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Column from 20 June …
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Sands in Seychelles Today
It’s a Small World
S. Hanks
There is a song that plays on an endless loop throughout the entire duration of one of the rides in Disneyland; it goes on and on and on, driving everyone slightly mad as it drills its way into the brain, then lives there forever. Occasionally, and under certain circumstances, it rises to the surface and repeats and repeats like all earworms do.
Yes, it’s annoying, and there are times you wish you’d never stepped into the little boat that scoots you by various scenes featuring singing, dancing animatronic figures. Sometimes, however, a point you never guessed was profound hits home and lends credibility to a theme park attraction.
“It’s a world of laughter
a world of tears.
It’s a world of hope and
a world of fears.
There’s so much that we share
that it’s time we’re aware
It’s a small world after all.”
There is no doubting the veracity of those intentionally insipid lyrics in today’s world; it is much smaller than it used to be. It is well within living memory for many when getting from just about anywhere else to Seychelles took days or weeks, yet now within only a matter of hours people can experience a change of scene from snowy city streets to the warm sand of a beach.
And communication! Long gone are the days of waiting and waiting for a letter to arrive; ‘snail mail’ we now call it, and for a reason. Now the written word can be transmitted in fractions of seconds from thousands of miles distant with no more effort than the touch of a button. Phone calls no longer require an international operator and tremendous expense, and access to information about anything anywhere is as easy to acquire as a whim and a click.
Ideas and thoughts make their way around the globe in less time than it takes to form them in the first place. Information moves every bit as fast, which has us knowing more about what’s in the heads of people around the world than where our neighbors stand on issues.
Yes, it is a small world after all. Billions of people from places as far-flung as is possible on our planet are now connected in ways unimaginable only a century ago.
One could be forgiven for thinking all the millions upon millions of threads connecting humanity would have woven a beautiful tapestry by now, and we must wonder just why that has not been the case.
Although we far too often wake to the news of mass murders in far places, there remains a lack of compassion that is deafening in the shoulder shrugs simultaneously delivered by far too many. Personal prejudice meets ingrained intolerance as Us-vs-Them conveys some sense of superiority assumed to provide a protective shield against any horror that has happened ever coming within range.
What seems to be ignored or rejected is the plain truth that we are all connected whether we want to be or not, and through designation in the species Homo sapiens there is so little difference between one and all the rest of our kind that in the grand scheme we are virtually identical. Biological duplicates, our hearts and our brains are made up of the same matter and we all bleed red.
Creating divisions is a strategy perpetuated as a convenient illusion for the benefit of those who thrive on pitting one against the other whether that be through borders or rituals. ‘Divide and conquer’ is the oldest trick in the game book when grasping for power is the agenda; sex against sex, race against race, religion against religion, nationality against nationality, sexual preference against sexual preference … all cynically designed to faction off segments of a population for discrimination, then bolster an unearned and inappropriate sense of superiority in whichever grouping one may identify with.
The end result, and often the desired result, is hatred, and when enough of that has been stirred to the surface things get very ugly and people die.
It is time we all stopped paying attention to differences and learned one simple lesson from the Magic Kingdom …
There IS much that we share, and it IS time we’re aware it’s a small world after all.
Today Column from 15 June
Posted in Entitled to opinions, Island life, Seychelles, Seychelles life, Uncategorized, Writing for a living, tagged Today in Seychelles on July 15, 2016| 2 Comments »
Sands in Seychelles Today
Thin Skin Burns
S. Hanks
“Nothing is more curious than the almost savage hostility that humor excites in those who lack it.” ~ George Saintsbury
There is a childhood adage dating back to the mid-1800s that goes, “Sticks and stones will break my bones, but words will never hurt me”. Meant to arm kids with a tool to fend off the nastiness and name-calling pervading schoolyards and neighborhoods where children gather to play and taunt each other, it can work quite well. After all, words are just ephemeral bits of sound waves that bounce off eardrums or squiggles on a page that register in the brain as having some meaning, whereas bits of wood and rock can draw blood and literally break bones.
The tendency these days, however, is to attach all sorts of potential for injury to utterances, an attitude which can leave recipients in blubbering heaps unable to either ignore comments or to fire back with a biting retort, the lack of both a lifetime handicap. Being thin-skinned does not allow much bounce and makes people mean in their attempts to prove themselves perpetually correct and superior in everything.
Certainly no one should ever attack another person’s physical, mental, emotional, familial or whatever personal attributes another may have — that’s just rude and low, and says more about the commenter than the target of their vitriol, This, however, is far from a perfect world, so would it not be helpful if those earmarked for verbal assault were taught to deflect disparaging remarks in innocuous ways?
This is where humor comes in handy. Pointing and laughing can ricochet an insult off the thick, humor-armed hide of a victim of denigration, then slam it smack dab into the sloping forehead of a venom-spewing jerk at high velocity and packing a punch not soon forgotten. An effective quip, a barb dipped in sarcasm, a snide aside … all have the potential to disarm a tormenter and leave them a sputtering puddle of mortification without having to do any more than send a few well-chosen sound waves or squiggles in their direction.
Unfortunately, the sense of humor is not evenly spread throughout our species; some people just don’t get it, either through a genetic deficiency or having suffered a sagacity excision somewhere along the line. This is especially true when the taunting bully is shored up with self-righteous indignation they feel conveys some sort of carte blanche giving their views priority and protection against embarrassing come-backs. For reasons beyond comprehension and often contrary to the effectiveness of any original proposed point, this sort almost always lacks a funny bone, appreciation of well-placed irony and satire, so reactions to jests and jibes tend to go the way of obnoxious at best, and downright loathsome in many cases.
Due to objectives having less to do with civil discourse carrying potential for influence, but more about self-aggrandizement, this sort also vigorously and vitriolically takes part in social media and, absent humor, resorts to rudeness, threats, toddler-like verbal foot stomping (sans the humanity-leveling comedy routine that comes with “I know you are, but what am I?”, and “Neener Neener Neener!”), often ALL CAPS and, in typically cowardly fashion, under a fake profile assumed to absolve all personal responsibility.
Designed to intimidate, this does sometimes work, but many who have developed a sense of humor, honed it to a fine point and maintain its edge with practice, find it hilarious.
After all, sticks and stones …
Today Column 13 June
Posted in Expat Living, Seychelles, Seychelles life, Uncategorized, Writing for a living, tagged Today in Seychelles on July 15, 2016| Leave a Comment »
Today in SeychellesSands in Seychelles Today
Where’s the Clock Tower?
S. Hanks
Do you remember the days when town was a pleasant place to be? When a stroll through the streets offered a mix of restful respite and an exciting sense of potential adventure? When a fun day in Victoria was a regularly scheduled event anticipated with delight?
No?
Me, neither.
Before the big screen TV went up and began bombarding visitors with adverts, before the traffic patterns were altered by what had to be some schizophrenic crack addict compelled to add sort-of-one-way streets, squeeze in extra lanes and install traffic lights set to back up cars from Le Chantier to Anse Etoile, Victoria was a quaint, slow little town with streets that encouraged meandering and people content to meander.
Meandering was required in those days, as straight-ahead shopping was, for all intents and purposes, simply not possible. Finding required or desired items took time, quite a bit of luck, and no little local knowledge.
For example, if scrubbing against a concrete slab had worn the crotch out of every pair of knickers you owned (washing machines being rarer in those days), vital shopping info included the fact that the place that sold undergarments for ladies could be identified by a stack of car tyres on display at the door, and although moulouk and samosas were ubiquitous, cheese that came in anything other than a blue box required serious hunting that was most often unsuccessful.
Those in the know knew where to go, though, so the pace was easy and, aside from Saturday mornings in the market, the crowds were thin and friendly, unless, of course, some new or long-vanished item was suddenly on offer; occasions that could, and sometimes did, result in mayhem.
Today, however, Victoria is far different; all hustle and bustle with some hassle and wrestle involved in making one’s way down Market Street or joining a ridiculously long queue in some bank or office. Frustration builds as nerves fray and folks have other places they were supposed to be an hour ago.
One result of these changes has been an ever-growing outbreak of a syndrome that could be called, were it ever officially diagnosed, Town-Avoidance, the symptoms of which include fever-like sweats at the very thought of the Trois Oiseau roundabout, exhaustion resulting from lost sleep due to pre-planning possible routes and parking options, and interminable must-do lists mushrooming frighteningly as a consequence of putting off any trip to Victoria for as along as possible.
Sufferers hail from as near as Macabee and as far as Takamaka and range in age from just walking to sensibly intolerant of jostling, although there does seem to be some immunity for those between the ages of 12 and 20, especially during school holidays.
At this point there is neither treatment, nor cure for this affliction, so sufferers must either cope with the agony of town days or fall victim to depleted supplies, incomplete paperwork and rumors that the clock tower has been relocated.
New Gig
Posted in Seychelles, Seychelles life, Uncategorized, Writing for a living on July 3, 2016| 6 Comments »
I’m now a columnist in the only newspaper worth reading in Seychelles and will be posting my twice-weekly contributions here a couple of weeks after they’ve run.Here’s Number One:
Today in Seychelles
June 8 at 6:27pm ·
Sands In Seychelles Today
‘20 Years a Seychellois’ by Sandra Hanks
Much to the chagrin of no few in this country, I am now a new and regular addition to this publication and will be contributing two columns per week. I will be writing of a wide variety of subjects that for one reason or another grab my attention and prompt thoughts I find worth the time and effort to put down in words for general consumption by Today readers.
Experience grown from responses to articles, blogs and social media has shown I am often disagreed with and my take on situations challenged; a circumstance that is more than okay with me, as my raison d’être has long been to promote discussion in efforts to broaden the width and plumb the depths of interactions while sharing information and seeking out unfamiliar opinions for examination and comparison.
Topics will range widely, often inspired by timely events, ridiculous situations, frustrations, observations and escapades, and, as any who read my work know, I take no prisoners. That is to say that I call ‘em as I see ‘em and, this being my column, I see no reason to frame reflections in vagary, nor do I have any inclination to modify my writing for easy reading. I like words, so I use them, and if some are unfamiliar a dictionary is a very handy tool.
To those who will attempt to shut me up (or down) by attempting to throw the fact that I wasn’t born in Seychelles of Seychellois parentage and my Creole isn’t that of one born here, allow me to point out that according to the latest in demographic information I have lived in Seychelles longer than 30% of the population while fully participating in all aspects of life, embracing family and raising children here.
I will also mention there are THREE official languages, and English is one of them.
I am a ‘naturalized’ Seychellois, a designation that could be interpreted to indicate it was no random accident of birth, but rather a fact that out of all the countries in the world I chose this one to call home: ‘Home’ meaning ‘the place I do my best to keep tidy, protected, safe, and conducive to happy, healthy life’.
It often happens when I say or write something someone disagrees with or feels offended by, responses lobbed like grenades in my direction have less to do with valid contradictions or challenges to observations or postulations I have made, but instead suggest an unhelpful, ‘love it or leave it’, and, ‘go back to where you came from’ message revealing a thin-skinned mentality that rejects any constructive criticism while favoring genuflection at the altar of ethnocentrism.
With no inclination to fall to my knees under most circumstances, that is not going to happen, so here’s a caveat … If you don’t like what I write, there are three options open:
1) Don’t read it
2) Read, then react through civil comments that make some sense
3) Read, then ponder … reading ALL the words with no cherry-picking
I look forward to lively dialog, passionate exchanges of information and perspective, and sharing my obiter dictums with readers of Today.
Sooty Tern progress
Posted in Uncategorized on June 28, 2016| Leave a Comment »
Another post from Chris on Bird Island. Terrific place, and even more so in nesting season!
Sooty Terns nesting at high density on Bird Island – June 2016 (Chris Feare)
The Sooty Tern colony is now densely packed with birds. The first birds that laid are now about half way through their 28-day incubation period and these parents are already becoming more aggressive towards us as we visit our study plots. Our ankles are being regularly pecked, sometimes drawing blood, and more and more we experience adult Sooty Terns settling on our heads or, more frequently, delivering a heavy blow with their feet, bills or even deliberately flying into our heads with the full force of their diving bodies. This behaviour will intensify as incubation progresses toward the hatching of the egg. This is their defence against human intruders.
Christine under attack (Chris Feare)
This determination to protect the egg is immensely useful to us as researchers, since it results in the nesting birds being remarkably…
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Where have all the spiders gone?
Posted in Uncategorized on June 22, 2016| 1 Comment »
A post from Chris on a worrying observation …
A female Palm Spider in her web, photographed on Bird Island, May 2016
During my two-year residence in Seychelles in the early 1970s I was forever finding myself entangled in the huge sticky webs of Palm Spiders (Nephila inaurata). The female spiders are large, with dark brown bodies up to 3 centimetres long and long spindly legs, banded orange and black, giving the spider a total span of around 12 centimetres. The webs could each reach a span of over three metres in diameter and sometimes extending over seven metres. These enable the females to catch their prey but the much smaller males, and even some other small spider species, also live on the webs and capitalise on the insects and other prey that are caught. Bushes, tall trees and artificial structures were used by the spiders to support their webs. Such was the spiders’ abundance that almost…
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Dear ISIS,
Posted in Uncategorized on October 16, 2015| 2 Comments »
I have been trying desperately to find ways in which your shocking behaviour offends your own ‘religion of peace’, as it is affectionately dubbed by Muslim and pseudo-liberal supporters, but given all that you have done, and all that I have read in the Qur’an and the biographies of Muhammad, I cannot. Your appalling actions are in accurate accordance with both your scripture and the exemplary example set by the perfect Muslim, Muhammad. I’d like to say that severing the hands of thieves is a gross violation of your “peaceful” religious codes of conduct, but it isn’t (Qur’an 5:38-39, Sahih al-Bukhari 8:6789 & Sahih al-Muslim 3:4175-79). I would have loved to have picked up the Qur’an and hadith and found passages therein that expressly forbade the raping of Muslim and non-Muslim women, but alas, I found that here again you were acting in strict concordance with your scripture (Qur’an 2:223…
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John Lennon: What could the world be now?
Posted in Uncategorized on December 8, 2014| 1 Comment »
Sharing this again as I’ve noted the day without the time to give proper consideration …
Yesterday I wrote about infamous dates, an appropriate topic on Pearl Harbor Day.
Today is another one of those. Although not on the same scale of lives lost or immediate consequence, December 8, 1980 saw a moment that defines a generation, and world, thirty years after the fact of an act of murder.
The death of John Lennon put paid to an era born in the sixties and dying with John.
It could be the timing was coincidental … another decade had closed and the 80’s loomed large and voracious. Flower-power was giving way to the darker, disenchanted tones of Goth, Ronald Reagan was White House-bound and the 80s stretched before us like a ladder to be climbed one pricey rung after the other.
Could it be, however, it was the event that instigated at least some of the changes?
The violent death of a gentle musician and poet…
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#mostfabulousdayever … It’s a Start …
Posted in Gay rights, Hopeful thoughts, Religion, Smarten up, Uncategorized, tagged ABBA, American football, bigots, Conchita Wurst, drag queens, Eurovision Song Contest, God, Michael Sam, NFL, penetration in the end zone, talent, tolerance, transphobia on May 12, 2014| Leave a Comment »
A couple of things happened over the weekend that have gained some ground in restoring my faith in humanity. Unfortunately and predictably, others had completely the opposite reaction and are now writhing around on the grubby floors of social media and the halls of urine-colored ‘journalism’ as if possessed by really stupid demons of the going-to-hell-in-a-handbag-because-the shoes-don’t-match-it sort as if they don’t know the difference between rapture and rupture.
Let’s start with football. The American version, of which I am … or was, when I had any access to viewing … a fan.
In a sport that makes constant reference to ‘penetration in the end zone’, ‘tight ends’, ‘wide receivers’, ‘defensive ends’, ‘long snaps’, ‘ball carriers’, ‘pump fakes’, ‘ball control’, ‘man-on-man’, ‘man-in-motion’ and where the point is ‘going (for the) down’, you’d be forgiven for jumping to the conclusion that ‘man-on-man’ was okey-dokey with the National Football League in just about any context. You’d be wrong.
Michael Sam gets the call …
Michael Sam just became the first OPENLY gay draft pick in the NFL. Just now. Yesterday. In May of 2014.
Michael Sam, the first openly gay player ever to enter the National Football League draft, was taken by the St. Louis Rams with the 249th pick of the draft Saturday, proving precisely nothing about the state of homophobia in professional football.
This is not to say there haven’t been loads of gay players, may of whom were at least party out of the locker. (More than 30 years ago, a dear friend moved to California with his boyfriend who had, coincidentally, been drafted by the Rams.)
Although there have been many positive public reactions to the news … and to the video of Sam being congratulated and cuddled by his partner as the call came … there are still far too many humans that have yet to recognize the simple fact that we’re not all the same.
Here’s what some fuckwad of an NFL ‘player personnel assistant’ had to say:
“I don’t think football is ready for [an openly gay player] just yet,” said an NFL player personnel assistant. “In the coming decade or two, it’s going to be acceptable, but at this point in time it’s still a man’s-man game. To call somebody a [gay slur] is still so commonplace. It’d chemically imbalance an NFL locker room and meeting room.”
Sound familiar?
Back in 1946, the Rams signed Kenny Washington, the first African-American football player in the modern era of the NFL. Fisher was aware of the historical resonance Saturday.
Perhaps someday football fans will value gay players as much as they do Black players, as the league wouldn’t amount to shit without them.
Now … keeping with this Monday theme …
The winner of the Eurovision Song Contest …
To be honest, I’d never heard of this extravaganza until I moved to England way back in the early ‘90s. To this day I don’t know if I was simply clueless or if the US just didn’t pay much attention and I went along with that. I was stunned by the enthusiasm, the parties planned for the occasion, the dressing up to watch it on the telly, and more than a bit confused about the process. Having the same experience a few years later a small, very crowded apartment in Zurich, I am now convinced that this is a VERY big deal.
Eurovision is about music; the song and the performers.
Historically, a country’s votes were decided by an internal jury, but in 1997 five countries (Austria, Switzerland, Germany, Sweden and the United Kingdom) experimented with televoting, giving members of the public in those countries the opportunity to vote en masse for their favourite songs. The experiment was a success,and from 1998 onwards all countries were encouraged to use televoting wherever possible. Back-up juries are still used by each country, in the event of a televoting failure. Nowadays members of the public may also vote by SMS, in addition to televoting. Since 2009, national votes in semifinals are a 50/50 combination of both telephone votes and the votes of juries made up of music professionals.
Conchita and her trophy …
Hundreds of thousands of people watch and vote, and this year the country-by-country talent contest that brought ABBA to the world made even more history than they have since their win 40 years ago …and the winner was humankind.
That not everyone is happy with this outcome is as obvious as peaches having fuzz. The Russians in all their icky homophobic skid … complete with marks … toward the Dark Ages are particularly peeved:
Conchita Wurst’s Eurovision win has been branded “the end of Europe” by Russian politician Vladimir Zhirinovsky. After last night’s 2014 song contest in Copenhagen, Russian state television broadcast a debate on her victory, as politicians and celebrities launched a hate-filled attack. Outspoken ultranationalist MP Zhirinovsky called this year’s result “the end of Europe,” saying: “There is no limit to our outrage. “It has turned wild. There are no more men or women in Europe, just it .”
Hm. It … It seems that take ended up biting Russia on the furry butt:
Vladimir Putin’s anti-gay laws, restricting the spread of information on what was called ‘non traditional sexual relations’ did not go down well with last night’s audience. Russia’s entry, The Tolmachevy Sisters, were greeted by loud boos from those in the venue, with many of the onlookers waving rainbow flags. The tension then reached boiling point during the results announcements, which saw Russia receive further boos with every point received.
I must admit to having had a few less-than-pleasant encounters with drag queens in the past, having taken no little guff from some who find amusement in being unmercifully snarky to straight women who’d just like a top-up on their wine thankyouverymuchMarge, and have been slightly intimidated when standing in line between 6’7” blonds … big shoes … with hair the hight of the Tetons while waiting for a free cubical.
I have also, however, has some uproarious times laughing my head off, straightening stocking seams and dissing … yes, I can do snark, too … the polyester-clad clueless that seem to form herds wherever drag queens congregate.
It takes huge balls to be transgender true to yourself … even bigger than necessary to tell the NFL you’re gay. The world is full of ‘transphobic’ fuckwads …
Researchers describe transphobia as emotional disgust, fear, anger or discomfort felt or expressed towards people who don’t conform to society’s gender expectations,[and say that although it is similar to homophobia, racism and sexism, those attitudes are becoming generally considered unacceptable in modern society, whereas some individuals still maintain transphobic views without fear of censure.
As adults, transgender people are frequently subjected to ridicule, stares, taunting and threats of violence, even when just walking down the street or walking into a store. A U.S. survey of 402 older, employed, high-income transgender people found that 60% reported violence or harassment because of their gender identity. 56% had been harassed or verbally abused, 30% had been assaulted, 17% had had objects thrown at them, 14% had been robbed and 8% had experienced what they characterized as an unjustified arrest.
All because of their look, their dress, they’re undeniable style? How stupid is THAT?
Conchita deserves admiration. She is brave beyond measure, beautiful and talented … and her attitude is fabulous!
“Hey, I’m just a singer in a fabulous dress, with great hair and a beard.”
She is also the WINNER! Watch her performance here.
Could it be that the world became a better place this weekend?
I think so.
Those deeply invested in enjoying their fundamentalist frantic frenzy of fucked-uppery … carry on. Sigh …
Have fun storming the castle …
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