How to QUICKLY break up with a relative or friend.....

I have a 17-yr. old young friend  (I could almost use the word protogé) who sort of looks up to me as her mentor in many ways.  The question she asked me the other day was "are there any topics I shouldn't talk about with others?"

That's when I told her: "Never, EVER discuss politics or religion.....unless you want to quickly break up with a relative or friend".  I saw two brothers discussing the "Occupy Wall Street" campaign.  The younger brother felt it was a great campaign to call attention to corporate greed.  The older brother said "These are Socialists!  Communists!"  - the conversation became heated and the rest of us watched as they shouted louder and louder at one another.  It was very close to coming to blows between them.  Finally, the older brother's wife broke in (we half expected her to be hit by a blow)....saying "This is MY SUPPOSED-to-be HAPPY BIRTHDAY party, and you will STOP this conversation RIGHT NOW!".  They stopped, but the tension did not.  The younger brother and his wife left early, muttering something about "damn Republican!" under his breath.  I wonder if they're still speaking.....doubt it!

Then I witnessed another very sad FIGHT over religion between two sisters.  Again, it was a family gathering - actually to celebrate the birthday of a son of the younger of the two sisters.  The younger sister is a devout Roman Catholic; her older sister is a DEDICATED atheist.  Somehow, the subject of religion came up.  The older sister fired her shots about priests who molest children.  The younger sister naturally defended her faith and said this wasn't the norm nor was it the time and place to discuss this.  Then they became embroiled in an "after death" discussion.  The older sister said there is no afterlife, period....THIS life is all there is.  The younger sister was hurt and said "There is a heaven and a hell".  We watched these two sisters (it was like a ping-pong match, only SADDER!) back and forth - they shot egregious statements at one another.  The rest of us (there were about 25 in the room) weren't really sure what to do to occupy ourselves.  We definitely didn't want to take sides, but we also could not avoid HEARING this fight.  Once again, it didn't come to blows but it got out of hand to the point where the older sister threw a plate (luckily, tin!) of canapés across the room to make her point.  Mmmmm, well I guess I really didn't want those cucumber dill rounds anyway.  Most embarrassed of all was the younger sister's son, whose birthday it was.  He stormed upstairs to his room.  Can't say we blame him.  We didn't stay much longer (what the heck, the canapés were on the floor and there SURE as heck wasn't going to be a "cake cutting ceremony"!).  We don't know if the two sisters ever made up or not......we doubt it!

BUT - I tell my protogé about these two stories so that she understands that there are two subjects guaranteed to break up a family or friendship.  Talk about the weather, about interests, about family, about future plans, but never EVER talk about politics or religion.

Accents are strange.....

I haven't figured out yet why Brits who pronounce words like FAST, PAST, LAST with a LONG A sound such as "ah".....will take a word like "pasta" and make it sound like the American version of "fast"-a.  YET - Americans have these short "a" words like "fast", "last", "past".....but pronounce PASTA with a long "A" as is "pahsta".

Stranger still are some American pronunciations of countries and languages.  Although it is now changing a little, Americans used to say "AI-talian" for "Italian".  However, they still pronounce Iraq as "AI-raq".  Have even heard "AI-ran" for Iran!!

And then there are some beautiful Indian names: Asha, Laxmi - and Americans tend to pronounce them with a short "a" - "ash-a" and LAX (rhyming with lax-ative!)MI.  ARGH!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Language (even when it's the "same" language) can be interesting!

THEN if you REALLY want STRANGE - try New York State!!  The town of "Pulaski" (named after a Polish emigrant Gen. Pulaski) is called "PULAS.....kai!"(the Poles would turn round in their graves if the ever heard such a pronunciation!).   The name of the town "Medina" (which is an Arabic word for "central market") is pronounced MeDAIna!  The beautiful name Salina (a name in Spanish) is pronounced as Sah-LAI-nah! in NY State.  Chili (who can mess that up??) is pronounced as CHAI-LAI in Upstate NY.  Lima (hopefully named after the Capital of Peru) is pronounced as "LAI-ma" in NY State.    VERY strange pronunciations all around!    There is also a town named Mexico in NY State - I asked residents of that town "so you all are Mexicans, no?"  - OH NO!!!  They call themselves "Mexiconians'!!!  Go figure!

Occupy Wall Street Movement.....

Thus far, I haven't written about the "Occupy Wall Street" movement, and for reason.  Reason one - I hate that America has to put things into a categorical box in order to recognize it.  Reason two - I was waiting to see what's happening with this movement.

I am pleased that it cannot "fit into a box" and that there isn't a SINGLE agenda.  This is because there are TOO MANY agendas for the American people to address.  There is the agenda of GREED on Wall Street.  There is the agenda that our government (Republican and Democrat) are "playing childish games" (at our expense) against one another in the Congress & Senate just to jockey for power.  There is the agenda that millions of Americans are without work.  There is the agenda that both parties (but Republicans moreso than Democrats) are pretending that "climate change" doesn't exist.  The politics of America have been reduced to semantics - using issues like abortion or how "religious" each candidate is to pull the wool over the eyes of American voters. 

When police in New York attacked the Occupy Wall Street Movement with pepper spray - they conveyed a message felt by all - that peaceful "sit ins" are not going to be permitted because they "disturb" those on Wall Street who are making millions and millions while the rest of America loses their investments.  There was Madoff and Rajaratnam and there are HUNDREDS of others who have not been named yet.

America has reached the point of total frustration - how can ONE agenda possibly define all our disgruntled issues??

Moreover, the fact that officials want to "suppress" this peaceful "event" (it's not a demonstration, not a protest....they are just occupying space) makes me concerned that our "fragile democracy" can't tolerate any dispute whatsoever.

These people have my kudos and I admire their pluck to stand up - an agenda doesn't have to be presented - we are fed up with the lies and childish behaviour of our government.