Yesterday disappeared into a mass of organising for Christmas and then going to watch Grandson Number Two in his school nativity play. He was a reluctant joiner-in and spent part of the time sitting on my knee. One of the small narrators had a panic attack and her part had to be read out by a teacher. One of the three kings tripped as he was making way onto the stage and had to go off and cry before he was able to resume his role and pock up his gift of frankincense to give to the Baby Jesus. Another of the kings, offering “myrrh for the baby”, threw his gift down with a resounding crash. Pretty much a standard infant school nativity play performance!
Yesterday also saw a host of articles about the Bondi Beach attack, with quite a few comments contrasting the response to that attack with the media response to children killed in Palestine. Here’s a photo report from CNN about storms causing havoc in Gaza.
And here’s someone’s comment on CNN’s reporting:
“No CNN, it wasn’t the ‘Gaza storm that killed 14 Palestinians, including 3 children’… it was Israel.
Israel bombed the buildings that collapsed.
Israel denied entry of tents, mobile homes and building materials.
If not for Israel’s genocidal war those kids would have been tucked safely in bed listening to the rain outside their cosy homes.
These 14 people won’t show in the death toll figure though. The death toll (70,663 people) only records those killed by Israeli combat weapons. And being starved and exposed to disease through the deliberate destruction of food production, housing and sanitation infrastructure, whilst being denied medical care is not classified as a combat weapon, despite being a deliberate weapon of war.
The true number of people murdered by Israel will be closer to 700,000 once the indirect causes of death and birth prevention are counted.”
I heard yesterday that the UK is set to rejoin the EU’s Erasmus programme. What a good idea. As a teacher of modern languages I saw many of my former pupils set off for a year in some foreign part. Some of them never returned to the UK on a permanent basis. It may, however, be too late for rejuvenating study of modern foreign languages in our universities.
Here’s a link to an article by Arwa Mahdawi about AI toys, which are proliferating all over the place. I was reminded of Furbies, possibly the original AI toy. It’s highly likely that there are creepy Furbies shut away in cupboards all over the country, indeed all over the world, waiting for another Furby to talk to. Granddaughter Number Two tells me that she and Granddaughter Number One found theirs so creepy that they buried them in the garden! That says it all!
And finally here’s an old joke about chess players.
Life goes on. Stay safe and well, everyone!
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