200,000,000

200,000,000

Number of women and girls in the world with female genital mutilation.

Who performed these mutilations?

 And why?


And while we're at it,

Another why:

Why is nothing done to stop it?



Think about it.

Old Man Thinking

He sits at his desk

An inked pen in his bony fingers.

An old man, with his thoughts cramped by an old language. 

A language that has had its day.

A language that no longer serves its purpose. 

Wrongly ordered words and a requirement for complications mean that his thoughts need a long time to form. 

And when they are formed his cramped mind needs more time. 

Time to unravel them.  

Time to think them out. 

He is a ponderous pedant. 

Those who think they know him know him as a fixed and stubborn man.

     

See how he knits his brow.  

See how he waits for the verb.

The action word. 

Kafkania

I just emailed a friend here in Kafkania. When I switched on the news I saw a professor from a neighboring  Kafkaesque republic complaining about the beaurocratic nightmare he and students have to deal with.

I am also having deal with a beaurocratic machine over here. Dealing is the wrong word. Struggling would be more correct. But I will win through at the end of it all.

An international agreement which nobody in Kafkania is aware of (since it's not the function of any particular cog in the wheel to be aware of it)  will be the savior of my sanity, or what's left of it.

If I was in the UK I could simply go along to the next surgery of my constituency's MP and the matter I am struggling with would be resolved over a cup of tea in a few minutes.

You fortunate souls who live in Britain, who do not know of the Kafkaesque beaurocratic monster,  who think Franz Kafka's books The Castle and The Trial are works of mere fiction, have no idea how lucky you are. You should get down on your knees and thank God for your form of democracy and hang on to it with nail and claw.

Now raise a glass to Monty Python and have a good day!