Nativity stories and other stuff.

Amongst all the other things that are going on in the world, here's a "heart-warming story". It's getting close to Christmas, a time when everyone does their best to forget it's all about the story of a baby being born in unusual circumstances. So here's another baby story. In New York a women abandoned her newborn baby son in the manger of the nativity scene in a church in the city. He was brand new, umbilical cord still attached. His mother wrapped him in a towel and left him in what she considered to be a warm, safe place. After all the church is supposed to be a haven. 

What struck me though is that, having identified the mother of the child, the authorities in their wisdom have decided not to prosecute her. Surely a women desperate enough to leave her baby in a church for someone to find needs help not prosecution! Of course, that's probably just me being a bit idealistic and liberal in my thinking. 

Meanwhile some are waxing sentimental about it. One of the priests at the church said, "The beautiful thing is that this woman found in this church – which is supposed to be a home for those in need – this home for her child. A young couple in our parish would love to adopt this child and keep this gift in our community. It would make a great Christmas miracle.” Well, yes, very nice and all that but really a miracle?? It's a good job they found the mother though. That little boy might want to find her again some time in the future. 

Somewhere in my wanderings through online newspapers I discovered that we have missed International Men's Day. This was November 19th and it has been around since 1992. Who knew? I certainly didn't. Apparently the intention was to highlight men's health problems and matters such as discrimination against men. Does that exist outside of certain women's organisations? Or was it discrimination that there is was a Women's Day first. Anyway, I'm just surprised that the card manufacturers have not latched onto it. Think of the income generation from all the cards they could produce! 

Here in Figueira da Foz, the sun continues to shine. My chess player took a day off yesterday to try to shake off a dose of man-flu. Today, however, is another day. Another game to play. Another player with an impossibly long name to investigate, if the hotel's internet will allow that to happen. 

Most hotels we have stayed at recently have simply given us a password and we have then connected automatically, as we do with the numerous wifi cafe we frequent. This one asked us how many "devices" we had and gave us three separate slips of paper with three different user names and passwords. In theory this gave us one week's internet access. So we expected it to run out on Friday some time. But no, since yesterday we have had to log in afresh almost every time we use one of our "devices". 

Extremely annoying!