Thursday, October 18, 2012

A good night and some good reading





Yesterday was Anne's last day at work before her retirement.  I tell her that she is now a pensioner but she rouses at me about that.  She doesn't like the sound of her changed status.  She does however have some health problems so it was high time she retired.

Anyway, to celebrate her retirement I took her to dinner at the Kafe Meze.  I ordered the usual: Tarama, Haloumi, Keftdes and Fourex Gold (beer).  It was all outstanding as usual and the beer went particularly well with the food.  I observed many years ago that Greeks in Greek restaurants mostly drank beer with their food so decided to learn from them -- and have never regretted it

But today has been rather pesky.  My cable connection to the net has been down all day.  Telstra say it is some sort of local area issue.

I do have a prepaid Telstra wireless connection as well for just such occasions but it is so much slower than the cable connection that it discourages me.  I have been able to get most of my usual stuff up today but my preparations for tomorrow are zilch.  I just cannot be bothered accessing things at a snail's pace.

I actually kept a promise to myself and spent some time instead  by re-reading Exodus (in the Bible).  It is actually quite a good story, retold with some repetition rather like a cantata.  Once again I was amused to note how unmodern Yahveh was.  But it is our  civilization that is out of step.  Yahveh's values were much like those than men have had throughout history:  Self-aggrandizing and vengeful.  He thought it greatly to his credit to wipe out the Egyptian army, for instance:  Not exactly a God of mercy.

But the one thing that stands out in Exodus is the cry of religious men throughout all time:  "Why won't people BELIEVE?"  Not only the Egyptians took a lot of convincing about the power of Yahveh but the Israelites were nearly as bad.  Yahveh was constantly having to prove himself to them.

So I actually enjoyed my time away from the internet.


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