It’s been pissing with rain up here in the hills and from all reports it’s seems to be much the same pretty much all over the country. The ground outside oozes water like a sponge, so ‘inside’ seems like the best option. WorldSpace is on and the station is RIFF “best jazz on the planet twenty four hours a day”, as the DJ puts it. Dionne Warwick is doing ‘Say a little prayer for me”, one of her many Burt Bacharach / Hal David compositions – another hit! There’s a White Eye (Zosterops ceylonensis) on the Mulberry tree outside the window being very picky about the quality of the berry. He inspects carefully, rejecting the less ripe ones until he selects the best. John Coltrane has replaced Dionne with ‘Ole’ – too brilliant for words! I check kottu. Indi’s blog looks interesting, so I check it out. The obsessive compulsive drive has me zipping off a comment and then other distractions take over.

Much later in the afternoon – in between the mandatory mundane work ethic – I check kottu again to find a whole slew of comments directed at Indi’s post. Rez is on a trip about the Christians persecuting (and executing as well!!!) Buddhists all over the Island in the ‘old days’. The tone of his comment seemed to me to be full of hate towards ‘Christians’, ostensibly due to what he describes they did to the Buddhists a century or more ago. How this ‘rationale’ relates to the post was bewildering, to put it mildly. I doubt there was any indication in the post that warranted these statements:

And now, after persecuting Buddhists for centuries in the most vile of fashions, they are whining (through people like Indi) about how a religion followed by seven-percent of the Sri Lankan population isn’t accorded the biggest and best celebration in the country, and blaming it (surprise surprise!) on monks. Apparently according to Indi, ninety-three-percent of Sri Lankans who are not Christians just MUST celebrate Christmas and shop and sing gospel songs and listen to boring ass Christian programmes on Radio, the TV and all the streets in the whole entire country must sing the glories of Jesus Christ. Halleleujah! Praise the Lord!

Does it appear to be a bit ‘off the wall’ to you and perhaps an excuse for a platform? It sure did to me, but then, I’m known to be pretty much off the mark with a lot of my perceptions, so maybe I am this time too. In any event, it did seem to be rather on the extreme side! And speaking of extremists…..

So it’s back to WorldSpace – Pat Metheny is on – a true master! The dogs are asleep by me and the rain has ceased. Was that Java I just heard?