What did Ezekiel See?
How would our flea-bitten, superstitious ancestors in Europe of the 1100’s describe a car, if it were to appear in their midst? How would they describe a gas stovetop? How would they describe a toilet? How would they describe a mobile phone, or a camera? Would they immediately understand its use, and how it works?
Many times we don’t understand what we see, not at first, sometimes not at all. When I read of Ezekiel’s vision, I wonder what he saw? I wonder if this is his interpretation of something else, something actually very different, but he used the words he had? It’s a mystery to me.
Ezekiel 1:1-14,24-28
1In the thirtieth year, in the fourth month, on the fifth day of the month, as I was among the exiles by the river Chebar, the heavens were opened, and I saw visions of God. 2On the fifth day of the month (it was the fifth year of the exile of King Jehoiachin), 3the word of the Lord came to the priest Ezekiel son of Buzi, in the land of the Chaldeans by the river Chebar; and the hand of the Lord was on him there.
4 As I looked, a stormy wind came out of the north: a great cloud with brightness around it and fire flashing forth continually, and in the middle of the fire, something like gleaming amber. 5In the middle of it was something like four living creatures. This was their appearance: they were of human form. 6Each had four faces, and each of them had four wings. 7Their legs were straight, and the soles of their feet were like the sole of a calfβs foot; and they sparkled like burnished bronze. 8Under their wings on their four sides they had human hands. And the four had their faces and their wings thus: 9their wings touched one another; each of them moved straight ahead, without turning as they moved. 10As for the appearance of their faces: the four had the face of a human being, the face of a lion on the right side, the face of an ox on the left side, and the face of an eagle; 11such were their faces. Their wings were spread out above; each creature had two wings, each of which touched the wing of another, while two covered their bodies. 12Each moved straight ahead; wherever the spirit would go, they went, without turning as they went. 13In the middle of* the living creatures there was something that looked like burning coals of fire, like torches moving to and fro among the living creatures; the fire was bright, and lightning issued from the fire. 14The living creatures darted to and fro, like a flash of lightning. 24When they moved, I heard the sound of their wings like the sound of mighty waters, like the thunder of the Almighty,* a sound of tumult like the sound of an army; when they stopped, they let down their wings. 25And there came a voice from above the dome over their heads; when they stopped, they let down their wings.
26 And above the dome over their heads there was something like a throne, in appearance like sapphire;* and seated above the likeness of a throne was something that seemed like a human form. 27Upwards from what appeared like the loins I saw something like gleaming amber, something that looked like fire enclosed all round; and downwards from what looked like the loins I saw something that looked like fire, and there was a splendour all round. 28Like the bow in a cloud on a rainy day, such was the appearance of the splendour all round. This was the appearance of the likeness of the glory of the Lord.
When I saw it, I fell on my face, and I heard the voice of someone speaking.
Beaten Because of High Asparagus Prices
BitJockey, I love your eye for the eccentric. This is an article from
Woman beaten up over asparagus prices Reuters News Service
BERLIN (Reuters) – German police are searching for a motorist who beat a 24-year-old woman selling white asparagus because he was upset about her asking price for the coveted springtime vegetable, police said on Monday.
The prices for white asparagus, sometimes called “edible ivory” in Germany, fluctuate wildly during the short springtime season, peaking early in the season at 10 euros per kilo.
The man screamed at the woman that her asparagus was overpriced. He then punched her in the face and threatened to unleash his attack dog at her. She fled and called police.
“The motorist said her prices were totally over the top,” said Dietmar Keck, police spokesman in the Havelland district west of Berlin, without saying how much she was asking.
Prices for asparagus now range from 1 to 5 euros per kilo, he said. Some 55,000 tons valued at 175 million euros are harvested annually.
(Writing by Jacob Comenetz; Editing by Louise Ireland)
Joy in Kuwait
You might think it is the inner feminist in me that is rejoicing, and you would be only half right. The Kuwait elections brought me a lot of joy, for many reasons. First, as an equal opportunity woman, you need to know that I believe women are every bit as capable of veniality and stupidity as men, and that not being in power has only meant not having equal opportunity to abuse that power. And then – you take a look at the women who were elected – smart women. Capable women! Not-your-shy-shrinking-violet kind of women! Women who know how to organize, how to delegate, and how to discuss and resolve differences.
FOUR women! Four highly educated women, who inspired droves of supporters not only to vote – but also to campaign.
Across the board, it struck me as a very sober election. It was as if people thought this might be their last chance, and they took their vote very very seriously. In the fifth district, voters crossed tribal lines, broke with rigid alliances.
Here are three conversations that caused me to rejoice.
On election day, my good Kuwaiti friend, a guy about the same age as AdventureMan and I, leaned over and said “My dear, today I voted for a Shiite woman! This is Kuwait! This is the REAL Kuwait, where no-one ever cared, Shiite or Sunni, no-one ever asked, we all worked together. I voted for her because I thought she was the best candidate.”
He’s been educating me on Kuwait ever since we got here. He grew up about a block from the big food court down at Mubarakiyya. I was just glad to know he had voted – he had seemed so dejected, so hopeless after the last election, I wasn’t sure he would even give it one more try. Something inspired him. Something gave him the courage to hope just one more time.
I talked with a young friend who was active in the campaign of a winning candidate. Well, really mostly SHE talked, and I just listened with a big grin on my face. It doesn’t even matter who she campaigned for, this woman was PUMPED! She had committed, she had engaged, she was on the phones and on the campaign lines and her candidate won! I could hear the transformation in her voice – this is the Kuwait of tomorrow.
At an earlier time, she had told me that the decisions were all made by “elderly” people (meaning people over 40, I think, people like me!) and that young people were getting discouraged, waiting for their turn. All that was gone, as I listened to her voice. She knows she can make a difference NOW in Kuwait. I could not stop grinning. I think she is one of the leaders of tomorrow. π
My third Kuwaiti friend said to me “so many of the winners were from good families, but not the big, rich families! This is the first time!” and she said it with sheer amazement. She said “I think we may be on our way to a true democracy!” I was shocked. I never thought I would hear those words, not after the cynicism and discouragement apparent during the last legislature, when many Kuwaits awoke with a shock to the fact that their legislature had been hijacked, their voices stolen. “This is not the real Kuwait” they kept assuring me after the last election, as they watched in shock and horror as the newly elected MP’s postured and promised and promised “grillings” but did nothing for the population who had elected them in terms of basics – housing, roads, electricity/energy, or groundwork for future development.
My joy is in the renewal of their spirit. It’s not my election. But oh, I dance with joy for your joy, Kuwait, and I celebrate your commitment to the future.
PS For our non-Kuwaiti readers – early in the election campaigns, one party announced a religious fatwa (edict) saying that it was forbidden to vote for women. I think it outraged people badly enough to create a huge backlash.
Alexander McCall Smith: Tea Time for the Traditionally Built
This brand new book in the No. 1 Ladies’ Detective Agency series could not have come at a better time for me. Sorting through, giving away, selling my car – it all takes a toll. It’s a little like dying, this moving. I know I will be “resurrected” in another life, but in the meanwhile, I have so much grief, and I just stuff it away and keep going. These books are my carrots; they are my reward at the end of the day.
I have a stack of books and I am going through them like a locomotive – just chugging along.
Mma Precious Ramotswe and her totally different world in Botswana sweep me away totally. I love the sweetness of the way she thinks, her love for her country, and her tolerance. In Tea Time for the Traditionally Built, several things are going on at once, not the least of which is that she, also, must part with her dearly loved little white van, which has gone as far as it can go, and can go no further. The engine cannot be revived, not even one more time, by her dear husband, mechanic J.L.B. Matekoni.
Just in time, just when they need a new customer, comes Mr. Molofololo, the owner and manager of the Kalahari Swoopers, who hires Mma Ramotswe to find the traitor who is causing the Swoopers to lose their games.
Last, but not least, Mma Makutsi’s fiancee (she is the Assistant Detective now, remember?) Phuti Radiphuti, is being assaulted by Makutsi’s old rival from the secretarial school, Violet Sephotho, who is looking for a rich husband, and would love to steal Grace’s fiancee away, for all the worst reasons. How can plain Grace, with her big glasses and her unfortunate complexion, compete with the glamorous and seductive Violet? Can Phuti resist her wiles?
When I reached the last ten pages of the book, none of these crises had been resolved, and I thought “Oh no! How can the book end with all these loose ends out there?” but in a deft drawing together, McCall vanquishes the devils, finds simple solutions, and leaves us with Mma Ramotswe and Mma Makutsi having tea together at the President Hotel.
This book is a great way to end the day with a smile on your face. π I bought this book for $21 in a bookstore, but Amazon has it for $14.37 plus shipping. I don’t buy a lot of hardcover books, but this one was worth every penny.
Eliot Pattison: Prayer of the Dragon
As you can see, I am into some serious reading. Not heavy reading, but books like carrots – I am the donkey, plodding way, packing my boxes, sorting, weeding, throwing out – it is time consuming, and it is pitiless work. I need the promise of a great excape at the end of my day to keep me going.
Prayer of the Dragon was a GREAT carrot. I like all of Eliot Pattison’s Inspector Shan Tao Yun series, set in Tibet. In his very first book, we meet Shan as he is still in the Tibetan prison camp, imprisoned for exposing corrupt officials in China. He learns a huge appreciation, in prison, for a different way of thinking, and his treasured companions become the Bhuddist monks with whom he is imprisoned. If you want to read this series, you can read any book as a stand-alone, but it helps to read them in order, starting with The Skull Mantra. The Chinese eventually free Shan; they find him useful – as long as he is not exposing corruption in the Chinese bureaucracy. He is free on parole; he lives with the sword over his head. At any time, if he crosses an important person, he can be sent back to the merciless gulag.
In The Prayer of the Dragon Inspector Shan finds himself involved in a series of murders on the mountainside, in a small mining village. The village headman has a great scam going, skimming the miners take, charging passage on the mountain trails, and keeping his village hidden from the Chinese bureaucracy.
Here is what I learned that surprised me. There appears to be a connection between the American Navaho nation and the native Tibetans. They share some body-prototype similarities, and they share many symbols and earliest legends. An first-nation Navaho and his niece are exploring similarities, and commonalities, when two members of their party are murdered while sleeping. The Navaho is charged, by the headman, with the death, because he survived although he is covered in blood. It doesn’t make sense, but it doesn’t have to. The headman needs a scapegoat, and he chooses the Navaho.
It is a fascinating read. Here is an excerpt from a conversation Inspector Shan has with the local director of Public Security:
“I know your type so well, Shan, ” Bing said. “God, how well I know you. I was responsible for ten barracks of prisoners, like you – pathetic, morose creatures with no vision, only bitterness about the past. They would sit in reeducation classes and copy out slogans from the little red books like robots, praising the Chairman, reading aloud apologies printed in other books, using someone else’s words. Never a one among them with the balls to stand up and say Fuck the Chairman, screw the Party secretaries, and screw the limo drivers who brought them to town.”
“I tried at first,” Shan replied in a weary voice. “They sent me to a special hospital for the criminally insane.”
“Unfortunately,” Bing said soberly, “you are the sanest person I have ever met.”
AdventureMan knows I love these books. “Do you want to go to Tibet?” he asks me, and I say “No, if I went I would want to hang around with Inspector Shan and his gang of monks, not do tourist things allowed by the Chinese.” These are great reads, Pattison is doing a great job of bringing the plight of the Tibetans to the conscience of his readers, depicting, in graphic, horrorific detail how the Chinese are systematically crushing and obliterating every shred of Tibetan culture, while claiming they are not. I think one of the very worst things they have done is taking over the Tibetan monastery system and corrupting it into something it was never meant to be, a cruel, ugly deformity.
I can hardly wait for the next book to come out. I am on the waiting list for The Lord of Death, yet another book about Chinese bureaucratic corruption and the adventures Inspector Shan has in Tibet confronting and evading all its manifestations.
Susan Wittig Albert: Nightshade
In her ongoing China Bayles mystery series, China and her husband investigate the death of China’s father, with some amazing outcomes.
These are not heavy reading. This series features a burned-out criminal defense lawyer, who, sick of the slime and the jockying for power and position, cashes in her retirement plans and buys a shop in the small fictional town of Pecan Springs, Texas, where she opens an herbal shop, Thyme and Seasons, which sells live potted herbs, but also herbal wreaths, herbal soaps, herbal bath bombs, herbal teas, herbal shampoos, etc – and shares space with a new age shop called The Crystal Cave, a tea shop called Thyme for Tea, a catering company called Party Thyme and a personal chef service called Thymely Gourmet. She and her girlfriends have a lot of fun.
And, somehow, even in this idyllic life, mysteries seek out China, and she is often involved in crime-solving outside of her normal business. This time, her brother – the brother she never knew she had, the brother her father had with his secretary while China was growing up, wondering where her father was all the time – is murdered, in what appears to be a hit-and-run accident, but is no accident at all. Her brother was trying to get China involved with finding out how and why their father died – another apparent accident, which was no accident. When China isn’t interested (she is still very angry with her dad for what she perceives as a betrayal of her and her mother), her brother hires China’s husband as a private detective to examine the evidence. Then – her brother is killed. China gets involved.
It’s great escape reading, but you often end up learning something, too. China is an idealist, fighting crime and corruption, and God knows, there is enough of that, all the world around, to keep a legion of fictional crime fighters busy.
“After I grew up and joined the Houston legal fraternity, I began to understand what was common knowledge in that gossip-driven oil company town: Robert Bayles and his partner Ted Stone had built their legal practice on dubious oil and energy deals, questionable land transactions, and political dirty work. Their clients included polluters, looters and influence peddlers. Both Ted Stone and my father were frequent guests of the Suite 8F crowd, the group of influential conservatives who met on the eighth floor of Houston’s Lamar Hotel and collectively decided who was going to run for what political office, at the state level and beyond. To ensure that their picks – LBJ had been one of them – made it to the winner’s circle, Suite 8F slipped wads of campaign cash into the necessary pockets. Their contributions decided which politicians moved into positions of power and influence.
Just as important, their money brought them preferential treatment when the bidding opened on lucrative government contracts for dams, ships and shipyards, oil pipelines, military bases at home and abroad, NASA’s Johnson Space Center in Houston. The Lamar Hotel was demolished in 1983 to make room for a skyscraper, but the political influence of 8F lingers like a foul odor, a dirty fog. It’s the subject of books, of doctoral dissertations, of documentaries. It’s common knowledge.”
Reading Albert is a great escape. Even knowing that sweet little Pecan Springs is a microcosm of the rest of the world, not untouched by human frailty, it is a sweet place with a culture all its own. China’s life, surrounded by her loving husband, her stepson, all their pets, their friends, the places they eat, it’s all comfortable, an herbal scented different world.
Light Haze Sunrise
At six in the morning, it is already almost 90Β°F / 32Β°C. WeatherUnderground says there is a “light haze.” I can’t imagine what they call a heavy haze. At least the light haze is white, not the orange of yesterday’s sandstorm, but there is still an awful lot of the “light haze.”
Hamd’allah, I have air conditioning. I feel human again. The Alaska girl in me has it turned up to 72Β°F / 22Β°C, and I am comfortable.
It took me a long time to capture a glimpse of the sun, early this morning, through the “light haze.” Even as I write, the sun is a great big hazy ball, high in the May sky, oh-so-early on a Friday morning.
I happened to be up early this morning, and was shocked to see busses arriving and laborers – Moslem laborers, like from Pakistan and Afghanistan, getting off buses, carrying shovels and picks and tools to go to work. I thought all Moslems in Kuwait got to take Friday off. Guess I was wrong – and I so often am.
Have a sweet, quiet day, Kuwait. We will be praying for you, in our little church, and for your leadership and your upcoming election, this Friday morning. We wish you only the very best.
Sanitary Germans
After all my years living in so many different places, I’m fairly blase about toilets. In Tunisia, there were no such thing as public toilets, and while exploring Tunisia, we always had to look for “the potty in the wadi”, i.e. a bridge with no-one in sight. I would run, pee as quickly as I could, and finish just before some curious child – or children – showed up. No matter how remote the place, I can’t remember a single stop that a child didn’t come running about sixty seconds after we stopped.
So I got a big smile at the public toilet in Germany – they started installing these about 20 years ago – that even cleans itself. I thought “I wonder how long these would last in Kuwait?” where they could put people our of jobs.
Yesterday, I used a public toilet in a very nice mall in Kuwait, but when I got there, a woman – I am guessing the “cleaner”, and I put it in quotes for a reason, was stretched out and sleeping. I looked in several stalls, no toilet paper, no problem, I carry my own. It didn’t seem all that clean, no paper for drying hands, either, and as I am leaving she holds out her hand and asks how I am, how is my health, etc. I usually tip – but I didn’t tip yesterday, why tip someone who is not doing the work she is paid to do? She didn’t even stand up, just held up her hand!
Neuleiningen Castle and the BurgSchanke
For many many years, we have been going back to the BurgSchanke in Neuleiningen. We would see the ruins of the old castle, high on a hill, as we would be driving by on Autobahn A6 between the Heidelberg area and France. When AdventureMan got his company command (it was a big deal) I saved up my money and treated him to dinner at the BurgSchanke.
This is where we sat:
The menu doesn’t change much. Most of these entrees were the same ones on the menu many many years ago:
Here is what AdventureMan likes to have – Franzosiche Entenbrust, or French Duck Breast (I think the French part is all the vegetables)
I don’t eat meat very often, but when I do – this is what I had – the Knoblouchsteak (garlic steak)
It used to be served on a wooden platter. I am guessing that health and sanitation standards now require porcelain or something less porous and prone to bacteria than wood.
And here is what we had for dessert. We totally hate the presentation, but it never fails to make us laugh, long and loud, and in spite of how it looks, the mousse is truly delicious.
We talked about all the years we had been coming to this restaurant, all the guests and friends we had brought with us, where we had been sitting with different people – including, more than once, my parents, coming back for their own sentimental journey. Ahhh . . . sweet memories. π
One time, my youngest sister and her family came for a visit, and their son also tried the duck, and thoroughly enjoyed it. His father ordered the Eisbecher Burg Neuleiningen, and we didn’t tell him . . . we waited to see his face when they brought him a bowl the size of a punch bowl, filled with fifty scoops of ice-cream. π Oh, what fun!
We stayed in a truly darling hotel, and felt very lucky to get the last room. “Two hours ago, we had four vacancies,” the very nice manager said, “but now, we have just one!” In a heartbeat, we took it. The view from the Burggraf was amazing.
Breakfast in Schwetzingen
German breakfasts are anything but light. There wasn’t a piece of fruit to be found! We were lucky to be guests at the hotel, because most of the tables were reserved, and people were turned away, even at nine in the morning, the breakfasts at the hotel Cafe Journal are so good.
You could have smoked ham, cold cuts and cheese, too, but we chose not.
Breakfast bread basket:
Yummy condiments:
Fresh orange juice:
Herb and cheese omelettes:
We were astonished – in Germany and in France – that there is absolutely NO SMOKING in any of the restaurants. If you are sitting outside, you can smoke, but we could not believe how well enforced this law is. We had heard about it, but frankly – the French not smoke in restaurants? We would not have believed it possible! Germans are very law-obeying peoples, but the French??? Never, not once, did we see a person smoking in a restaurant. It was amazing.
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