100 years ago...

This



And then this...



Hurrah!

Is this who we are?!?!

Perusing Punch archives and I came across a great cartoons depicting the fundamentals of the British Character.



Some key British Characteristics?

Patience in adversity
Absence of decision
Refusal to admit defeat
Sarcasm
Absence of the gift for cooking
A love of fresh air
Lack of skill at foreign languages
Love of open air sports
A disinclination to sparkle
Fondness for laughing at our own anecdotes
Partiality for open fires
Absolute indispensability of bacon and eggs for breakfast
Strong tendency to become doggy
A regard for good tailoring
Veneration of history
Importance of tea
Predilection for weekend cottages
Passion for the antique
Enthusiasm for gardening
Keen interest in the weather
Importance of not taking precedence in doorways
Love of never throwing anything away
Curiosity
Proneness to superstition
A weakness for oak beams
A fondness for cricket
A love of digging things up
A tendency to be hearty
Belief in letting off steam
A tendency to think things are not so good as they used to be
Aptitude for catching colds
Ability to be ruthless
A tendency to be conscious of drafts
Strong tendency to rise to the occasion

http://www.punch.co.uk/

HEH....
Have we changed that much?

Underground Reflections

Fundamentalism Is Not About Faith

If you are a fundamentalist, you are, by definition, a zealot and a fanatic. They may not self-identify with those descriptors, but they are reactionary and extremist. Being ultra- conservative, fundamentalists of all stripes need to try and force the rest of us back to an unspecified time in the past, when inside their very confused fundamentalist brain things were ‘simpler’ and ‘purer’ than they are today in this sin ridden world of ‘sex, drugs and rock and roll’.

If we were to go back to the halcyon days of wonder and unadulterated glory one thing we would not find is many fundamentalists. They seek to take us back to a time where fundamentalism was virtually non-existent. In reality, fundamentalism is a very modern phenomenon. It is a marketing tool for religious control freaks. A simple message, simply translated. We are right. They are wrong. Our path is the only path. If you do not follow our path then you are damned. If you do follow our path immortality awaits you.
In point of fact there are not that many fundamentalists out there.

Be they Christian, Muslim or Jew, they are few in number. But they are loud. Very, very loud and they drown out the voices of the moderate and the reasoned. They infiltrate rational debate with their easy to digest factualism. Their belief in the literal, inherent and historical absolutism of religious text cannot allow for dissent, discussion, debate. It does not allow layers of understanding, it does not allow for symbolism, allegories, myths and interpretation. It lacks nuance. Fundamentalists stifle debate about the symbolism at the heart of the major faith – they have to, for us to truly understand the symbolic nature of religious texts would lead to a lessening of control over the faithful by faith leaders.

The patriarchal structures of all major faiths, where women are treated as different and unequal, as chattel and brood mares and where the LGBT community is at risk of alienation (at best) and being murdered / jailed (at worse) , by these fanatical control freaks, clearly demonstrates that this modern phenomenon of fundamentalism is not about faith but control. Control of the community, control of action and control of thought. This is the key driver in all fundamentalist communities irrespective of the core faith construct from which the 'belief' structure has grown.

Fundamentalists are control freaks – try and take away a controls freak control and things have the potential to get very nasty indeed. Yikes.

Of course, fundamentalism is not just limited to religion. Zealots of any hue are control freaks.

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I posted this in photography but wanted to share it here

Emancipation

I was visiting the National Museum of Bermuda this week and was under whelmed by the ground floor exhibits. All terribly white and British upper class (alongside the religious right wing nut jobs that have also plagued the history of America). And then I saw the stairwell. The story of Bermuda from discovery to present day. Of course I covered all that stairwell with my camera, however the most powerful images for me are those of slavery and eventual emancipation. I could have given you dozens, instead I give you these few that resonated the most with me.

I spent an hour on this stairwell.....











In 1998 I stayed with the first female black premier of Bermuda. Pam is the mother of one of my closest friends from Uni years, and every time (before this visit)I have visited Bermuda, I have stayed with 'family' and I never explored the history of the Island. This time with none of my Bermuda family on the Island I did the tourist trial. To see the history and know that Dame Pamela Gordon-Banks, in the last century, lead this nation is fucking remarkable. Emancipation indeed.