Tuesday, March 27, 2012

Oh, What a Be-yoo-tiful Morning...

In fact several beautiful mornings. The past few days (since last Friday) have been sunny and hot (for the UK in March it's hot at any rate). The sky has been that shade of blue that you only get in spring, what few clouds there have been were wispy and pale. The sun shone for all it was worth. We had temperatures in the 20s (Celcius). And my cold cleared up.

So I've been cheerful and bouncy - to the point of being extremely irritating. *g*.

In fact I was told to "shut the f*** up with the f***ing whistling" today and asked if I'd been eating budgie food.

Well - there was that millet casserole last Thursday... but no, it's just that it's impossible for me to be miserable when the weather is so nice, and I get to be outside all day.

But not everything this week was beautiful...

We went to see The Hunger Games at the end of last week. I thought it was a pretty decent attempt at the story. I enjoyed the film and can recommend it.

I was slightly appalled by some of the reactions I've seen on the web though. There seem to be an awful lot of obnoxious prats who are unhappy that one of the characters - Rue - was played by an African-American actress. Several comments that this "spoilt the film" or suggesting that the casting crew should "read the books". There were a few comments that were downright nasty. All I could think was - "Did you bloody tossers read the damn' books at all??" Because the description for Rue (and her companion from her district) quite clearly indicate that they are black!!

And I thought rather sadly that, given that kind of irrational hatred, that unthinking racism, it's unsurprising that a perfectly innocent - unarmed - young man could be gunned down by a vigilante with an obvious problem, who should never have been allowed to own a gun. I know that a lot of US Americans are defensive about their right to own guns but rights come with responsibilities. You don't let people drive a car without lessons, a test, and a licence. Why let them have a gun without lessons, a test, and a licence.

And equally unsurprising that a chat-show host who really, really should know better could suggest that it was understandable because of the garment he chose to wear. A garment type that millions of people of all shades, all faiths, all classes, all ages, world-wide, wear. A garment type that I have worn every day since October. But a garment that somehow becomes threatening when worn by someone who doesn't share my (privileged) skin tone.

The more things change...

Ze

Posted by at

No comments:

Post a Comment

Subscribe to: Post Comments (Atom)