Ria Bacon: editor & writer

Linguist with wanderlust,
From the hills of New Guinea to the halls of the Sorbonne,
From the beaches of Bassam to the fields of Friesland,
From the catacombs of Rome to the Blue Mountains of Jamaica.
From the heather of the Veluwe to the dust of Dakar ...

Currently resident in the Land of Sea with a small tribe of kids and Mr B.

FYI

Stet means "Let it stand" and is used by editors to indicate that the original text should be left untouched.

...in Arcadia ego is a pun on a painting by Poussin.

Contact

Ria[dot]Bacon[at]gmail.com

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I’m pink, therefore I’m spam

Cogito ergo sum

Descartes’ dictum states that humans are conditioned to rationalize their experience … even to the point of maintaining ideas that contradict other accepted theories.

A case in point: fern seed. In earlier times, the fact that ferns did not appear to have any seeds was a puzzle for naturalists. They concluded, counter to all other

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Revival

On a vacant lot in Grants Pen, a big tent was planted and on Sunday night, the revival meeting held its first service. From a mile away we listened to the testimonials and the whoops of redemption. Then the storm clouds drew in and the night turned black. The rain swept in from the sea, blown

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With God on our side

As I mentioned on the night of triumph of the new leader of Jamaica, it is the only country where you will here a politician say,
God bless you, comrades!

However, the new Prime Minister has created more confusion with her more recent righteous-to-rass statements:

If I am appointed by the Almighty to be Prime Minister, then all of

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  • Exorcism? So who going to sprinkle the “Holy Water”?

  • I don’t think a day of prayer for Spanish Town is a bad thing, but God helps those who seek to help themselves, therefore a swift occupation by the combined forces of the JDF/constabulary is called for immediately afterward. Perhaps the authorities should seek to set up some undercover operatives down there to catch the badguys.

  • Ria

    Going undercover in One Order or the Klansmen? That would be a brave person. It would also make a hell of a story too.

    I still think religious organizations here are strangely inactive. Given the power of religion in Jamaica, churches could rally the local populations and isolate the criminals. Public marches, denunciations of criminals, shaming those associated with criminals, etc. The line between the criminals and “civilians” is too blurred, in politics as in general society. The church (and other civil society organizations) should seek to make that line clearer, thus isolating the criminals and their twisted morality.

    Don’t you agree?

  • Hey, if it works, if it brings Jamaica one step closer to solving her problems- Then mix church and state nuh! Why not?? What do we have to loose? Everyting dun gone bad already.

  • WISugar

    Right on Immigrant, thats what I said after the initial shock. We are so self righteous, if we do the right thingwe can boast about our goodness

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Sod ‘em and begorrah

Following up Zinnia’s links on my earlier post, I found this mildly interesting article, I was born this way, from the Jamaican Gleaner in 2001.

More fascinating was the comments page.

There’s an initially amusing flame war between TT and Saleem and his girlfriend, before the online casino comment spam takes over. The page was still loading after

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  • Ria, your blog just gets better and better. I’m so loving it at the moment – just thought I’d let you know! I want to go to Jamaica too!

    Also wanted to let you know that for some reason, some of the words on the left hand side of the page disappear, which is a bit of a gutter, as I can’t make out the song lyris you posted a few days ago….

  • Ria

    Oops. Forgot to check it in IE. (Get Firefox!) Odd how it gets worse down the page, as if it’s sliding diagonally.

    Better now?

    Still seems to screw up the left indent sometimes. Repeated reloading makes it better, which is as subtle as giving the telly a good whack with the flat of your hand. But it works.

    Er … not.

    Help, anyone?

    ***update***
    Problem fixed. It was a variant on the double-margin IE bug.

  • Those comments are fascinating! It never fails to amaze me how the Bible can be quoted to back up any kind of viewpoint.

  • I wonder how many of those *leter* writers live *perfekly vurtuous lifes.*

  • Ria

    Interesting too is the symbolic value of bread. Lot offered unleavened bread (good); the evil ones ate risen bread (bad). So bad, in fact, that it is on par with other “abominations”. Consequence? Burn the buggers and the burgers.

    And don’t get me started on Leviticus 18 … Grrrr.

    I been a lady up to now, don’t know how much more I can take
    Queens shouldn’t swing if you know what I mean
    But I’m bout to take my rings off, get me some vaseline

    – Jill Scott

  • [...] Stet First they came for the verbs and I said nothing, for verbing weirds language. Then they arrival for the nouns and I speech nothing, for I no verbs. « Sod ‘em and begorrah [...]

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I had a dream

Last night I had one of those long, extraordinarily vivid dreams, where I can go off on tangents within the dream (the fabric of her robes and how she addressed the Ambassador), but I can always return to the strong central narrative. As often happens, the details began to fade as soon as I awoke.

However, I

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