My 70th blogpost, the twenty-second celebration that my mother got a child, the second night of surreal dreams, the first temptation of the creamy chocolate brownie... Heads are stubborn creatures, they ache and twinkle and tickle, catch fire and beg their eyes to sleep without warning their owners. Still, I like that unpredictability. It must be a natural prevention for us not to become social robots.
At the second-hand market in our street my mother almost sold "ik ken 500 woorden (I know 500 words)", my kindergarden favourite. I could rescue it from the blanket. Why did I like that book so much 20 years ago? I was chocked when I read the images and the accompaning texts again. "We eten vlees met groenten erbij (we eat meat with some vegetables next to it)", "Vader bakt worsten en vlees (father fries sausages and meat) ", ...
Terrible those manipulating cultural messages, the indoctrination of the 'meat-mania' even in pre-school children books. How dare they? No wonder so many people think it's 'natural', just like 'the apple is red' and 'de baker sells bread"are a matter of fact.
Just like the second page of the book "boy"vs "girl". Exactly the same image, only differentiated by a girl's swimming suit and a boy's boxershort. Still, different categories. A giant mustache on an "older man's"face. "Moeder maakt de kamer schoon met de stofzuiger. Ze heeft ook een zwabber, bezem en stofdoek" (mother cleans the house), vader hakt een boom om" (father cuts a tree). And of course there are only male football players and car makers and where do we find the mothers "in de supermarkt"(in the supermarket) on page 11.
And what about "the bull attacks the bull fighter"in the category ' television'? In 1972, the year "ik ken 500 woorden"was written, it was all possible. I only hope that the contemporary word-learning books are less conservative and narrow-minded. An if it doesn't exist yet, I could maybe consider it as a new writing project... "From Alternative food to Zen-Tofu, the world consists of more than 500 words". Wouldn't that be nice...?
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Swine Influenza
Food for Thought (from a smart, life-teaching Earth Save Newsletter)
"[I]t is our proximity to the animals that have sustained us for millennia that makes us so vulnerable to the diseases that can kill us in large numbers. Ever since man stopped being a hunter-gatherer and began to live cheek by jowl with his livestock, he has run the risk of pandemics.
Many human diseases originated with domesticated animals: measles and tuberculosis from cattle; smallpox from cattle or other livestock with related pox viruses; flu from pigs and ducks; and whooping cough from dogs. These pathogens developed and spread easily because the animals lived in herds or packs.
When they were domesticated by the first farmers, the viruses were waiting to be passed on. These so-called zoonotic diseases are then transmitted more readily among humans because people themselves live in close proximity to one another."
--Philip Johnstonin the London TelegraphApril 30, 2009
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