I need a miracle

So, it's five years since the start of the war in Iraq and the Turin shroud might NOT be a fake.
I remember twenty years ago watching the programme that used carbon dating to 'prove' the shroud was a medieval hoax (those medieval pranksters and their smart-ass production of the first photographic image!). I added this revelation to my burgeoning list of "Things which confirm my suspicions that Catholicism is vicious lie".
Now it seems, the carbon -dating test may have been contaminated by various environmental factors, and indeed this may place the shroud as early as the first century. A conspiracy theorist might say, that maybe someone is desperately trying to revive Christianity in an Easter-themed production starring Rageh Omaar, who actually looks more like Christ should have looked than the Robert Powell imprint on that cloth. After all, Jesus of Nazareth, born in Palestine, was just as likely to be dark-skinned with curly black hair etc. etc.
Whatever it's origin, the shroud is interesting in that no one can work out how it came to host that image. I like that. In the absence of religion, i obviously need some unknowables in my life. Imagine a world where we understood everything! No mysteries to solve, no reason to keep on learning-dull as ditch! But when we come to a point where we can't explain; whether we call it God, or alien intervention , or the forces of nature we are up against the same barriers to "the truth".
Now excuse me, while i go to hell in a hand-basket.

Chile Day

My friend invited me to her house for Chile Day. We ate fantastic food with her family and friends, and we danced till 2 am. The older couples danced La cuenta to traditional Chilean music with white handkerchiefs for dramatic emphasis. Their children put on Brasilian and reggae variations of the same. The next generation down fought in a heap over the contents of the pinyata.
I had to dance barefoot in the end because my boots were restricting my feet.
There was a boy from the Dominican Republic who had me completely entranced. He was beautiful and he managed to lead the whole room when he was dancing. He danced with all the older women in a way that was sexy enough to be flattering but respectful at the same time. I looked at his hand on a woman's back. It made kind of an 'S' shape as he held her. He was guiding her in a really subtle but amazing way. He was setting a limit for her body without restricting the ebb and flow of the dance.
The father of one of the gorgeous Latino girls told me about growing up in a shanty town in Chile. His parents had no money and sent him out to look for food. He did not find food as often as he found books, and he taught himself to read English and French.
In order to stop Pinochet's special police force from literally washing out their homes with water cannons, the people of la favela erected a Chilean Flag in it's centre. This made the site untouchable and they named the shanty La Victoria. A. is writing the stories of his childhood, and has said he will show me the photos he took recently when he returned to visit the place in which he grew up.
This week is an different anniversary for the Chilean people. A. said that Allende was a socialist and told me that when he saw the twin towers go down he thought he was watching a re-run of a bad disaster movie. He was not happy to see those people die, he said, but that date should also remind the US of what they did to Chile.

Where were you?

This day five years ago, i was coming back from a job interview and was calling my friend to update her. It had sounded like a teaching job with some technicians duties, but it turned out to be a technicians job, with some teaching duties. She said, "Just switch on the television a minute. There's a plane flying into a building."
We watched the plane gliding towards the towers and felt the resulting mayhem and confusion. Like everyone else, i then couldn't turn the TV off. I had been thinking of quitting my masters degree, and the programme director rang me (a minute after i put the phone down) to tell me not to leave, to take as long as i needed to finish. It was good advice, ten months later i wrote a brilliant dissertation on Sophie Calle.

I'm aware that there are tragedies and massive loss of life all over the world - and far too often; but there is something about this image that has retained it's shock value. Despite it's endless replaying, it never suffers from compassion fatigue. As well as this, this event was one which revealed one of the primary functions of blogging.

If you'd like to put the whole thing back together again, you should look at this film clip by artist Runa Islam.