skeletons in their closets and half the battle is getting them to admit to it. So can you really be a Christian if you go to church?
Does anyone know any decent science-fiction books that attack religion? I'm getting near to the end of my science-fiction purchasing for The Closed Library and rapidly running out of alternatives, so I might have to buy those awful Left Behind books. If anyone knows any current sci-fi available in Britain that I can use as an alternative that would be gratefully received. Or indeed, Muslim sci-fi.
I'm starting to warm to this new Blogger design a bit. My favourite thing is definitely the switch between the typing pane and the preview. But I do find the moving of the recent entries on to another page annoying, as well as the limited space each entry has, which is pish when you're searching for something and you're not exactly sure where it is. A bit more flexibility there wouldn't go amiss.
