And food, good peasant food. The rice dish was better than any other paella we’ve had. The waiter is a rugby player & was rapt to discover that partner is a fan.
Hmmm. If you Google Free walking tours Cuenca Spain, a whole lot come up, which you then sift through to find the English language one. I’d done that, & booked… a tour of Cuenca Ecuador. So I cancelled that & with a tourist map, we took ourselves on a tour. The geology & geography were as fascinating as the town. Then train back “home” to Madrid.
Yesterday I had an unpleasant conversation with someone. It got a bit heated, & accusations were made by the other party. Some members of the autistic community came to my defence. (Thank you!) I tried to scale back in the ensuing conversations, The other person clearly has some issues (don’t we all!) and decided to try to make me the bad guy. I didn’t take it on (but was probably masking to some extent).
On another platform, the outrage would’ve been stoked & possibly a nasty pile on could’ve taken place. Thank goodness we weren’t in that space. The people who came to my defence did so civilly & in a low key way, not designed to inflame.
I’ve tried to delete my part in the thread.
Whatever their problems are, they’re not mine, & nor do I want to aggravate theirs. I don’t owe them anything, but nor do I wish them harm.
I hope everyone has a lovely day (or night if you’re in that part of the world that has things the wrong way round.) 🥰
In The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe, there’s a line where the professor says, “Logic!”… “Why don’t they teach logic at these schools?…”, the comment of an autistic person if ever I read one. 😂
We could ask the same about history. Absolutely everything occurs in an historical context. When we ignore history, we ignore context. We look at the small picture instead of the big one. There are different reasons for doing so, ignorance being the most common, but there are other reasons.
Some deliberately seek to ignore the past, for reasons of their own, to deceive &/or protect their own interests. Taking history into account might highlight their own interests, and the duplicity of their motives.
Some are driven to ignore it for other reasons, such as a desire to simplify the situation, making it easier to understand & find solutions, but at the risk of getting it badly wrong.
Some are driven by the desire to blame, to simplify the situation enough to make it easy to direct blame at a single person or group of people. And their desire to do so might be understandable. Their own situation might be so untenable, a solution so far out of their reach, that they are overwhelmed by frustration & anger. And who can blame them?
But does it help? Does it actually move them any closer to a real situation, or does it merely create a space to vent their anger, often at people who have little or no relationship to the situation & most certainly aren’t the key drivers? Does it allow the real culprits to gleefully walk away, free to continue in their machinations to rule the world, openly or from behind the scenes?
He was an interesting guy, complex. Did some great work, but some stuff was questionable. I remember my mother taking massive doses of vitamin C in the 70s, on her cancer journey. (I refuse to call it a battle. Living with cancer is not a militaristic exercise.)
Whether they’re far right extremists (fascists), opportunistic right wing politicians, poor quality media outlets & the people who work for them or social media giants, people who spread these lies need to be held accountable. They are fomenting division & violence.
We used to watch the news on tv almost every night. We don’t watch as often now, & didn’t last night, so this mornings news of the IT collapse was… odd. Bit like day of the Triffids.
@Snowshadow Definitely worth a look. The countries involved have a more socialist approach. They’re still functioning as capitalist economies, but governments & business assume much higher levels of responsibility for the health & welfare of their citizens & employees, & much less of a survival if the fittest approach.
Our last conservative government was roundly chased out of power, but are already gaining territory. They were so utterly incompetent, but admittedly not as bad as the British Tories, & are now suggesting we push are climate goals back 20 years & use unproven tech like modular nuclear reactors instead of renewables. This is in Australia, with so much sunshine, wind & space to harness those resources. And some people are buying it.
@Snowshadow Have you seen the Michael Moore doco Where to Invade Next? Stupid title, but he looks at European countries with much better ways of providing certain services, working conditions etc. So much better than UK, USA, Canada, Australia etc.
I don’t get people’s utter complacency about Covid. In an audience of about 250 people at a concert last night, we were 2 of about 6 people wearing masks. None of the main choir were masked, but 2 of the junior choir (18-29) were & I admired their will to be different.
I’m trying to live my life in a pandemic. I’m not panicked, just taking precautions. My mental health would suffer too much if I further reduced my social interactions to reduce Covid risk, but I’m simply not capable of lying to myself & pretending that there is no need to take any precautions. And the fact that other intelligent people are capable of doing so is beyond my comprehension.
Lifelong learner, leftie, AuADHD, Bunurong country, Australia. She/her. Social justice, environment, climate change etc. Too old to pretend to be “woke”; it’s just the way I am. Won’t boost photos without alt txt (unless I forget!). If you would like to follow me or be followed by me, tell the world something about yourself in your profile.