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| Star Harbor in Kowloon |
Well I survived a week in Hong Kong, I was there for a business trip, this time Eric wasn't able to go with because of Jury Duty back in London. The weather was very nice, averaging about 24 degrees Celsius the entire week. I even managed to get over the Kowloon side and snap a "selfie". The trip went well, but it was a long week, and I am quite happy to be home again, thank you very much.
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| Dinner with Wade & Julian |
Upon my return from Hong Kong, Eric and I both took this past week off from work, and had a "staycation". We stayed at home and were wonderfully unproductive. We did manage to get out and about to meet up with our incredible dear friends Julian Chang and Wade Estey. Wade was in town for business meetings, and Julian came along.
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| Flat Stanley visits Tower Bridge! |
Julian also brought along a "friend". He is helping out the students
from the
Riley Avenue School, Room 23, in Calverton, NY. The Students in this particular class have a "classmate" named
Flat Stanley. Even though Flat Stanley is made of cardboard, he really likes to travel and visit people all over the world. He sends back postcards from all these places, which the students then learn all about. So this past week, Flat Stanley was able to send back pictures from his adventures in London. If you are interested in helping out, and would like Flat Stanley to come visit your part of the world, just drop me an email or a comment here, and I will help arrange Flat Stanley to come visit you!
On a sad note, of course the big news this week has been the passing of former South African President, and Human Rights Icon, Nelson Mandela.
I can only echo what others have said far more eloquently, We shall never see his like again. He was true giant on the stage of Human History and his passing is not just a loss to South Africa; (My South African friends, Peter and Hester you are in my thoughts) it is truly a loss to the entire world.
I had hoped that the wingnuts on the American Right Wing would have had the common decency and basic humanity to behave, and contain their innate racism and irrational hatred of well...
everything, and refrain from making complete and utter fools of themselves. Alas, as it turns out, that would be far too much to hope for. Over on Fox News, blowhard and
serial sexual harasser Bill O'Reilly was chatting it up with perennial GOP Presidential Hopeful
Rick Santorum when he just couldn't help himself.
(from
alternet)
As the world grieves the loss of Nelson Mandela and an outpouring of praise and gratitude roll in, Fox News’ Bill O’Reilly seemingly felt the urge to brand Mandela a communist. The republican made the remarks while speaking to former GOP presidential candidate Rick Santorum on The O’Reilly Factor about the future of the Republican party,Meditate reported.
“He was a communist, this man. He was a communist, all right? But he was a great man! What he did for his people was stunning!...He was a great man! But he was a communist!”
O’Reilly's decision to invoke Mandela into the discussion about GOP politics can only be described as stupid, yet Santorum didn’t do much better in comparing the struggle against apartheid to fighting against big government here in the United States.
“He was fighting against some great injustice, and I would make the argument that we have a great injustice going on right now in this country with an ever-increasing size of government that is taking over and controlling people’s lives – and Obamacare is front and center in that,” Santorum said.
Did you get that? So according to Santorum, the struggle against Apartheid is just like Obamacare... Wow. If your faith in the craziness of the American Right wing is faltering, don't worry, it's Rush Limbaugh to the rescue! The right-wing Talk Radio host, and
drug addict also jumped right into the right wing media hate-fest using the news of Mandela's passing to (what else?) claim President Obama is an egomaniac who apparently hates the U.S Constitution.
If you really want to wade into the cesspool of racism, irrationality and rampant stupidity that is frothing up on the American political right, you can find a comprehensive recap over on the
Media Matters website.
I'd like to say I am shocked or even surprised by stuff like this, but the sad truth is I am not. It is clear that the American Conservative Movement is no longer even remotely sane. It has been co-opted by a neo-confederate movement of race-based hatred of President Obama, and race-based fear of the trends in American Population demographics.
Lawrence O'Donnell examined this in recent segment on MSNBC.
The fear that the American Far Right feels and is being stoked by Conservative media and Republican politicians the United States is an affront to everything Nelson Mandela stood for. On February 3, 2005, Nelson Mandela addressed over 20,000 people in London's Trafalgar Square to tell word leaders to end extreme global poverty.
Mandela said, "Overcoming poverty is not a gesture of charity. It is an act of justice. It is the protection of a fundamental human right, the right to dignity and a decent life. While poverty persists, there is no true freedom."
Amen indeed...
