read the guide book..

at the end of july i got on a singapore airlines flight to calcutta. the run to changi was good. and sing airlines lived up to their very high reputation.. the run from sing to calcutta was ordinary enough.. some friction between the crew and passengers... but otherwise an uneventful journey.
calcutta is a small international airport.. the main gate is delhi... good to go in the side gate i reckon. calcutta has a lot of problems..  mainly as partition cut it off from its hinterland.. (bangladesh) and so its kinda half a city..  it is hard to see it going anywhere as such.. but these things change.. and despite its collosal problems it is the city of hope and charity.. and maintains its profile as the cultural centre of india.
i found a place to stay at midnight on very mean streets. gave my guide a dog eaten 100 rupee note and slept.. till it was time to find a travel agent and get a ticket on the train to varanasi which is where i had been planning to go for quite a while.. mmm.
ive been here 2 weeks now..  varanasi.. well.. its an old tourist trap.. or city of shiva.. depends on who you last spoke to really.. ehhee. it certainly is a busy place... right now i am in an internet  cafe on a arterial road (luxa) not far from the old city where my hostel is..  my computer is not going so well. mac runs hot as it is and now is indian summer.. when temperatures are regularly in the 40s.. you need to watch energy expenditure.. and water ..and above all.. hygene..  still,   i have taken some notes and hope to have occasion to publish some thoughts on the subject here before too long..

c'est la vie.

the word.. 'selah' crops up now and then. it apparently comes from the book of psalms attributed to king david,  and usually taken to mean a break in prayer. a pause..  like an orchestral directive ..
however.. i believe that this entirely neglects the idea that it maybe derived from the same source as the arabic root.. ʂlw  ( صلوات. صلاة).. which has the basic meaning of blessing or prayer.. the meaning of prayer comes through loud and clear in aramaic as well (  צלו–צלותא.)   i suggest it could belong to a substratum language common in the region.
though i am not sure about the statistics of interchange between the two sibilants, it is not unusual. there was much variation among the various semitic languages/dialects in sibilants.
the word is in no way obscure or rare in arabic, where it is the word for ritual prayer as well as blessing or grace..
in english (selah) it is spelled with a final 'h'. this is not strictly correct. while it is written in hebrew (סלה )with a final he, this was not a consonant: it is the symbol for a final vowel. if it were a consonant, there would be a diacritic point in the letter in the massoretic text:  there is none. it is further indication that it maybe related to the root ʂlw. which makes perfect sense to me.
the spelling without the final h could become recognised in english, but honestly it doesnt make a lot of difference .... its the thought that counts.  selah.

nazis and facebook.

nazis and facebook.


gold has gone through au$1400 and silver is above au$700 a kilo.. mmmm. things are on the move.

facebook is a social networking tool  .  when it first came out i didnt think much of it but it grows on one. its very uranian.  its a way to keep in contact with friends and associates.  it takes a while to learn to drive one.. but its worth learning. for sure.

one of the groups i joined there is Kein (no) Facebook für Nazis.   the fact that the nazis were defeated in 1945 does not mean they were obliterated.  nazism is still a problem in germany and europe and is on the rise.  it has not been rooted out.  it has risen up again.

recently i went sailing on sydney harbour as a volunteer crewman on a tallship. (we went out to welcome Jessica Watson back). there were a number of europeans aboard as well.. part of the crew .. working holiday.  living aboard.. .  one an obvious nazi.  i am not joking when i say that this guy was like a zombie.  he was basically unable to think outside party lines.. he didnt have the applications. it was like he was running a certain program that had last been opened in the 1940s. an old program actually.  mutatis mutandis.  he had a friend who was a goodman who acted as a restraint upon him but he was naive and weak.
from the moment the nazi recognised me, he totally ignored me.
i mean to inform him that he may pretend i am not there up to a certain point.

well .. nazism is an insanity.  let me make myself perfectly clear.  it is outside the social contract  /.. an obsession and an evil.  these are the terms in which i condemn it.  i will side with the communists to fight it until it gives up.  i mean it.  its what happened last time.  its not too late to avoid it.  now is the time for responsible people of the planet to close ranks  and keep the nazis out.  ,do not stay silent.

take it seriously good people.