Random thoughts and observations
Barber shop visits are normally tame affairs, but today involved a rather heavy conversation with my hair cutter of choice in Mile End.
The 67-year-old Greek Cypriot, who is normally very quiet, today opened a conversation by asking if I had seen the news last week that France had condemned Turkey’s genocide against the Greeks. I hadn’t, although a web search reveals the French Senate voted to criminalise denying the mass killing of Armenians early last century was genocide.
These striking pictures show confrontational protests by the Ukrainian feminist group FEMEN. According to Wikipedia, in Kiev there are about 300 active participants in the movement, which comprises some 20 topless activists and 300 fully clothed members.
Most of their early protests were in Ukraine, but they have since appeared in Russia, The Vatican, Paris and now in Switzerland.
It was confirmed yesterday that Kim Jong-un has been anointed North Korea’s supreme leader following the death of his tyrant father Kim Jong Il. Kim Jong-un is surely one of the fattest dictators to ever lead a famine-stricken impoverished nation. The younger Kim will turn 28 on January 8, 2012. He was educated in Switzerland and came into favor ahead of his elder brother Kim Jong-nam when Kim Jong-nam was caught attempting to enter Japan on a fake passport to visit Tokyo Disneyland.
The demise of the West Indies is rather sad, really. They were the dominant cricket power when I was a boy; today they’re a rabble. Peter Roebuck has suggested they may be better off forming national sides based on their countries, eg Jamaica, Barbados, Guyana, Trinidad and Tobago, etc. If they can’t get their act [...]
I learnt something today. Carstensz Pyramid is the highest mountain in Oceania at 16,023 feet. It’s only four degrees south of the equator in West Papua, but has several glaciers and is the only region of Indonesia where snow falls. In Australia we don’t think enough beyond our own country when it comes to the [...]
