Today's African proverb
From the BBC website:
"The mango tree dwells in the river but that doesn't make it a crocodile."
I like that! I'm going to have to check out the BBC Africa page more often.
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Something else that I've been musing on - a book I'm reading says that most middle-class westerners today live better than royalty did a few hundred years ago. It's stated as a fact, and at first I accepted it - after all, I have hot water on tap, electric light at the flick of a switch, can fly all over the world in a matter of hours, the variety of food available is much greater, etc. The advances in medicine are perhaps one of the greatest contributors to a good quality of life, but antibiotics aren't much use if you're allergic to them (as I am.)
But I still have to go to work to earn a living, and I can't click my fingers and someone comes running to do my bidding. I don't have gold and pearls and jewels and I can't eat swan, cos they still belong to the queen. I also believe that medieval castles weren't the cold, draughty places their shells make them appear to be these days. So my cold, draughty house (which is also hot in hot weather) may well be less pleasant to live in, generally speaking.
Certainly ordinary people now are a lot better off than ordinary people were a few centuries ago, but better than royalty were? No, I'm not convinced of that.
What does anyone else think?
This entry was originally posted at http://mitzimaybe.dreamwidth.org/27422.html. I can rarely respond to comments on LJ, so if possible, please comment on the Dreamwidth article using OpenID instead; thanks.
"The mango tree dwells in the river but that doesn't make it a crocodile."
I like that! I'm going to have to check out the BBC Africa page more often.
________________
Something else that I've been musing on - a book I'm reading says that most middle-class westerners today live better than royalty did a few hundred years ago. It's stated as a fact, and at first I accepted it - after all, I have hot water on tap, electric light at the flick of a switch, can fly all over the world in a matter of hours, the variety of food available is much greater, etc. The advances in medicine are perhaps one of the greatest contributors to a good quality of life, but antibiotics aren't much use if you're allergic to them (as I am.)
But I still have to go to work to earn a living, and I can't click my fingers and someone comes running to do my bidding. I don't have gold and pearls and jewels and I can't eat swan, cos they still belong to the queen. I also believe that medieval castles weren't the cold, draughty places their shells make them appear to be these days. So my cold, draughty house (which is also hot in hot weather) may well be less pleasant to live in, generally speaking.
Certainly ordinary people now are a lot better off than ordinary people were a few centuries ago, but better than royalty were? No, I'm not convinced of that.
What does anyone else think?
This entry was originally posted at http://mitzimaybe.dreamwidth.org/27422.html. I can rarely respond to comments on LJ, so if possible, please comment on the Dreamwidth article using OpenID instead; thanks.