Dating - second episode

This dating thing is not going too well. The first time I logged on I felt really awkward. Most people don't write much. Some are overconfident, some try not to undersell themselves by adding 'my friends say', some stick to plain descriptions and some paint a rather boring picture. You end up looking at a series of photos, which made me feel very uncomfortable. I cannot look at people as if I were shopping for food. I can't get passed this consumerist element.
Internet dating sites are fundamentally flawed because they don't match one according to one's description of oneself, rather on the standard computer-generated replies such as height, look, language, location, profession, age etc. This means you need to read through people's profiles, which really doesn't cut time. I suppose I'm not serious about this and I don't read and look with the right spirit. It's just that the more I look the more beautiful they all look. They all seem vulnerable, even the most self-confident. I really can't form a picture of these people at all.
Looking at Jdate.com I've come across quite a few Londoners who, like me, are simply looking for friends. It seems to me quite incredible that in a metropolis like London with so much happening people cannot meet. The geography, the architecture, our stressful lifestyles seem to be conspiring against us. There are no spaces for people to meet and chat. No piazza, no stroll in the centre of town.
It could be quite simple. You just need a book, a talk, a film, a painting, a sporting event and people gathering in the same place to discuss it. Maybe not, maybe we'll increasingly spend more time in cyberspace without ever meeting our Facebook friends.

smile

From a colleague's email:

A lady with a clipboard stopped me in the street the other day. She said, "Can you spare a few minutes for cancer research?" I said, "All right, but we won't get much done." - Jimmy Carr

A good music tip

I was going to write the story behind this, but it could be misinterpreted, so to those of you who know me, just ask!
I cannot access this facility any longer from my laptop, but you won't have problems.
Go to yahoo italia (click on musica on the left hand column and then video). Once you've launched a video, you can search the music you like. I would strongly recommend the following:
Carmen Consoli (L’ultimo Bacio, Besame Giuda, L'eccezione etc.), Simone Cristicchi (Ti regalero' una rosa, L'Italia di Piero, Voglio cantare come Biagio Antonacci, Bella gente), Daniele Silvestri (Mi persi, A me ricordi il mare, Gino e l'alfetta etc.) and Cristina Dona (Universo).
Even if you don't speak Italian this is good music! (although Cristicchi & Consoli have really good lyrics).

So I joined a dating site ...

I’ve been nagged left, right and centre about registering with a dating website, so in the end I did. I lied a bit about location & name given that I’m likely to be the only Italian Jewish woman living in Cardiff. I still manage to come across people I know and, worse still, who know me. Lucky I didn’t talk myself up at all, in fact I told the awful truth pointing out that I’m awkward and difficult. I could have said: ‘just don’t bother’, given that I don’t answer any message anyway, which I think it’s how it’s meant to work, isn’t it? ;)
Leaving my total ineptitude aside, these dating websites are very interesting. They do their best in trying to overcome the inherent difficulties of a global and mobile world. Once upon a time, it was easier. People met others from their social background and geographical environment. They had less choice, which meant more realism. They also didn’t seek perfection in the other while lacking it in themselves and expected things to be difficult.
What I find strange is that these website aim to match you with yourself. There are many things I like doing, including politics, but I would be bored to death if I had to listen to someone talking politics all evening, unless it’s about public value management theory and local government finance, which anyway come second to Maimonides’ philosophy and its relevance for liberal democracy.
So I go back to being Linus Van Pelt in this comfy place of my blog!

Best Christmas card ever!

I find Christmas cards a bit impersonal. It's customary, but I get lots of them from lots of people, more as a matter of form. I prefer substance to form.
I prefer people remembering my birthday. Above all, I don't understand why people who know me don't cross the word Christmas on the card and write Chanukah for a change!!!
Anyway, here is the best Christmas card ever!!

...this is fun!

You're Alice's Adventures in Wonderland!

by Lewis Carroll

After stumbling down the wrong turn in life, you've had your mind
opened to a number of strange and curious things. As life grows curiouser and curiouser,
you have to ask yourself what's real and what's the picture of illusion. Little is coming
to your aid in discerning fantasy from fact, but the line between them is so blurry that
it's starting not to matter. Be careful around rabbit holes and those who smile to much,
and just avoid hat shops altogether.


Take the Book Quiz
at the Blue Pyramid.

Which country are you?

...it turns out that I'm the UN ... oops!

You're the United Nations!

Most people think you're ineffective, but you are trying to
completely save the world from itself, so there's always going to be a long
way to go.  You're always the one trying to get friends to talk to each
other, enemies to talk to each other, anyone who can to just talk instead of
beating each other about the head and torso.  Sometimes it works and sometimes
it doesn't, and you get very schizophrenic as a result.  But your heart
is in the right place, and sometimes also in New York.


Take the Country Quiz
at the Blue Pyramid

Shiny happy people … humbug!

It might be because it’s a rather rough period for me, but I thought of scribbling something about 'positive people', all those Pollyanna thinkers who repeat the nonsensical mantras of ‘looking on the bright side’ and ‘having a positive attitude’. (I suppose it ties in with my post on being nice). I believe there’s a fundamental misconception at the core of this pseudo-philosophy. They seem to believe that if one has a positive attitude, life will be easier and better; and they even explain ‘bad luck’ or lack of success as a result of one’s attitude. Humbug!
Let’s be clear about this: if one is a castaway at sea, it’s bad luck, karma, destiny, (whatever you want to call it), it is not dependent on one’s attitude. One’s attitude can, indeed, improve one’s chances of survival, but that’s more to do with ‘keeping cool’ in a difficult situation, mastering one’s knowledge and abilities to be able to survive. It is not about being optimistic, which is a feature of one’s character.
Where’s God in all of this?
I believe that events are less important than what one does with them. It is our perception of what happens that gives meaning to it and to our life. Optimism and pessimism are equally pernicious in obfuscating one’s sight. Things happen in our reality plane (the world of action, objective reality etc.), but there are also parallel events happening in other planes, including our mind. It is our job to analyse the situation objectively but also to see it in all its aspects.
I strive to see God behind everything that happens to me (which is difficult enough, never mind what happens to others!) and to transform the bad into the good. Most of the time, it comes as a fleeting realisation, not more than a passing feeling, but it’s there. I find that only by ‘appropriating’ what happens, giving it meaning and ‘putting God in it’, I can make some sense. I don’t believe in the off the shelf philosophy ‘life is good’ or ‘life is bad’. The point is that we’re alive. We might as well live and be partners in creation by giving meaning and acting accordingly. It is our insight that gets us closer to God, not our attitude.
I have this image of God smiling at all those combative stubborn people who don’t go around with slogans, are not shiny happy people, but criticise. That’s how you change things. Besides, shiny happy people don’t get irony!

Circumcision - what's your view?

The FT magazine today carries an article on the potential health benefits of circumcision. The author stays clear from taking a side in this rather controversial topic. I won’t comment on the religious meaning of it, partly because I believe that most religious practices are vested with religious meaning once they have become customary for whatever reason (political, sanitary, social …). Circumcision, dietary laws, dress (of whatever religion) were not ‘invented’ by a religion, rather they were employed by the religious authorities/community and have thus received spiritual meaning. This does not mean that I consider them devoid of religious meaning or value. I just think that it’s up to you! And I won’t state where I stand personally (and theologically) because I’m not that sure and as I’m female I don’t need to worry!
There are Jews and Muslims, though, who would advocate circumcision on hygienic grounds rather than religious grounds. I believe this is an apologetic stance aimed at rationalising something that touches one’s emotions deeply. So what’s the evidence?

"In March, the World Health Organisation and the Joint United Nations Programme on HIV/Aids (UNAids) urged countries to consider implementing circumcision programmes to combat Aids. The scientific basis for that statement was the combined evidence from three substantial clinical trials conducted in Africa that compared the rate with which circumcised and uncircumcised heterosexual men contracted HIV. The studies – one in South Africa, another in Kenya and a third in Uganda – showed that men who had been circumcised had a roughly 60 per cent lower risk of becoming HIV positive than their uncircumcised counterparts."

Sounds good, doesn’t it? Well, yes, but as Tim Hargreave, a urologist from Edinburgh, who has written the WHO/UNAids manual on performing circumcisions, explains in the article:

“In countries with high prevalence of HIV, cost-benefit analyses would suggest circumcising this group is the most cost-effective thing that can be done.”

What about Western countries?

"Most mainstream medical societies’ positions on the practice broadly agree: in the UK, Australia, Canada, New Zealand and elsewhere, the relevant bodies say that, for the most part, there is no good clinical reason to subject infants to it. “There is no medical indication for routine neonatal circumcision,” the Royal Australasian College of Physicians says, although it adds that circumcision significantly reduces the risk of urinary tract infections (which affect fewer than 2 per cent of boys) and penile cancer, which affects one in 100,000 men in developed countries. Balanced against a complication rate from circumcision of up to 5 per cent, the Australian doctors say, it just isn’t worth it."

Percentages aside, what is interesting is that there are very strong views on both sides. It is also interesting to note, as the article mentions, that the prudish Victorians were quite keen on circumcision as they turned against the foreskin with vengeance and blame it "for everything from syphilis to masturbation and bed-wetting."
In my view, in the context of a contemporary Western liberal democracy, circumcision has very little to do with health and very much to do with religion and sexuality, gender and identity. But I'd like to hear your view.
That aside, it seems rather obvious to me that better hygiene, starting from the regular use of the bidet, is essential. I wonder whether there’ll ever be a study establishing the percentage of risk as a result of poor hygiene. In the meantime, wash your bits!

Mastrogiacomo

According to the International News Safety Institute:

One thousand news media personnel around the world have been killed trying to report the news over the past 10 years - that's almost two deaths every week, according to a new report released today (Tuesday, March 6 2007).

Daniele Mastrogiacomo, a journalist from the Italian newpaper La Repubblica, was kidnapped in Afghanistan. Over 65,000 people have signed an appeal in support of his release.

Happy Valentine's Day!

Bible Test

You know the Bible 98%!

 

Wow! You are awesome! You are a true Biblical scholar, not just a hearer but a personal reader! The books, the characters, the events, the verses - you know it all! You are fantastic!

Ultimate Bible Quiz
Create MySpace Quizzes

Tea is good for you!

I've grown up drinking large quantities of tea. I absolutely love tea. My favourite teas are keemun, prince of wales (which is very difficult to find in Britain!), china black and in the afternoon, when I feel I want something light and soothing, I choose jasmine or lady grey. For years I've been hearing from all sources how bad this habit was. It's dehydrating, it's diaphoretic, it makes you stressed, it makes you fat... Whatever! When I was working in the Assembly, I used to be met with intrigued looks while walking down the corridor with my treasured tea pot instead of those ghastly carton cups of coffee.
Now,Research from University College London has shown that stress hormone levels fell by nearly twice as much in tea drinkers compared with those given a tea-like drink, after all had been put under stress.
I feel rather vindicated that tea, after all, it's good for you! :)

A trip on the wild side?

On today's Observer, Britain's 'edgiest travellers' choose their wild destinations where Hunter Stockton Thompson would have had fun. The 'bad' places on earth, those from a Bukowski novel so to speak.

"The kind of place you feel drunk even thinking about it....those places which still exude a heady mix of beauty and filth, companionship and trepidation: all the places which make you feel, on having got out of them alive, more alive."

Mhm,I'm not very beat, I don't like Bukowski, he's too pleased with his 'vices', which I really don't find intriguing, and some of the places chosen are frankly obvious ;) Baghdad, Bangkok, Nablus, Peshawar and .... Cardiff. ???
According to Howard Marks, author and ex-drug smuggler,

"If Hunter S Thompson was around in 2005, he'd choose Cardiff. There are better-tasting chips, more drugs - the green, green grass of home and magic mushrooms - more alcohol consumption. The women are prettier (you wouldn't even notice Catherine Zeta-Jones), there's better music (Stereophonics, Super Furry Animals, and Goldie Looking Chain), less neon and fewer Americans. Life continues all night (in the streets rather than air-conditioned casinos). And you can watch the world's best sports events."

I've never thought of Cardiff that way and is really not the Cardiff I know! Since the Guardian's misleading hype of Cardiff as capital of drug-rape, I feel that they have chosen Cardiff as the 'damned capital' of the UK.
Edinburgh is too sophisticated, Belfast untouchable, London is London, it had to be us! :)
Good to know that we are alive & kicking!

SuperSize Me

Yesterday I went to see Supersize me documenting Morgan Spurlock eating at McDonald's three times a day for 30 days. It might not be a great film but it's well worth watching.
What is made quite clear is how little we can actually choose what we eat. We are saturated by very aggressive marketing and, at the same time, denied adequate information on the products we buy. I haven't eaten at McDonald's, or similar, for God knows how many years, but what worries me is that I simply don't know what those burgers are actually made with. This seems to be the case for most food. I'm well aware that all the soups I have in my cupboard contain added sugar and salt but, do I have a choice? My father couldn't believe that we haven't got frozen soups that contain no preservatives. Ehm, Italy seems an all together different planet sometimes :( but afterall that's where the Slow Food movement comes from. Started in 1986 by Carlo Petrini, the movement has expanded across the world showing that, afterall, there are people who care about what they eat. Ultimately,food is not about feeding oneself, it's about pleasure!
I don't find McDonald's burgers in any way tasty, but after the film I reckon anyone will think twice before eating the stuff!

Hartlepool

I've just bought new leafleting shoes so Hartlepool here I come! :-)

Back to Grangetown

At the weekend I went back to my beloved Grangetown and I got bitten by a letter box! I kept leafleting for a while hoping for the bleeding to stop with no success. My T-shirt is still blood stained... what wouldn't I do for democracy! ;-)

B'ham!!!

I went to B'ham yesterday to help out for the by-election. It was excellent, if you haven't been yet, GO NOW!
I managed to hurt myself, though. I don't quite know what happened but I sort of climb a fence and then took off and landed on my face while the leaflets went up in the air. I found it very funny, painful but funny. I just couldn't stop laughing at myself being so clumsy!
Nice to see Jade! ;)

Gene cure found for cheating lovers

I wonder who sponsored this research!

A single gene inserted into the brain can change promiscuous male rodents into faithful, monogamous partners, scientists said on Wednesday...But researchers at the Yerkes National Primate Research Centre of Emory University and Atlanta's Centre for Behavioural Neuroscience (CBN) in the United States said their rodent results could help to explain the neurobiology of romantic love.

I'm all in favour of blaming gene for whatever one does :) responsibility seems such an old-fashioned concept these days, however 'cheating', as the word suggests, is about lying, not sex, which is a conscious behaviour. But admitting to that would mean taking responsibility for the act of lying ...

Fraescus!

This is really cool!

Me transmitte sursum, caledoni
as the translation of 'Beam me up, Scotty'. It just sounds more profound, doesn't it :)
Indeed, quidquid latine dictum sit, altum viditur!

Try this!