I thought it would amuse my female readership if I reported that I had overheard a man saying of another man "He'll never get a girlfriend if..." Or was it "How will he ever get a girlfriend if..."? At any rate, I thought it would cheer you to know that guys say that about other guys, and it can be just as dumb as when girls say "How will she ever get a boyfriend if...?" about other girls because actually, as someone listening pointed out, the guy in question has no trouble getting girlfriends. So there.
But this leads me to wonder what qualities keep other men from getting girlfriends. I mean, serial killers in jail get marriage proposals. So this morning I will throw out some suggestions as I puzzle through the possibilities.
1. They never meet any girls. Many men are in male-dominated careers, and by dominated I mean there are only two women in the office/on site, if that. Or they are in high-pressure academic programs where the only way to survive is to keep their heads down and study. Although I have many reservations, in the case of men who are in male-dominated careers, I suggest internet dating. But I mean dating, not emailing.
2. They never talk to girls. Some men actually lose the ability to speak when introduced to new girls. It is amusing to witness, but not so amusing for the poor men. This is why it is a kindness to march up to guys known as "quiet" or "shy" and ask them easy-to-answer questions and, if they give short, strangled answers, chat gaily and non-stop for three minutes before buzzing away. Repeat the next time you see them. This will help them get used to you, and hopefully by extension to talking to women in general.
Three. They are dead boring. Some men--not the quiet ones--are dead boring, I have to admit. They talk about the same things all the time, and/or they talk in a monotone. They talk about things that interest them, and never wonder for the slightest second if these are of any interest to the women they are speaking to. I was once interrupted while talking about my novel to a recent reader of my novel to be told that Mass was available at some place where I am never going to go. This was of great interest to the man in question, but not to me. Incidentally, people, never EVER interrupt an author talking about her book with a reader. It is cruel.
I am not sure what can be done for men who are dead boring. The most obvious solution is to tell them that they are dead boring and they must ask people about their interests, not just launch into a discussion of their own. Also one could suggest they stop talking in a monotone. However, this seems very blunt, even for a North American. The idea of doing any such thing would make the average Brit faint. Maybe some kindly self-sacrificing man could do it, especially when drunk.
4. They never ask girls out. Before he went into the seminary, I had a fond idea that eventually some nice girl named Prunella or Penelope or something like that would propose to Seminarian Pretend Son in a rowboat in a big pond or river (or whatever) in her family's country place, and that would be that. Some men are so humble that they assume wrongly that they are just no woman's cup of tea and so are absolutely staggered to discover that they are. I imagine England is full of such excellent yet unassuming chaps; indeed, it always has been. Thus, in England, especially among the expensively educated, it is the lot of woman to prod man into marriage. I say England, not Scotland, because the Scots are markedly different. I think. Naturally there exceptions to my egregious stereotyping.
5. They ask too many girls out. I once had a neighbour who was indignant because although he gave his phone number to two waitresses at his favourite bar, neither of them called him. I pointed out that they would have certainly known he had given his number to BOTH of them. "So what?" he asked. Dear, dear, dear. Bless his little heart.
Closer to home, I know a nice young man, excellent company, who wears his heart on his sleeve and discusses his latest crush with all the women he knows. He has a new one every month, and it is very hard to keep track. Unfortunately, he tends to get crushes on girls he has told about the other girls, and naturally they do not take his ardour very seriously.
In such a case, I would counsel prudence and caution. Although in close-knit communities everyone will eventually know that one of their men has asked out one of their women, the fact that he tried to be discreet about it will stand him in good stead.
6. They pick badly. Newsflash. Beautiful young women prefer beautiful young men their own age. Some beautiful young women who have only their looks going for them may angle for less beautiful, less young men if these men are rich (and I mean rich), but men who read Catholic blogs are unlikely to meet them. So never mind them. Look for girls who look like you.
If you look at married couples, you might notice that, by and large, they have a lot in common. I am not beautiful but striking. B.A. is not beautiful but striking. He is short. I am shorter. He still hasn't finished his PhD. I still haven't finished my PhD. He loves women. I think men are the caffeine in the cappuccino of life. We are almost the same age. We share many virtues and we share many faults, which is very handy when it comes to forgiveness, the lifeblood of marriage. We are both mildly eccentric. The verdict of my dear friend Lily when she met B.A. was "I was so relieved. I thought he'd be too normal."
If you are a brainy potato dumpling of a man, it is a good idea to court brainy potato dumplings of women. It is a bad idea to think, "Although I am a balding, overweight 5'6" thirty-two year old accountant with a marked physical resemblance to Winston Churchill, I shall court only 20 year old model-types." That's just not how life works. Go to the mall and look at the couples. The major discrepancies have to do with height. Short women don't mind marrying tall men, and tall men don't mind marrying short women. Tall women prefer tall men, and short men seem to prefer shorter women, which I think a bit sad, but that's life.
On the other hand, it is short sighted to think that women are "out of your league" just because of some ridiculous social construct like "where she went to university." If she's around your age, shorter than you, has similar interests, and has the female version of your figure (i.e. slim to your thin, athletic to your muscle, curvy to your fat), it doesn't really matter a damn if she went to Harvard or Oxford whereas you went to state or a red brick. If a woman turns you down because of where you went to college, that really is her loss because Harvard and Oxford men don't give a pinch of snuff for where women went to uni, so long as they think we're cute and fun, whatever than means for them.
I just remembered. Sometimes younger men fall madly in love with older women, e.g. their professors. In such situations, the younger man is going to have to think very hard and put forward his case in an honest and blunt conversation, and be extra-prepared to be shot down. This is particularly true if the young man does not have personal capital equal to the woman's higher social status, e.g. good looks, ambition, undoubted charm.
7. They are smelly. It's sad that they need to be told, but some do--especially some undergrads away from home for the first time ever. If a man does not wash daily, does not wear clean clothes, does not brush his teeth, does not wash his hair, does not wear deodorant, does not put odour-eaters in his shoes, he is going to smell. And women do not like that. We really do not.
Feel free to add your own thoughts in the combox!
Tuesday, 1 April 2014
Monday, 31 March 2014
Laetare Sterilis
It is Monday after the Laetare Sunday before, and oh but do I have a lot of dishes still to wash! But it was a lovely day, from the glorious rose vestments to the rose-coloured icing on the cakes. And right there in the readings was a command that childless women should rejoice:
Galatians 4:27 Scriptum est enim laetare sterilis quae non paris erumpe et exclama quae non parturis quia multi filii desertae magis quam eius quae habet virum. (For it is written: "Be glad, O barren woman, who bears no children; break forth and cry aloud, you who have no labor pains; because more are the children of the desolate woman than of her who has a husband.")
Well, I have a husband, and this all probably applies more to nuns, and St. Paul probably meant it figuratively anyway, but I'll take it!
At lunch a young Polish guest, in Edinburgh just for the weekend, surveyed the rest of the dozen people around the pink tablecloth and remarked that none of us had children. And, indeed, I can see that this would look strange to Polish eyes, for Poland is a country that really loves children, and most Polish adults prefer to have them. We were of all ages ranging from 25 to 69.
I explained that everyone except BA and I were unmarried and BA and I had married too late for children. And I went on at great length about my parish friend currently away in Asia, who is married and had two children while attending our EF Mass. This was in part to prove that some people in our EF community actually do have babies. (And there are others, of course.) But I had to admit that this friend never comes to Sunday Lunch, and indeed socially the community is roughly divided between those who have children and those who don't. However, this is partly because families with children don't really have the time or the inclination to come to Sunday Lunch.
Here is where I should write something clever and poignant about the message of the Gospel being partly about the inclusion of those left without children or husbands or family ties into society, but poppets I am wiped. Lunch for 14 means a lot of work, and BA always snores after parties.
Galatians 4:27 Scriptum est enim laetare sterilis quae non paris erumpe et exclama quae non parturis quia multi filii desertae magis quam eius quae habet virum. (For it is written: "Be glad, O barren woman, who bears no children; break forth and cry aloud, you who have no labor pains; because more are the children of the desolate woman than of her who has a husband.")
Well, I have a husband, and this all probably applies more to nuns, and St. Paul probably meant it figuratively anyway, but I'll take it!
At lunch a young Polish guest, in Edinburgh just for the weekend, surveyed the rest of the dozen people around the pink tablecloth and remarked that none of us had children. And, indeed, I can see that this would look strange to Polish eyes, for Poland is a country that really loves children, and most Polish adults prefer to have them. We were of all ages ranging from 25 to 69.
I explained that everyone except BA and I were unmarried and BA and I had married too late for children. And I went on at great length about my parish friend currently away in Asia, who is married and had two children while attending our EF Mass. This was in part to prove that some people in our EF community actually do have babies. (And there are others, of course.) But I had to admit that this friend never comes to Sunday Lunch, and indeed socially the community is roughly divided between those who have children and those who don't. However, this is partly because families with children don't really have the time or the inclination to come to Sunday Lunch.
Here is where I should write something clever and poignant about the message of the Gospel being partly about the inclusion of those left without children or husbands or family ties into society, but poppets I am wiped. Lunch for 14 means a lot of work, and BA always snores after parties.
Saturday, 29 March 2014
Laetare Sunday Thoughts
Mothering Sunday is also Laetare Sunday, the Fourth Sunday in Lent, which is marked with rose vestments and a general lightening of the Lenten load, should you be carrying one. It is a big holiday in the minds of the Men's Schola and its unofficial Ladies' Auziliary, and we all wear pink (or rose) shirts or skirts and eat a lot of pink (or rose) coloured food and drink at Sunday Lunch.
This year the Knights of Malta Edinburgh Ball takes place on the Vigil of Laetare Sunday, so we anticipate a lot of hung-over tweedy types from London appearing in the Schola and in the pews. The oldies will probably go to the New Club for Sunday Lunch, but the youngies will probably come to the Historical House, for it is Our Turn.
This means that we are preparing Sunday Lunch (with much pink drink and foodstuffs) for fourteen-to-sixteen people, which is why this post is going to be so short.
I am reminded of Calvinist Cath's descriptions of Free Presbyterian Communion Sundays, when Free Presbyterians swell the toon and stay at all the other Free Ps' houses, and there is much feasting, especially upon traybakes. (I have a theory that sugar is an important part of cultural Presbyterianism.) I suppose all super-trad (and therefore small) communities (or branches, as naturally our super-trad set is in communion with Rome, unlike, er, Cath's) are like that: sudden squashings of long-missed people into too-small rooms and great ado to feed them all.
And now I must rush off. Food shop. Confession. Pint with Andrew Cusack. Food shop. Home to let in wandering Poles going to the Knights of Malta Ball and sleeping in our dining-room and library.
Update: Home with brown herringbone wool-mix Laura Ashley trousers which cost only one pound sterling. I don't usually wear trousers but I clearly need something for country walks, as my nice brown wool skirt was sadly snagged when I fell down a river bank two weeks ago.
This year the Knights of Malta Edinburgh Ball takes place on the Vigil of Laetare Sunday, so we anticipate a lot of hung-over tweedy types from London appearing in the Schola and in the pews. The oldies will probably go to the New Club for Sunday Lunch, but the youngies will probably come to the Historical House, for it is Our Turn.
This means that we are preparing Sunday Lunch (with much pink drink and foodstuffs) for fourteen-to-sixteen people, which is why this post is going to be so short.
I am reminded of Calvinist Cath's descriptions of Free Presbyterian Communion Sundays, when Free Presbyterians swell the toon and stay at all the other Free Ps' houses, and there is much feasting, especially upon traybakes. (I have a theory that sugar is an important part of cultural Presbyterianism.) I suppose all super-trad (and therefore small) communities (or branches, as naturally our super-trad set is in communion with Rome, unlike, er, Cath's) are like that: sudden squashings of long-missed people into too-small rooms and great ado to feed them all.
And now I must rush off. Food shop. Confession. Pint with Andrew Cusack. Food shop. Home to let in wandering Poles going to the Knights of Malta Ball and sleeping in our dining-room and library.
Update: Home with brown herringbone wool-mix Laura Ashley trousers which cost only one pound sterling. I don't usually wear trousers but I clearly need something for country walks, as my nice brown wool skirt was sadly snagged when I fell down a river bank two weeks ago.
Friday, 28 March 2014
Mothering Sunday Thoughts
I have to think about Mother's Day twice a year because British Mothering Sunday is on the fourth Sunday of Lent and North American Mother's Day is the second Sunday in May. Mothering Sunday seems more low-key than North American Mother's Day, and in fact its historical roots do not wind around mothers but the practice of visiting one's "mother church" or Cathedral that day. Visiting ol' Mum and bringing her a nice treat (like a simnel cake) sprang up around that, and was revived in the 1920s.
I do not know if parish priests in the UK ever pull the "All mothers stand and be applauded" nonsense because I am always at the FSSP Mass on Laetare Sunday, and homey don't play that. I hope ordinary parish priests don't either. But if they do, I hope one day all British Catholic women over 25 get so sick of it that they ALL stand. John Paul II wrote that all women are called to be mothers, physical or spiritual, and so, really, clerics should not be making such a obvious distinction between biological mothers and all other women. Incidentally, I wonder how the bereaved mothers feel when the priest cheerfully "invites" them to stand. Or mothers with children in JAIL. Or mothers whose children have been taken from them by the courts or runaway husbands. Or women who have had miscarriages. Or women who are grieving ab*rti*ns. Mother's Day must be hard enough for them without tacked on cheer and clap-clap-clap.
Have I mentioned how much I hate it when pastorallytone-deaf silly people add all this made-up stuff to the liturgy? I have?!?!
I wouldn't mind a prayer for mothers at the end of Laetare Sunday Mass, if said over the entire kneeling congregation, especially if it mentioned all the horrors that attend maternity--the physical pains, the emotional pains, the social difficulties, the dread of what the world might do to their darlings, the anger at what the world has already done to their darlings, etc. No, what I principally object to is the mothers being invited to stand while the childless sit dumbly and are forced to applaud with everyone else their fecund (or richer, adoptive) sisters' gift of children. I do not at all blame these mothers. I blame the priests.
Poor old priests. I probably tell this story every year, but back in Toronto around 1997 or so, a priest gave a Mother's Day homily on the wonder of MOTHER. Ah, our Mothers, our sainted Mothers, ah to be sure, too-rah-loo-rah-loo-rah. After Mass, as he was talking to a male classmate of mine, a furious woman stormed up with tears in her eyes and told him that he didn't know anything about mothers and his homily was insultingly sentimental nonsense. On she raged, and the priest and my pal were petrified before her inexplicable female anger and I HOPE, although I don't know, that the priest said, "I am so sorry you are upset. Please come and talk to me in my office."
"My goodness," said my friend, who thought I would join him in marveling over this "crazy" woman, "if you can't preach a sermon on mothers, what CAN you preach about?"
Listen, chaps. Not only are women sensitive about whether or not we are mothers, we are also sensitive about our experience in being mothered. And an overfed priest rabbiting on about how proud his mother was the day he got ordained is not going to go down well with the generations of women who grew up playing second-fiddle to their brothers, or who found themselves horribly thrust in the position of rival for their father's/stepfather's attention. There are even mothers who will sacrifice their children--who will turn a blind eye to their daughters'/granddaughters' sexual abuse--for their own sex lives. Homilies on that would be great. Heavens! And wouldn't I love to hear an [X]-Canadian priest demand of [X]-Canadian women (for example) if they work their daughters too hard and pamper their sons too much. (Fill in the [X] however you like.)
Anyway. Mothering Sunday. When I don't think about it in detail, I feel more tranquil now about being childless that I have been since I married. The answer to "But does the pain of being childless ever go away?" is YES--at least in my case. Since the bitter heartbreak of the Insensitive Doctor's Phone Call, I have been feeling a lot better. The worst--and that was the worst--is over, and I can get on with my life. I am answering the question, "What would you do if you were reasonably sure you could never have children?" by praying, "God, You know I want children. Send me whichever children You think I should mother."
And lo! In the post yesterday, Mothering Sunday greetings from Seminarian Pretend Son to his "Canadian Pretend Mother"! Yay! My first authentic Pretend Mother's Day card! Such a good boy. He's in the seminary, you know.
So that is my advice to women, single or married, who terribly want children, but don't have them. Pray hard, not for children, but for whichever children God wants you to have. These could be natural children of the body, or they could be children of the spirit. They could be foster children, or they could be foreign students. They could be your own elementary school pupils. They could be, if you become a nun, your novices. (And what a shame so many orders have dropped the title of "Mother" from older nuns!) When it comes to motherhood, we need to think outside the box. If all women are called to be mothers, then motherhood is not just a biological reality, and motherhood is something more than giving birth. It is a many-splendoured gift from God to us all.
I do not know if parish priests in the UK ever pull the "All mothers stand and be applauded" nonsense because I am always at the FSSP Mass on Laetare Sunday, and homey don't play that. I hope ordinary parish priests don't either. But if they do, I hope one day all British Catholic women over 25 get so sick of it that they ALL stand. John Paul II wrote that all women are called to be mothers, physical or spiritual, and so, really, clerics should not be making such a obvious distinction between biological mothers and all other women. Incidentally, I wonder how the bereaved mothers feel when the priest cheerfully "invites" them to stand. Or mothers with children in JAIL. Or mothers whose children have been taken from them by the courts or runaway husbands. Or women who have had miscarriages. Or women who are grieving ab*rti*ns. Mother's Day must be hard enough for them without tacked on cheer and clap-clap-clap.
Have I mentioned how much I hate it when pastorallytone-deaf silly people add all this made-up stuff to the liturgy? I have?!?!
I wouldn't mind a prayer for mothers at the end of Laetare Sunday Mass, if said over the entire kneeling congregation, especially if it mentioned all the horrors that attend maternity--the physical pains, the emotional pains, the social difficulties, the dread of what the world might do to their darlings, the anger at what the world has already done to their darlings, etc. No, what I principally object to is the mothers being invited to stand while the childless sit dumbly and are forced to applaud with everyone else their fecund (or richer, adoptive) sisters' gift of children. I do not at all blame these mothers. I blame the priests.
Poor old priests. I probably tell this story every year, but back in Toronto around 1997 or so, a priest gave a Mother's Day homily on the wonder of MOTHER. Ah, our Mothers, our sainted Mothers, ah to be sure, too-rah-loo-rah-loo-rah. After Mass, as he was talking to a male classmate of mine, a furious woman stormed up with tears in her eyes and told him that he didn't know anything about mothers and his homily was insultingly sentimental nonsense. On she raged, and the priest and my pal were petrified before her inexplicable female anger and I HOPE, although I don't know, that the priest said, "I am so sorry you are upset. Please come and talk to me in my office."
"My goodness," said my friend, who thought I would join him in marveling over this "crazy" woman, "if you can't preach a sermon on mothers, what CAN you preach about?"
Listen, chaps. Not only are women sensitive about whether or not we are mothers, we are also sensitive about our experience in being mothered. And an overfed priest rabbiting on about how proud his mother was the day he got ordained is not going to go down well with the generations of women who grew up playing second-fiddle to their brothers, or who found themselves horribly thrust in the position of rival for their father's/stepfather's attention. There are even mothers who will sacrifice their children--who will turn a blind eye to their daughters'/granddaughters' sexual abuse--for their own sex lives. Homilies on that would be great. Heavens! And wouldn't I love to hear an [X]-Canadian priest demand of [X]-Canadian women (for example) if they work their daughters too hard and pamper their sons too much. (Fill in the [X] however you like.)
Anyway. Mothering Sunday. When I don't think about it in detail, I feel more tranquil now about being childless that I have been since I married. The answer to "But does the pain of being childless ever go away?" is YES--at least in my case. Since the bitter heartbreak of the Insensitive Doctor's Phone Call, I have been feeling a lot better. The worst--and that was the worst--is over, and I can get on with my life. I am answering the question, "What would you do if you were reasonably sure you could never have children?" by praying, "God, You know I want children. Send me whichever children You think I should mother."
And lo! In the post yesterday, Mothering Sunday greetings from Seminarian Pretend Son to his "Canadian Pretend Mother"! Yay! My first authentic Pretend Mother's Day card! Such a good boy. He's in the seminary, you know.
So that is my advice to women, single or married, who terribly want children, but don't have them. Pray hard, not for children, but for whichever children God wants you to have. These could be natural children of the body, or they could be children of the spirit. They could be foster children, or they could be foreign students. They could be your own elementary school pupils. They could be, if you become a nun, your novices. (And what a shame so many orders have dropped the title of "Mother" from older nuns!) When it comes to motherhood, we need to think outside the box. If all women are called to be mothers, then motherhood is not just a biological reality, and motherhood is something more than giving birth. It is a many-splendoured gift from God to us all.
Thursday, 27 March 2014
Regret for Typos/Coming Appearances
Cherubs! Click once again to IP Novels to read my latest thoughts on writing. Oh dear. I wish I had known all that stuff when I was a child. But when I was a child, there was no Auntie Seraphic to pass along such helpful hints.
Oh, poppets. The horrors of growing up and negotiating the dating world without an Auntie Seraphic. This is why I AM Auntie Seraphic: so that no NCG (or Other Single of Good Will) has to go through what I went through without an Auntie Seraphic ever again. (Lest that sound just too self-absorbed, I point out that there are lots of budding Auntie Seraphics in the world, including those wise Byzantine ladies at Orthogals.)
In my fondest dreams, I set upa gypsya Romany an Irish Traveller caravan (the old kind, of painted wood) in the fields behind the Historical House and give advice to young ladies who cross my palm with silver or, rather, pound notes.
I wonder if this is something I could do in my old age: wander through Poland and Lithuania with a strong pony in my caravan, a lonesomegypsy cyganka wild. I hope this would not affront the Polish and Lithuanian sense of modernity and industrialization: I have with my own eyes seen from the train from Warsaw to Kraków a handsome farmer plowing his fields with a horse. Farmer-plow-horse. Utterly charming!
***
BY THE WAY! Fiorella de Maria, author of Poor Banished Children and Do No Harm and I are having a joint BOOK EVENT in London, England this Saturday June 7 at St Paul's Bookshop, right beside Westminster Cathedral. It is from 4 to 6, and then we shall go to the Albert or some other nearby pub to drink with any readers still around. So if you live in or near London, mark it on your calendars!
Meanwhile, I will be participating in a women's retreat in Kraków this May 2-4. The retreat will be in Polish, and my four talks will be in English, simultaneously translated into Polish. One year I will give my talks in Polish, but this is not that year. Czytam i piszam po polsku, ale nie mowię dobrze. Nigdy nie pamiętam słów, i mój aksent jest komiczny.
<
Oh, poppets. The horrors of growing up and negotiating the dating world without an Auntie Seraphic. This is why I AM Auntie Seraphic: so that no NCG (or Other Single of Good Will) has to go through what I went through without an Auntie Seraphic ever again. (Lest that sound just too self-absorbed, I point out that there are lots of budding Auntie Seraphics in the world, including those wise Byzantine ladies at Orthogals.)
In my fondest dreams, I set up
I wonder if this is something I could do in my old age: wander through Poland and Lithuania with a strong pony in my caravan, a lonesome
***
BY THE WAY! Fiorella de Maria, author of Poor Banished Children and Do No Harm and I are having a joint BOOK EVENT in London, England this Saturday June 7 at St Paul's Bookshop, right beside Westminster Cathedral. It is from 4 to 6, and then we shall go to the Albert or some other nearby pub to drink with any readers still around. So if you live in or near London, mark it on your calendars!
Meanwhile, I will be participating in a women's retreat in Kraków this May 2-4. The retreat will be in Polish, and my four talks will be in English, simultaneously translated into Polish. One year I will give my talks in Polish, but this is not that year. Czytam i piszam po polsku, ale nie mowię dobrze. Nigdy nie pamiętam słów, i mój aksent jest komiczny.
<
Wednesday, 26 March 2014
Pigs
(Second post today.)
Last night I watched "Never Let Me Go", which disturbed me so much, I considered becoming vegetarian. Or partially vegetarian. Like many British people, B.A. and I are so disgusted by factory farming, that we do not eat battery hens or buy battery eggs. We won't eat anything we are reasonable sure had a horrible existence. But I am feeling a bit queasy about potential sentience.
A vegetarian reader took issue with my characterization of meat as a harmless pleasure that one can give up in Lent. I remembered several Biblical verses that not only assume but command meat-eating. Indeed, Saint Peter was offered in a vision all kinds of animals that Jews of his day did not eat and told to kill and eat them (Acts 10:28). He was not, of course, told to practice factory farming. I am sure that Saint Peter would have been just as astonished by what farming has become today as he was by God's directive to give up his Jewish dietary practices.
One argument carnivores give vegetarians is that we are the only people who can improve the living conditions of livestock. As vegetarians don't usually buy meat, the livestock industry don't give a damn what they think. But when British carnivore Hugh Fearnley-Wittingstall cried over his dead experimental battery chicks, there was a British carnivore revolution on behalf of chickens.
But chickens are not very smart. Sheep are pretty smart, though, as are pigs. I very much like pigs to look at. They look friendly and apparently "a middle-aged pig can be as smart as a three-year-old [human] child." I am fond of pigs, but I also like to eat pigs. Pigs are yummy.
All the same, I am troubled. Would it be better for humans to keep eating pigs, which means that pigs will continue to thrive in large numbers, or to stop eating pigs, as a recognition that sentient beings should not be subordinate to other sentient beings' desires, even if this means there would no longer be domestic pigs at all. Is eating only well-raised pigs a satisfactory ethical choice, a recognition that pigs should at least be comfortable before I eat them?
Readers are invited to make rational, well-tempered arguments for and against the eating of pigs. RATIONAL and WELL-TEMPERED. This is a serious ethical question, and there is nothing in the New Testament to suggest human beings should not eat the meat of fish, birds and beasts. The taboos of the Old Testament suggest that pigs, etc., are somehow ontologically unclean, but I do not believe pigs are unclean--I believe they are delightful. I also believe you can both hunt, kill, eat and respect non-human animals all at once; in Canada we are frequently told it was the practice of First Nations people to pray to the spirits of the animals they killed.
I think I will put up a poll. Incidentally none of this is binding on poor B.A., who can make up his own mind on what is okay to eat. We have long since decided that it is not okay to use human beings for selfish or health reasons, except where the humans--adult humans--have freely, without economic pressure, donated parts of themselves, like blood.
Last night I watched "Never Let Me Go", which disturbed me so much, I considered becoming vegetarian. Or partially vegetarian. Like many British people, B.A. and I are so disgusted by factory farming, that we do not eat battery hens or buy battery eggs. We won't eat anything we are reasonable sure had a horrible existence. But I am feeling a bit queasy about potential sentience.
A vegetarian reader took issue with my characterization of meat as a harmless pleasure that one can give up in Lent. I remembered several Biblical verses that not only assume but command meat-eating. Indeed, Saint Peter was offered in a vision all kinds of animals that Jews of his day did not eat and told to kill and eat them (Acts 10:28). He was not, of course, told to practice factory farming. I am sure that Saint Peter would have been just as astonished by what farming has become today as he was by God's directive to give up his Jewish dietary practices.
One argument carnivores give vegetarians is that we are the only people who can improve the living conditions of livestock. As vegetarians don't usually buy meat, the livestock industry don't give a damn what they think. But when British carnivore Hugh Fearnley-Wittingstall cried over his dead experimental battery chicks, there was a British carnivore revolution on behalf of chickens.
But chickens are not very smart. Sheep are pretty smart, though, as are pigs. I very much like pigs to look at. They look friendly and apparently "a middle-aged pig can be as smart as a three-year-old [human] child." I am fond of pigs, but I also like to eat pigs. Pigs are yummy.
All the same, I am troubled. Would it be better for humans to keep eating pigs, which means that pigs will continue to thrive in large numbers, or to stop eating pigs, as a recognition that sentient beings should not be subordinate to other sentient beings' desires, even if this means there would no longer be domestic pigs at all. Is eating only well-raised pigs a satisfactory ethical choice, a recognition that pigs should at least be comfortable before I eat them?
Readers are invited to make rational, well-tempered arguments for and against the eating of pigs. RATIONAL and WELL-TEMPERED. This is a serious ethical question, and there is nothing in the New Testament to suggest human beings should not eat the meat of fish, birds and beasts. The taboos of the Old Testament suggest that pigs, etc., are somehow ontologically unclean, but I do not believe pigs are unclean--I believe they are delightful. I also believe you can both hunt, kill, eat and respect non-human animals all at once; in Canada we are frequently told it was the practice of First Nations people to pray to the spirits of the animals they killed.
I think I will put up a poll. Incidentally none of this is binding on poor B.A., who can make up his own mind on what is okay to eat. We have long since decided that it is not okay to use human beings for selfish or health reasons, except where the humans--adult humans--have freely, without economic pressure, donated parts of themselves, like blood.
The Prince, the Fogeys and the Sartorial Police
What was very funny about this scene was that the prince was surrounded by much plumper, much shorter young men all turned out like Evelyn Waugh: loud tweeds, red cords, shiny shoes. It was not a Young Fogey hour of glory. Compared to the prince, they looked like they were trying too hard. The word middle-class comes to mind, spoken like an insult (B.A. will cringe at reading this, head disappearing into shoulders) and I am middle-class---that is, I acknowledge that this is where I fit on the British class system chart, which vaguely reminds me of apartheid-era South Africa.
It is considered very rude and outré and possibly middle-class-as-a-bad-thing to ponder the British class system when one lives in Britain, and of course it has changed very much although I know elderly semi-aristos and public school men who still think they can get away with being simply disgustingly rude (they can't), and I encounter chip-on-the-shoulder working-class types from time to time. Once when B.A. went to the front of a loosely organized bus queue to peer at the bus schedule, a rheumy-eyed old man, slightly the worse for drink, angrily demanded that he get back: "those days are over." The implication was that tweed-coat wearing B.A. was the upper class oppressor, thrusting himself before the Honest Working Man.
Have I mentioned it is actually dangerous for me to wear any hat more ornate than a beret on the Rough Bus? I love hats, especially cute vintage ones with eye-veils, but I can't wear them on the bus or while alone on the public street. The one exception may be when I look as though I were going to a wedding. The sartorial police would probably then give me a pass.
"Oh I know," said a Scottish lady I know, who is always beautifully turned out at parties. "On the bus I wear a hoody and pull the hood over my head, willing myself to be invisible."
This may put the Young Fogeys' choice of clothing into perspective. It is actually brave to dress according to an older idiom in Edinburgh, especially if you leave the pretty Georgian parts for the grimier neighbourhoods, and the Historical House lies between two grimier neighbourhoods. If ever I am killed by a rock flying through the window of the Rough Bus, you may all consider me a Scottish Architectural Heritage martyr. The papers got all excited because boys from the right-hand grimy neighbourhood threw rocks at a Pole. Racist hate crime, shrieked the papers. But I snorted because those boys throw rocks at anything that moves.
I do hate the fact that actual fear of attack, whether verbal or physical, governs my sartorial choices. Of course, it is not as bad as it is in Egypt or Afghanistan. But, honestly, given where I live, I think I could be forgiven if I left the house only in long T-shirts, leggings and trainers (running shoes). I have never in my life--even as a middle-aged lady--managed to be invisible, but the T-shirt, legging and trainer combo would offend no-one as I tramped around the down-at-heels town to the left.
Edinburgh University, which is in a nice part of Edinburgh, is a different story, and my Polish Temporary Pretend Daughter mentioned yesterday that she gets more male attention when she wears a skirt than when she wears jeans. PTPD is a cute wee thing in her early 20s, but wearing a shortish skirt and a Nordic pullover makes her super-cute, and thus all the masculine attention and "Oh, you look very pretty today".
What I draw from this is that "pretty" is okay and indeed good in the area around Edinburgh University, at least for women under thirty. However, I suspect eccentricity is not okay there either, especially when eccentricity looks like a "middle-class" person trying to look "upper class". (In the narrow minds of the "socially excluded" people on the Rough Bus--no-one on Council having thought to do anything about the stultifying mental poverty the "socially excluded" are forced into--anyone on a bus cannot be authentically posh.) The poor of Edinburgh grudgingly respect poshness in the obviously rich, but loathe it in the possibly poor, in the "Who does she think she is?" spirit their more adventurous great-uncles and great-aunts took with them to Canada.
It strikes me as absolutely pathetic that I have to worry about looking like I am "putting on airs", and I suspect this is a problem that plagues young black women in American ghettos. "Acting posh" is the British equivalent of "acting white", and it is really very sad. Indeed, I am factoring it in as I decided whether or not to buy that absolutely beautiful tweed jacket for sale at Walker Slater.
So although they occasionally look silly, I must say that I admire the Young Fogeys of Britain for their counter-cultural stand. Compared to a Young Fogey, punk rockers are boringly conventional and cowardly sheep. And, now that I think about it, I admire even more the non-Fogeys who go to Mass with us Fogeys and Fogettes, and treat us like normal human beings instead of real-life versions of the most hated fictional character in Britain, Hyacinth Bucket. That is real Christian charity.
Update: As a Canadian of British descent, I am trying to understand how a real British person would read this. Am I like a Central European trundling up to a white American and saying, "Is it true that you are frightened of black people?" or to a black American and saying, "Are white people really that awful to you?" On the other hand, I live in this uniquely British class mess, so I think I have the right to complain and work to change it, insofar as that is humanly possible.
Update 2: At a party last weekend, I met someone who teaches Social... er. Actually, it was such an Orwellian phrase, I can't remember it. Basically she works in a "socially excluded", welfare-dependency neighbourhood in Glasgow, and has to teach teenagers social skills. "Like filling out tax forms?" I asked brightly. "Nothing so complicated," she said. She seemed a bit gloomy. "Like how to eat in a restaurant?" I suggested. (In Germany, applicants for Top Jobs are still taken to restaurants so that the interviewers can assess the interviewee's table manners.) But no. It seems it is mostly about staying off drugs.
Update Three: Actually, though, when I was an undergrad it was de rigeur at the University of Toronto for students to despise "the petits bourgeois", which quite often meant their own middle-class parents. Actually, now that I have finally looked up the term, I see that the petits bourgeois includs hard-working shopkeepers. So how dared they?
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