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From John Graves: COVID-19 Virtual Summit – Note that ‘Singularity University’ is not an accredited university and does not provide traditional university qualifications.
From John Graves: How can we slow the spread of COVID-19? – Amory Lovins on ways of improving the body’s immune and repair systems, including, controversially, Vitamin C.
Nikki was going to speak to us today specifically on the wider community reaction to the Chinese community as a result of Covid-19. Events have overtaken that and this talk now covers broader issues around Covid-19.
I’m sure that not long ago I thought there was no such day as “Everything you think is wrong” day to celebrate. I was wrong. I have no idea who comes up with these days, and no one knows who came up with this one or why on this date, March 15. My guess is the Ides of March was chosen because Julius Cæsar thought Brutus was his friend right up to the moment the knife entered his back.
So how does one celebrate this faux holiday? According to the anonymous founder this is a day to avoid making decisions, and by all means avoid saying “I think”. It is also a good day to spend time contemplating everything we don’t know or think we do, but don’t. We can take time to laugh at ourselves for things people used to think were true but aren’t.
The seeds of International Women’s day were sown the year my grandmother was born. In 1908, 15,000 women marched through New York City demanding shorter working hours, better pay and the right to vote. It was the Socialist Party of America who declared the first (US) national women’s day a year later.
The idea to make the day international came in 1910, at an international socialist conference of working women in Copenhagen. An attendee called Clara Zetkin suggested it and the100 women present from 17 countries unanimously agreed. The first international celebration was in 1911, in Austria, Germany, Denmark and Switzerland.
I’m not sure what inspired me to focus on today’s topic. It may have been spending too much time in the dystopian world of Gilead watching The Handmaid’s Tale or reading the news from my birth country just to cheer me up. Or it could be that fascism by any other name is finding new life around the world. We should not be oblivious.
Being a curious sort, I wondered what the origin of “curiosity killed the cat” was. The reference is from a Ben Johnson play, Every Man in his Humours, only he said, “care’ll kill a cat.” In his use of care, he meant worry will kill the cat. The play is thought to have been performed in 1598 by The Lord Chamberlain’s Men, a troupe of actors including William Shakespeare. Shakespeare was no slouch when it came to appropriating a memorable line and it crops up the following year in Much Ado About Nothing: “What, courage man! what though care killed a cat, thou hast mettle enough in thee to kill care.”
For as long as I have been giving sermons I’ve been guided by the maxim that it is the preacher’s job “to comfort the afflicted and afflict the comfortable.”
I
always thought it came from some saint of the distant past; turns out
that it was by Finley
Peter Dunne, an Irish humourist who wrote a column for a Chicago
newspaper. In 1901 he had this to say about newspapers, not
preachers, although they seem to have a number of commonalities:
This morning we carry love and hope and courageous faith, and seek to renew our covenantal commitments. We remind ourselves of the home we share, a home that we come back to, whether after a long or short absence, a home we welcome all to make their own: a home of love and hope and faith—come, let us gather together within.
