Pope, Witchcraft and Weird Charts

First the serious and the most important part: I have just signed this petition by Avaaz, which will be delivered to the Vatican asking the Pope to stop speaking out against condoms:

Last week, on his first visit to Africa, Pope Benedict said that “[AIDS] cannot be overcome through the distribution of condoms, which even aggravates the problems”. The Pope’s statement is at odds with the research on AIDS prevention, and a setback to decades of hard work on AIDS education and awareness. With powerful moral influence over more than 1.1 billion Catholics in the world, and 22 million HIV positive Africans, these words could dramatically affect the AIDS pandemic and put millions of lives at risk. Worldwide concern is starting to show results and a willingness by the Vatican to revise the statement – sign our urgent petition asking the Pope to take care not to undermine proven AIDS prevention strategies: http://bit.ly/11fFHK

Like his predecessor, Benedict XVI maintains the all-so-traditional Catholic doctrines on artificial birth control, abortion and homosexuality. There are 1.1 billion Catholics and this man would have the power to make people to listen – I simply wish he would use his advocacy to talk about tolerance, human rights and freedom of choice! Claiming that condom distribution is not an effective AIDS prevention mechanism is UNTRUE, and if it diminishes condom use, it will also be deadly. Please, sign the petition.

Last week Kokkola, a town in Western Finland decided to block people from using Facebook both at work and in schools. The official reason given was the added security risk from Facebook applications. Ooh, scary, so they wanted to prevent bad things from happening? The tone suddenly changes when the IT Manager Jan-Erik Widjeskog continues:

Ei kiellolla ole tarkoitus kiusata ihmisiä. Mutta se päätös hallinnon verkosta ottaa pois, niin sehän oli aika selvää, että ei ihmisillä ole aikaa käyttää tämmöstä työaikana.

(= We don’t mean to do harm to people with this restriction. But the decision to not allow the council-manager government and civil servants and to use it, it was pretty clear that they do not have time to use such things at work.)

So what is going on? Why has everything employees do at work suddenly turned to such a big problem for employers? Why is there this new trend of changing the rules towards monitoring and restricting people’s rights? And why aren’t people making bigger fuzz about it? The following poll was held in one of the biggest Finnish tabloid newspapers last week asking Should Facebook be blocked at schools and workplaces?

66% say yes… WTF? In recent blog entries I have ranted about the recently validated Lex Nokia snooping law. So, I guess MPs are only as stupid as the people that voted for them at the first place. And I am not ranting about Facebook here, I personally hate Facebook, but I am asking, who decides what is good for me and when is good and where is good. Why would banning sites make workplaces better? What motivational value adds the policy of “We know you are visiting sites that do not maximise your productivity, so we make sure you can and will only do what you are paid to do.”

I wish companies would instead value their most important asset, the people who spend one third of their day at work and provide them with trust and assets instead. I always do my best and the deal should be of mutual benefit where both parts win. That is the thing that should really matter.

I had been given a massage voucher as birthday present, but only got around of having it last week. The masseuse immediately informed me that she can see angels flying and energy flowing around me. She also informed that when I first walked in to her house, I didn’t arrive alone, but with my grandmother. That sounds cool, she was one hard lady, mean and tough, but she’s also been dead more than ten years now. Nice icebreaker for a cynic/atheist. Things got even more interesting, when she told me that in at least one previous life of mine I was killed violently, because I was believed to be a witch.

I have been witch even in this life and here’s the photographic proof of Seppo, me and my bro Kalle – two wizards and one witch.

Later when I informed my mum that her mother Agnes still likes hanging out with me, she replied: “Your grandma was an evil person.” Guess apples don’t fall far from the tree. About my violent death as a misunderstood healer she said that in one of her previous lives she had been a fisher, in another one she was living up in mountains and she went on and on… So even my mum believes in rebirth! o.O

For me all those previous lives sound silly – if we all have practiced beforehand, humankind should be doing much better. Frankly, I plan to live, die and not come back haunting you. Unless you deserve it. But if I turn out to be wrong and get to choose my next form, I choose an otter. Did you know that a bunch of otters is called a romp? Sounds like fun, romping with mates. I still love the classic Otters holding hands video:

After the massage I was given my personal zodiac star chart.

URSA Astronomical Association summarises the problem of horoscopes well (I apologise that everything seems to be in Finnish today):

2000 vuotta sitten aurinkomerkeillä eli ihmisten pääasiallisilla horoskooppimerkeillä oli vielä pitkälti niiden alkuperäinen merkitys. Jos synnyit sinä aikana vuodesta, kun Aurinko oli Leijonan tähtikuviossa, olit horoskooppimerkiltäsi Leijona. Jos taas astuit maailmaan niinä päivinä, jolloin Aurinko oli Oinaassa, sinustakin tuli Oinas.

Sittemmin yötaivaan asento on muuttunut. Maapallon akseli tekee vaivihkaa hienoista kieppuvaa liikettä, jota kutsutaan prekessioksi. Prekession vuoksi eläinradan tähdistöt ovat siirtyneet taivaalla lähes kokonaisen tähdistön verran ajanlaskun alkuun verrattuna.

My astronomical vocabulary is so limited that I don’t even try to translate that word to word. Basically, it says that 2000 years ago the zodiac was actually linked to the stars. However, their position has since radically changed due to earth’s precession – (Wikipedia provides a long, fascinating and difficult article to read, if precession is your thing). Nowadays the original positioning of stars is so different that the original calculation makes no sense. So, I wouldn’t recommend marrying someone based on their star sign.

From my own star chart I learned that the rising signs – “the sign of the zodiac that was rising in the point on the ecliptic that is furthest above the plane of the horizonare” – are the ones that people become in their 30′s. So, I was born September 11th and my star sign is a Virgo. But now I have transformed to my rising sign, which is a Cancer. Therefore I am no longer an anal & annoying organiser, who like things in good order thus annoying everyone around her. Good start, but what am I now?

Cancer

This sign has active emotions in that they are constantly shifting, changing from one mood to another. At their worst, they may be cranky, touchy, sometimes even aggressive. It can sometimes be difficult to understand, being highly influenced (positively or negatively) by emotional patterns. As such, it can be rather whimsical and quite unpredictable at times. It’s not uncommon for Cancer individuals to have a change of heart half-way into things, however loyalties are also strong and they may stick to things on this precept.

Cancer sounds like an idiot as well. My mum simply commented my rising sign stating that if someone asked her, she would simpy define me as “yleisesti vittumainen ihminen” – (=Generally annoying/difficult/obnoxious person).

Sounds about right, I’ll toast to that. Amen.