hatcheckgirl

Greeks are very proud of their homeland and ancient heritage. Alexander the Great was Macedonian. They lay claim to him as a Greek. The Orthodox Church is very involved in nationalism. They go mental for this sort of thing, thanks in part to the Ottoman Empire subjugating Greece for centuries. That, and they are just very emotional people 🤪. (That’s my excuse)

They're at it again. This time the Greeks feel very strongly about the renaming of the FYR of Macedonia as "North Macedonia". The full riot squad was out, with tear gas, etc. We're not surprised, but "Greek clerics dressed in black joined the rally to protest an accord to rename Macedonia the Republic of North Macedonia, an agreement that would end a 27-year dispute with Greece over the country's name." "There is only one Macedonia, the Greek Macedonia, 'that's it'," read a sign in Greek and English held by Christina Gerodimoun, in her 30s. https://www.sbs.com.au/news/there-is-only-one-macedonia-violent-clashes-break-out-in-athens-over-name-change?cx_cid=edm:newsam:2019 🙄

I'm going for a couple of weeks = 2 weeks. In Australia, we tend to follow the Brits 😜

Really enjoyed the trip with you, Lynn! Lovely part of the earth. Must have been cold for those kayakers though!

Oh Uani! Let’s just move out and start again! 🤣

I think tidy, as you personally perceive tidy to be, does bring us a measure of soundness. Think of the feeling you have when you do finally tackle that decluttering job, and throw unwanted rubbish for kerbside collection or at the tip. It borders on exaltation! Or something like that. But, I know personally, I’m getting overwhelmed with keeping it all tidy cause I’m less motivated than I used to be. Symptom of being tired in this system, I think. And I can’t help but be a little depressed at seeing other homes pristinely tidy, even though mine is “lived in” and not actually too untidy. Need to stop comparing, as the scripture wisely says.

I know I've digressed a bit here, but just reading how bad the city is, even those coins in the fountain won't be making much of an impact. The city's been too long ruled by corrupt and money-hungry politicians, and we know only Jehovah's kingdom will fix that. One article sums it all up: https://www.theguardian.com/world/2018/nov/03/rome-crumbles-raggi-salvini “There is a lack of civic pride,” said Giovanna, who runs a bookstand in the Campo de’ Fiori area. “I see immaculately dressed people dropping rubbish, there is no respect any more.”

"However, Mayor of Rome Virginia Raggi now wants the money spent on the city's crumbling infrastructure instead." Ah, what a dilemna! Feed the poor or rescue the city's crumbling infrastructure? Without a city, the poor would be stuck either way. The church really is showing its greed. Surely it can give up something to ease the strain on the city and do as the Bible says, offset their need by "means of an equalizing" 2 Cor 8:14. Let your Kingdom come, Jehovah, and sort these greedy ones out....

So oviously shows how this is God’s organisation, doing things like spending donated funds according to how God approved of in the past. No comparison in the world.

Although there may be slight sea-level changes in coastal regions/ this earthquake has caused no damage to Japan. Information related to the hypocenter has been corrected. https://www.jma.go.jp/en/quake/20190108125922493-08213935.html (thank goodness!)

This certainly is interesting. Ukraine Orthodox has split from Russian Orthodox Church, sanctioned by the main Orthodox body in Istanbul. All political of course (don't mention the war). The Constantinople-Moscow split is a difficult issue for many Orthodox churches in Eastern Europe, Mr Shterin says. And their leaders will have to take sides. The Serbian Church is close to Moscow; the Greek Church less so, but many Greek clergy feel close to both Russia and Serbia.

I think the object itself is fascinating as well. Prof Stern said: "Everything that we're going to learn about Ultima - from its composition to its geology, to how it was originally assembled, whether it has satellites and an atmosphere, and that kind of thing - is going to teach us about the original formation conditions in the Solar System that all the other objects we've gone out and orbited, flown by and landed on can't tell us because they're either large and evolve, or they are warm. Ultima is unique." In the new world, discoveries like this will add to our knowledge of our Creator, and really amaze us. We can never ever understand how Jehovah created the universe and all things in it, but it's going to be a blast discovering what we can. I think that is why the scientists are exuberant - we enjoy discoveries! The difference is that we can attribute glory to Jehovah as the Grand Creator. That'll make our celebrations quite spectacular!

Have you ever seen the doco/movie Kedi? It’s all about the cats of Instanbul. My kinda movie. 🐱

An interesting history of where cats came from, and how cats and humans came together, from a scientific study. Recently, the analysis of the DNA contained in bones, teeth, claws and even hairs of more that 200 ancient cat specimens – a study conducted by the University of Leuven, the Royal Belgian Institute of Natural Sciences of Brussels and the Institute Jacques Monod of Paris – has shed new light on the history of cat domestication. Through cutting-edge ancient DNA techniques, we investigated the maternal ancestries (the maternally inherited mitochondrial DNA) of cats from various archaeological sites in Europe, Southwest Asia and Africa. The temporal depth and the geographic coverage of the samples made it possible to infer the original phylogeographic structure of cats (i.e. the geographic distribution of genetically distinct cat populations in the past), something that archaeological surveys and genetic analyses of modern cats could not detect. http://www.asor.org/anetoday/2019/01/Where-Do-Cats-Come-From Importantly, cats were never selected for a peculiar task by humans; they already possessed in their wild state the predatory skills that made them useful to human communities: hunting mice and other pests that infested human grain storages (or households, ships and so on).... On the contrary, most other domestic animals followed a pathway of domestication that at some point was strongly influenced by human manipulation aimed at selecting specific traits that could assist humans (for example for work or for food supply). This is true for livestock species, horses and also for the dog.

Thanks for that update, Richard. I’m very encouraged to hear how well the brothers and sisters are being cared for. 👍