Human Rights Day

Wednesday was a public holiday in South Africa, one of the excessively many such public holidays which we have these days. On this topic, I have figured out one genuine benefit that Religion, not that Human Rights Day as anything to do with Religion, has brought to humanity and that is public holidays. Masses and masses of them, not that I'm complaining at all. I'm still working out other benefits that Religion may bring but I at least have one that I can definitely count on.
Off the top of my head Religion doesn't seem to have a particularly good track record as far as Human Rights is concerned. Sure there are Human Rights campaigners who were religious but that is not the question. The question is what Human Rights has Religion advanced as opposed to Human Rights advance by people who happen to belong to a Religion. That ought to get someone hot under the collar and hopefully some good examples.

It was Kirsten and Carls son, Alistair's birthday party on Wednesday at the RSME which stands for the Rand Society of Model Engineers who have a scale model steam engine track out in Roodepoort. This proved to be a really big hit with the youngsters who just loved being pulled around and around on the model steam trains. Couldn't quite see the attraction but the kids certainly enjoyed it. That seems to be a common problem with adults, you need seriously expensive toys to generate some excitement.

After the childrens party which I had carefully timed to ensure that I arrived at about an hour before it finished the family remained for a braai. Almost needless to say that the token vegetarian ended up braaing the wors and my vegetarian sausages or wood chips as Carl calls them.

Bruno asked me why I was a vegetarian (hormones, anti-biotics and energy savings relative to meat in case you were wondering) and I was pleasantly surprised at his response which was that these were good reasons for going veggie. Not that I can see him changing but at least he can see the logic. Tried to foister one of my wood chips off on Carl but he wasn't biting.

Went home to my empty house, strange how one gets so used to having someone around, before I went to Hyde Park for supper on my own, Mantovanis has a really fantastic vegetable platter. Phoned Kim to see if she was interested in going to a movie which I don't think she really was but I laid it on thick about how she never goes out etc, etc. She succumbed and we went to see "Because I said so" which was a definite chic flick. A couple of humorous moments but nothing too wild. It did manage to get Kim to shed a brief tear so it couldn't have been all that poor.

End of the Human Rights Day.