Editorial Stories

I was watching an interesting debate the other night on BBC about Europe failing its Islamic population. The debate centred on freedom of speech and women rights, as expected. That made me think, once again, about religion and personal freedoms.

What about what just happened in Nigeria? It seems that hundreds of Christians, including many women and children, were killed in ethnic violence near the city of Josin Nigeria during the weekend. The latest attacks by Muslims are said to have been reprisals for the January killings by Christians. The circle of violence continues.

As some of you may have noticed, I have been absent from this site for a few months now, so Antigone was constantly winging in coming up with a new story. She claims that I lost my mojo and cannot write anymore. As usual, she's wrong. I do have what it takes to write another story and I don't even need palm notes like Sarah Palin to remember what to write or say. I don't even have to think hard about what to write these days. All I have to do is think of Sarah and her TEA Party supporters.

Surely, some of you have heard Sarah Palin had mistaken South Africa for a continent rather than a country. I do not know if this is true but I wouldn't be the least bit surprised.  However, the average American's ignorance of the outside world is downright astonishing. It's not a secret that many N. Americans do not know much about the world and seems damn proud of it. Check, for instance, this Youtube video. I am sure that this is not representative of the people, especially MY American friends, but the fact remains that there are many Americans who know nothing about the world, as this link further proves.

I've about had it with these religi-whacks trying every which way to jam their holy intentions down my throat. While I find the bumper sticker bearing, Tea Party attending Christian fundamentalist activists wholeheartedly obnoxious and intolerable, I've come to discover I'm more irritated by those who adopt the more subtle, seemingly innocent approach to raping you with their religion as part of their subconscious need to save the non-believers from ourselves and recruit us into their cause.

You know the type to which I refer. They're the ones with the email signatures like 'God bless', 'have a blessed day', or some faked up string of biblical verse gracing the end of their emails. Why must people do this, I ask myself? Are you so dead-set on showing off your Christianity (ie stupidity) that you want to shout it from the minarets? Ooops, sorry, wrong religion. 

Unfortunately, religion will probably always exist. Even if we're to prove beyond a reasonable doubt that there is no God, there'll be some unreasonable character who will doubt the proof based on faith. Tis all a matter of faith after all. How I detest that as a pillar of argument!

Religion thrives for various reasons but probably most strongly because humans - even the dumbest ones - search for answers to questions for which there are no answers. What is the meaning of life? What is the point of all of this if we're only to die and go nowhere else? Why should I be good if there's no one to answer to in the ‘next life' because there is no ‘next life'? How could something so bad happen to someone so good?

So here I was on a lazy Saturday morning barely awake switching on my brand new Bravia for the latest international news as I was smelling the freshly brewed Colombian coffee.  It seemed very pleasant outside and I was looking forward to the nice warm weather and a walk by the beach. I was thinking about the fun I'd have for the rest of the day far away from my cubicle when all of a sudden my tranquillity was interrupted by something that sounded like a big explosion. For a microsecond I felt like I was in the middle of Kabul. I looked at the TV in case BBC was showing the latest Taliban attack, but to my avail, it was showing the latest results from the Ashes. Then another loud bang almost made me dropped my precious coffee on my Polo robe. ‘What The Flying FAK', I thought? I was neither living in Kabul nor in Baghdad and BBC was just showing freaking cricket!

Like many others these days, I had to move because of my job. So I ended up in a cubicle. Naturally, I instantly got interested in who came up with that monstrosity. A few months ago, I happened to read an article in Fortune regarding this issue so after a quick search of my bookmarks, I found the story.

Interestingly, the inventor of the cubicle, before his 2000 death denounced his creation by calling it 'monolithic insanity.'

One day you wake up a fully-grown adult to find you have no parents.  It isn’t because of a tragic accident or because of fatal illness; it isn’t even because you had a tremendous falling out over them running over your beloved pet “Cuddles” with the car.

It is simply because you exist.  They brought you into this world and now they want you out!  They might even tell you it would have been easier if you had never existed.  So what is their problem?  Well, that is my question, what the fak is their problem?  Maybe they are super religious or bow easily to societal pressures of “normality” but whatever their excuse, they are homophobic bigots.  They are hateful and intolerant and it has to stop! 

I was listening to a song by Philippos Pliatsikas, going like this:

"If I could change the world,

I would turn the sea blue again.

If I could change something in the world,

I would turn the sea blue again."

I do not remember if I have ever given details as to where I have lived so far. I guess I must have told you that I was born and raised in Greece, then spent several years in the United Kingdom before moving to the Americas. Do not expect detailed information as to my whereabouts since this is a private matter and at the end of the day it is irrelevant.