Midweek. Wednesday. This is pretty much the last week of work before we pack up for the holidays. My class graduates this week too, and they've been good; they've done well, learning more than I thought I was capable of teaching. I should be elated. I'm not.
Today began muggy, damp and cold. The fog that promised to lift before noon, still hangs heavy, like a scene from The Strange Case Of Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde. Ominous. Foreboding. Opaque. Despite what you wear, the chill cuts right through to the bone. You have thoughts in your head. Some happy, some tinged with sadness, and some filled with dread and fear.
Somewhere in the higher echelons of British Academia, envied the world over, it has been decided that the segregation of men and women on the basis of an oddly archaic belief system is a valid concept. In 2013, where empirical evidence is king, where a man may marry a man, where basic human rights trump everything else, men and women will be required to sit apart because a bigot's rights are suddenly paramount. We're a tolerant bunch, us Brits, but must we tolerate intolerance? To think I've handed over my children to these idiots to be educated...
A few thousand miles away, the nation that calls itself the largest democracy in the world, the nation that the entire globe sees as a beacon for the future and significant player in the new world order (conspiracy theorists, shut up, I don't mean that NWO), chooses to continue to outlaw gay relationships. Old men, with not a bone in their body, despite markets flooded with generic Viagra, making decisions about the sex lives of people they're never likely to come across is as depressing a thought as I'm making it out to be. And we thought the Taliban were bad.
I'm off, to the comfort and warmth of my home, where I am informed we're going to have Aashak for dinner. Under the soft glow of tungsten filaments (yes, old-school lighting), I'm going to sit in my recliner, and watch the light dance through the ice cubes and amber liquid in a crystal glass and thank that good old chap from Tennessee, Jack Daniel for well, Jack Daniel's.
The world can go fuck itself.
Today began muggy, damp and cold. The fog that promised to lift before noon, still hangs heavy, like a scene from The Strange Case Of Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde. Ominous. Foreboding. Opaque. Despite what you wear, the chill cuts right through to the bone. You have thoughts in your head. Some happy, some tinged with sadness, and some filled with dread and fear.
Somewhere in the higher echelons of British Academia, envied the world over, it has been decided that the segregation of men and women on the basis of an oddly archaic belief system is a valid concept. In 2013, where empirical evidence is king, where a man may marry a man, where basic human rights trump everything else, men and women will be required to sit apart because a bigot's rights are suddenly paramount. We're a tolerant bunch, us Brits, but must we tolerate intolerance? To think I've handed over my children to these idiots to be educated...
A few thousand miles away, the nation that calls itself the largest democracy in the world, the nation that the entire globe sees as a beacon for the future and significant player in the new world order (conspiracy theorists, shut up, I don't mean that NWO), chooses to continue to outlaw gay relationships. Old men, with not a bone in their body, despite markets flooded with generic Viagra, making decisions about the sex lives of people they're never likely to come across is as depressing a thought as I'm making it out to be. And we thought the Taliban were bad.I'm off, to the comfort and warmth of my home, where I am informed we're going to have Aashak for dinner. Under the soft glow of tungsten filaments (yes, old-school lighting), I'm going to sit in my recliner, and watch the light dance through the ice cubes and amber liquid in a crystal glass and thank that good old chap from Tennessee, Jack Daniel for well, Jack Daniel's.
The world can go fuck itself.
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