Bennythomas's Weblog

A Sunday Poem- The Book I Chose

bennythomas — Sat, 28 Jan 2012 17:29:29 +0000

The book was not bound in dust cover;
And there was in it dog-eared appreciation
Of nameless eyes that with zest did devour.
I scanned the volume from cover to cover
Yet the thought was left in mint condition;

Then took the other leather bound in gold
Within were pages, abstract passages of cant
Being sorry no space for both was in the hold
I chose the bromides the wisdom of men of old
That the world in general love descant.
iii

In vellum and leather bound was wisdom
That suits man in statecraft and cloth well;
Such ideas and deeds that rang man’s freedom
I could perceive was what it lacked : wisdom
Of cant howev’r stood me exceedingly well.
iv

At graves mouth men have sighed before
I wonder what might have had I picked
The book of plain prose instead of the other.
The beguiling cant needs be in gilt and thunder
Served and my red and benefice to it owed.

benny
This is a take off on Robert Frost’s
The Road Not Taken

Two roads diverged in a yellow wood,
And sorry I could not travel both
And be one traveler, long I stood
And looked down one as far as I could
To where it bent in the undergrowth;

Then took the other, as just as fair,
And having perhaps the better claim,
Because it was grassy and wanted wear;
Though as for that the passing there
Had worn them really about the same,

And both that morning equally lay
In leaves no step had trodden black.
Oh, I kept the first for another day!
Yet knowing how way leads on to way,
I doubted if I should ever come back.

I shall be telling this with a sigh
Somewhere ages and ages hence:
Two roads diverged in a wood, and I -
I took the one less traveled by
And that has made all the difference.

Please solve theses riddles for me

bennythomas — Sat, 28 Jan 2012 12:07:38 +0000

If best things in life are free, why we occupy Wall Street or any other?
2.Why kill over religion? Merely because one makes a cut in his penis why demonize the rest of those who do not? Especially considering both parties hide it away for shame?
These riddles are unlike the other sort, solved only when one has thrown off the mortal coils of life. So don’t try it at home. Just file it away for future use.

Man is a funny animal

bennythomas — Sat, 28 Jan 2012 07:56:40 +0000

Man is a funny animal. Common sense tells him to mind his step. But his uncommon sense tells him to listen to his inner voice instead.
2.
Common sense tells him to keep his secrets close to the chest but he blabbers it all to some shrink who happens more often than not, a total stranger. He calls it uncommon sense.
3.
Sure his common sense is so common that cannot keep to the beaten tracks well tested. The old adage ‘a bird in hand is worth two in the bush’ will not do for him. He plays at stocks what he cannot afford hoping there is a greater fool out there to save his goose from cooking. He calls that his uncommon sense.
4.
Science gives man How and religion tells Why his universe works in a manner of speaking but his common sense cannot get the point.
What does his uncommon sense say? Perhaps both may work in my case, according to my special needs.
5.
Uncommonsense without some plain commonsense makes a fool; similar man without a touch of feminine qualities makes a brute.Yet we carry on battle of the sexes as though it is a honor or ego thing!

News on the March: Sikhs take on Jay Leno for bad jokes

bennythomas — Wed, 25 Jan 2012 21:26:42 +0000

“From the lawsuit filed Tuesday against NBC and Leno, obtained by EW.com: “The publication and broadcast was libelous on its face and clearly exposes the plaintiff, other Sikhs, and their religion to hatred, contempt, ridicule…”
If a comedian is sued for bad jokes every Congressman will be affected. These Congressmen are sent to the Capitol Hill and what do they do? They peddle influence or drag their feet or make tall claims of their service to the nation. They make jokes of their ability to change it. They even think they are indispensable! Their bad jokes are evident in the manner small towns are disappearing and the middle class is in danger of being listed under endangered species. Newt Gingrich does not need a team of writers to come up with jokes. He can merely rattle them impromptu. Pardon my French.
Jay Leno should have hired some Punjabi for Sardari jokes and he would have made the entire Sikh community die laughing.
To ask what is under a diaper to a Sikh is like waving a red rag before a bull. Ask a Sardar what is his beard doing under his chin? He may answer in the most serious vein that it cannot grow on his turban. They are very logical and precise people. You ask him for a joke and he probably give you the punch line and leave you to fill out the blanks. Why he would do that? Because he has already made up the joke himself so he cannot take the trouble of repeating it. Or he has filched some one else’s joke and doesn’t want to be sued.
In India the Sikh community enjoys the National Monument status.
benny

Friesland in images-Hindelopen

bennythomas — Wed, 25 Jan 2012 16:59:57 +0000

I am planning to hold an art exhibition and I plan this year to spend time on everyday basis for this. Let me see how far I can carry on with this project. My second work is begun. It is shown below in its preparatory stage. Hindelopen was earlier by the sea but now with afsluitdijk it fronts a lake.

Wolves in Sheep Clothes-the cult groups

bennythomas — Wed, 25 Jan 2012 10:27:20 +0000

Reading a news item about Glenn Close and Rose McGowan who were reared in a cult group made me think of a cult group that I had known. In the US it goes under the name The New Testament Church and it had its beginning in Sri Lanka when it was called Ceylon. The group Ceylon Pentecostal Mission was a mongrel church alright. They drew from so many sources, Armstrongism, Church of Rome to name a few. They lived and preached two different things. They accepted members who were to practice celibacy like the Catholic Church. They preached grace and yet made work as their cardinal virtue. They like pharisees made outward observance of prayers, fasts abstaining from alcohol, tobacco as proof of their holiness. They claimed they were totally separated from worldly affairs but always found members whose filthy lucre bankrolled their faith life. They insisted on their recruits full immersion baptism and speaking in tongues. The latter was the means to ensure their hook on the congregation. If anyone wanted to leave the two elders or pastors would buttonhole and ask him or her by wanting to leave they must have been speaking tongues ( not of Holy Spirit) but of devil.They knew how to control minds of their congregation in spending hours in shrieking and blabbering. They made tattle-telling a virtue and made attempts at believers to ferret out how others lived at workplace or at home. They came between husbands and wives in telling ‘the weaker vessel’ what to watch out in the other. Sunday service for example the joy of Christian spirit was the ‘holier-than- thou’ Yahooism. Let me explain what it is. Gulliver speaks of Yahoos in his travels and these were brutish in body and mind. In these Pentecostal group there were believers who made a virtue of cheeseparing and leanness in their spirit as ticket to Zion! The Mission called special meetings whenever they could and these were mind numbing sessions as waiting for the Spirit. Innocuously enough they made him/her toe the line having got control over his/her emotional and mental reserves.
In order to be counted as part of the group how members lied through their teeth before taking communion! Most of the elders were iliterate whose knowledge in the Scriptures were calculated to serve the purpose. Typical of Catholic church that they discouraged private interpretation! the Mission made the members read only passages they wanted them to know- Nothing more. How they made some pillars of the community shiver in their pants! Those who drank(social drinking) skipped it and made virtue of their lack of consideration for others by crying and making a show of tears only to repeat the same ad nauseum.
At the time of marriage I joined this group. I was a sunday school teacher and wrote hymns etc. For me reading Bible was not merely for reading. ‘Truth shall make you free’ it is said. One fine day I had enough or rather I saw their pernicious doctrine and decided to quit. The pastor asked if I was speaking in tongues under Holy Spirit or was it something else. I admitted I was mistaken and that made me get out of their hold.
I have never even come across these rascals after that day. It was as phony as my marriage which had to stop somewhere. The Pentecost Mission must be still around and never more I got entangled with the group.
benny

Ayatollah Uran-i-Um-cartoon

bennythomas — Wed, 25 Jan 2012 09:39:43 +0000

Iran's next Ayatollah: enriched uranium

News on the March- Indian Ill-literacy Week

bennythomas — Tue, 24 Jan 2012 16:03:28 +0000

JAIPUR, India (AP) — An Indian literary festival canceled a video conference with author Salman Rushdie days after he called off a personal appearance due to protests and threats.
“Festival organizers decided to cancel the video address to avoid violence by Muslim activists gathered at the Jaipur Literary Festival, an organizer, Sanjoy Roy, said.
“We have been pushed to the wall. … Earlier today, a number of organisations came to us and threatened violence,” Roy said.
Rushdie said he called off his trip after police told him of a possible assassination threat. He planned a video conference instead, but Roy said the organizers had been threatened with violence if they went ahead with the video link.
Rushdie’s works include the Booker Prize-winning “Midnight’s Children” and “The Satanic Verses,” which some Muslims consider blasphemous.
Scores of protesters crowded the tent where hundreds of festival participants had gathered for the video conference.
The controversy over Rushdie’s attendance cast its shadow over the five-day festival, which was attended by tens of thousands of people who came to this city to see Oprah Winfrey and literary stars, such as Michael Ondaatje, Tom Stoppard and Tiger Mom Amy Chua.”
If India cannot appreciate freedom of speech or writers who have drawn their sap from the soil and who dare to break the narrow mold of do’s and don’t set down by some illiterate monkeys, shut down all the schools and spend the money to sing bhajans from temple grounds. If these anger the Muslim sentiments let the powers- that- be appease them with half the money. Fine example of secular India where the finest article of a free man to be shortchanged thus. Mind you these busybodies are those who take their orders from their masters in Saudi Arabia or in Tehran. If some Mad Ayatollah issue a fatwa they think archangel Gabriel had spoken and crush the man as a beetle!
I am ashamed at this cowardly appeasement. First it was MF Hussain and now it is Rushdie. This kind of cowardly spirit that makes Congress pretend as though it is a small matter( Demolition of Babri Masjid in 1992 to them was something of this sort)and during the hijacking of IC 184 from Nepal to Kandahar it was the BJP government(1999) who showed their yellow streak. Political parties serve their own compulsions of the hour and blow whichever way the wind blows. No wonder India shows it time and time again.
Tailpiece: China and India both aspire to the future. How different are they? China may tread on the corns of human dignity and say the Party has no need to apologize to anyone. The other Asian ‘giant’ kisses the feet of the man many times and praises him sky high even as the ground under his feet is cut off.
benny

Noarderleech, Friesland-finished work

bennythomas — Tue, 24 Jan 2012 10:03:38 +0000

Sumo Wrestler and His Manager-cartoon

bennythomas — Tue, 24 Jan 2012 09:58:21 +0000

Freddie Mac: My Baggage is Here!